Page 4 of While the Duke Was Sleeping (England’s Sweethearts #1)

Stupid, stupid, stupid, Adelaide. Why did you kiss him?

Because he was handsome and funny and had tended to her with a care she hadn’t felt in a decade. Because as he’d braided her hair, she’d felt a peace that she was entirely unused to. When she traveled, she always had a part of herself ready to flee at a moment’s notice. She never entirely relaxed. Even once she’d taken the position of lady’s maid, there was always that preparedness to leap into action at Cordelia’s whim.

With Rhett’s fingers combing through her hair, her entire body had gone limp. A decade of alertness had disappeared in the space of minutes. No man had ever made her feel like this. There was something calm, and sure, and content about the moment despite the fact that they were in what was likely the seediest tavern in England. She could not imagine a more disgusting place to kiss a man, yet she had.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, Adelaide. She had enough on her plate. She didn’t need the distraction.

Yet still, she wondered. How hard would it be to find an Everett Montgomery in England? Once she’d settled things and Cordelia was again ensconced in the bosom of her family, once Adelaide had put aside enough money to be free, could she—would she—find him again?

She trudged up the stairs of the Briarstone Inn and knocked on a door with the three-two-three pattern they’d discussed previously.

Cordelia opened it. “What in heaven’s name happened to you?”

“It is a long story.”

“Adelaide, you reek.”

“I am aware; and trust me when I say I smell a lot better than I did an hour ago.”

“Impossible,” Cordelia muttered, standing aside so that Adelaide could enter. “You smell like a rotting cat that took a dip in the Thames.”

Cordelia wasn’t far off, but Adelaide did not have the energy to explain it. Besides, then she’d have to explain Rhett, and she didn’t want to share the memory of him with her employer. That was hers to keep tucked into her chest.

“What time does the ship leave?” Cordelia asked. “Are you sure you know what to do once we reach France?”

“There is no ship leaving today that will take us, my lady.”

“ What? ” Cordelia’s shriek raised all of Adelaide’s hackles. “Where are we going to go? What are we going to do? We cannot stay in London, Adelaide. Someone will find us.”

Adelaide took a deep breath and faced her mistress. “Would that be the worst thing?”

Cordelia looked like a stunned fish. “What are you suggesting?”

“Perhaps we should return to your father’s house.” It had been Adelaide’s first instinct to flee, but first instinct and rational thought were two very different beasts. Now that she’d had time for the latter, sending Cordelia back home seemed the wisest move.

“No. He will be too angry. And somebody will see me. The papers are likely waiting outside my house. I cannot go back until the gossip has died off.”

“My lady, what you’re asking of me is a great deal.” Certainly, it was more trouble than this posting was worth. Had Cordelia gone through with the match, she would now be the Duchess of Hornsmouth, and Adelaide’s wages would have doubled. Now she was left wondering what other roles she might be more suited to that could bring her dream of her very own home to fruition.

“This is your fault.” Cordelia stood with arms akimbo. “You are the one who told me to leave Hornsmouth.”

Adelaide took a step back. “Pardon?”

“Last night. You said, ‘Why are you even going ahead with it?’”

Fuck me. “It was three in the morning. I’d spent an entire night listening to you elucidate the duke’s same four faults. I was tired, and I spoke out of turn.”

“You did.”

“I didn’t think you’d heard me.”

“Well, you were wrong, and as I walked down that aisle, your words echoed over and over.”

Good Lord, Adelaide. What have you done?

Cordelia narrowed her eyes. “It is your fault as much as it is mine that we are here, so you must help me.”

That ratio of responsibility seemed miles off, but if there was even a sliver of blame to put on Adelaide, she couldn’t throw Cordelia to the wolves. One certain wolf, in particular. “Fine. We will hide out for a week until London finds something else to talk about, but then we will return to your father.”

“A month.”

“A fortnight only.”

“You underestimate how many people will enjoy my fall from grace.”

“A month then, but you must guarantee my wages.”

