Page 9 of While the Duke Was Sleeping (England’s Sweethearts #1)

Lady Cordelia stopped short at the door to the breakfast room, forcing Rhett to come to a stumbling halt. Her spine was straight, and he could see the tension in her shoulders. Her hand curled around the doorframe. Odd. She hadn’t hesitated on the docks when a barrel was literally barreling toward them. She hadn’t hesitated when the only solution to her problem was to have a strange man undress her, and she hadn’t hesitated to act this morning when his sisters had begun their bewailing.

So what was it about a simple family breakfast that had her refusing to cross the threshold?

He put his hand on the small of her back, trying to ignore the frisson of energy that coursed through him, and gave her a little push. Her shoulders rose, as though she’d taken a deep and bracing breath. Then she followed his direction and walked to the table, where his sisters had already claimed their usual spots, leaving two seats free across from each other.

He held out the chair for her to sit, and she blushed, the pink of her cheeks matching her strawberry blonde hair. She murmured her thanks, her demeanor a world away from the woman he’d first met. Hell, this wasn’t even the woman who’d been in Peter’s room that morning. This woman was exactly what one expected of a duke’s daughter. Quiet, demure, polite. He didn’t like it. It sat uneasily with him, like bad salmon. He much preferred the self-assured woman he’d been dreaming about for the past week.

As he sat, he studied her. The dress was obviously different from what she’d worn at the docks. It flowed over her curves instead of enveloping her. It was not weighted down with a king’s fortune in jewels. For a moment, he questioned whether the woman on the docks and the woman in front of him were even the same person—but the constellation of freckles across her nose was identical. It was also impossible for another person to have her eyes; they were light blue and flecked with dark sapphire. The way his body thrummed at the sight of her was the last bit of confirmation he needed—in his twenty-eight years, no other woman had stirred such a deep and all-consuming reaction in him. Just having her in the same room caused his stomach to tighten and his cock to twitch.

Damn. She was his brother’s bloody fiancée—supposedly. Potentially. If her claim was true. If it was, then when Peter woke, Rhett would be faced with a lifetime of damnable attraction toward a woman he could not have. Either that or she was lying, which, for no discernible reason, cut just as deep.

Regardless, he would go to the continent again, put as much distance between them as he could, and hope this swirly feeling in his belly disappeared.

“So, Lady Cordelia.”

Della winced as Jac addressed her. “Call me Della, please,” she said as the footmen carried breakfast on covered trays.

Jac grinned. “Della. Perfect. Our brother has said nothing about you. At least, Peter hasn’t. Rhett waxed on about your first encounter.” She waved a fork in Rhett’s direction, and, not for the first time, he wished for the power to extend his leg the extra three feet necessary to kick her under the table.

Cordelia looked up at him, her cheeks pink, no doubt curious about how much of their encounter at the docks he’d shared with his siblings. He shook his head to tell her he’d not shared everything.

She loosened a little and turned to his sister. “There isn’t much to tell.”

Jac snorted. “That can’t possibly be the truth. One moment you’re walking down the aisle in front of all of London, about to marry one of the most powerful men in the country—beautiful dress, by the way—and the next, you’re betrothed to my brother and sitting at his bedside. There are many steps between point A and point B, and I want to hear all about them.”

Cordelia gulped and reached for her tea. “You were all at the wedding?” she asked, taking a sip and looking for all the world like she was trying to hide behind the cup.

Meg wrinkled her nose. “Jacqueline was. I was keeping Edwina company. She was very sore that she’d not received an invitation.”

Winnie narrowed her eyes at Cordelia. “Only young women officially ‘out’ were invited.”

“But one would think you would know that,” Rhett said, stabbing the ham on his plate. “Given it was your wedding. It was your invitation list.”

“My father oversaw the invitation list,” Cordelia said carefully, holding her butter knife suspiciously tight. “And my mother organized the rest. It had to be done ‘just so,’ and I had little input in the matter.”

