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The words warmed low in her chest. He listens.

He folded the paper, eyes lingering a beat longer than custom allowed. “Merci, mademoiselle.”

She dipped her head—the safest answer when her voice threatened to betray her—and he turned toward the door.

Outside, a groom sprang forward and the coachman called, clear as a bell in cool air: “Your Grace.”

Pepper’s fingers tightened around the remaining slice.

She did not stumble. She would not. She arranged the next plate, took coin, murmured thanks, let the bell ring again and again until the room returned to its ordinary clink and murmur. When the pace eased, she passed through the swinging door, one hand to the jamb—not for drama; for balance.

Heat wrapped her. Copper gleamed. A cough sounded from the back—dry, familiar—and Mrs. Hart’s lips flattened; her head tilting the smallest degree. Too much for Papa, Pepper thought, and set the uneaten mille-feuille on the wooden counter, palms braced until her breath matched the tick of the brass clock.

Today’s post waited on the shelf. The top letter caught her eye—thick paper, a dark seal, a bold hand.

Pepper slid a thumb under the wax. It snapped with a small, sharp sound. The words hit her like a dash of cold water, shocking all the warmth from the morning.

She skimmed once, then again, slower. The words shut with the finality of a door.

Mrs. Hart appeared with the ledger open. “How bad is the letter?”

Pepper swallowed and smoothed the page as if that could smooth her thoughts. “Effective at once: all flour landing at the London docks is to be sold under new Wyndale terms. Small houses—shops like ours, not the great hotels—may no longer buy on running credit. Coin must be paid by noon on the day of delivery, or no sacks leave the quay.” Her mouth went dry; the paper’s edge bit her glove.

“Noon is the deadline, not the comfort,” Mrs. Hart said. “It means the men of great houses arrive at dawn with heavy purses and choose first—while smaller shops don’t have coin until the morning’s trade is done.”

“Signed—Wyndale, for the Board.”

Mrs. Hart’s lips flattened. “Wyndale,” she repeated, quiet and hard.

The name sat between them like a weight. In Pepper’s mind it gathered flour dust and sharp edges. The Flour Duke, she thought, the title fitting him as poorly as a too-tight boot.

Pepper made herself breathe. Two lines stood out, bright and merciless: no credit and at once. “It means the sacks change hands before we even see them. We can’t even test the quality of the flour, and the best will surely be reserved for the largest businesses. Worse, we won’t have coin until near noon—and by then the best sacks will already be rolling away on the hoteliers’ and largest business’ carts. We can’t raise the price—the assize will measure our loaves to the ounce. So what do we do? Cut the morning bread?” Her voice thinned. “Once, our customers forgive it. Twice… they find another shop.”

A cough sounded from the back—dry, rasping. Pepper’s fingers tightened on the paper. Too much worry for Papa.

“You will not write to him,” Mrs. Hart said, gentler now. “Not as Lady Barbara.”

“I will write to everyone,” Pepper answered, eyes on the ink. “Harcourt. Reed. Darley again—the hotelier again. Every name on the Board that thinks flour is only a line in a ledger. And if a letter to Wyndale, the duke who signs their orders, happens to cross his desk—” She let it trail. Let him hear, from a lady of his own class, how his policy was perceived in the small houses. It was not, whatever he imagined, met with unanimous approval.

Mrs. Hart’s look was warning and kindness at once.

Pepper reached for the pen instead of an argument. The nib hovered. Lady Barbara Beaumont, granddaughter of the Earl of Hartleigh, was meant to curtsy and keep quiet; ladies of her birth did not complain to dukes about dock policy. Pepper, the baker’s daughter, would not. The thought steadied her hand.

Two truths lined up, clear and cold. No flour, no morning loaves. Raise the price and the ladies would flee; keep it low and the magistrate’s scale would not be kind. One bad week they might survive; Papa had a little put away in a biscuit tin and goodwill with the landlord. Two would slice their custom in half. Three… not thinkable, not with his cough worsening and the apothecary already hinting that stronger medicines would cost more.

At Hartleigh House, Lady Barbara’s father had been laid in the ground years ago—on paper, if not in truth. No one there would think to send money to a man they believed buried. Only Pepper and Mrs. Hart knew he was alive behind the glass counter on Harley Street—and that keeping him in flour and medicine was Pepper’s task.

Papa never asked about her mother himself; he called Pepper’s life beyond his bakery “the Hartleigh world,” and refused to sour it with need. And Lady Erica, who had spent twenty years pretending her husband had been a war hero instead of a baker, would not welcome a letter that proved he had not. They had chosen their distance. That left Pepper to bridge it, flour-sack by flour-sack.

“Pepper.” A warning of kindness.

The bell rang in the front room. Life tugged.

“We’ll make fewer loaves and more tartlets,” she said, voice level. “After luncheon I’ll sign the letters as M. Beaumont and take them to the post.”

Mrs. Hart inclined her head and slipped away.

Pepper looked at the half slice on the counter. People like him—the ones who noticed, who listened—were the reason she loved making true French pastry. She usually hid in the kitchen so no one would recognize her, but she had looked past her bonnet at the man in the shop today. He had watched her hands.