“Done.”

“Fine.”

Adelaide stalked to the fireplace and tossed Cordelia’s dress in, shuddering at the sharp hiss as damp fabric encountered flame. The fire dwindled. She pulled on the rope that would call one of the inn’s maids. She needed proper clothing and more wood. She could pick the jewels off Cordelia’s dress from the ashes.

As she waited, she paced the room, searching for a solution other than sailing to France. She thought back to all the maps she’d studied while looking for new towns and experiences to write about. They needed somewhere no one would think to search for them. A small village, not a city. Everyone would expect them to go where Cordelia could still have her luxuries.

Berwick. It doesn’t even make it onto most maps.

“I know somewhere, but you cannot go as yourself. It would create too much gossip, and that would travel to London no matter where we hid.”

“If you’re about to suggest that I be your maid—”

“Sisters,” Adelaide interjected before Cordelia could say anything that would make the day harder. “We will travel as spinster sisters who are looking for a cottage to let.”

“A cottage? You want me to stay in a cottage?”

Adelaide rolled her eyes. “Where did you think we were going to stay? Even if we had made it to France, we still would have had to lie low until the gossip died and you were ready to face your father. That was never going to be in a manor house.”

Cordelia flopped back on the bed. “This is the worst day of my life.”

Cordelia was fully dry, wearing Adelaide’s nicest dress, still smelling of the jasmine oil Adelaide had put in her bathwater before the wedding. But sure. Cordelia was having the worst day.

Later that night, as she stared into the flames and tried not to inhale, she felt an overwhelming sense of wanting. Not to be anywhere but here, which was a familiar feeling, but to be in one place specifically—in London’s most disgusting bathroom with Rhett Montgomery.

Not a single hackney cab would take Rhett home, especially given his pack was sitting at the bottom of the Thames along with the diary he’d been writing in and his money pouch. When the tavern had realized that he had no way of paying for the soap, water, and change of clothes they had given him, they’d booted him out before he could get clean. He’d walked three hours in wet boots, his heels rubbing raw, until he’d found someone willing to overlook his bedraggled state and lease him a horse on the condition that he purchase the saddle at an exorbitant price once he reached the duke’s residence because there was no way the reek of the river would come out of the leather.

The entire time, he was thinking of the beautiful woman whose kiss had completely undone him, which was ridiculous. As far as his semi-naked encounters went, that one was tame, but it had left him with an unbearable needing.

Which meant to say that his mood was worse than his odor by the time he reached his brother’s London residence.

“You can forget about coming into my kitchen,” the duke’s cook said, waving a spoon at him.

“Mrs. Brown, surely you wouldn’t reject your most beloved Montgomery sibling?” He gave her the same cheeky grin he used to give when he swiped hot biscuits from the bench. She had always tsk ed but would let him walk away with a handful anyway.

Not today. “I reject that god-awful stench and the way you’re dripping it onto my porch. Get off with you. Go around and use the front door like a proper gentleman.”

Rhett sighed. “Bennett has already denied me entrance.” It was hardly the homecoming he’d been expecting. Usually, he was feted with open arms by family and staff alike, but the butler didn’t want a single drop of the river to land on the polished marble floor of the foyer and had shooed him away.

“Then go to the stables and get hosed off. You can’t be smelling like that.”

The stables, where he’d just been. Where the groom had taken one look at him, muttered a brusque, “My lord,” and then quickly found work well elsewhere.

“Can I at least have a biscuit? I’m starving, and there’s not a single cook on the continent that can measure up to your baking.”

Mrs. Brown flushed pink and tucked the wooden spoon into the front pocket of her apron. “I’ll send someone to the stables with a plate. Now get going before the very presence of you contaminates tonight’s dinner.” She turned her back on him and motioned for the kitchen maids to return to their work.

As he headed toward the stables, he kicked along a pebble. “Welcome home, my lord,” he muttered to himself. “How wonderful to see you. The house has been dull as dishwater without you.”

