Page 19 of While the Duke Was Sleeping (England’s Sweethearts #1)

“So, Peter is getting married, is he?” Uncle Frank asked once Jac and Winnie had both left the room to find Meg. He pulled a snuffbox from his coat pocket and tapped it three times on the edge of the table by Peter’s bed.

How was Rhett supposed to respond to that? Yes? No, he might die? No, his fiancée might choose me instead? It would be best to keep his mouth shut. Not that Uncle Frank ever needed a second person’s input in a conversation.

“It’s unexpected. The boy’s shown little interest in women. He barely tolerates them when he’s in town.” Frank flipped open the lid to the snuffbox and tipped out a small pile of white powder onto a hand mirror. “I’d begun to think that he’d given up on carrying on the family line.”

Rhett cleared his throat. “My brother knows his duty. He was always going to marry.” And he still would, just not Della.

Frank took a five-pound note from his pocket and used it to straighten the powder into lines. “I’m surprised it took him so long. What spurred him to action, do you think?”

In large part, Rhett thought it was simply because Della was there. Peter had found a bride without having to reenter the marriage mart. But there was another element to it. Rhett shifted uncomfortably. Rhett’s adventures on the continent had gotten increasingly wild over the past year as his sense of dissatisfaction had grown. More than once, his escapades had made the gossip section of the newspapers, and not in a way he was proud of. They hadn’t been harmless antics. He’d been arrested twice for public indecency. Thankfully, being the brother of the Duke of Strafford meant something, even in Finland. No charges had been laid; he’d simply had to sleep off the drunkenness in a cell, but the impact had been felt in England. Meg had been forced to limit her social engagements, and Jac’s first season had been cut short.

Shame crept up his neck, red and hot. He’d been so consumed with women and wine and his own enjoyment that he’d failed his family. It was part of why he’d remained abroad. Coming home would mean facing the consequences and inevitable censure. He would make different choices now.

“I think my brother chose to marry because he finally comprehended the reality of what would happen if the estates and the title fell on my shoulders.” But Peter had had that realization far too late. Now he might die, and the future of the estates looked dire indeed.

Frank clapped a hand on Rhett’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about that, son. Not everybody is suited to such responsibility. You have plenty of other things going in your favor.”

“Truly? And what are those?”

Frank chuckled and rolled the note into a tight cylinder. “You’ve the ability to make half the population squirm with pleasure and the other half let loose all their trappings and have fun. Is that not enough?”

A week ago, he might have been resigned to that. A week ago, he would’ve prided himself on some of those things. Now they felt hollow. Was that seriously all he was capable of? It wasn’t boastworthy. It was embarrassing.

Rhett scrubbed at his face. “I don’t think my brother would agree with you. In fact, I’m fairly certain that had he not met with his accident, I’d be getting for a red coat or a cassock as soon as Christmas was over.”

Frank leaned over the mirror and snorted a line of powder, brushing his nostrils. “Your brother was a wet blanket. He always has been. He resolutely refused all of my entreaties to show him how to have a good time, and now look at him.” Rolled note still in hand, Frank gestured toward the bed. “Of course, he’s the duke. He doesn’t need a personality to find a wife as pretty as the chit downstairs. They never do.”

An old bitterness resurfaced in Frank’s words. It was a story Rhett had heard before. Frank would tell it whenever he was drunk, or high, or maudlin—the woman who got away, Rhett’s mother, snatched from Frank by Rhett’s father, the duke.

“It will never be us, son. The spare is never the first choice, only the last resort. Women will throw you over at the mere hint of a title. But you know that, don’t you? Lady Meredith taught it to you.” He offered the mirror and the remaining line of cocaine to Rhett.

Instinct was to reach for it, especially at the mention of Lady Meredith, but Rhett hesitated. He and Frank had spent many an afternoon high, commiserating over all the women who’d done them wrong while hoping to bag a duke, but today, Rhett simply didn’t feel like it. He shook his head.

Frank raised an eyebrow, but shrugged and snorted the second line.

