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She did not bother to hide it. Mothers of titled but unwed gentlemen rarely did.

“Barbara, dear, you remember the Dowager Duchess of Wyndale,” Mother said.

Pepper finished her curtsy this time instead of freezing halfway. She had met the lady once already—in a doorway full of cream and panic—but the name still landed like a slap.

Wyndale. The Flour Duke, she thought, the man whose signature weighed more than loaves and whose mother now sat in their drawing room as if nothing were amiss.

The ink at the bottom of the circular flashed up in her mind: Effective at once. No more credit. Coin at delivery. Wyndale in merciless black. Her ankle twinged—old habit when angry—but tonight it was the rest of her that hurt.

She forced her knee the last inch, hoping nothing in her face betrayed the growl clawing up her throat. Picture-perfect, she commanded herself. I’m Lady Barbara now and not allowed to snarl at despicable dukes. Or their mothers.

“Lady Barbara,” the Dowager said, drawing out the title as if weighing it. “I have heard so much about you.”

It was not curiosity. It was a test.

Pepper opened her mouth. Mother’s gloved fingers closed hard around her hand—once, twice. The signal was unmistakable: Do not speak out of turn.

“My son’s obligations keep him very busy, too,” the Dowager went on without waiting for an answer. Her voice had the smooth authority of a woman who had been told she was right for too many years to consider alternatives. “He has not had time to look properly. I have taken it upon myself to do what I can.”

“How very selfless,” Mother said, with just enough warmth to cover the steel underneath. “It is we who must help the next generation ensure its flourishing future.”

In other words, Pepper thought tartly, we arrange the matches and call it duty.

She tasted blood where she had bitten the inside of her cheek.

If I ever meet Wyndale, she thought, the man himself, I will tell him exactly what I think of his “flourishing future” when it strangles small kitchens and gives large houses the credit they do not need. I will ask him how many ounces of bread he thinks a promise weighs. I will—

“Barbara, darling,” Mother said, with that little push that meant smile now, “Her Grace has most kindly agreed to advise us. We are in such capable hands.”

Capable of what, Pepper could have asked. Crushing?

She smiled instead. “You are very gracious, my lady,” she murmured. “My mother and I are much obliged.”

The Dowager’s gaze sharpened. She was the sort of woman who enjoyed prodigies and prey in equal measure. “I am never good, Lady Barbara,” she said. “I am useful. There is a difference. Goodness is for girls who have nothing else to recommend them.”

Ah, that explained why her son made it his business to enrich the rich. There wasn’t space for goodness in their lives. Ugh.

“How very lucky, then,” Mother replied smoothly, “that my daughter has so many other things to recommend her.”

Pepper felt the squeeze on her fingers deepen: don’t argue, let me. She let herself be stood between them like a specimen.

“Come,” the Dowager said. “Lady Beaumont, you must tell me more of your rented house. It is all very well to admire the Steyne, but one cannot live on a view. Not even in Brighton.”

“How very true,” Mother said. “A view and the prospects of a wedding, perhaps, but not a view alone.”

Pepper swallowed the remark that crowded her tongue: I prefer a kitchen and honest work to either.

The Dowager moved toward a knot of guests near the hearth, towing Mother with her by a thread of conversation about flour and card tables. A footman drifted in their wake with a tray of ratafia, like a small obedient moon.

Relief left Pepper a fraction lighter. If she stayed in the center of that conversation, she might forget herself and say something about corn tariffs. And flour weights. And how many people were forced to choose between feeding their children and paying rent because of the duke’s decisions.

“Calme,” she whispered to herself in French, as Mrs. Hart would have said. “Breathe.”

The movement reminded her of the other battle she was fighting: her gown.

Her chemise, flimsy and absurdly long as Mother had insisted on hiding her less than delicate footwear, bunched somewhere around her ankles. Her boots—sensible, low-heeled, necessary—caught it with every step. She could not lift her skirts without displaying leather and laces to a room that believed ladies’ feet glided on air. Slippers had been out of the question; her ankle had protested at the very thought.

One more snag and I shall go headlong into the ratafia, she thought. That would be one way to impress the Dowager.