Not that the house would have been dull, exactly. He had three sisters who lived at Montgomery House, and the younger two could certainly create as much havoc as he did. But he liked to think that he added a certain joie de vivre to the stately home, and that his presence had been missed. Instead, even the horses shied away from him as he entered the stables.

Damn it. He stripped to his smalls and dumped his ruined clothing in a pile. It would need to be tossed onto a fire. There was no salvaging any of it.

He took a battered metal pail from the corner of the stables and placed it beneath the pump outside. Dumping one bucketful of water over his head did practically nothing to the grime that had affixed itself to him. At this rate, it would be half an hour before he was clean enough to step foot in the house.

He’d just filled a third bucket at the pump when his middle sister sang out from behind him.

“Rhett!” Jacqueline might be of age, but deportment training had done nothing to curb her liveliness. She could still be heard before she was even seen. “Bennett said you’re home and that you need a change of—” She stumbled as she caught sight and smell of him. Pressing a hand to her lips, she blanched, crinkling her nose as she did so, causing her spectacles to slip. The hand at her mouth caught them before they could fall to the ground. “Oh, good God. What happened to you?”

What happened? He’d been pitched into the Thames by a beautiful woman who had smelled like lemons in that moment before they’d hit the water, and who had left him yearning. Yearning , for heaven’s sake. Like an unworldly pup.

“It was an unfortunate mishap,” he said. That said, if he could do it over again, he would do exactly the same. He would treasure that kiss until he was old and failing.

“I cannot even put into words how bad you smell.”

“Thank you, sister.” What would life have been like as an only child? “Shouldn’t you be out paying calls or something? Or is this season as dull as the last?”

“This season has not been cut short like last year’s, more’s the pity. You could have ruined this one too.” Jac hugged the shirt and trousers she carried to her chest. “Being out is bollocks.”

Rhett snorted. London society was bollocks. She wasn’t wrong. But if he had to be in London, tickling those bollocks made for an enjoyable pastime. “Finagle me an invitation to whichever ball you’re attending tonight, and I promise you some fun.”

The duke wanted to see him promptly, but escorting his sister to a ball was a perfectly reasonable excuse to delay his travel to the Strafford country estate where his brother was residing.

Gritting his teeth, he closed his eyes and dumped the bucket of water over his head.

“What the jumping jacks have you been doing? You smell like you’ve been rolling around in a pig’s wallow.”

He didn’t need to open his eyes to know who spoke. It wasn’t enough to have one sister catch him in such a state—wet, filthy, and wearing nothing but drawers. His youngest sister, the least likely to let him live it down, was also witness to his debacle.

He wiped the water from his eyes with the back of his hand and fixed Edwina with a mock glare. A full decade younger than Rhett, she had a sharp tongue that had not yet been dulled by society’s demand for propriety. “Rolling around? You speak as though I’m an animal.”

“You are an animal, brother. You’re naked in a stable, washing in a bucket.” Winnie snorted—horselike, he might add.

“I am not naked, and you are insufferable.” She would bring this moment up whenever she wanted to score a point for the rest of their lives.

“Oh, believe me, I’m suffering,” Winnie continued. “Every creature within a mile of you is suffering. Perhaps Bennett will make you sleep in the stables tonight, and the horses can take your room.”

If he had anything near him, he’d throw it at her. Especially if it was something that had accompanied him into the river. But all he had was the bucket, which he needed if he was going to wash the muck from him. He settled for sticking out his tongue.

And that dignified expression was the first thing his twin, Margaret Montgomery, now Lady Titteler, saw as she rounded the corner of the barn, one hand holding a plate of Mrs. Brown’s warm shortbread. She had a wide smile on her face that warped as she wrinkled her nose.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“An unfortunate mishap, apparently,” Jac replied.

“I fell into the Thames.”

Because his younger sisters were confirmed devils, they dissolved into a pile of giggles. “Shall we place bets on how it happened?” Winnie asked when she could compose herself. “I think he lost a bet with one of the crew he’d been traveling with, and they tossed him in.”

