Page 22 of Snowed In with the Jilted Duke

Unable to resist having the superior position for once, she leaned down and kissed him. What began as a playful brush of the lips quickly turned passionate, their mouths finding the perfect angle. Her tongue ventured out in cautious imitation of his, and he groaned, stepping between her parted knees, his arms around her waist as she leaned into him, pressing harder, his torso firm and strong against her thighs.

His hand slipped beneath her skirt, caressing her ankle before moving up her calf to tease at the edge of her stocking, his fingers sliding from silk to skin, and she gasped against his mouth, fire raging through her at the simple touch where no man had touched her before. He moved as if to pull away, but she plunged her hands into his hair and kissed him harder, her knees pressing into his ribs to pull him closer, and he groaned, sliding his hand higher and higher up her thigh until⁠—

A sharp rap sounded at the door, and he sprang back, panting. Pippa quickly shook her skirts back down towards respectability, her core aching and her skin still tingling where he had caressed her.

“How is the rehearsal going?” Cousin Beatrice asked brightly through the closed door, and Pippa would have gladly murdered the girl in that moment.

“We’re nearly ready,” Oliver called back, his eyes still locked on Pippa, his labored breathing starting to slow. “Give us a moment.”

“Very well. John and Charles have been practicing the duel and are almost ready to rehearse that scene.”

As Beatrice’s footsteps faded away, Oliver reached up and lifted Pippa down from the sideboard.

“That was… inadvisable.”

“Yes, of course,” she replied, pretending to a calm she did not feel as she stepped away from his loosened grasp. “We must be more careful when we are alone.”

She wanted him to do it again. And not stop. She wanted him to do everything, even if she only had a dim idea of what that “everything” was.

The knowledge of her own weakness shook her to the core as she manufactured an unperturbed smile for him.

For a moment, it seemed as though he would say something, but instead he sighed and tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Let’s rejoin the others. “

Pippa nodded. It would be safest that way. For both of them.

7

When Oliver awoke the next morning, he could breathe again.

It was a most peculiar feeling. The noose that had been around his neck for over a decade was suddenly gone.

No one could expect him to marry Penelope Montgomery now, not even her father. He had done nothing to make her flee, so he could not be blamed for her actions.

A small internal whisper nagged at him that finding out he had kissed her sister might not count as having done "nothing" to make her flee, but he ignored that for now.

If the agreement could be broken thanks to Penelope's actions, that meant he... was free.

If he was, he had no idea what he was to do with that freedom.

He could do what everyone else of his class did: go to London for the Season and find another heiress to court. The prospect was daunting to someone who had never had to concern himself with who he might marry. Penelope had been unobjectionable, marrying her would save the duchy, there had been no reason to fight against it.

It had not been until that moment he had stood next to her at their betrothal ball feeling as though she was not the woman he had kissed an hour ago that he had begun to worry, his doubts only growing throughout the course of her illness and recovery.

Now he understood why. The woman who had charmed him into kissing her—who had been welcoming and warm rather than distant—had been Pippa all along.

He had known her for as long as he had known Penelope, the three of them thrown together during family visits. When Penelope would flutter off for other conversations, Pippa stayed to discuss books and poetry and music with him. He had taken her constant presence for granted until Penelope’s illness, when she had withdrawn her attention so abruptly and he had… missed it.

Missed her.

And only just now realized what that inner disquiet could mean.

His valet tapped on the door and let himself in. Oliver shook off his reflections.

He only had a few days to decide the direction of the rest of his life.

Not a daunting task at all.

After washing and dressing, he descended to his office. Fenton, Oliver's secretary, stood as Oliver entered. "Good morning, your grace."