“Della isn’t like other women,” Rhett said. She wasn’t Lady Meredith. This wasn’t some elaborate scheme to become a duchess. It was simply an odd set of circumstances, not a game plan to use Rhett for personal advancement.

“That’s for sure,” Frank said, snapping closed the snuff box. “She left Hornsmouth at the altar when that title was a sure thing, although I suppose your brother is younger and prettier than Hornsmouth. I still wouldn’t trust her.”

That had been the tenor of their conversations for decades— I wouldn’t trust her . But for all his good intentions and the many seemingly correct paths down which Frank had steered him, his uncle was wrong in this situation.

Rhett did trust Della. Sure, she’d refused to give Rhett an explanation for why she’d skipped out on her last wedding or why she’d agreed to marry Peter, but if Rhett had to guess, she’d left Hornsmouth because he would have dampened her spark. She was so very self-sufficient and independent, and Hornsmouth was a controlling ass. Peter would have more or less left her alone after the heir and the spare were produced. Della would have had a freedom she couldn’t have had with Hornsmouth.

Rhett would give her freedom. Together, they would roam the continent with no master. They would spend as much time as they wanted at the French boulangerie. Rhett would show her the ruins of Pompeii and watch as she was stirred by the stories that swirled around the artifacts. He could spend a lifetime making a list of places he’d been that he wanted to take her to and then another list of all the places they could see together for the first time.

He’d never been to Africa. If any woman was resourceful enough to explore those lands with him, it would be her.

And if she was marrying Peter for safety, for protection against her father’s wrath and society’s ridicule following her failed wedding, Rhett could deliver that too. Just let them come for her. He would show them the irresponsible playboy was not here to play at all.

“ Hehemm. ” Uncle Frank had his head cocked and was studying Rhett.

“I do not know why Della left Hornsmouth or why she chose to marry Peter. I’m certain she had good reasons for both.”

Frank tapped on the arm of his chair. “Perhaps she heard of Hornsmouth’s mistress. There was an argument the night before the wedding. The stupid strumpet flung a fifty-karat emerald necklace in the duke’s face. It is preposterous that she thought Hornsmouth would choose her.”

The glee with which his uncle shared the news sat ill with Rhett. He knew the pain of not being chosen. Hornsmouth’s rejection would have hurt. “I hadn’t heard of the affair.”

Frank snorted. “Lady Cordelia clearly had. She proved to be as immature and spoiled as everyone says. Affairs are the way of life. Hornsmouth did well by ending things until he had an heir. Lady Cordelia should have closed her eyes and carried on.”

The thought of anybody treating Della so poorly made Rhett’s blood boil. “Della is far from childish or spoiled. She’s bold, and competent, and kind. She’s done more for my brother than even the damned sawbones. Hornsmouth would have been lucky to have her.”

Uncle Frank raised an eyebrow, and his suspicion made the illness in Rhett’s belly roil. “Well, she certainly seems to play the game well.”

“What do you mean?” Rhett asked warily.

Uncle Frank shrugged and crossed a leg casually over the other. “Only that she’s maneuvered things expertly. If Peter wakes, she will be the Duchess of Strafford, and if he doesn’t wake…” Uncle Frank trailed off, but his gaze was sharp with expectation, as though he was waiting for Rhett to put the pieces together.

Rhett refused. His whole body rejected the thought. “And if he doesn’t wake?” he demanded, daring his uncle to say it.

“If he doesn’t wake, son, you will be the duke. And if your passionate defense of her is anything to go by, she will still be the Duchess of Strafford. Clever, clever girl.”

No. No, it couldn’t be. Rhett’s blood turned to ice at the thought. Della was not Lady Meredith. She was not toying with his heart to gain the title. But Uncle Frank had never steered him wrong before, and right now, his mentor was looking at him with pity that fractured Rhett’s heart.

Adelaide didn’t join the family in the duke’s bedroom. She stopped two doors down, bending as though to dislodge a pebble from her shoe. When she was satisfied that no one was watching, she took a deep breath and entered Rhett’s bedroom.

