Chapter Ten #2
He’d eaten her misshapen buns like they were treasures and matched her silence without mocking it. Now he was even leading her toward a door with her name on it in the future—not to cage her, but to set her free.
Something bound them now and it wasn’t obligation or duty any more.
And though he would never say it aloud, she could see it in the set of his shoulders, the careful way he kept pace with her stride: he didn’t want this to break.
“We’re almost there,” he said and offered his arm. She took it. And they continued their walk.
It wasn’t far, just a few minutes westward past shops that glowed with early sunlight and the murmur of shops preparing their shutters.
“This is one of the first streets in the borough to have gas lamps lit,” he said, gesturing toward the low, rounded posts. “I’d wager Mrs. Dove-Lyon chose it for that reason.”
“But you don’t bet, do you?”
“I only play chess. That’s not gambling—I trust my skills.” He paused, then added almost ruefully, “There’s always more to learn in chess. More positions to explore.”
His mouth twitched at his own awkwardness. She didn’t answer, and he realized—she wouldn’t make it easy for him. That, too, he admired.
“What if you lose?” she asked.
“Then I write the game down and try to learn from my mistakes.”
She tilted her head toward the lamps. “We’re almost there. Mrs. Dove-Lyon thinks of everything.”
“She thinks of everyone,” he corrected. “It’s not just gaslight. It’s guardianship. Look there.” He pointed toward a tree-lined square. “No loiterers. No public house nearby. She chose this so you’d be safe.”
Rosine slowed, brushing her skirt with thoughtful fingers. “It’s strange, isn’t it? That the Lyon’s Den—a place of carnal pleasure, cards, and coin—became a refuge for people like us.”
Sander looked at her properly. “It’s more than refuge. It’s her nest. She pushes us to fly, even if it costs her comfort to watch.”
She laughed softly. “We’re her hatchlings now, are we?”
He gave a gentle smirk. “Not the feathered kind. The cunning ones.”
Their pace steadied. The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It carried weight, shape, and a presence of its own.
“You asked me once why I always make raisin buns,” she said.
“I did.”
“It was the last thing my parents made,” Rosine said suddenly, her voice low, as though the words might shatter if she spoke them too loudly.
Sander glanced down, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes stayed fixed on the cobbles ahead.
“The night when…” Her throat tightened. “When the soldiers came. My mother had soaked the raisins in rum and honey. My father grated lemon rind with that old grater that always caught his sleeve. They joked about it. Laughed. The smell filled the bakery and drifted upstairs into our rooms.”
She swallowed. “And then—” Her voice broke. “And then I never smelled it again.”
The words landed heavy between them, weightier than the mist still clinging to the street.
Sander’s fists curled inside his coat. He wanted to say something—anything. To promise safety, to vow she’d never lose everything again. But words seemed clumsy, brittle things against grief like hers.
So he walked beside her in silence, every muscle taut, every step steady, though inside his chest ached with the fierce, helpless ache of a man who wanted to give her back what could never be returned.
At the final corner, the street opened. A pale green door waited at the end, brass numbers dulled by time, a lace curtain stirring faintly in the morning air.
“This is the address,” he said.
Sander heard her breath catch.
He reached into his coat and withdrew a ring of keys. Ordinary iron. Cold. But in his hand they gleamed like something consecrated.
“It’s for you,” he said quietly. “You should be the one to open it.”
Her fingers brushed his palm as she took the keys. Warm. Trembling. His chest tightened.
The lock gave way with a click. The hinges sighed and a little bell rang overhead. She stepped inside.
He lingered at the threshold, watching her claim the space with her imagination.
“There’s room,” she murmured. “For a sugar work station. A cooling table. A tall rack, maybe—if I’m clever.”
“You are, very much so.” He hesitated, then let it slip. “And so beautiful.” He closed the door and the little bell over it rang again.
The words startled even him. But they were irrefutably true.
She turned away too quickly, but he saw the shine in her eyes.
He tested the locks of the door and checked the windows, the latches, the back door. “You’ll need proper bolts. And curtains for the window. This place will be noticed.”
“Is that not good for a bakery? To be noticed?”
“Not always. But if they’re noticing the smell of your buns and not your name, you’ll have won.”
Their eyes caught. A beat. Then two.
“You still haven’t told me your real name,” she said softly. “Sander is from Lysander. That’s not your real—”
“Aryeh Ben Yaakov.” The words landed heavy, offered like a secret. “Aryeh means lion.”
“It suits you,” she whispered. “You don’t just protect. You choose who to fight for. Better than fox.”
He showed the barest flicker of amusement. Did she wink at him at the mention of fox—or had he imagined it?
She shook her head, curls slipping forward. “I’ve been hiding in kitchens for years. This… bakery. It’s the first thing that feels like stepping forward to my own storefront.”
The confession caught him in the chest. He answered before he could stop himself, voice rough. “Then let it be your new beginning.”
Silence fell again. Not the silence of fear. The silence before a first step.
She trailed her fingers along the counter, naming the tools she’d need—a brass scale, a marble board, sacks of flour enough to feed an army. A sugar station, racks for cooling. She saw not a bare room but a future, and the sheer audacity of her imagination set something burning in his chest.
Her hands moved as though shaping the bakery already, sketching invisible lines through the air. Strong, deft, stained faintly with flour—capable of coaxing beauty from dough, of turning the simplest ingredients into something that could make a man believe in comfort again.
He shouldn’t have stared, but he did. At the curl of her fingers, at the way the light brushed her cheek, at the fire in her eyes that made him ache with thoughts he had no right to welcome as much as he did. Thoughts of her hands not on wood or sugar, but on him—claiming.
And worse—he realized he didn’t only want her hands, her mouth, her body. He wanted her mind, her wit, the way she could imagine walls that still smelled of dust into a place that functioned like a bakery.
That was what undid him. Not just her beauty. Not even her strength. But the way she dreamed, bold and unapologetic, as if daring him to believe alongside her.
“I need enough molds to fill the oven every time it’s fired,” she said, tapping her luscious lips with her index finger in a way Sander wished he hadn’t seen—but couldn’t peel his eyes from.
“And a lockbox,” he added, trying to ground himself.
Her gaze lifted to his. “And if I need help with deliveries—”
“I’ll be there.”
He spoke with a composed tone, yet inwardly he was shaken; each word seemed to bind him to her in a way he couldn’t resist.
She studied him then, really studied him, her lips parting slightly. “You’re always there for me now, aren’t you? Not just anywhere, but by my side.”
“Together, yes.” Heat prickled down his spine. “I’ll try to be everything…” His hand almost lifted—almost—to tuck a curl back from her cheek. Almost, but not yet.
Not a vow. But it might as well have been if there wasn’t the question of whether Sander would have to leave for Boston if Nagy got his way.
She turned toward the window, brushing the lace with her fingertips. “The Den never smelled like safety. Not at first. But it grew into something. And maybe this place will, too.”
He moved closer, drawn before he thought better of it, his shadow joining hers on the wood floor. “You’ll make it more than a baker’s shop.”
She smiled faintly, her voice low. “I’ll make it home.”
His reply came rough, certain, closer than he should have dared. “Then I’ll guard its door.”
The air between them tightened. One more step, one more breath, and his mouth would be on hers. But instead, he let the promise hang there, undeniable.