Chapter Seven
The week after their first kiss, they refused to behave.
It should have settled—become a memory Rosine could hold in her heart, admire in private, tuck away again.
Instead, it moved in like weather. Rosine woke to it, worked with it, went to sleep, and found it there by the hearth of her thoughts, steady as breath.
They had promised—together—to go to Mrs. Dove-Lyon for leave to court. The promise shone as bright as a new coin and weighed as much as one, too. Because the Lyon’s Den had rules, especially for the staff, Mrs. Dove-Lyon had to give her permission or else… no, she didn’t want to think about that.
The kitchens still breathed after hours.
Rosine stood at the flour-dusted table, sleeves pushed high, curls warm at her neck.
She tested the dough by ear and palm—the faint crackle of yeast, the give at the center, the lemon scraped fine over sugar until the air lifted.
For the Den, for the future, with her name on a sign. For them.
He was there before she saw him; she felt him first, the way heat changes when the oven door opens. “Sander!” Her hand flew to her breast, traitorously glad.
“Habit,” he said, drawing a crescent in the flour and smoothing it flat again as if he couldn’t help touching what she’d touched. “What are you baking now? Raisin buns?”
“Of course! Something to make your day kinder.”
“It already is,” he said, and the way he looked at her made the memory of last night’s kiss rise to her mouth like heat.
“Not enough yet.” She tipped spice into her palm, practical to keep from reaching. “Every bun must sing. Every tart must persuade.” Mrs. Dove-Lyon had asked Rosine for a new tasting menu, something to dazzle the patrons.
“Let me taste,” he said.
“You’ll flatter me.”
“I’d rather you scold me than serve a poor bun.”
“Brave wolf.” She broke a warm piece and pressed it into his palm; their fingers grazed, and the room remembered them. He chewed slowly, the way he studied a line across a chessboard.
“Well?” she asked, light over nerves.
“More cardamom—it whispers and disappears. Keep the lemon. Add orange… And a bit more vanilla.”
“You know my ingredients awfully well,” she teased.
“I’d like to know everything about you well.”
The laugh that slipped from her felt as hot as her cheeks. “High and low notes. Yes. Vanilla, orange, cardamom.” Her hand landed against his chest warm, solid—steadying herself though she told herself it was to steady him.
“You don’t try to please me,” she said, turning back to the bowl.
“I’d rather pleasure… ahem, please you than flatter you,” he answered with a naughty wink, and the truth of it went warm through her.
They had kissed last night in his hidden chess room—one careful, certain kiss that felt like a future knocking.
They had promised to ask Mrs. Dove-Lyon together.
Rosine held to that promise like a banister on a stair that turned too sharply.
But when would they ask? Sander had gone back to the door; she was alone with her trays and the hum of the house.
But after a few minutes, there was a murmur running through the hall. She lifted a tray—orange brightening the crumb, cardamom now singing at the end—and took the quiet passage up. Her sign would hang one day. First, they must keep their places.
A scream cut thin through the stairwell. Then a low rumble—an English curse—and a door slammed.
Rosine slid the tray onto the nearest sideboard and ran.
She rounded the corner into the corridor beyond the gaming room and found a maid pressed to the wainscot, apron twisted in both fists, breath too fast—Marta.
By the time Rosine reached her, Sander was there, shrugging out of his coat in one motion and settling it around Marta’s shoulders.
His voice dropped to another tongue—softened consonants she knew from his prayers—then a ribbon of Russian, low and grave.
The patient care of him struck quick and sharp.
Jealousy flashed, ugly and quick. Fool. You are not special.
Then Marta’s eyes filled; her chin trembled; she clutched the coat as if warmth had weight. The ugliness died as fast as it had sparked. Rosine caught herself when Bridget came with a pallor that spoke of shock and stepped in. Something terrible had happened.
“Kitchen,” Rosine said, already moving. “Bridget—water, a shawl, a stool.”
The heat met them like a wall. Sander guided Marta to the stool; Rosine wrapped the shawl close and tucked it under the girl’s throat. “You’re safe,” she said, because he had said it to her and the words tasted right in her mouth now.
Sander went to one knee and spoke softly until Marta’s shoulders loosened a fraction. Then, for Rosine, his voice steadied. “A man pulled her into the hall. Pressed too close. She pushed him. He didn’t stop.” His jaw worked once. “I found them.”
Marta looked up, eyes wet. “If not for him…” She shook her head.
Rosine took Marta’s cold hands between her warm ones. “We’re lucky to have Sander to keep us all safe.” The girl nodded through a sob, shaky but willing.