It was completely impersonal. She shouldn’t have been surprised; Rhett had told her he rarely visited his brother’s estates. He also lived as nomadic a lifestyle as she had. He wouldn’t be lugging trunks full of personal items across Europe. Hence, the room was empty save a bare minimum of furniture and a small trunk pushed up against the wall with its lid open. He hadn’t even bothered to unpack. His clothes were folded neatly inside.

At last, some bloody luck. It would take next to no time to search this room thoroughly. If he had been a man to enjoy fripperies, it might have been a different story. Her heart flip-flopped. A man who enjoyed fripperies was a man ready to settle down in one spot. Hell, it was a man who had one spot in which to settle. Nothing about this room suggested Rhett was that man.

But everybody would give up floating for that one permanent person whom they can make a home with, surely.

Shoving her concerns about Rhett’s willingness to settle down aside, she crossed to his desk. It was the logical place for him to put the announcement, so she would start there. But the desk was bare, save a stack of papers requiring the duke’s signature. Each piece had been placed facedown, as though Rhett was ignoring their existence. A lease that needed signing, a licensing agreement for some sort of new technology, and a missive from the prime minister, asking for Peter’s input on a new bill.

No betrothal announcement. Nothing pertaining to Cordelia. Damnation.

Della opened the drawers of the desk, but they were both empty. The only other personal items in the room were three books by the bedside. Perhaps the announcement was between the pages. Rhett seemed like an agent of chaos who would use a random piece of paper instead of a ribbon to mark his place. Not that the betrothal announcement was some piece of scrap. Using it so flippantly would certainly be saying something.

She sat on the edge of his bed. Her sense of smell must be returning. As she inhaled, she could pick up the scent of citrus, fresh air, and a little salt. It smelled like a spring day by the ocean.

She picked up the first book, one she had read before, and wondered if he was going to be as infuriated by the ending as she had been. He hadn’t used anything as a bookmark. Instead, like a heathen, he had dog-eared the pages and scrawled notes in the margins. A quick inspection of the other two books revealed no sign of the betrothal announcement.

She lifted his pillow, but it wasn’t under there. She got on her hands and knees and checked under the bed. It was spotless and bare. The only other place it could be was in his trunk.

She hesitated. Going through his clothes seemed a great violation of his privacy.

Really, Adelaide? As though you haven’t just thoroughly violated it, anyway?

Feeling sick with guilt, she knelt before the trunk and carefully picked her way through it, lifting each item gently to look behind it, setting it aside so that she could return it to its original position.

His belongings included two pairs of trousers, two sets of long johns, a handful of shirts, a sketchbook, and a small sewing kit. It was the kind of sparse, practical trunk that she was familiar with. It mirrored her own. He was ready to leave at a moment’s notice. She lifted another shirt.

Oh. Oh, wow. Oh, Adelaide. Why the devil does he own that? She knew why she owned one, and she could have understood his owning such an item if he had different proclivities, but Rhett was attracted to women. At least, she was ninety-nine percent certain he was.

She wrapped her hand around the giant marble cock and held it up for closer inspection. It was exquisite. The artist’s attention to detail was superb. A delicate vein ran down the length of the stone. The foreskin had been rendered in perfect clarity. The tip of the cock was so polished and so smooth she could almost imagine a drop of liquid spilling out of it. The marble was hard and cold, yet within a few seconds, it warmed in her hands, as though she were caressing something soft and alive.

Heat swirled in her body, sending a hot red flush up her neck and pooling between her legs. Her heart thudded, and her thoughts scattered as the sensation gave rise to images. Damn her imagination. She could so clearly picture Rhett running his hands across her bare skin. Rhett, trailing his lips in patterns over her breasts, taking her nipples in his mouth and sucking gently, nipping at them, grazing his teeth over them.

She imagined the feeling of him between her legs, his cock pushing up against her as she locked her ankles behind his back. The gentle push became more urgent until he slid into her, filling her, stretching her, making her groan his name. Her grip on the marble cock tightened. With her free hand, she fanned her face.

And it was like that, while she was hot, dizzy, and completely undone, that she heard the door open.

