Maddie.
The name slid into his thoughts like a whisper he didn’t want to forget. He wasn’t sure when it had happened—perhaps somewhere between her commanding him over a pot of steaming mint and brushing salve over his face—but she’d unsettled something in him.
Would she ever let him kiss her?
Their first kiss should be special, and he’d do anything to make itunforgettable if such an honor fell on him…Confound it!Why was he thinking about her first kiss? His body reacted instantly to the thought.
He hadn’t meant to think of her that way. Well, not at first. Especially not while he was sneezing and dripping like an invalid. But she’d sat so close. Touched him so gently. Her fingers had grazed his lips with an innocence that touched him deeply.
What man wouldn’t react?
And then she’d looked at him. Not through or around him. Athim.
She didn’t simper and feign false charm. No angle to work. Just those steady eyes that made him feel like a man worth considering for life. And in the gazebo in the snow, when her gaze had flicked—just briefly—to his mouth, something inside him had locked into place. As if his entire body understood something he hadn’t dared name.
He’d kissed women before. Far too many, if he were honest. But none of them had made him want the way Maddie did. Not just to taste, or touch, or win—to deserve her. He dragged a hand through his hair and exhaled slowly. His chest felt too tight. His thoughts too loud.
She was everything he hadn’t expected. Polished, yes. But not cold. Proper, but not unfeeling. Curious. Quick-witted. Surprisingly kind. And even when he irritated her—especially then—she looked at him like he wasn’t just the Marquess of Cambridge, but a man capable of more than he’d ever let himself believe.
Would she kiss him back? Just another perspective of the same question: Will she let me kiss her?
If she did, he wouldn’t rush it. He’d kiss her slowly. Thoroughly. As if a kiss were a promise and he truly meant every word of it. Sebastian pushed away from the wall and adjusted the towel slung over his shoulder. Maddie deserved more than idle fantasies. If there ever came a moment when she wanted him—truly wanted him—he intended to be ready. Not because she was beautiful, though she was. But he looked back at the painting of Thomas’s ancestor and thought to himself that with Maddie, he’d like to pose for a portrait. To stand for a legacy for their… he gulped… children.
Am I falling into affection?
Because when she looked at him, he felt like a better man. And he’d be damned if he let that feeling slip away.
A tall shadow flicked by and Sebastian lost his train of thought.
Male with a thick coat.
Sebastian pressed his back to the cold stone wall, holding still as footsteps approached.
A faint sound broke the silence.
Meow!
He frowned. Not the sharp, warning cry of an adult cat. This was higher, whinier. A kitten.
The shadow stretched before the corner. Sebastian shifted slightly to catch a glimpse of the intruder.
It wasn’t a servant.
Paisley.
The duke walked into the corridor, a wicker basket swinging from one hand. From the basket came the mournful cries of a mother cat, white as the snow outside, with five tiny kittens wriggling beneath her. Sebastian’s jaw clenched. The kittens from the stables… They were barely old enough to leave the hayloft, much less be dragged through the drafty castle.
Paisley crouched, his seemingly expensive coat brushing the flagstones, and plucked up the smallest kitten. The runt. The little claws caught on the lace handkerchief Paisley had inexplicably produced from his pocket.
Sebastian’s gut twisted. That kitten needed its mother more than any of the others. Whatever this was, it wasn’t kindness.
Cradling the squirming ball of fur, Paisley tucked it inside the handkerchief and straightened, moving quickly toward the main hall.
Sebastian followed.
He knew the layout of the castle far better than the duke did. While Paisley took the long route, Sebastian slipped through a side door, cutting into the same hallway aheadof him. He ducked behind a carved screen just as Paisley joined a waiting companion—one of the footmen who served as his shadow and a maid from upstairs.
“You got it, milord?” the man asked in a low voice.
