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He drew back because he had to. Because if he didn’t, he would forget every promise he’d made himself about restraint.

She blinked up at him, lips flushed, curls further tumbled. Wonder sat on her face as if she didn’t quite believe she’d done that either.

“Was that…” She cleared her throat, a polite gesture meant to smooth over the jagged silence.

His laugh came out rough and helpless. “That was…” He rested his forehead briefly against hers—one breath, one beat—and pulled back so he could see her properly. “May I ask you a question now?” he said.

She sank onto his coat again, her fingers ghosting over her lips, checking—absurdly—that they still belonged to her. “You have earned one.”

“Only one?” he teased, because if he stopped teasing, he might confess something he couldn’t take back.

“Ask a good one.”

He sobered. Wind lifted a strand of hair across her cheek. He did not touch it. He wanted to.

“Last night,” he said, “you told me you did not wish to marry a man you liked. Because liking him would make it worse when he asked you to give up half of yourself. Pepper, not Barbara.” He held her gaze. “Do you truly believe we must always lose half of ourselves to love another?”

Her fingers tightened in the folds of his coat. “I believe,” she said slowly, “that most men of your world consider women…assets. To be arranged. To be useful. My limp makes me less useful. My interest in flour makes me…embarrassing. If I liked such a man, I would break when he asked me to hide the parts that offend him.”

“And if he liked those parts?” Chester asked quietly. “If he admired them?”

She looked away, out at the water. “I don’t know. Perhaps such a man wouldn’t be able to be a suitable husband.”

“You have not yet let him state his case,” he said. “So allow me. Any man who asked you to lose half of yourself would not be worth liking in the first place.” The words came out sharper than he intended. Mother’s voice behind the curtain last night—ankle, heirs, stock—sat in his memory like grit under skin.

She doesn’t know the Dowager is my mother.

She turned back to him, eyes direct. “You say that as if you are not one of them. One of the men who sit in warm rooms and sign papers that make small people’s lives harder.”

He let out a slow breath. “I know them,” he said. “I’ve signed papers I regret. I’ve watched my name cause problems for people who have never seen my face.”

“Then why,” she asked, quiet but fierce, “do you care whether I must cut myself in half to marry?”

“Because I watched you today,” he said. “I saw your face when you realized the sand would hold you. And I thought—if anyone ever asks you to sit still when you could move, I will happily push him off the promenade.” He swallowed. “Because I would rather you lived than performed, Pepper. And if I were ever lucky enough to have a child with you, I would value your life above any heir.”

Her eyes widened. “Wyndale doesn’t see it that way,” she said softly. “Darley certainly doesn’t.”

“No,” he said. “To people like Darley, caring makes a man weak.” His mouth tightened. “If that makes me half a heart in their eyes, so be it.”

He grimaced a beat later. “That sounded worse than I meant.”

A startled laugh escaped her. She covered her mouth, eyes bright. “You cannot say things like that about hearts, Your Grace.”

“On the contrary,” he said dryly. “It’s the most honest I’ve been at a picnic in years.”

Her smile lingered, then shifted into something searching. “You sound like the Flour Duke when you speak of boards and ledgers. As if you know him.”

The truth rose hard at the back of his tongue. I am Wyndale.

He pictured it—her expression closing, the hurt striking first, then fury. Every late delivery, every sleepless night, rearranging itself around his name. He could explain. He could justify. He could even apologize.

But not here. Not like this. Not with nothing in his hands but confession and hope.

“I know him better than I like,” he said truthfully. “He is learning. Not quickly enough. But he is trying.”

Her brow furrowed. “Then why write the circular at all?”

“Because if he hadn’t, someone worse would have,” Chester said. “And because he thought steady prices would save more loaves than they spoiled. He forgot the lives between the lines.”