Jac shook her head. “It was a prank that backfired. He tried to toss someone else in, and he slipped.”

“Maybe Lord Baltiford heard Rhett was returning home and was waiting for him when the ship docked.”

“Maybe it was Lady Baltiford, who, I heard, is still peevish that Rhett left in the first place.”

Rhett scowled and pumped furiously to fill another bucket. The sooner he was clean and dressed, the sooner he’d not be at such a disadvantage. “Next time you wonder why I spend my time on the continent, remember this moment.”

Jac and Winnie continued to giggle. Meg sighed. “That’s enough, sisters. Edwina, go fetch a horse blanket.” She crossed to Rhett, ignoring the filth she stepped in as she neared, and planted a firm kiss on his cheek. “Welcome home, brother. You’ve been missed.”

At last, someone cared. It was always Meg. He and his twin were closer than two people ought to be. “I’d hug you,” he said.

She stepped back. “Don’t you dare touch me. Don’t touch anything.”

Rhett looked longingly at the plate of shortbread she still carried. Every second, the biscuits cooled further.

She rolled her eyes and held one up so he could take a bite.

“Gods, that’s delicious,” he said through a mouth of crumbs.

“I’ll make sure Mrs. Brown sends a plate to the drawing room when you come inside. Then you can tell me all about your travels now that you’re finally home.”

There was the slightest hint of reproach in her tone. He should write more when he was away. He was a terrible correspondent. He could never quite capture his adventures properly when he put pen to page, so he had given up trying. Meg was a constant source of news and a tether to the family that he didn’t reciprocate nearly enough.

She handed the plate of biscuits to Jac before returning to the house.

Deliberately, with a satisfied smirk on her face, his middle sister took all three remaining biscuits and stuffed them in her mouth at once.

“You devil child.” For months, he had been dreaming of Mrs. Brown’s shortbread.

Her mouth was so full, the grin she gave in response barely looked human. Winnie hmph ed as she handed Rhett a coarse, wide blanket from the stalls. No doubt she, too, had been looking forward to a biscuit.

He wrapped the blanket around his waist, never taking his eyes off Jac. “You are going to pay for that.”

She backed up a step, and then a second, but there would be no escaping him. He launched forward with all the speed of a man used to sparring in a ring. She dropped the plate to flee, but she was seconds too late. He bent down, and caught her around the stomach, flipping her over his shoulder.

“Ew. No. Put me down. Your filth is going to transfer.” She pounded on his back with his fists. “Rheeeeeett.”

Her screams were like finding a proper ale pie in some hole-in-the-wall café in Greece—a sweet, sweet reminder of home. With a satisfied smirk, he dumped her in the mud by the pump.

Three hours and two entire cakes of soap later, Rhett was sitting in his favorite armchair by a roaring fire, a full plate of biscuits and a pot of tea on the table next to him. However apprehensive he was about his upcoming conversation with the duke, this was bliss. Distance made one appreciate the little touches of home more.

Meg entered. She dropped a quick kiss on Rhett’s damp curls and then sniffed.

“I know,” he said before she could mention it. “I lathered my hair a dozen times.”

She reached into her skirts and pulled out a small bottle of perfumed oil. “Here. This will mask it until it fades.”

“Thank you.” He uncorked the bottle and tipped a generous amount of oil into his hands. It had the sweet summer scent of jasmine. He rubbed it over his fingers and then through his hair. For good measure, he scraped at the remnants on his palm with his fingers, hoping to dislodge the smell that had taken up residence under his nails.

Once she’d settled her skirts around her comfortably, Meg folded her hands in her lap, looking for all the world like their mother had years ago. “Why are you home, brother? There’s no wedding, christening, or funeral.”

Rhett shifted uncomfortably. “Can’t I come home simply because I wanted to see my family for Christmas?”

She smiled. “You can, by all means, but you haven’t. You missed the last five Christmases, after all.”

