Chapter Thirteen
“What am I interrupting here?” Paisley’s voice rang out, sharp and smug, slicing through the quiet like a blade. He stood with his legs planted wide, arms crossed over his chest, and—Maddie’s eyes narrowed—was that a rifle tucked in his belt?
Sebastian took a step back, distancing himself a bit. He turned slightly, gaze shifting away from her as if he needed the cold air to still the heat that had risen between them. He didn’t look at her.
Why won’t he look at me?
Her breath still came too fast. Her skin still tingled, her chest too full. The world had changed a moment ago, had tilted on its axis when he stepped toward her like a man who might kiss her. And she’d wanted it. Oh, how she’d wanted it!
But now he wouldn’t even meet her eyes.
Because of Paisley?
Or her?
A thread pulled taut inside her chest, a strange combination of hurt and shame blooming where hope had just bloomed seconds before.
Had she misunderstood everything? No—no, she couldn’t have.
He had leaned in. He had looked at her like she mattered.
And yet, the space between them had never felt wider.
As though Paisley’s voice had shattered the spell between them and scattered the pieces too far to gather.
Was he ashamed? Embarrassed? Or just protecting her, now that there were witnesses?
Now that someone might think he cared.
Maddie’s fingers curled at her sides, trying to hold on to something. The memory. The closeness. The possibility. Her cheeks burned… not from the cold. From being caught in the act of… what, exactly?
Of wanting.
Of hoping.
And suddenly, she hated that Paisley had seen it. Hated that Sebastian had let him see her vulnerability and responded with distance instead of defiance.
She swallowed down the ache. This wasn’t the end. It couldn’t be.
But for now… she stood alone in the garden, heart pounding for a kiss that hadn’t happened, and a man who no longer looked at her like it might.
Paisley was grinning like a man who thought he’d walked in on something he could control. “It looked like—”
“Have you nothing to do?” Sebastian cut him off smoothly, the question polite in phrasing but steely in tone. “Nowhere to be?”
Paisley shrugged, not bothering to hide his delight, yet there seemed to be an underlying malice, if she were not mistaken. “Nothing more important than looking after good old Maddie here.”
Maddie bristled. The moment was gone—stolen—and now Paisley was draping himself across it like a dog over a feast.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Oh, please,” Paisley drawled, as though the matter were settled. “Our mothers have been closest friends since the cradle. It’s practically tradition.”
She held her ground, chin lifting. “I’m not your friend. There’s no tradition. You’re not my family.”
He turned to Sebastian with a sly smile. “But our mothers wish for us to be more than that, don’t they? She’d make a lovely Duchess of Paisley, wouldn’t she?”
The words landed with the subtlety of a cannon blast.
But Sebastian didn’t flinch.
Maddie watched him, stunned. His jaw didn’t tighten.
His voice didn’t sharpen. Instead, something quieter crossed his expression.
A strength that needed no proving. He didn’t dignify the bait, didn’t rise to it—not because it didn’t touch him, but because he wouldn’t give Paisley the satisfaction of seeing it.
But it was there, plain to see if one took the time to look.
Maddie admired him more in that moment than any other.
And by it, she meant the envy. He was claiming her.
And oh, how she wanted him to succeed.
Sebastian turned to her with exquisite poise. “Well, it’s cold,” he said, gently. “You should go inside before you catch a chill, Paisley.”
Paisley barked a laugh. “Like you? Hah! Didn’t you just nearly faint with the flu?”
“A cold,” Sebastian corrected, with all the elegant assurance of a man immune to insult. “A bit befallen, yes. But not weak and certainly stronger for having survived it.”
He paused. The gleam in his eye was unmistakable.
“I wouldn’t expect you to risk such a condition, Paisley. You never know. Some colds are known to linger… others to strike a man in his, ah, most delicate faculties.”
Paisley blinked. “What?”
Sebastian shrugged, deadpan. “Oh yes. I’ve heard tell of fevers affecting the… continuation of one’s line. Quite tragic, really.”
He brought one gloved hand to his mouth as if to cough, but Maddie could see it. He was biting back a laugh.
She leaned in toward him, voice solemn. “I’ve been to the apothecary when men came in seeking cures for… you know.”
Paisley’s gaze darted between them.
