Chapter Ten #2
“What is this?” she asked.
“An egg-flip.” Sebastian took a sip. Hmm, perfect. He’d have to bring the cup for Thomas upstairs soon lest he come and search for him.
“Is it like a rum-posset?” she asked.
“How do you know such a thing, Miss Madeleine?”
She shrugged and Sebastian’s eyes fell to her deeply cut gown. He was starting to feel warm, and it couldn’t have been from just a sip of his drink. His fever was gone now, but a different heat lingered whenever Maddie was near.
“Well, we make it with beer here. It’s not rum.” He took another sip but he couldn’t stop staring at her cleavage.
“What else goes into the flipping egg?”
Sebastian broke into a laugh. “It’s an egg-flip, not a flipping egg.
” He licked his lips. “You are—” He stopped himself just in time before he told her just how sweet she was.
“I extracted the juice from the rind of a lemon by rubbing it with sugar and a piece of cinnamon, nutmeg, and voilà. I boiled it gently in the beer and then poured it on the eggs.”
“And how did you make it so creamy?” she asked as she took her first sip.
“A lot of stirring,” Sebastian answered but his voice trailed off when he watched Maddie’s lips lay on the rim of the thick cup.
Her perfectly manicured fingers wrapped around the rustic cup, a thumb looped through the handle, she held the drink in her mouth for a while.
A long moment that erased all other thoughts from Sebastian’s mind.
When she raised her gaze again and set the cup on her lap, Sebastian’s mouth was dry.
*
The warmth of the egg-flip lingered on her tongue, sweet and rich and utterly unexpected.
Maddie held the cup in both hands, letting the heat seep into her fingers.
Her lips still tingled where the creamy drink had touched them, and as she glanced over the rim of the mug at Sebastian, she caught the way he looked at her.
Not politely. Not casually.
But like a man who had forgotten, for just one moment, what he was supposed to do next.
It did strange things to her insides.
She lowered the cup carefully to her lap and fought the impulse to reach for her face—because she could feel it, couldn’t she? A touch of foam on her upper lip. Surely that was why he was staring.
He was trying not to laugh. Or perhaps—no, not laugh. Linger.
“Do I have something on my…” She gestured vaguely toward her mouth.
His gaze dropped, just for a heartbeat, before he set his cup down.
“Hold still,” he said softly.
His voice felt like a thread of silk drawn over bare skin, impossible to ignore. Maddie stilled. Not because she had to, but because something in his tone had rooted her to the spot. The fire popped behind them, but all she could hear was the sound of his breath reaching for hers.
He hesitated. Just for a heartbeat. A flicker of uncertainty—or restraint?—crossed his face. His hand hovered in the air, and she caught the barest tremble in his fingers. From the cold?
For one wild second, she thought he might cup her cheek instead. And she wanted him to. Her skin ached for it. Her whole body leaned ever so slightly forward, a pull she wasn’t even aware of until her balance shifted on the stool.
Then, he brushed the pad of his thumb just beneath her nose.
Not a sweep. Not even a press. Just a whisper of contact, warm and slow. A single pass beneath her nose, deliberate enough to banish the foam, but tender enough to cause her heart to flutter.
The touch ignited something low in her belly. A trembling. A tug. The kind of sensation she imagined poets wrote sonnets about and never quite captured.
She forgot to breathe.
She felt it all the way through her.
His fingers lingered a fraction too long, as if he were memorizing the curve of her lip. And in the firelight, with shadows dancing across his features, he didn’t look like a marquess or a scholar or a guest in someone else’s home.
He looked like a man on the precipice of desire, and terribly afraid to fall.
Her gaze lifted to his. And in that look—unspoken, unrushed—something passed between them. Something ancient and new all at once.
A question.
An answer.
A beginning.
“There.” His voice was lower now. “Gone.”
And yet, he didn’t move away immediately. Not even when she met his eyes.
She should look away. That would be the polite thing.
The wise thing. But she didn’t want to. His face was so close—closer than it ought to be, and she was perfectly aware of it.
She could count every thick, dark lash framing those eyes.
She could smell the faintest trace of spice and nutmeg from the drink, and something else. Something deeply him.
It wasn’t the fire making her warm anymore.
“I suppose I ought to thank you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Sebastian smiled—but slowly, like he didn’t want to give it all at once.
“Any time, Maddie.”
The way he said her name—it curled around her like velvet.
She reached again for her drink, needing to do something with her hands before they betrayed her. Her fingers trembled slightly as she lifted the cup to her lips and took another sip, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
He did.
But instead of teasing her, Sebastian leaned back slightly on the stool, one elbow resting carelessly on his knee, the corner of his mouth curving into that smile she was beginning to recognize as rare. Private.
Just for her.
“You know,” he said after a moment, voice low, “you’re the only one who hasn’t asked me for the recipe and then immediately tried to improve upon it.”
Maddie blinked, surprised. “That’s because I know better than to improve something already perfect.”
The words had slipped out, warm with sincerity before she could temper them. But the quiet that followed made it clear what he’d heard… and what she’d just implied.
His expression barely shifted, yet something in his gaze deepened, heat gathering like embers in a grate. He looked at her as if she’d just revealed a secret he very much wanted to keep for himself. And now that he’d seen it, he wasn’t about to look away.
Her pulse tripped. She dropped her gaze first, studying the swirl of froth in her cup as if it were suddenly fascinating. She wasn’t ready. Not entirely.
But she was perilously close.
The fire beside them popped, sending a warm rush of air over her cheek. Neither of them spoke, but the silence had weight—not awkward, not empty. It felt like something was settling between them, unseen yet undeniable.
She lifted the cup and let the creamy warmth slide over her tongue, the faint spice of nutmeg lingering. A sigh escaped before she could catch it. “This is very good,” she murmured, softer than she’d intended. “Far better than milk and honey.”
He didn’t answer at once. When he did, his tone lowered, threaded with something deliberate.
“I like the winter now, too,” he said.
Her head came up, startled by the intimacy in such a simple statement.
His eyes caught hers, steady and unhurried, and in them she saw the same thing she felt: an awareness neither had named, but both acknowledged. It was the kind of moment that made a woman feel… chosen.
And Maddie, her heart trembling like a leaf on a still branch, felt the most dangerous thing of all…
She was choosing him back.
She didn’t speak it aloud. She didn’t need to. In the glow of the hearth, with the scent of nutmeg in the air and the warmth of the cup cradled between her palms, she met Sebastian’s gaze and knew—
Something had shifted.
And she would never be quite the same.