Page 21 of While the Duke Was Sleeping (England’s Sweethearts #1)

Rhett rolled his shoulders as he walked down the hallway from his brother’s study, a stack of ledgers and notebooks in his arms and a redheaded woman on his mind. Della hadn’t come down for dinner the previous night, or for breakfast that morning, and there had been no sign of her when he rode to Berwick’s small bakery. According to Winnie, Della had a splitting headache, but Rhett knew the truth. She was avoiding him, and it cut because he’d been left reeling by their encounter.

All morning, when he should have been concentrating on what Andrew was telling him, he’d been wallowing in the memory of her—the taste of her skin, the press of her hands against him, the intoxicating scent of lemon, the rush of blood through his system as she completely felled him. In all his years, no woman had ever set him so at sea. No woman had ever bewitched him so thoroughly.

All he wanted now was to close the chasm that had opened as she’d fled. He’d startled her. She was a proper young lady. He needed to apologize. Then he needed to do it with her all over again, this time with more care.

Andrew strode next to him, completely oblivious to the lewd turn of Rhett’s thoughts. “That was a lot of information,” he said in response to Rhett’s silence. “Even if you had stayed in England and been more involved with the family estates, that would still have been an overwhelming amount of information.”

With his free hand, Rhett rubbed his face. “I know. I know. But it still would have been easier…”—if he hadn’t been gallivanting around the world and had instead taken some interest in the family business. If Peter hadn’t thought of him as nothing more than an irresponsible, feckless fool. If Rhett hadn’t worked so hard to cultivate that exact impression.

Della had been right; he could no longer ignore this. Now there was a tower of notebooks and journals tucked into the crook of his elbow—light reading he needed to get through today in order to make fairly crucial decisions tomorrow. Light as a lodestone, that is. The only thing that would save him from it was a miracle—Peter waking before then.

Rhett had thought he’d understood the magnitude of just how his life would change if the dreaded circumstance arose—the constant pull of people who would need something from him—but the numbers, in black and red within the ledgers, illustrated it in a way that nothing yet had. Berwick was one of nine estates, encompassing over ten thousand people. The risk of their collective disappointment threatened to crush him. His chest felt tight, his arms were shaking beneath the load of leather-bound books, and he had the early markings of a headache forming at the base of his skull.

“You care. That’s not nothing.”

When he and Andrew entered the hallway, the constriction around his lungs eased, and he drew a deep, full breath for the first time in hours. She had her back to him and was examining the Caravaggio by the stairs. She must have washed her hair. It was in a long, haphazard strawberry-blonde plait down her back, with a twist in the middle of it where she must have pulled it over her shoulder to finish braiding.

“Della.” He put a hand on her shoulder, seeking the comfort of her, seeking her unflappable calm, seeking the now-familiar frisson of energy that sparked between them.

She shrank away as she spun.

Everything in his head shifted, and the books he was holding came to a thudding crash on the floor. “You’re not Della.”

The woman wrinkled her nose.

Andrew stepped forward and gave the woman a nod. “My lord, may I present Lady Cordelia’s maid, Miss Rosebourne? Miss Rosebourne, Lord Everett Montgomery.”

Rhett bowed out of politeness rather than protocol. The chit gritted her teeth and curtsied in response. It was remarkable how similar the two women were. Their hair was identical in color and texture. They both had blue eyes, but where Della’s were deep and fathomless, sparking with humor and empathy and soul, her maid’s gaze was cold and shallow like a midwinter fountain that had yet to be drained.

“My lord.” She had the clipped accent of the royal class and the bearing of it too. If Andrew hadn’t said otherwise, Rhett would have assumed she was a member of the ton , not a maid. But that couldn’t be the case, unless…

“Are you a relation of the Thirwhestle family? Della’s cousin, perhaps?”

She grimaced. “You might say that.”

Rhett was tempted to give her a message for Della—something simple. Something benign. Something that showed that she was in his thoughts without revealing just what those thoughts were.

But before he had a chance, the maid turned her back on him.

Rude.

“Why are things not yet resolved?”

Adelaide jumped. She’d been so lost in thought she hadn’t heard the door open. “Cordelia,” she said, turning away from the window.

Cordelia stood in front of her, arms akimbo. “Why are you still here? It has been days. I was counting on you having everything sorted by now.”

Adelaide pinched the bridge of her nose. She had bigger problems to deal with than Cordelia’s impatience. “I thought we agreed that you’d remain at the cottage. I’ve told the household that the duke’s accident overwhelmed you and that you are beset with migraines.” The last thing she needed was Cordelia further complicating an already impossibly complicated situation.

“I’m hungry.” Cordelia crossed to the bellpull and yanked it. “I cannot believe you would let me and Patches starve.”

“Patches?”

“The cat.”

Sigh. There was no reason Cordelia or the stray cat should starve. Adelaide had left the cottage stocked with bread, jam, eggs, and some vegetables. Even if Cordelia couldn’t pull together a soup, she should’ve been able to put together a sandwich. The cat, no doubt, could survive well enough on its own.

