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“Where a certain gentleman just happens to be congratulating a certain pâtissier,” Aunt Florence murmured, wicked as a wish. “And where a certain sister of mine may be trapped between past and present with no time to be clever about it.”

Pepper winced. “Am I a monster?”

“You are a daughter who wants to join her life together.” Aunt Florence patted her arm. “Monsters have worse aims. But you are missing several crucial steps in your plan, my dear. You need to catch that groom first. And when you catch him, you must tell him the truth before you let anyone order flowers.”

Pepper’s stomach dipped. Truth. About her ankle, about doctors who had murmured of “other limits,” about the bakery and the father in trade. Any man who married her would have to choose all that with his eyes open. She would not trap him. Not even for Papa. Not even for Mother.

They turned at the rail, the sea throwing itself at the shingle as if the argument with land were its favorite conversation. A pair of naval officers bowed; Aunt Florence nodded back with an economy that discouraged further enterprise. Pepper kept her eyes on the horizon and let the steady line calm her.

“What about your conscience?” Aunt Florence asked after a time.

Pepper swallowed. “It says do nothing that would break Mother. I will not break her. I will prepare a table and let kindness do the lifting. Hopefully, the desserts at the engagement banquet will soften any sharp edges the years and lies left.”

“It’s unlikely, darling,” her aunt said, practical as flour. “But I’ll be by your side. It’s an endeavor worth pursuing.”

Courage, having strutted about while the plan took shape, began making itself scarce now that it had to stand to the test. Pepper tightened her grip on the rail.

“And if your kindness wears a handsome coat and calls you Pepper?” Aunt Florence’s smile tucked itself into the corner where it did the most mischief.

Heat walked up Pepper’s throat. “I cannot think about that in any sensible way.”

“You are twenty,” Aunt Florence said. “Sensible happens to younger people than us. All you need is a little love so you can nurture it to grow in that marriage. Because with your idea of an engagement comes a lifelong commitment.”

A lifelong commitment with a man she did not know beyond how he ate pastry. A man whose mother might count heirs the way other women counted stitches. A man whose title—Your Grace—still sounded more like a bell than a name. And yet she kept seeing his hands, steady and careful, taking the bite exactly as she’d shown him. He had listened to a nobody in a baker’s apron as though her opinion mattered, had appreciated her work instead of only watching her face. Most gentlemen looked past her as if she were part of the wallpaper in a ballroom where she couldn’t dance; this one had noticed her behind a bakery counter—and had not flinched. That small respect tugged at her more stubbornly than any dream of veils or titles.

They reached the corner where Pool Valley spilled its little inns and shops down toward the sea—music leaking, chatter rising, the Pavilion’s painted onion domes watching everything as if the town were a game laid out for its amusement.

Pepper looked up at those domes, at the place where her father’s sweets and her mother’s plans and one man’s signature on a flour notice would soon collide, and felt the world tighten under her feet.

“All right,” she said quietly. “We go on. We bake. We serve. We see who tells the truth when they taste it.”

And when she set Papa’s crème—the recipe for love—before any man, she would listen harder to his first word than to any vow he might make afterward.

And somewhere behind the masquerade of Brighton, the disaster she could not yet name was already walking toward her.

Chapter 12

Chester lasted through the soup at luncheon and half his mother’s sermon, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the baker’s daughter. This was hours after his mother’s call on Lady Erica Beaumont and Lady Barbara at their rented house on Marine Parade. He had been “much too busy with Board business” to attend, as the Dowager put it, and she was now making up for his absence by serving him every detail of the visit along with the mutton.

Baker on site.

But whether she was on site, though, was the real question.

And Chester didn’t have the nerve to wait till tomorrow at four to find out.

He ought to have been thinking of tariffs and Darley and the neat line of eligible girls his mother had begun to arrange before him like samples on a tray. Instead, his mind kept circling back to a woman in an apron who would never, ever appear on that list.

I need to know now if she’s here in Brighton.

And I’m going to find out.

The soup had barely been cleared when his mother set down her wineglass with that particular quietness which meant she was about to arrange his life.

“Lady Barbara Beaumont,” the Dowager said, “is exactly the sort of young woman you require. Good breeding, unblemished reputation, and a mother who understands how to keep a household—and a confidence.”

Chester cut his bread more carefully than necessary. “I am sure[AR17] any gentleman would be fortunate.”

“Any gentleman is not my concern.” Her brows lifted a fraction. “You are. She speaks well, she listens when spoken to, and she did not simper at your title. There is sense under that bonnet.”