“There weren’t any,” Maddie finished.
Sebastian let out a sound that might have been a snort—or a suppressed explosion of mirth.
Paisley paled. Truly paled.
“Well,” he said at last, voice wobbling with a flicker of panic, “as a duke, I do rank higher than you, Cambridge. I must take my leave. It’s rather important I ensure… everything is in working order. For the sake of my… ahem… heirs.”
And with that, he turned on his heel and fled.
They watched him disappear through the castle doors, and when the latch clicked behind him, silence followed before Sebastian exhaled.
And then, they laughed.
They broke into it together, sudden and helpless, laughter spilling into the cold morning like a warm wind. Sebastian’s was rich and deep and beautiful. Maddie’s own laughter bubbled up too fast, too full.
Her cheeks hurt. Her ribs ached.
“Oh,” she gasped, trying to breathe, “did you see his face?”
Sebastian nodded, his eyes dancing. “When you said there were no cures, he turned positively green.”
“He truly thought…” she started but couldn’t finish for laughing.
Sebastian leaned forward slightly, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’m fairly certain he’s galloping to the nearest doctor as we speak.”
Maddie couldn’t look away from him.
His eyes sparkled like black coffee kissed with sunlight, his cheeks pink from the cold, his smile warm and impossibly dear. His laugh wasn’t aristocratic. It wasn’t measured or poised. It was real. Joyful. Full-bodied. It was the sound of a man she was no longer resisting falling in love with.
And as the laughter faded into soft breaths between them, Sebastian reached out and—without thinking, perhaps—rested his hand on her shoulder.
It was light. Barely there. But warm. Steady. Intimate.
Maddie turned her face toward him, and the gesture undid her. His fingers on her shoulder, his laughter lingering in the air, the way his mouth was still slightly parted. It was too much. And not enough.
Her heart swelled so suddenly she thought it might crack.
He was so lovely.
Did he even know? If not, she would tell him. Someday.
When she could breathe again.
*
The fire in the brewery had burned low, casting a faint amber halo over the stone floor.
Shadows clung to the barrels, stretched across the worktable like fingers.
The scent of scorched grain and sweet malt lingered in the air, and Sebastian sat at the edge of it all, hunched over a tankard with the same brooding silence he’d worn since she left for her chambers. How long ago was it? Two hours? More?
He wasn’t taste-testing anything. He wasn’t brewing. He was drinking.
Drinking too much.
Not enough to dull everything, but just enough to take the edge off the ache that had started earlier that day, the ache that had Maddie’s name carved into it like a secret confession.
The door creaked behind him, and he didn’t look up.
“You’re a long way from your bed,” Thomas said, his voice low with casual mischief as he stepped inside, shaking snow from his boots. “Planning to drown the remaining fever in brandy, are we?”
Sebastian said nothing. Just tipped the tankard to his lips and swallowed.
Thomas didn’t press. Not at first. He crossed the room slowly, the way a man does when he’s walked in on something delicate.
“Let me guess,” he said finally. “This isn’t about the flu. Or the brandy. This is about a woman.”
Sebastian snorted, but without heat. “You’re insufferable.”
“True,” Thomas said lightly, dragging out a stool. “But I’m also right. The house is full of them since Ashley brought her friends here for our wedding. Girls, dresses, feathers, pearls. Soon they’ll paint the halls pink and put lace on the saddles of my horses.”
Silence.
Sebastian stared at the fire like it might offer absolution. It didn’t.
“She almost kissed me,” he said quietly.
“Who?” Thomas blinked. “Almost?”
Sebastian nodded. “I didn’t let it happen.”
A pause. Then, “Why not?”
Sebastian’s grip tightened on the tankard. “Because Paisley was there. Watching. Smirking like the bastard he is. Maddie’s mother seems to like him. She might, too. A little.”
And the moment shattered.
Because of Paisley, yes, but not just him.
Sebastian had seen it in her eyes. That bare flicker of longing.
Of trust. And it had near undone him. He could have kissed her.
Saints, he’d wanted to. His whole body had leaned into it, had ached for it.
One breath more and he’d have felt her lips against his.
And maybe she’d have kissed him back. Maybe she would’ve let him pull her closer, bury his fingers in her hair, taste the softness of her mouth.