“You can’t be here,” Adelaide said, standing and trying to usher Cordelia out of the room. Cordelia refused to move, stubborn as a bloody rock. “Please. If anyone should see you…”

“I am dressed like a peasant.” Cordelia gestured to the dress she was wearing, the one Adelaide had worn to the wedding—her favorite. “If anyone should see me, they will simply presume I’m a maid.” She shuddered.

Adelaide gritted her teeth. The compounding stress of the past few days was exhausting, and she wasn’t sure she had the energy to shape her words into something appropriate. Thankfully, she was prevented from biting back by a knock at the door. A housemaid entered.

“You rang, my lady?” she asked Adelaide.

Adelaide shifted so that she was standing between the maid and Cordelia. “Could you please bring a lunch tray? Thank you.”

The maid gave her a surprised look before adding a quick curtsy and exiting.

Cordelia hmph ed. “That maid is impertinent. How dare she look at you… me… like that.”

Della took a deep breath and tried to calm the raging frustration within her before turning. “Daisy is likely confused because not ten minutes ago I told her I didn’t want luncheon.”

She’d eaten next to nothing since dinner the night before, taken in her room because she was too cowardly to face either Rhett or Frank. Everything she’d eaten had tasted of ash. All she’d managed that morning was tea and toast in her room. Even that had made her stomach turn.

She knew this feeling. The nausea wouldn’t relent until the threat did.

Cordelia plopped down onto the bed, completely oblivious to Adelaide’s discomfort. “Well, that makes one of us. If you are going to stay any longer, you are going to need to stop by the cottage at least twice a day to prepare some food.”

Adelaide started to neaten her already tidy room, untucking and retucking the chair. “Or I could come over once and show you how to prepare food. Teach a man, and all that.” The moment she said the words, she regretted them.

“I don’t fish,” Cordelia said sternly.

Adelaide sighed. “Fine. You can eat luncheon here, and then I will come around later this afternoon to prepare soup.” A large pot. Enough soup to feed a person for a week. Not that she planned on being in Berwick that long. With any luck, she and Cordelia would be gone in a day. “But you can’t come here again.”

Cordelia’s presence posed too many risks. She was loose-lipped and couldn’t be trusted not to spill the truth to Rhett accidentally before Adelaide could tell him herself. Hell, her mere presence might create questions about Adelaide’s story. Cordelia looked and carried herself more like a lady than Adelaide could pretend to be. It wouldn’t take long for that to raise eyebrows. Besides, the danger had gotten far more immediate.

“Rhett’s uncle has arrived. He knows I am not you, and he’s making threats.”

“Lord Frank Montgomery is here?” Cordelia put a hand to her throat, her already-pale skin blanching further. “Oh, God. What if he’s already sent for the duke? The other duke. My father duke, not my fiancé duke.”

Adelaide rested her hip against the desk. “If that’s the case, then we have two days before your father arrives.” A day for the news to reach London, a day for the duke to get here. Can you finish it in two days, Adelaide?

Cordelia threw herself back on the bed, fists slamming into the mattress. “Why is this taking so long?”

Adelaide was not in the mood for her mistress’s self-absorbed tantrums. “The duke has yet to wake,” she snapped. “Do you understand the implications of that? A body can only go so long without food and water. The longer he remains unconscious, the greater the chance that he will not wake.”

“The greater the chance that I killed him, you mean?” Cordelia asked.

“Yes, Cordelia. The greater the chance you killed him.”

A tear dripped down Cordelia’s cheek and onto the pillow she lay on. Adelaide immediately regretted her harsh words. Cordelia was but a child, and one who had been taught entitlement from birth.

“What happens if he dies?”

Adelaide sighed. “I do not know.”

“Will his siblings question the circumstances of his death? Or have they accepted his fall as an accident?”

Adelaide rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I don’t believe they would have questioned it, but Lord Frank is threatening to allege murder.”

“Why would he do that? He and my father are friends.”

She pulled out the chair she had just put away and sank into it. Lord, she was tired. “Lord Frank wants the dukedom, or whatever parts of it the law will allow him to have. He wants me to convince Rhett to return to the continent and have his uncle act as his proxy.”

“That makes no sense.” Cordelia’s eyebrows furrowed, and she cocked her head in confusion. “Why would Lord Everett listen to you?”

Adelaide was saved from answering by a knock at the door. The housemaid entered with a tray covered with plates. The maid’s eyes darted between Adelaide and Cordelia, who looked perfectly comfortable lounging upon the bed in a manner no lady’s maid ever would. Adelaide could see the wheels turning. Their time was running out. Someone was bound to put the pieces together.

As soon as the door closed, Cordelia leapt from the bed and nudged Adelaide from the chair. Within seconds, she was devouring the food. Perhaps she truly hadn’t eaten since Adelaide had left.

“So, tell me why Lord Frank thinks you can influence Lord Everett,” Cordelia said between mouthfuls.

