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“You did not have to,” Aunt Florence said. “Men are always hiding behind spices. It is their one true talent. Who is he?”

Mrs. Hart’s gaze was no kinder and no less interested. “You need not tell us,” she said calmly. “But you should decide whether you intend to leave this kitchen and, if so, whether you plan to come back with your heart more entangled than it was when you left.”

Pepper looked down at the note. At the impatient, neat C.

He was titled; she knew that much. His coat, his carriage, the ease with which he spoke of Boards and flour and Brighton drawing rooms did not belong to an ordinary gentleman. He had kissed her like a man who knew exactly how scandal worked and chose to risk it anyway.

“A gentleman,” she said at last. “We…met in London. At the pâtisserie. He has…helped. With flour.”

Heat rushed up Pepper’s neck hard enough to make her dizzy. For a moment she could only look at the folded paper in her hand, as if it might leap up and admit everything for her.

Aunt Florence’s mouth curved.

“Pepper,” her aunt said. “Out with it. If you don’t tell me what bothers you, I can’t help you.”

Mrs. Hart flattened her lips and folded her hands as if she braced herself for a crisis.

“We…kissed,” Pepper whispered at last. “Behind a curtain. It was entirely improper. And entirely…” There was no word for it that didn’t sound foolish. Right seemed far too small.

Mrs. Hart’s expression softened in a way that made Pepper’s eyes sting. “Is he kind?” she asked quietly. “Was it welcome?”

Pepper nodded, once. “Yes.”

“Is he an idiot?” Aunt Florence added briskly. “We must rule that out early.”

She thought of him standing against his own Board on behalf of small shops. Of him defending Wyndale’s intentions even while clearly wanting to throttle him. Of him saying, you are not less. Of the way he had pulled her out of danger in the corridor as if her safety mattered more than any scandal.

“No,” she said. “He is…dangerous. In all the ways that make a girl forget the steps of her plan.”

Aunt Florence hummed, pleased. “And he is titled,” she said. Not a question.

“I think so,” Pepper confessed. “I have never asked what his exact title is. Only…everyone moves when he speaks. The way they do for men who sign things.” She swallowed. “I mean to ask. Today.”

Mrs. Hart glanced at the clock. “If you mean to go, you have an hour,” she said. “No more. The custards will sulk if you abandon them entirely.”

Henry, the kitchen boy, chose that moment to come back and blurt, “But what about the crème, miss?”

Pepper blinked. “The—what?”

“The vanilla,” Henry said, earnest. “Monsieur says everything left in the kitchen jar is no better than boiled twigs. What went into last night’s custards were the last of the good beans he dares serve the Pavilion.” He winced, as if fearing he had betrayed state secrets.

Oh.

Papa’s recipe. Crème caramel au sucre brûlé. The recipe for love. The one he had placed in her hands and told her to save for a man worthy of her heart.

A man who listens. A man who sees your boots and not just your limp. A man who kisses as if he means to guard you, not claim you.

Chester would be better than Wyndale, she thought wildly. If I must marry at all, let it be someone like him, and not a title that thinks of me as breeding stock. Her hands, long trained to move while her mind argued with itself, had already taken down the smallest copper pan, measured out cream and sugar, and split the one perfect bean she kept hidden in Papa’s recipe box. By the time the mixture thickened over the gentlest flame, the kitchen smelled of vanilla and caramel and a future she refused to name.

She could still hear the Dowager’s voice in the corridor last night, slicing through the dark: A girl who limps today may— and the rest left to rot in implication. Her ankle became a tally mark against her worth, something to be inspected like a horse’s gait. Doctors had said we cannot be certain and best be cautious in childbed until the maybes clung like cobwebs—never a sentence, only a shadow, but one she could not quite shake.

If Wyndale ever heard those careful whispers, what would he do with them? Would he see a wife or a problem to be managed? Would he stand beside a woman who walked a little unevenly and might need a gentler doctor, or let his mother turn those maybes into a verdict? The not knowing frightened her more than any clean “no” ever could.

Chester, at least, had put his own body between her and the world and thought of her first.

Aunt Florence’s voice cut gently through the tangle. “Does this gentleman understand you, Pepper?” she asked. “Not just your pastries. You.”

Pepper’s throat worked. “Yes,” she said, very low. “He knows Pepper. And Lady Barbara.”