“Della?”

“Rhett?” She spun around, pressing the giant marble cock against her chest. Damn, damn, damn, damn. The words echoed the thudding of her heart.

“What are you doing here?” There was nothing light or joking in his tone, nothing that felt like the Rhett she’d shared pastries with that morning. He regarded her with deep suspicion.

Of course he fucking does, Adelaide. He’s caught you snooping through his things.

She looked down at the marble phallus, but there was no way of discarding it without drawing attention to it. She snapped her head back up. She had to maintain eye contact and keep him from realizing what was in her hands. “I was looking for a piece of correspondence,” she said weakly. “The footman told me he’d seen it in your room.”

Rhett crossed his arms and scowled. “You thought your correspondence was in my trunk?”

She grimaced. “Well, it wasn’t on your desk or between the pages of your novels.” She tried for a nervous laugh to break the tension, but Rhett wasn’t having any of it.

He stalked toward her, graceful, angry. “What do you really want?” he asked when he was just inches from her.

His nearness scattered her senses. The warmth of his body mingled with the fire that burned inside her, threatening to erupt into a full-blown inferno. She tugged at her collar, trying to release some of the building heat. “I really was just looking for a piece of correspondence.”

He leaned forward. He was within kissing distance. All she had to do was rise to her tiptoes. But his lips were pursed in displeasure, not desire. “You couldn’t ask me if I had your letter?”

She swallowed. “Well, it is a little sensitive.”

“Something you don’t want me reading.”

He stepped back. As he did so, his gaze dropped to her hands, to the marvelous marble cock she was gripping. He stilled, and his face flushed crimson. “I… Uh…” He shifted and studied the curtains, then the desk, then the corner of the wall, the entire time rubbing at his forehead, obscuring her view of him. “Did you ever find that book?”

Fuck, Adelaide. Fuck.

She thrust her hands behind her, fingers pressing against the marble cock as though all her humiliation could be transferred from her expression to it. “Book?” she asked, pretending everything was normal.

“The book you were looking for in Peter’s study. I haven’t seen you reading it to him.”

Double fuck.

What if she told him the truth? All of it? Told him now before his uncle could blindside her with the information. “Your brother had written a betrothal announcement for The Times prior to his proposal. He hadn’t had the chance to send it before his accident, and I was hoping to retrieve it. That’s why I was in the study that night, and why I’m here.” There. Part of the truth. She waited for his response.

He faced her with a look that was half anguish, half hope. “Are you planning on sending it?” There was a hitch to his voice and a wariness to the way he looked at her that was colder and more suspicious than he’d ever been.

She took a step backward. “No. I was going to destroy it.”

Rhett sighed then, his shoulders sagging. He shook out his arms as though flinging off mud or a bad feeling. “That’s good. That’s really good. My uncle said… Never mind. He’s wrong.”

Della tensed. “What did your uncle say?” It can’t have been the truth. Rhett would not be speaking to you if it had been. So, what then?

“He said that you are deceiving me.”

Della’s heart plummeted. “Rhett—”

Rhett crossed to her, taking her shoulders gently in his hands. “He said you are determined to be the Duchess of Strafford at any cost, and that our… friendship… is a tactic. But that’s not true.”

She shook her head, tears welling. Their relationship was genuine. The circumstances were a lie, but what she felt for him was sincere. “No, it’s not a tactic.” She didn’t want the title. She didn’t want the duke. She simply wanted the man in front of her. She was starting to think she wanted him more than anything else. More than a house, even.

“That’s good. That’s a relief.” Rhett brushed a stray hair from her cheek, and goose bumps rippled across her arms. She felt the earth sway beneath her. “I’m glad that this, whatever it is, is genuine,” he continued.

He paused for a moment, and across his face flickered uncertainty, guilt, and then finally determination. He cupped her head in his hand, his fingers twining through her hair. Gently, he pulled her closer to him, stopping with his lips mere inches from hers, waiting for her to make a choice.

