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She’d have to marry him, Wyndale or not. And she could forgive him later. Perhaps?

Or never?

No, I can’t bear it. I want her to choose me.

Her fingers twitched in his—something between answer and panic. She didn’t pull away.

“Wyndale?” The call came again, further off now, impatient. Darley, scenting an argument.

Then there was a scrape of leather and fabric. A footman?

He shut his eyes for the space of one heartbeat.

If she knew who he truly was…

If she turned that sharp, furious mind of hers on him with the full knowledge of whose ink had nearly cut off her father’s flour—

He opened his eyes again. Her face was still lifted toward his, waiting for whatever came next. Trusting him, absurdly, in the one moment he deserved it least.

“Not yet,” he murmured, tilting his head minutely toward the corridor. “Let them pass.”

She nodded, very small, very brave. Behind the curtain, in their borrowed pocket of darkness, they stood pressed close—his pulse still racing, her breath still catching—and listened to footsteps and voices move away.

He had never in his life wanted so badly to be someone other than the man people called Wyndale. He had no wish to be his father’s son in anything that mattered—cold politics, fat ledgers, distance where there should have been care. He wanted to change what Wyndale meant before he ever asked a woman to take the name—especially Pepper.

But when the world finally went quiet again and they stayed where they were, fingers still linked, the only thing he wanted her to know of him was this: whatever the rest of it meant, whatever title the house used when it called for him, the man who had just kissed her was entirely, irrevocably hers.

Chapter 19

Pepper had not slept all night.

Every time she closed her eyes she was back behind the curtain: his hand closing around hers, his thumb catching a tear she hadn’t known had escaped, the warm, unhurried pressure of his mouth on hers. Not a stolen kiss from a thoughtless rake, but something…deliberate. As if he’d chosen that moment and her, with the same care he gave to a good decision.

As the moon hung high and stared at her while she was turning in bed without closing her eyes, Pepper thought that the trouble was, he had not said a single word about what came after. No offer, no promise—only a kiss from a man who was titled even though Pepper wasn’t sure what his exact title was. He had a whole name and world she could never touch; she had a weak ankle, uncertain doctors, and a life that already balanced on a lie. If anyone had seen them behind that curtain, she would have been ruined, and he would have been merely inconvenienced.

By dawn she had decided she was a fool. Wanting the man did not change that the title was impossible. She was here for Papa. For the pâtisserie. For the tasting. Not for a duke who kissed as if he meant to keep a promise he had never actually spoken.

Not for a man who kissed as if he meant to keep a promise he’d never uttered.

At last she had given up on sleep, slipped down to the kitchen on silent feet, and taken down Papa’s worn recipe. Measuring cream and sugar with hands that wouldn’t quite stop trembling, she had whisked together a single small custard, set it over ice, and hidden it in the cold larder before Mama would notice that she wasn’t in bed.

“Barbara.” Mother’s knock was a tap and a command in one. “Come down. We have a caller.”

Of course we do. On the one morning I need calm.

Pepper sat up too fast; her bad ankle complained at once as it often did when she couldn’t give herself the rest she needed. Left foot sure on the carpet, right careful, she dressed with brisk efficiency. Pink silk hung ready; she chose instead a quieter gown and the boots that made walking possible. Mama hated the boots. Mama was not the one who had to cross Brighton on marble floors.

She smoothed her hair and tested her weight on the right foot. The hitch was no worse than usual—thank heaven. If Mother saw her limping more than a step or two, there would be salts and doctors and no Pavilion at all, let alone a tasting. Pepper certainly couldn’t explain that she’d been up half the night thinking about a kiss. So she set her shoulders and went downstairs.

By the time Pepper reached the morning room, the mantel clock had already chimed eleven—the respectable hour when callers began to descend. The room was already thick with perfume and purpose.

Mother sat rigidly upright on the small sofa, hands folded around her teacup like a woman braced for surgery. Opposite her, in a chair that looked suddenly insufficient, the Dowager Duchess of Wyndale lounged as if it had been constructed for her personal amusement.

“Ah.” Mother rose at once. “Barbara, darling. Come and speak to Lady Wyndale.”

The Dowager’s gaze swept Pepper from bonnet to boots and back again as if she were that cabbage again.

“Lady Barbara.” Her Grace inclined her head the smallest useful amount. “You’ve been on my mind since last night. With your…qualities, one wonders why you have not yet caught a husband.”