There was no point in keeping anything from his twin. He could hedge his words as much as he wanted to, she would still extract the truth from him. She was tenacious that way.

“The duke called me home. It seems he’s become dissatisfied with my life of late.”

“I can’t imagine why that would be,” she said dryly. “Perhaps it has something to do with all the women. Or all the wine.”

“Which you only know about because I write you.”

Margaret narrowed her eyes. “Occasionally. You write me occasionally.”

He’d walked right into that jab. “Yes,” he conceded, “but my point is that my international adventures are always discreet. Unless you’ve been gossiping where you ought not, the duke does not know about them.”

She shook her head. “They are not as discreet as you think, or have you forgotten Finland?”

Rhett shifted uncomfortably. Getting arrested for public indecency had earned him a postal tongue-lashing from his brother. “That was one time. He knows of nothing else.”

“That one time caused havoc here in England. We were forced to leave London early to avoid the gossip.” Meg was looking at him with an expression of disapproval he rarely received from her, and it made him want to squirm in his seat.

“I’ve done nothing so feckless since.” At least, nothing that had made it across Europe.

Meg tsk ed. “Perhaps it’s the nothing that Peter objects to. You’ve been gallivanting around the continent for years now with no sign that it’s leading anywhere. At some point, you are going to have to give up this nomadic lifestyle and come home. Find a career. Find a wife. Add another branch to the Montgomery family tree.”

The thought sent a shiver down his spine. The entire purpose of traveling the continent was to distance himself from the family name. He told no one that he was part of that Montgomery family, the Duke of Strafford’s Montgomery family. Hell, half the time he didn’t give a last name at all. Being the perpetual lesser brother in England was hard enough. He refused to be so elsewhere.

“I have no wish to come home, Meg. I can’t think of anything more suffocating.”

She frowned. “You’d rather drink your way through Europe? Still? It might have been justified in the beginning after what that woman did to you, but are you not coming to find it tiring?”

“No, I’m not.” Rhett studied his fingernails to avoid looking at his sister, else she would see the truth. Exploration had once created a near-constant state of gratification, but now it was peppered with moments of ennui, and those moments were stretching in duration.

It terrified him.

If he was a disappointment in England and disenchanted on the continent, what else was there for him? A wife and family? Hardly. Women didn’t want black sheep. They wanted the golden goose, or golden ram. Whichever. Rhett had experienced it firsthand. The memory of it was burned into his brain—him, standing with a dozen tulips, ready to propose like an utter fool, and Lady Meredith Moylan caught whispering to her friend.

“Three weeks, and he has yet to introduce me to the duke. How long do you suppose I’m to feign interest before I find another way?”

It had shattered something within him. She hadn’t wanted him; Peter had been the prize she’d truly sought. Of course he was. He was the duke, and Rhett was not.

Rhett had no plans to repair those broken bits of himself. They could stay where they were, stacked into a barricade.

“I have no intention of coming home or marrying. I’m completely satisfied with my life as it is.”

Meg narrowed her eyes. “But what about children?”

Rhett slumped in his chair with a carefree shrug. “I’ll be the fun uncle. The duke can be the responsible one. He does responsibility so well, don’t you think? No point competing with that.”

There was no point trying to compete with his brother at anything. Peter would always be richer, taller, and titled. Peter was the one who women sought for marriage and who men sought the good graces of. Rhett was merely valued for his familial ties.

“What of a career then?”

Rhett cocked his head. “Careful, sister. You are sounding like our brother.”

“I don’t think Peter is wrong.”

He tugged at his upstanding collar, his pulse ratcheting up. “There is nothing I’m good at, other than excess. Everything I try, I fail at. Now, I beg you to drop it. I will experience disdain enough from Peter. I do not need it from you too.” In frustration, he unknotted his string tie and cast it aside.

