Page 1 of While the Duke Was Sleeping (England’s Sweethearts #1)

St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. December, 1893.

Adelaide just couldn’t bring herself to give a fig about this wedding. Not now, at least. Not after a night spent attending to her mistress’s pre-wedding jitters. Not when she’d been run off her feet for a week wrapping jewelry, packing trunks, and pressing gowns that would become unpressed the moment they were folded and sent three blocks to the duke’s residence.

In an hour, she might care, when the celebrations were in full swing, and she could sneak off for a moment on her own. She would either care or be asleep.

“It’s exciting, isn’t it?” A lad approximately her age sidled up next to her, his hands stuffed in his pockets. “A big wedding. All those people watching. All them guards.” He pointed to the red-coated Coldstream Guards arranged in precise lines along the cobblestone road that led to St. Paul’s Cathedral. The tall bearskins, admittedly, were impressive.

She plastered on a smile, not wanting to disappoint him. “It’s very exciting.”

The lad smiled and snapped his heels together, giving a jaunty salute. “Joshua Thompson, at your service.”

Sighing internally, she dipped a short curtsy in response. “Adelaide Rosebourne.”

“Are you part of the bridal family’s service?”

“I’m Lady Cordelia’s maid.” She held up her sewing bag filled with needles and thread, damp cloths, dry cloths, hairpins, even a tin of peppermints and a small flask of Madeira. She was prepared for anything that might need fixing before the bride entered the cathedral.

Joshua’s smile broadened. “You’ll be joining the duke’s household, then. Welcome. You’re going to love it. We’re a tight-knit group—a family, really.” He leaned across and shoulder bumped her in an overly friendly manner.

“I am looking forward to it.” It was only half a lie. She was looking forward to changing households. She’d been at the Duke of Thirwhestle’s residence for six months now, and she had itchy feet. She’d joined service for the money and the chance to stare at the same plastered ceiling every night instead of the procession of cracked, thatched, or wooden roofs that came with whatever room she’d rented for the month.

But pleasure in the regularity of the Thirwhestle servants’ quarters was hard to come by when it was accompanied by the regular snoring of her bunkmate—a bunkmate who was excessively curious, wanting to know every detail about Adelaide, like her star sign, and her favorite author, and where she’d live if fortune befell her and she never had to work again.

In a two-bedroom cottage with a walled garden and a dining table so heavy it could barely be moved six feet, let alone across the country. With no snoring bunkmates.

As lady’s maid to the Duchess of Hornsmouth, Adelaide would have her own room and a significant increase in her wages, bringing that cottage dream a little closer. Assuming she could put up with Cordelia long enough.

“What’s your favorite meal?” Joshua asked. “I’ll have cook prepare it in welcome.”

“Pork pie,” she said, picking something at random. “Excuse me.”

The hubbub of the crowd had swelled. All of London seemed to have come to catch a glimpse of Cordelia as she traveled through the streets toward her nuptials. As three carriages came into view, flowers were flung toward them and promptly crushed beneath the heavy, oversized wheels.

Out of the first vehicle tumbled a dozen small children, dressed in pouffy skirts and short pants tied with pink ribbons. The bridesmaids exited the second. Cordelia’s parents, the Duke and Duchess of Thirwhestle, climbed out of the third, and, after a suitably dramatic pause, Cordelia followed.

She immediately scanned the crowd, her gaze falling on Adelaide. ‘Get here now,’ she mouthed.

Adelaide rushed over, ready to dispense whatever her mistress needed.

“It doesn’t fit,” Cordelia hissed. “You made it too tight.”

Adelaide swallowed the retort she’d like to make and simply said, “It fit yesterday, my lady. And it fit an hour ago.”

“I cannot breathe .”

The bridesmaids were corralling the page boys and flower girls. The duke had strolled over to where guards on sleek horses kept the crowd at bay, and he was accepting flowers on his daughter’s behalf.

“Turn,” Adelaide said. She pulled at the buttons, pretending to loosen the dress even though there was nothing she could honestly do. “You can breathe. If you couldn’t, you’d have passed out before you even left your bedroom.”

“This is not what I would have worn. My father chose this dress.” She held out a hand. “Peppermint, please.”

Adelaide withdrew a candy from her bag. “You look divine. I have never seen anyone so beautiful. You make a stunning bride. Hornsmouth is very lucky.”

Cordelia’s lips thinned. “Indeed. He is lucky. What a shame we are not all so.”

“ Such a shame, my lady.” Rein your opinions in, Adelaide. This is not the time.

Still, it rankled. If she was in Cordelia’s place, there wouldn’t be a moment of dissatisfaction. The Duke of Hornsmouth had eight different estates across the British Isles and the blunt to service them. She would never again prick her thumbs remaking a dress that had been remade a dozen times over because food had been scarce, and she’d dropped yet another inch across the bust. She would never have to choose which tavern was the safest to rest her head in that night.

She would have a home—four walls that never changed—and she could settle in it permanently. Marriage to the Duke of Hornsmouth would give Adelaide everything she’d ever wished for.

But Cordelia was not Adelaide. Cordelia was the privileged daughter of a duke—impulsive, impassioned, and impossibly stubborn.

There was a crunching of gravel as the duke joined them. He took his daughter’s elbow. The drumbeats picked up pace, and the pulse at Cordelia’s throat quickly matched the insistent rat-da-tat . For a second, Adelaide thought she saw genuine fear in her mistress’s face—a more raw and vulnerable expression than Cordelia had worn in all the time Adelaide had known her.

The duchess also joined them and poked her daughter between her shoulder blades. “For heaven’s sake, girl. Stand up straight. You’re embarrassing us.” She turned to Adelaide with a sour look. “You are dismissed.”

