Page 38 of Snowed In with the Jilted Duke

Pippa shivered as she felt a sense of impending doom.

The farce she and Oliver played would soon be done, too.

As the players made their final bows and began circulating among the audience to accept their relatives’ accolades, Pippa stayed close to Oliver, hoping to avoid the scold she could see coming from her mother but, inevitably, Mother succeeded in backing her into a corner when Oliver was called away to another group.

“What do you mean by this behavior?” Mother hissed. “You know he is to marry Penelope!”

Pippa flinched away from her mother’s anger, but raised her chin. “Penny does not want to marry him. She wrote both of us notes to say so.”

“Penelope’s opinions are not even slightly important in this situation. She was promised to be a duchess when she was a child and she will fulfill that promise if I have to drag her to the altar myself.”

Gathering her courage, Pippa said diffidently, “What if… what if I were the one to marry Oliver?”

She flinched back at her mother’s harsh laugh.

“What makes you think he would choose you when he could have any highborn heiress in England with a snap of his fingers?”

“Is there a problem?” Oliver’s voice was genial as he drew Pippa’s arm through his, but she could recognize the iciness underneath.

“Not at all, Kendal,” her mother simpered. “I was merely having a conversation with my daughter.”

The snow was melting, dropping from the eaves in great clumps as the weather warmed.

Travel would resume soon. Her father would arrive. Penny would return.

Penny would take her place back.

Unable to sleep, Pippa slipped from her bed and drew her old, worn dressing gown over her nightdress. The house was quiet as she walked through the corridors, heading to a place she had not yet visited.

Descending the stairs to the ground floor and towards the back of the house, she pulled open the glass door of the orangery and let the warm, humid air bring the mingled scents of citrus and green leaves and soil to her as she breathed in deeply. The waning moon shining off the snow-covered lawns lent enough light for her to easily make her way down the paths inside. The orangery had always been one of her favorite places at Gaitskill Castle, an oasis to escape the noise and presence of people who seemed to barely tolerate her family for the money Penny’s dowry would bring.

This visit had been so different, she had not felt the need to escape. Not until her mother’s words rang in her head to keep her awake.

Stopping at one of the trees, she weighed a ripe fruit in her hand, skin rough against the smoothness of her palm. She twisted it to break it from the branch, edges of the surrounding leaves scraping against her skin as she pulled the fruit away and inhaled the sharp-sweet scent of the orange.

Digging her thumbnail into the indentation at the top, she ripped the skin open, pulling it off in chunks and letting it drop into the pot below the tree, as the head gardener preferred. She pulled the sections apart, juice running down her fingers as she ate greedily, membranes parting under her teeth as she bit down and let the juice slide down the back of her throat.

She wandered over to the padded bench tucked between the trees as she ate. She had spent many an hour here over previous Christmases, comfortably ensconced with a book while the others played games or gossiped over their embroidery in one of the salons.

Seating herself on the bench, she allowed the serenity of the orangery and the quiet house to surround her. She would return to herself soon, and then this peculiar time in her life would be over. Either Papa would accept Oliver’s proposal or… he would not. And if he did not, she must leave Oliver and Gaitskill Castle behind and return home with her parents. Never to see him again as he sought out another heiress to be his bride and save his estates.

The door opened and then closed again, and Pippa held her breath. Footsteps crunched along the gravel until the branches in front of her parted and Oliver peered at her through the leaves. He wore the same banyan he had worn in the library that first night, his shirt unlaced to below his collarbone again.

The very sight of him made her heart and body ache.

“Ah,” he said. “I thought you might be here.”

“Yes.” That dryness was back in her throat, the one that made it difficult to talk when she looked at him. Or thought about him. Or remembered how he had touched her on the billiard table.

After a slight hesitation, he pushed the rest of the way through the branches to stand in front of her. “May I?”

She nodded, afraid to speak, and he sat next to her.

They sat in silence for long moments, and she slowly relaxed without meaning to.

“The snow is melting,” she said.

“Yes.”