There was a long pause, and Rhett could see his sister tally up the pros and cons of pressing him. Evidently, she landed on peace, rearranging herself in her seat and putting on a bright smile. “I think Peter has decided to take a wife. He wrote last week and asked if the duchess’s suite was up to snuff.”

Rhett pondered the consequences of that. Once Peter married and had a son, Rhett would not even be the heir. Would that be an improvement or a further embarrassment?

Jac and Winnie both entered Meg’s drawing room, Jac also freshly showered. She scowled as she took a seat on the settee across from him. “I had to throw out my slippers, you know.”

Rhett nudged the plate of biscuits toward his sister. “I’ll take you shopping for another pair. Unless the duke has closed your accounts too?”

“No.”

Well, that was a relief. “Good. While we’re at it, I need some new boots. I might have survived a dunking in the Thames, but they didn’t, and I do not have another pair.”

Jac sniggered. “Who trips into the river? Were you drunk?”

Rhett drew himself up and tried to look impressive. “If you must know, I was saving a life.”

All three girls exchanged dubious glances. “Whose?” Jac asked.

“I do not know her full name.” And for that, he was truly sorry. “But she was beautiful, and if I hadn’t risked my life, the outrageous dress she was wearing would have drowned her. I’m surprised she could even stand upright under the weight of all those jewels.”

There was a collective gasp. “He’s not talking about…”

“You don’t think…”

“Surely not…”

“It’s possible she left England,” Winnie said. “I might, under the circumstances.”

All three sisters nodded in agreement, but they apparently didn’t feel the need to enlighten him.

“What are you talking about?” If it had something to do with his enigma, he needed to know about it.

Jac turned to him. “Did she have red hair? And was about yea high?” Rhett’s heart yammered unexpectedly as his sister stood and held up a hand just above her own head.

“She did. She was. Do you know her? Who is she?”

Winnie leaned forward, hands clasped in excitement. “Brother, you met Lady Cordelia Highwater. Who, as of this morning, is the most infamous debutante in London.”

She didn’t look infamous. Ridiculous gown aside, she looked as fresh as new snow. She also wasn’t a debutante, and she was definitely not ton . She was too practical; she was too quick to utter the words “gullible prick,” and she had kissed him in a filthy tavern.

“She was supposed to be Her Grace, the Duchess of Hornsmouth,” Jac said. “But she fled from her wedding this morning. One moment, she was at the altar, and then the next, she was running like demons from hell were after her. It was splendid to watch.”

Winnie frowned. “I missed all the excitement. I wasn’t invited because I’m not out. It was the biggest scandal of the year, and I was stuck at home.”

For once, the gossip didn’t intrigue him. He had thought his sisters could shed light on who Della was, but the two could not possibly be the same person. She had a mouth that could make a sailor blush and a forthright demeanor that was devilishly attractive. Perhaps she was an actress.

“Did she say anything to you?” Meg asked. “Did she give any clue why she was leaving London?”

“All she said was how grateful she was that I saved her life and that I was her hero.” Never would he admit to his sisters that the only reason the woman had been in the water was because she had saved his life and that, in return, he’d pulled her into the river with him. No sane man gave his siblings that kind of ammunition.

“Perhaps she will seek you out,” Jac said excitedly. “In gratitude. Perhaps she’ll come for tea, and then we can discover what truly made her flee her wedding.”

“She is not coming for tea,” Rhett said gruffly. She had kissed him and then left. Perhaps it was for the best. The kiss had been unlike any other, and that was not good. After Lady Meredith, he’d decided that serious relationships were not for him. Serious anything was not for him. He didn’t have the talent for it, so he would take his pleasure where it was offered without strings attached.

Which was why this stupid fluttering in his chest was a problem. Something about this woman had him off-kilter. Perhaps it was her beauty. Perhaps it was her unexpected manner. Perhaps it was how easily she had walked away. Rhett was a sucker for women who didn’t want him.

He would hope that she’d found better luck elsewhere on the docks and was now many, many miles from him. “You’re mistaken. The woman I met was absolutely not Lady Cordelia Highwater.”