Adelaide hurried out of the way.

“Cor, she’s a stunner,” Joshua said. “The duke is going to be very pleased.”

“He might be.” Until he experienced Cordelia’s petulance firsthand.

Joshua turned to Adelaide and frowned, his gaze flicking between her and her mistress. “You know, the two of you look remarkably alike.”

“That’s true.” They shared the same coloring and were of roughly the same height and figure. She was saved from having to further comment by the sudden cessation of drumming. From within the cathedral, organs sounded.

The Duke of Thirwhestle gripped his daughter’s arm as they climbed the stairs, her ridiculously elaborate dress dragging along the plush carpet.

“How is she standing under the weight of that dress? Those jewels are paste, surely.”

“Not paste,” Adelaide replied. “The bill for that dress would make you faint.” As Cordelia walked out of sight, Adelaide looked around. The ceremony would last an hour or so. She had to be at the duke’s residence by then to meet Cordelia’s needs before the reception began.

“Oh, Lord.” Joshua took hold of Adelaide’s shoulder.

As she looked to see what had caught his attention, the crowd erupted.

“Oh, Lord” is right. Fuck.

Cordelia had her skirts gathered in her hands as she tore down the steps. Alone. She had the frantic expression of a fox being run down. Her gaze landed on Adelaide and Joshua, and she veered toward them.

Adelaide met her halfway. Over Cordelia’s shoulder, she could see the Duke of Thirwhestle emerge from the cathedral, enraged.

Cordelia’s fingers dug into Adelaide’s in a death grip. “Get me out of here.”

Adelaide had a split second to make a choice. The duke, or the girl alone, breaking free from decisions that weren’t hers.

She picked the girl. She would likely come to regret it.

Right. Option one. Carriages.

No, that won’t work, Adelaide. They couldn’t take any of the finely sprung carriages before them. Each belonged to a member of the ton who would never keep the girl’s location a secret.

Option two. A hackney.

The street had been closed for the wedding, but if they could make it to the Briarstone Inn, there would be plenty of vehicles for hire. Adelaide always had her meager savings sewn in the hidden pockets of her dress. She could pay for a cab. So she wrapped one arm around her mistress’s shoulders and used the other to push through the crowd.

“Make way. Coming through. Make way.” Caught in the heat, the smell of sweat, the bodies pressing inward—memories of the riot in Paris flashed through her mind. She’d not meant to get tangled in it. She’d deliberately stayed away from the area. But when the protest had broken past the wall of horse guards, the city had quickly ignited. Adelaide, only five blocks from the tavern that had been her momentary port, had been buffeted around, at times getting caught in the river of people storming toward the Palais Bourbon, ending up further and further away from where she had meant to be.

The story of my life.

That same sense of chaos filled her lungs as she attempted to break through the crowd that was pressing in to glimpse the runaway bride. “Back off,” she yelled as grubby hands reached for Cordelia.

Finally, they broke free.

An enclosed cab—door still unpainted where a crest had been sanded off—stood at the edge of the road. The driver was eating an apple, paying no attention to the goings-on around him.

“Oi!”

At Adelaide’s yell, he looked up from the pamphlet sitting on his lap. His frown disappeared as he set eyes on Cordelia and the ridiculous wedding dress so encrusted with jewels that it sent shards of rainbow light across everything in its path. “Doing a runner?” he asked. “Where are you going?”

Where are you going, Adelaide? Where will you be safe?

She paused for a moment to take stock. There was one thing that she knew how to do really well. One thing that was as easy as breathing. “Take us to the docks.”

She knew how to leave.

Cordelia had already clambered into the carriage and was twisting her arms backward. “Get me out of this dress. Now. Get me out of it.” She yanked at the fabric, as if she could tear the buttons free herself. She was more likely to dislocate her shoulders than undo the fastenings.

“Turn.” With Cordelia kneeling on the floor between the seats, Adelaide made quick work of the buttons.

Cordelia grabbed the hem, cursing as parts of it caught beneath her knees, bunching the yards of silk carelessly as she tried to drag it over herself. Adelaide felt Cordelia stiffen as the dress got caught around her head. Then she thrashed like a fish in a bucket.

“Hold still.”

The dress came off and was discarded in a giant ball by the door. Adelaide then set to work on the laces of Cordelia’s corset. The process was hampered by the way Cordelia had hooked her fingers around the lace edge, pulling it away from her body as hard as she could, making it that much more difficult for Adelaide to tug the laces free.

Once the garment fell away, Cordelia, now dressed only in a chemise, bustle, and petticoats, dragged in a long breath. Then another. “Where are we going?”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Somewhere my father can’t find me, and where my likeness will not be splashed across the gossip pages. I just need a few weeks free… just until the speculation dies down.”

“The continent, then. We can be lost in a heartbeat once we land.”

“France?”

“France, Italy, Spain.”

“And you know how to get about in those places?”

She’d spent the first twenty-five years of her life getting around those places, and every other corner of Europe. Hence why she was so determined to settle, even if it meant putting up with Cordelia until she had the funds saved. “I can get by. What money do you have on you?”

Cordelia held her hand to the necklace at her throat. “I have only this—and that, I suppose.” She gestured to the pile of silk, ruffles, and jewels that had been discarded on the carriage floor. “But you cannot make me wear it again. I’m serious, Adelaide. I will not. You’ll have to swap dresses with me.”

Adelaide looked at the overly ornate dress. She’d seen the dressmaker’s bill. The gown cost more than two years of Adelaide’s salary. She looked down at her own simple dress that had been remade and repaired a dozen times over.

At least you share the same coloring.