Adelaide had no good answer to that. She took Cordelia’s spot on the bed, pinching the bridge of her nose while she tried to think of one.

“Goodness,” Cordelia exclaimed, dropping a forkful of ham. “Does this have anything to do with the reason Lord Everett touched my arm in a very familiar manner? Adelaide!”

“We are friends. That is all.” But even she could tell her tone was not convincing.

“ Friends? Men like Lord Everett Montgomery do not have women friends. They have paramours.”

“That’s an unfair assumption about him.” But not an unfair assessment of the situation, Adelaide.

Cordelia’s hunger clearly overrode her many years of deportment training, because she shoveled more food into her mouth and did not wait to swallow it all before continuing. “He left London to avoid the hordes of angry husbands ready to hoist him by the underclothes he never wears.”

“He has changed. You don’t know him as I do.”

Cordelia was yet another person who only saw the irresponsible, carefree facade Rhett had so carefully created. Cordelia might have been trying to issue a warning, but all it did was solidify Adelaide’s feelings. Rhett had gone so many years without being seen, not even by his family. She would not betray him now when he was ready to take off the mask and show the world who he truly was.

Cordelia didn’t need or wait for an answer. She waved a fork at Adelaide. “Regardless of whether he has changed, he is a member of the aristocracy. You are a maid.”

“I know!” It was Adelaide’s turn to throw herself on the bed, an arm across her face to hide her frustration. The situation was impossible. If the duke died, she and Rhett could never be together. The only chance she and Rhett had was for the duke to wake, a scenario that seemed less and less likely.

“Adelaide Rosebourne, have you developed feelings for this rake?”

“Yes,” she mumbled. “I love him. But if you knew him, you’d understand. He might come across as an irresponsible rogue, but he’s sweet and funny and incredibly loyal.”

Cordelia snorted. “Very loyal, clearly, if he’s pursuing his brother’s fiancée.”

“I’m not his brother’s fiancée.”

“Does he know that?”

“No.”

“Well, there you go.” Cordelia reached for the tea that had come with the food. Had she had tea since Adelaide had left? Could she even boil water? “Lord Everett is a man who would steal from his own flesh and blood. Point proven.”

Adelaide sat up and looked at her employer. “Peter and I are hardly a love match.”

Cordelia threw her hands in the air. “You’re not a match at all! Do you hear yourself? Adelaide, you are a maid, pretending to be a lady, trying to get me out of marital entanglements, not dumping me into the middle of an even more complicated one. Lord, I can just see the headlines now: Runaway bride leaves second duke for his untitled philandering brother.”

She’s not wrong. The papers will have a field day if any of this gets out. Which it will, if you don’t do exactly what Frank wants.

“I’ll fix this,” Adelaide said. “I’ll tell them all the truth right now.”

“No!” Cordelia jumped up. “If you tell them the truth and the duke lives, I will be married off to him to save my family from the scandal. If you tell them the truth and the duke dies, I will be arrested . How could you mess this up so badly?”

Adelaide dug her hands into the blankets to stop from pulling her hair out. “This was your idea.”

“I didn’t know the duke’s entire family was going to show up at his bedside. Of all the interfering—” Cordelia was interrupted by a knock at the door. Before either of them could call out in protest, it opened.

Adelaide slid off the side of the bed, her arse hitting the carpet with a thwack. Hiding was instinct, if a completely useless one. If Frank was at the door, her absence would be an invitation for him to confront Cordelia.

“Della, why are you lunching in your… never mind,” Jac said. “Are you coming? Andrew has brought the Christmas tree into Peter’s room. It isn’t Christmas without him, and perhaps the tree will deliver a Christmas miracle.”

From where she sat, Adelaide could see Cordelia’s confusion. Her brows furrowed. She threw a quick look at Adelaide as if to confirm that events were unfolding as they appeared and then cocked her head.

“Well?” Jac continued. “I have set aside Peter’s share of the baubles, but if you don’t come now, I can’t guarantee Winnie won’t steal them.”

She doesn’t have her spectacles on. She thinks Cordelia is you. Adelaide motioned to her mistress to play along.

“I will be there in a few minutes?” Cordelia said uncertainly.

“Very well. I’m sure I can fend my sisters off for a few minutes, though they are like wild jackals when it comes to the Christmas tree.”

Adelaide heard the door shut and dropped her head in her hands.

Cordelia threw her an arch stare. “Well, aren’t you on familiar terms after four days? You’re decorating their Christmas tree.”

“They are very sweet. They didn’t hesitate to bring me, you, into the bosom of their family.”

Cordelia looked as though she were Vesuvius, ready to blow. “Then detach yourself from the teat and get back to reality. You can’t just join a family, especially the family of a duke. Get a grip on yourself, Adelaide.”

But what if you could? What if they’d welcome you?

Cordelia folded her hands in her lap. “What do we do?”

Adelaide closed her eyes, wishing she could block it all out. “You go home. I wake the duke and convince him to stay quiet.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”