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He tightened his grip on her hand, careful not to hurt her. “You lived,” he said quietly. “And they reduced you to a line in a book.”
His voice roughened. “Then the book is wrong.”
“Oh no, no! That works perfectly fine. Excellent, actually. Impeccable. As I’m sure all of you—” He broke off, flushing. “I am making a hash of this.”
She gave a half smile and took his hand. Her fingers were warm. He decided, with startling certainty, that he could live off that warmth for the rest of his life.
“Could you imagine what it would do to my chances once people found out I’m a baker’s daughter on top of that?”
For a moment his mind emptied of what he’d been trained to think and know altogether.
The world tried to tell him what to feel—shock, calculation, cold caution.
But all he felt was a fierce, aching tenderness.
Because it explained everything: the early mornings, the steel under her gentleness, the way she spoke of sugar like music and fought like a general when it came to flour. She had built herself out of heat and work and hope—and then had the courage to run anyway.
He could imagine quite well what society would do with it. And he could imagine, with equal clarity, what he would do right back.
“You were nearly lost,” he said, voice rough. “You lived. And they speak of you as…stock?” He swallowed hard. “Then they are unworthy of you.”
“Perhaps I can combine both sides of my life into one one day,” she said.
“I sincerely hope so.” I want to make it so.
Chapter 22
I sincerely hope so.
The way he said it—not as a jest, but as a quiet wish—made the air feel thinner.
Before Pepper could reach for some safely flippant reply, he took her hand.
Not like a man claiming. Like a man asking.
His fingers were warm around hers, careful of her bones, his thumb resting in the hollow between her thumb and forefinger as if it belonged there. He lifted her hand and pressed his mouth to the back of it—quick, almost startled, as though sense and fear had both tried to stop him and arrived a heartbeat too late.
Heat shot up her arm. Her fingers trembled once in his, the smallest confession of how much she felt it too.
Up on the promenade, a clock bell chimed the quarter hour. Reality, punctual as ever.
She jerked her head toward the town. “I must go,” she said, though every part of her that wasn’t bone or boot shouted stay. “If I am late, Henry will mutiny. And the custards will sulk.”
His hand tightened for a moment, as though he would argue with the tide. “We can’t have sulking custards,” he said, trying for lightness and almost managing it.
She curled her fingers around his once more, quick and brave, then let go. The absence left her skin oddly bare. “You will be at the tasting?” The question slipped free before she could stop it. “At the Pavilion?”
One side of his mouth lifted. “Try to keep me away,” he said. “Four o’clock sharp.”
“And I’ll be the woman pretending not to care,” she answered, because admitting the opposite would have been far too much.
“That,” he said softly, “I already know to be a lie.”
Her heart did something unhelpful, but she still had to go back and help Henry. Surely an hour had passed. If it was more, what would Mrs. Hart and Aunt Florence say?
And Mother?
She walked down to the water’s edge first, letting the next small wave rush over her bare feet and rinse away the clinging sand. The seawater was shock-cold after the sun-warmed shore; she sucked in a breath as it curled around her ankles, then stepped back, droplets cooling on her skin in the breeze.
