Chapter Twelve
The time to return to the Lyon’s Den felt like leaving the bakery dream in a bubble, safely tucked into daylight as night descended upon London.
The shop’s muted fell back into place behind them, and night breathed cool against Rosine’s cheeks as she slipped her arm through Sander’s after she’d locked the bakery’s door.
I’ll be back soon, she thought, tightening her grip on Sander, who tucked her close in a way that warmed her heart.
“Tell me,” he said. “Why Gugelhupf and not any other sweet?”
“It isn’t only a sweet,” she said, voice low.
“In Strasbourg, the mold sat on a high shelf—fluted copper. It was a little dented because I filled it with mud cake when I was four and dropped it. But that night … the last morning before they came and killed my parents, I hid the mold under my coat and kept it through the night, and for weeks, it was all I brought with me. All the way to the boat—until a wave took it off the deck, and I watched it sink like a small copper sun before I reached England.” Her mouth trembled; she steadied it.
“Since then, I bake anything that rises. If the dough lifts, the room feels like mine—but without that mold, it has never quite been home.”
Horses clopped past; a lamplighter tipped his pole. “So, it means home.”
“It means survival.” She tightened his arm around his. “Freedom is survival. If anyone chooses for me, I disappear. Love is only safe if it leaves my work, my hours, and my name untouched.”
He exhaled, not surprised—confirmed. “Then hear mine.” He watched the pavement, speaking as if testing each word underfoot.
“Protection is love to me. If I don’t take the blow first, I have failed just like I did when I let my family slip away from me.
Decisions made in muted—doors barred before danger knows they exist—that’s how people live to see morning. ”
That’s where we break if he has to go to Boston. She did not let go. “And now?”
“Now I learn new steps,” he said simply. “You speak first about what belongs to you. I stand in front when you ask—and aside when you don’t.”
Tension built behind her eyes. She leaned, just a fraction, into his shoulder. “Then we might fit.”
“Then we will work at fitting,” he said, and the quiet certainty steadied her better than a speech.
They turned into St. James’s, the Den’s brick catching lamplight ahead. Sander’s stride checked—no stumble, a halt. The air sharpened.
“So many carriages?” he said, too low for anyone else.
Rosine followed his gaze. At least five stood in a tidy rank, lanterns banked; men in black coats stepped down in sync, hat brims narrow, boots polished to a warning.
Two peeled off toward the alley. Another pair crossed to the front, one tapping a folded paper against his palm like a metronome.
The line moved with the gleam and hush of money that expected doors to open.
The Den seemed different—breath caught behind velvet, wolves thinning into shadow. Someone signaled from the side passage; the quick flash of a hand, then nothing.
Her arm tightened around Sander’s. Play for keeps.
“Inspection,” one of the men called, not quite loud, very sure. A knuckle touched brass; the knocker lifted.
Sander’s palm covered the back of her hand, firm and warm. He didn’t pull her forward. He didn’t turn her away.
Run? Walk in like we belong? Choose.
She drew breath that tasted of coal and cinnamon and risk. “Sander,” she whispered, eyes on the black coats closing on the door, “how do we win this together?”