“And you were willing to hand over the reins of what was supposed to be the happiest day of your life?” he drawled.

“Rhett,” Meg snapped. “You’re being rude.” She gave him the “don’t screw this up” glare she’d been giving him for decades. His twin seemed determined to like Cordelia. She’d been far too welcoming this morning.

“Besides,” Jac added, “it was hardly the happiest day of her life if she didn’t go through with it. I certainly wouldn’t want to spend my days planning an event I didn’t want to be part of.”

“May we discuss something else?” Della asked.

“Of course,” Meg said.

“Absolutely,” Winnie added. “Tell us how you met Peter.”

“What made you fall in love with him?”

“How do you know she’s in love with him? That’s presumptuous.”

“It is not. Why would she marry him if she’s not in love with him?”

“Jac has a point. If she didn’t want to marry for love, she could have married Hornsmouth and saved herself the scandal.”

“Fair. Well?” All three girls turned to Della with such determination, Rhett was surprised their teeth weren’t bared.

For a moment, he felt a gut-wrenching urge to rescue her from his sisters’ interrogation. It was like the panic he’d felt when that blasted dress had pulled her beneath the water.

She looked at him, eyes wide, as though she could count on him to save her again.

He popped the ham into his mouth. Foolish. She would soon come to learn that he could not be counted on. Besides, if his sisters didn’t interrogate her, he would do it himself.

“What was the first thing you noticed about him?” Winnie prompted.

“About Peter?” She dragged her eyes from Rhett.

“Of course Peter. Who else?”

She swallowed, and her eyes flicked back toward Rhett. “His horse.”

“His horse ?” That was clearly not the response Winnie had been looking for.

“It was standing outside the cottage, munching on the few winter plants that were blooming.”

“Oh, Praxis. Yes, he is a fine animal.”

“I own his brother, you know.”

“Did Alastair put Zeus out to stud again this year?”

“Yes. They bred him with Lady Mottram’s filly.”

“Oh, excellent. That should be a good pairing.”

“So, Lady Cordelia, do you like horses when they aren’t eating your flowers?”

Cordelia’s eyes pinged from one sister to another as she tried to keep up with the conversation. It was to be expected. Spending time with this family required either the ability to track multiple concurrent threads or the willingness to ignore his sisters completely.

“Had you spoken with Peter before your arrival in Berwick?” Rhett asked, trying to get the questioning back on track. What he was really asking was, Will I find any evidence of your connection to my brother in his personal effects? Peter was a stickler for holding onto things. He kept every letter, every Christmas gift, every crossed-off to-do list. Every thought he had was recorded in one of his many diaries. If this supposed engagement wasn’t a sham, there would be some trail of it somewhere.

Cordelia looked at him. “No. We had never met until I arrived in Berwick.”

“And you came to Berwick because…?”

“I needed somewhere to go. Somewhere I wouldn’t be found. This seemed like a good spot.”

She wasn’t wrong. No one would come looking for her here. “And it’s a coincidence that you found this place—a town so small it doesn’t feature on maps, a place so hidden I can rarely find it despite having lived here, a place where there is a single, wealthy duke, who happened to own the cottage you leased?”

“Goodness, Rhett,” Meg said, her brows furrowing. “You are in a mood this morning.”

“I was woken up early.” He threw an annoyed look at Cordelia.

“Rhett is not a morning person,” Winnie added. “He will lie abed until midafternoon if he has the chance. It drives Peter mad.”

“The duke prefers more productive lifestyle choices?” Cordelia asked.

There it was, the inevitable comparison, the perfect duke and his feckless, irresponsible younger brother. Best not disappoint. “What need do I have to wake before my body tells me to?”

“Your body might tell you to wake earlier if you didn’t stay up until morning,” Meg said wryly.

“Or if you didn’t ply it with so much liquor when you were awake that it needed to force you into unconsciousness so it could have a break,” Jac added.