“To the scullery—honey in warm water,” Rosine told Bridget, who flew.
Sander’s coat slipped; he settled it better with careful fingers. He glanced to Rosine—your lead?—and didn’t rise until Marta nodded. Something inside Rosine loosened and ran warm.
“Thank you,” Rosine said to him, letting the words land where they belonged. “For being there.” I’m no fool to love you, you’re our hero.
“Always,” he said, simply.
The space settled around them—spoons, steam, the small kitchen soldier’s rhythm of work. Rosine smoothed Marta’s hair and looked up to find Sander’s gaze fixed not on her mouth, not on her hands, but on the space she took in the room—as if that space mattered.
They had promised to ask leave tonight. They would. But the promise had to cross a world that thinned by the day.
Bridget slipped back with the mug, whispering what news kitchens always heard first. “Footman says the earl’s in a temper,” she said. “Talk of lists and aliens again. Men are saying Jews are getting bold.” Pembroke?
The word lists turned Rosine’s stomach. Paper with teeth. She shouldn’t have been surprised; London loved a club more than it loved truth. Still, she tasted iron.
“Then we won’t wait,” Rosine said, lifting her chin. “Marta, drink this. Bridget will sit with you.”
Marta nodded, color coming back with honey and heat.
Rosine set the tray aside and wiped her palms, not because they were damp but because she needed the small ceremony of it. She turned to Sander. “We promised.”
His mouth eased, the closest he came to a smile when he meant to be a wall. “We did.”
The old fear—if I reach for this, what will be taken—breathed near and drifted. She didn’t send it away so much as step past it.
“One thing.” Rosine lowered her voice, private among pans. “If Mrs. Dove-Lyon says not yet—because of Nagy, because of…whatever this is—will you stand with me anyway? Quietly, if we must until we can wed?”
His answer cost him nothing and seemed to cost him everything. “Yes.”
“Then let’s go,” she said, and the steadiness in her surprised her.
They crossed the corridor together. The hum behind velvet ebbed and swelled; wolves moved the way wolves do when the air changes. At the foot of the stairs, Titan’s two-finger salute said he had the door. Rosine felt the promise beside her, warm as a palm at the small of her back.
At the landing, Rosie saw that Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s door stood closed, a line of light beneath, a violet’s shadow pinned where scent stayed private. Rosine smoothed her apron and thought of the kiss that had begun all this and of the paper that meant to end it. She knocked.
The house paused to listen.
They went together, but Sander knocked. Three neat taps; a pause to listen. Titan’s post at the stair shifted its weight and settled again—he had the door.
“Enter,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon called.
She sat straight-backed at the desk, a ledger open and squared to the blotter as usual. The posture steadied him; it always did. He closed the door to a handspan, no more, and stayed beside Rosine rather than ahead of her.
“Report,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said, quill resting. “I heard the commotion.”
“A patron pulled Marta into the corridor,” Sander said.
He kept his voice level and the heat out of it.
“Pressed her. She broke free; he pursued. I reached them before he did more than frighten her. Titan will identify him by a torn cuff and gloves.” He set a folded slip on the blotter.
“Names who saw. I recommend he be barred and his club informed.”
“Do it,” she said, the two words falling tidy as coin. “Bridget?”
“In the kitchen with her,” Rosine answered softly. “Honey in warm water. I’ll keep her there until she’s steady.”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s gaze touched Rosine—approving—then returned to Sander.
He drew a breath and his little finger brushed Rosine’s. If they had Mrs. Dove-Lyons permission, he’d not just hold Rosine’s hand but take it. “Madam, with your—”
“Good,” she said, lifting a hand that stopped him as neatly as a door.
“Now listen.” She tapped the quill once and laid it aside.
“The Earl of Pembroke has given Mr. Nagy a ladder. He means to stand in the Commons tomorrow and ask whether establishments employing ‘aliens’ are properly overseen. He cites the Alien Office on Crown Street and offers Bow Street a chance to ‘attend’—his word, not mine. An inspection of the lowest sort of motivation that seems as tidy as tea.”
Sander almost felt the click of the trap Nagy was setting. Rosine stepped back as if she’d understood, too. Ink, not cudgels. The question he’d meant to save for later came out before he could school it. “Customs?”
“A memorandum has already reached the West India Docks. A hold on our sugar ‘pending inquiry.’ We have enough for tonight; after that, we persuade a miller on Mark Lane to remember us while the question cools.”