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“Non.” He sniffed the parchment as if it might still hold a trace of heartbreak. “After she left, I could not. For a time, the paper smelled a little like her. Now it smells like paper.” He exhaled, and his eyes shone. “Life moves on, ma fille. We may keep our memories; we must not let them keep us. I loved her, and I go on loving her—and still, I love you here and every day I breathe even when she’s out of my reach.”

Mrs. Hart had stilled at the far board.

Pepper hadn’t meant to cry; flour streaked her cheek where she’d brushed a tear aside. Papa saw it, nodded—yes, all of us feel this—and then set the paper in Pepper’s hands.

“You are more than I could ask,” he said. “You are growing beyond this pâtisserie, ma fille. Take it. May it bring you love as it did me—perhaps a better fate than mine.”

Her throat tightened. Tears pressed, uninvited. She blinked hard. “Papa—” She set the recipe beside the tea and pressed both palms to the table. “This is too much to take on,” she said, because she had to say the plain thing before she could say anything braver. “If we disappoint them, we don’t just lose one order—we lose the Ton’s goodwill. The Pavilion watches, and when it turns, every drawing room in London will hear of it. We cannot afford that. We cannot risk you for it. Do I tell him no when he comes? Tell him we’re sorry, that it cannot be done in two days?”

Papa shook his head once, a firm, old movement that outstared the tremor in his hands. “Non. It’s my business, I should travel.”

“You cannot go.” Her voice sharpened before she could soften it. “The risk—your cough—your health. It is not worth—” She caught the edge of the chair with her fingers, anchoring herself. “It is not worth losing you.”

Mrs. Hart looked up then, flour pale on her knuckles, eyes steady. “Your mother’s trunks are packed,” she said, as if they were discussing sugar weights. That was her gift. “You leave for Brighton at first light.”

Pepper’s skin prickled. She had known it; hearing it said aloud made it more real. “I cannot be in Brighton,” she said, and sounded ridiculous even to herself. “I cannot be in Brighton for this.” She didn’t say for him. She didn’t say for them. “How am I to stay hidden while Mother shows me to gentlemen as if I were fruit on a tray? Perhaps I should go to Cloverdale House instead.” The thought slid out before she could trap it. She wanted to snatch it back—foolish, petulant—but it had the shape of relief and that made it dangerous.

Papa set his cup down. He crossed his arms, which meant he had made a decision. “Do you think you can be both?” he asked. “Lady Barbara and Pepper. In Brighton.”

Cloverdale promised rest and quiet, a place where no one measured her for a wedding or a nursery; but it was a place that offered a cure for what she didn’t consider fully healed. Yes, the ankle could be a nuisance and cause pain, but that certainly didn’t leave her broken. Her ankle was, to her, what a fear of heights or water might be to someone else—not a constant burden, but a reason to be cautious. On uneven ground. In the wrong shoes. When asked to dance. Ugh, that was the worst of all dangers! Brighton promised chandeliers and the glittering, perilous dream of being the girl a man crossed a ballroom to claim—without knowing her at all.

She went still. Her name like that—both—felt like a challenge and a door. “What?”

“You have Mrs. Hart,” he said. “Take Brigitte and Henry as well, and I will still have one girl for the front and the boy for the ovens. I can bake the tart shells and pastry cases here and pack them in straw and ice; you will take them and finish the creams in the kitchen they lend you in Brighton.” His fingers tightened a little on her hand. “They will be your hands in sight, and your French when you need it. They will help keep your cover. Will you go in my stead?”

No. The word rose hot and immediate. No, I will burn under those chandeliers and stumble on those polished floors and Mother will point the gentlemen toward me like hounds and I will be the rabbit and there will be no kitchen to hold me steady and—

“Yes,” she heard herself say, because Papa’s health stood on one side and her fear stood on the other, and the balance was not even. “Yes,” she repeated, and her voice belonged to the woman who ordered deliveries and set ovens and wrote letters as Monsieur when a supplier would not listen to a lady. “I will go.”

On the table, the tea’s wisps of steam uncurled into nothing—first thin ribbons, then a last shy thread—and were gone. What had been hot and unsettled a moment ago slipped from argument into form, the way caramel turns and sets. Papa’s choice would hold.

The kitchen kept moving, because kitchens do. Sugar hit its edge and Henry lifted it off without waiting for praise. Brigitte came back at a trot with word the cream was on its way; Mrs. Hart dusted a tin with flour as if dusting a thought. Life crowded in—warm, useful, not stopping for anyone’s heart.

Pepper looked down at the recipe. The paper was fragile; the weight of the words was not. She spread her fingers against it to keep steady. All right. We go forward.

Mrs. Hart’s breath left her in a small sound that might have been a prayer if she believed in such things. She nodded once. “Then we must plan.”

Pepper smoothed the recipe once with her fingertips and slid it into the wooden box as if returning a living thing to shelter. Papa’s hand covered hers. He was not a man of ceremony; he was a man of kitchens. When he wanted to be solemn, he reached for something that had served him.

“In the kitchen you are Chef,” he said, voice steadying. “Outside the kitchen, you are my assistant. At the table you are Lady Barbara. In every place you are my daughter. This is yours until I ask for it back.” He hesitated. “Only Pepper can make this recipe. Only Lady Barbara can choose a husband worthy of her—if she decides she wants one. My daughter deserves the best of both worlds, so go and seize your chance.”

Her vision blurred. She blinked until his face sharpened again. “Papa.”

Chapter 6

Your Grace,

The papers applaud your new rule of “coin at noon or no flour moves” as though it ensured every Englishman his loaf, but on our street it merely ensures that great hotels sweep away half the sacks before small bakeries can draw breath. Their purses pay at dawn; ours must fill crumb by crumb from what a family can spare for a single pastry. If those born to titles govern only for tables laid beneath chandeliers, they mistake privilege for duty.

Hoping you will prove more duke than Flour Tyrant,

M. Beaumont

Late afternoon, wind brushing the tops of the plain trees, Pepper and Mrs. Hart took Harley Street at a measured pace—left foot sure, right careful—and the recipe rustled against Pepper’s ribs where she held it close.

They did not speak at first. The city did. Wheels on stone, a hawker’s call, a dog’s brief clatter of paws, the faint metallic breath of a distant forge. Pepper pressed the walnut box under her arm and felt the old paper inside as if it were warm.

When you find a man worthy of your heart, you’ll make him this crème. His reaction will tell you all you need to know.