Page 11 of Snowed In with the Jilted Duke

"Sometimes. Especially when she is overtired. They have been less frequent lately." Penny frowned in turn. "I suppose the travel was too much for her."

"Most likely. What sort of book is Penelope looking for?"

He stepped closer to her, and Pippa's breath caught in her throat. He had clearly expected his privacy since he had traded his jacket for a patterned silk banyan that flowed around him. He had discarded his cravat, leaving his throat bare in the flickering firelight, the top of his shirt unlaced to just below his collarbone. A few dark curls shadowed his skin, an intimate sight she had difficulty looking away from.

"She is looking for... sermons. Sermons to help her sleep."

A grin quirked one corner of his lips. "Of course. They are kept over here."

Without touching her, he guided her to the far corner, where they stood shrouded in darkness lit only by the candle she carried. He gestured to the shelves. "This was my father's collection of sermons."

Pippa surveyed the shelves, which were crammed with bound books as well as smaller tracts and sheets of newsprint. "Was he very devout?"

"Only when he felt guilty about his gaming habits. He always thought the next sermon he read would break him of them."

"Oh." Pippa scanned the shelves and, indeed, most of the books seemed dedicated to eradicating sin and vice, some with a specific focus on gambling. “Is that why gaming is no longer allowed at Gaitskill Castle?”

He nodded, his face somber in the flickering light of the candle. “My father’s gambling nearly ruined us. Your grandfather’s marriage bargain was the only thing that prevented the estates from being broken up and sold, leaving the family destitute and myself with an empty title.”

“Papa says he only gambles on business ventures, and only when he feels he can afford to lose his investment.”

“Your father is a wise man. Wiser than mine was.”

Pippa looked back to the shelves, seeing the Dalston family in a new light. Her father and grandfather had hinted at such a thing, of course, but she had been too young to really understand. The shelves full of sermons brought home the late duke’s desperation that had led him to tie his family’s fate to upstarts like the Montgomerys.

Oliver looked past her, and his lips quirked. “Ah, here it is.”

He pulled a volume off the shelf and handed it to her, but she knew what it was even before she held the candle close to read the title.

“Why did your father have a copy of Sermons to Young Women?”

“Each of my sisters read it in turn. Surely it would be dull enough to help Penelope sleep.”

“It is dreadfully dull.”

Oliver grinned. “All my sisters said so.”

“I suppose it will work.”

They stood in silence for a long moment, wrapped in the dark, the flicker of the candlelight against the stacked books hypnotic. Pippa could feel her breath quicken. She had a sudden urge to lean her body against his, to wrap her arms around him and press herself against him, an echo of that forbidden night.

“Pippa.”

Daring, she looked up to see him looking down at her. With a deliberate motion, he plucked the candle from her unresisting hand and set it down on a nearby table. Then he stepped close to her, too close, but it was just as she wished. Just as she had dreamed of for nearly two years.

His hand tilted her chin up, the back of his fingers caressing down her throat as she obeyed the implicit command. His head dipped towards hers, and her eyes drifted shut even as she leaned towards him.

His mouth closed over hers and she shuddered with delight, sparks sliding down her spine and out to her limbs as her toes curled inside her slippers. His tongue slid delicately along her bottom lip, and when she met it with her own, he groaned and pulled her even closer, his mouth ravishing hers as his hands⁠—

“Your grace?”

Penny found herself shoved behind Oliver as he whirled. Peeping around his back, she saw Teasdale silhouetted in the library’s doorway and froze, her heart in her throat. What had the man seen?

The butler bowed deeply. “I beg your pardon, your grace. I saw only that a candle was still lit and feared a fire.”

Oliver cleared his throat. “That’s all right. Everything is fine. I shall take the candle to my room when I return upstairs.”

“Of course, your grace. Good night.” Teasdale’s white teeth glinted for a moment against his dark skin as he bowed again, even more deeply, and then closed the door.