“Della.” The whisper was a plea. Their breaths mingled, and her whole body pulsated with the rapid thud, thud, thud of her heartbeat. She reached for him, one hand still wrapped around the marble, the other caressing his side with her fingers. He was warm even through the layers of shirt and waistcoat. She felt his body flinch as she slid both arms around his waist, and he swallowed. His thumb grazed the back of her skull.

There were still so many unknowns. Would he forgive her once he discovered her lie? If the duke woke, would Rhett want to build a life with her in one place or was his love of travel too strong? If the duke died, Rhett would become the duke, and then a life together would not even be a possibility. A duke didn’t marry a lady’s maid.

All she really had was this moment, and moments were like people—fleeting. You had to grab hold of them for the short time you had.

Using his stillness for balance, she rose to her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. He was as warm as the waters off the coast of Syracuse. Sinking into his kiss was like floating in the Mediterranean, loosening in the sun, the smell of the saltwater fixing the memory in her mind. She would never forget this, never forget the way his fingers splayed across her back, or the way he closed the distance between them with a groan, or the way his cock pressed against her, setting off a searing heat between her legs. She would never forget the way his tongue flickered across the seam of her lips, or his soft growl as she opened to him. His tongue explored hers like the most intrepid traveler who wasn’t content with the usual tourist locations and wanted to know a city’s heart.

The hand on her back traveled lower. His fingers curled around her hip, bunching the silk of her skirt. His other hand curled in her hair, and he pulled, breaking off their kiss and exposing her neck to his curious probing. His teeth grazed her jawline, sending a cascade of shivers down her spine. He took her throat in his mouth, sucking on it and making her vision blur and her knees weaken. His journey downward reached the collar of her shirt. He growled at the impediment, pulling at it with his teeth, caressing it with his tongue, and she tightened her grip on him to keep from collapsing. She would never forget the urgency of his kisses and the way the heat of his breath against her skin turned all of her senses inside out.

She pressed closer to him, moving her free hand to his head, forcing his lips back to hers. Her own mouth nipped and licked as she took all he offered, now, while she could. In this moment, while it lasted, she could let go of everything that was holding her back from being with him.

There was a thunk of marble against the rug, but she ignored it as she frantically yanked at his shirt, pulling it from the waistband of his trousers until her fingers reached his warm, soft skin. Shivers ran down her spine at the feel of him. Her heart beat so hard and so fast it was as though she’d just climbed to the top of Mount Etna and was on the precipice of falling in, being consumed by the boiling, bubbling lava.

Rhett went to work on the delicate buttons that ran from her neckline to her waist. With every inch of her throat exposed, his tongue explored further. Soon, he’d freed enough of the fabric to pull her shirt aside. “Gods, you’re beautiful.”

Goose bumps raced across her décolletage. Hidden by the firmly fastened corset, her nipples peaked, yearning for his touch. As she dragged in a deep breath, her breasts swelled, straining to be free. Rhett groaned and turned his attention to the parts of her his mouth could access. As he ran a tongue along the worn lace edge of her corset, her knees weakened. She grabbed ahold of his shoulders for support.

She wanted this. She wanted this more than she’d ever wanted any man. If she were being honest, she wanted this more than she wanted a solid oak dining table. She would give up all the bookcases and wardrobes and delicate chaise longues in the world if it meant Rhett’s lips would never leave her skin, if it meant this feeling of belonging would stay with her forever.

She groaned at the thought, and he straightened, sinking a hand into her hair, drawing her face close to his. He kissed her deeply, hungrily, fusing them together as if they were one soul.

Impatient, lustful, overcome with desire, she took the hem of his shirt in her hand and pulled it over his head. He tossed it to the side. God damn, he was beautiful. His tanned skin was flecked with a smattering of honeyed hair. She ran her fingers over it, delighting in the juxtaposition of smoothness and coarseness.

The artists who’d captured him in their sketches had been true in their translation of him. His chest was hard, his body a map of ridges and valleys. When she rested her hands just above his hips, it was on top of long, lean muscles that drew the eye down toward his waistband.