Their words stung, though they shouldn’t. They were mild compared to many descriptors of him. He’d heard them over and over, even before they were true, so he might as well live up to them. In the mornings, his head pounded, worse and worse as the years went on, making an excellent case for changing his libertine ways. But what would he possibly change them to? Not the army. Not the clergy. There was no room for a second son in the House of Lords. No estate for him to manage. That was probably for the best. He’d be a terrible duke. That fact had been pressed upon him from time immemorial.

There was no role for him here in England, so he’d gone elsewhere.

Della cleared her throat, looking from person to person, clearly uncomfortable. “Perhaps I should leave. This feels like a family discussion.”

“You’re marrying into this family,” Winnie said. “You might as well get used to us.”

“You’re an only child, aren’t you?” Meg said.

Della nodded. “Yes.”

“You’re lucky,” Winnie said.

Meg frowned. “You don’t mean that. She doesn’t mean that.”

“What’s it like to grow up alone?”

“She was hardly alone,” Jac said. “She had her parents, at least one nanny, a governess, and a house full of servants.”

Cordelia ignored them. “It was… what it was,” she said, slathering a thick layer of jam on to toast. “I moved around a lot. I met many, many people, but then they would leave, or I would leave, and I’d rarely see them again. There was never anyone around long enough to form close bonds with.”

“Except for your parents.”

She looked up and forced a smile to her face that didn’t align with the sadness in her eyes. “Except my parents.”

It was a sad way to live. Rhett’s siblings might drive him batty ninety percent of the time, but he wouldn’t give them up for all the respect in the world—not even Peter. He couldn’t imagine a childhood that didn’t involve fishing in the stream together, or competing to create the longest daisy chain, or sneaking out at night to watch for shooting stars.

Everything had been shared—beds, toys, books, meals, dreams. While Rhett might have fled to the continent to escape the family name, never, not once, did he want to escape his family.

Meg reached across the table and took Della’s hand. “Well, now you have us. Thank goodness. We’re so lucky you came into Peter’s life, and now of all times. I’m so grateful to you.”

Della shut her eyes, her head shaking almost imperceptibly, as though being included in the family was painful.

It was painful for him too. All the wayward fantasies he’d had of her had been dashed. “Yes, we’re all so grateful,” he repeated tightly. The words sounded bitter despite his best attempts to make them sound otherwise.

“You should come and stay with us,” Winnie said, clapping her hands together. “Then you can spend as much time with Peter as you like.”

Della’s headshake this time was firm, mirroring Rhett’s own objections. “Oh, no. I don’t think that’s a good idea. No. I don’t have a chaperone.”

“Meg can be your chaperone,” Jac said before Rhett could agree with Della and direct the conversation elsewhere. “She’s a married woman, and the servants won’t talk. Besides, what sort of impropriety could happen when Peter is sleeping?”

Cordelia looked at Rhett, her cheeks flaming red. It was as though all sorts of improprieties were tumbling through her mind. Perhaps it was their kiss. Perhaps it was the way she’d stood almost naked in front of him, and he’d held his breath the entire time. Perhaps she’d been as muddled and turned about by it as he had.

Perhaps she was having improper thoughts right now—because damn, there were a lot of improprieties that could occur with the two of them under the same roof, Peter’s presence or not. Rhett’s cock twinged as images of her bare skin under his fingertips ran through his mind.

She swallowed hard. “I think it’s best that I remain at the cottage.”

Yes. Perfect. The last thing Rhett needed was this woman under his roof. She inspired all sorts of feelings in him—suspicion, anger, envy, lust. She was a walking catalyst for the deadly sins. He couldn’t live with her for days on end and not come out of it as a damned man.

“Don’t be silly,” Jac said, oblivious to her brother’s discomfort. “At least this way, you’ll be here the moment Peter wakes. He’d want that.”

Della pursed her lips.

No. Don’t do it. Don’t say it. I’m not sure I can bear it.

She avoided looking in his direction as she said, “Thank you. I’ll stay.”