But what if she regretted it afterward? What if the spell broke and all she saw was another man who wanted something from her?
He knew what it meant. That it wasn’t just about desire. Not with Maddie.
She wasn’t a game. She wasn’t a woman to ruin, or tempt, or steal a moment from. She was… everything he’d stopped believing he was worthy of.
And that terrified him more than Paisley ever could.
Because Paisley would offer for her. With her mother’s blessing. With an estate and a title and a smile that never quite reached his eyes. Sebastian had no illusions about it—he was the more dangerous choice. The unknown one. The one with quirks.
And yet, Maddie had looked at him like she didn’t care. Or maybe she did care and still wanted him anyway.
That was the part that undid him.
He didn’t want to take her innocence. He didn’t even want to steal her first kiss. He wanted to earn it. Every inch of it. The trust. The surrender. The way she might one day reach for him—not because she was caught in the moment, but because she knew him and chose him still.
But to have that… He’d have to become the kind of man she could choose.
Not the kind who sat in the shadows of his family name, letting bitterness dictate his choices.
Not the man who made women laugh at dinner and then left before morning.
Not the man who ran from feeling anything real because it was easier to pretend nothing mattered.
He rubbed at his chest.
She mattered.
More than he’d expected. More than he might be able to handle.
Thomas frowned. “He saw you two? How much has he seen?”
“Enough.”
Sebastian leaned forward, elbows braced on the table, the firelight catching the angle of his jaw. He looked like a man trying not to feel too much and failing.
“He wants her,” he said. “Everyone knows it. He’s even arrogant enough to say it out loud without letting her know first.”
“And what do you want?”
Sebastian’s throat worked. He didn’t answer.
Thomas let the silence hang. When he finally spoke again, it was quieter.
“You’re in deep.”
Sebastian looked up sharply. “It’s not just that she’s beautiful. Or kind. Or clever. She makes me feel like—”
He broke off, then pushed back from the table, rising to pace across the room.
“She makes me forget everything I hate about myself. And everything I’ve spent my whole life running from.”
Thomas watched him. “Your mother?”
Sebastian laughed, but it was hollow. “She’d adore Maddie. She’s exactly what my mother’s always hoped for. Polished, poised, unscandalized. Sweet. Good. Too good for me.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Sebastian turned, his eyes dark. “I never wanted to be the son she could be proud of.”
“But now you want Maddie.”
“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “And she’s the one woman I can’t have without becoming exactly the man I never meant to be.”
The words settled in the air between them, thick and unspoken.
Thomas stood and walked over slowly. “Sebastian.”
“What?”
“You already are that man.”
Sebastian stared at him.
Thomas shrugged. “The one who didn’t kiss her. The one who walked away when everything in you screamed to stay. That’s the man you didn’t know you were.”
Sebastian didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
Thomas’s expression softened. “Have you kissed her before?”
“No.” The word came out like regret.
“Why not?”
“Because she’s innocent,” Sebastian said, the words raw. “Because she’s precious. And I didn’t want to start something I couldn’t finish with the right intention.”
Thomas raised a brow. “And what is your intention?”
Sebastian hesitated. His voice came out rough. “To keep her. If she’d have me.”
Thomas’s lips quirked. “You’re worried you’d scare her?”
Sebastian nodded. “I don’t want to rush her. Or touch her in a way that—God, she’s not like the others.”
Thomas grinned then, a slow, wicked smirk. “You do realize she’s best friends with Ashley, right?”
Sebastian frowned. “Yes…”
“And you don’t think she’s had questions?”
The realization landed slowly.
Thomas clapped him on the shoulder. “Trust me. If she wanted answers, Ashley gave them.”
Sebastian groaned. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, I did,” Thomas said smugly. “Every question. In detail.”
Sebastian rubbed his face with a groan. “I can’t decide if I want to thank you or throw you into the snow.”
Thomas laughed. “You’re welcome. And I’ll add this—Maddie may be innocent, but she’s not breakable. If she looked at you the way I think she did—then you’re already halfway to trouble.”
Sebastian leaned against the edge of the table, the firelight soft against his features. For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then quietly, “I think I’m falling in love with her.”
Thomas’s voice dropped, the humor gone. “Then stop trying not to.”