Rhett captured her mouth again, and as he explored her with his tongue, she could feel the tug of his fingers at the laces of her corset. Within seconds, it was free and discarded on the floor. Her skirt followed a heartbeat later, her bustle after that, leaving her in just a chemise and petticoat.

She grinned as she remembered their first meeting and the boasts he’d made of how quickly he could undress a woman.

“What are you smiling about?” he murmured as he ran a trail of kisses down her neck, across her décolletage and to the swell of her breasts. He took a hand to one, kneading gently. In unison, they groaned.

“Nothing,” she murmured, too overwhelmed to form a sentence.

He tugged at the edge of her chemise until her breasts sprang free. “I want you more than I have wanted anything in my life,” he said.

Her nipples pebbled against the cool air of the room and the soft brush of his breath. She arched, wanting—nay, needing —him to take her into his mouth. With a moan, he did so, sucking gently. Heat pooled in her belly, and her core pulsated with desire. She grabbed onto his shoulders, her fingers digging into his bare skin.

He pressed his face more firmly into her breasts, his hands reaching around to cup her arse. He squeezed it tightly and she could feel herself get wet at his touch. Good God, she wanted him inside her. She wanted to feel the thrust of his hips and the length of him pump into her over and over until they both climaxed.

“Rhett,” she whispered, hoping he’d know exactly what she wanted without her having to say it.

He broke away from her breasts and stood, resting his forehead against hers. Their breaths mixed in a tangle of lust. “Lady Cordelia Highwater, I think I’m falling in love with you.”

Instead of a rush of headiness or euphoria, icy dread flooded her, washing away every tendril of heat and lust. She stiffened. Stupid, Adelaide. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He wasn’t falling in love with her; he was falling in love with the person she was pretending to be. Everything he felt was false at its core. He wasn’t kissing Adelaide Rosebourne, and that knowledge shattered her. Being crushed by the heaviest bookcase could never be so hurtful.

The future she’d thought so tangible—the breakfast table they both sat at, the summer afternoons beneath a tree they’d planted, the children who ran at their feet—suddenly dissipated like the mirage it had always been.

She stepped away from him, out of the warmth of his embrace and into the cold emptiness. She pulled her skirt up from where it had tangled at her feet, tying the laces quickly. “I should go. Andrew was looking for you. He might very well look for you here.”

“Della,” Rhett protested. His expression was tormented, but he handed her the corset that he’d discarded. She didn’t bother with the laces. She buttoned her shirt and her collar, not caring at all how the fabric bunched where the corset was misplaced.

“No. No, I can’t.” She took another step backward while trying desperately to get the last buttons done. Then she tripped. She went down on her arse hard, feeling the sharp thud from her tailbone to her teeth. Flushed with embarrassment, she felt for whatever she’d stepped on that caused her to fall, holding it up in front of her.

Brilliant. Nice work, Adelaide. Way to make an awkward scene worse. The marble cock in her hand was a sharp reminder of what would have been if she hadn’t come to her senses.

Rhett also blushed. He grasped her free hand to help her up. “It was a gift,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “From an artist in Florence. She, um… I sat for… well, I guess lay down for… You know, I should just get rid of that.”

Oh, God. It’s his. Suddenly, she couldn’t peel her eyes away from it. It can’t possibly be to size. She thought back to the way his cock had pressed against her. It was likely to size. Holy God. “It’s nice. Very impressive,” she said weakly. What else was there to say?

“Thank you.” Rhett found a spot over her left shoulder to stare at, his ears turning crimson. His lips were pinched, and she could see the hurt in his eyes.

“I’m going to go.” Managing a tight smile, she curtsied, felt stupid for doing so, and ran from the room. She didn’t stop running until her bedroom door slammed behind her and she sank into her mattress.

Why? Why? Why? Why? With every repetition, she knocked herself on the forehead. The solid tap reinforced her self-rebuke. How had she gotten herself into this mess and how the devil was she going to get herself out of it?

It was only once the despair had sunk in and both hands had settled on her chest that she opened her eyes and realized why her forehead throbbed. There, resting right above her heart, was the heavy marble cock.

Bloody hell.