While the Duke Was Sleeping

by Samara Parish

Genres: Women's Fiction; Regency Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

In this whirlwind regency romance, a woman with a secret identity and a rakish bachelor find themselves unable to resist each other—perfect for fans of Netflix's Bridgerton.
 

When Adelaide Rosebourne must impersonate her mistress for a few days, it doesn’t seem like it’ll be a difficult task, even if her mistress’s supposed fiancé is in a coma. All she has to do is wait until he wakes up and then convince him to retract the proposal—thereby securing a tidy reward. What she doesn’t count on is the arrival of the duke’s brother and his damned inconvenient interest in her affairs. But does it really matter? She’ll be gone before he finds out the truth.

Rhett Montgomery knows two things—that he is woefully unprepared to take over the dukedom, and that the woman who claims to be his brother’s betrothed is not who she says she is. No debutante swears so fiercely or kisses with such recklessness. Investigating is what any good brother would do, isn’t it? As long as he doesn’t start falling for her charms as well.

 

Release date: February 25, 2025

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 336

Sample

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.

England smelled different. Everett Montgomery—Monty to his friends, Rhett to his family, that rogue Montgomery boy to the grand dames of the ton, and plain old sir to the people he’d met during his five years on the continent—noticed the scent immediately. There was a sourness to London docks other cities didn’t have. On the continent, a wharf was synonymous with the sharp smell of saltwater, a brisk breeze, and a sense of hope.

The Thames carried with it the scent of the refuse that floated scum-like on the surface of the river. There was no breeze; the air hung heavy, and Rhett had little sense of hope. He’d been summoned home by his brother, the Duke of Strafford, ostensibly to spend Christmas with the family, but Rhett knew better. He’d been summoned to account for his behavior.

To ensure that Rhett actually returned, the duke had cut off his finances. So here Rhett was, back in jolly, freezing old England.

“Bloody ’ell, Montgomery. Get out of the bleedin’ way.” The ship’s bosun stood with two of the crew, a ripped sail furled and balanced on their shoulders.

“If you’d won the last hand of piquet, I would help you with that.” Getting under the skin of Pat, the crew’s third in command, had been Rhett’s primary source of entertainment as they’d sailed across the North Sea.

The bosun frowned. “I thought the duke was waitin’ for you. Shouldn’t you get goin’?”

“The duke can wait.” Not for that long, though.

Rhett was willing to prod at his brother’s limits, but he was too reliant on his quarterly allowance to poke too hard. If he angered his brother, he might very well be forced into work. He shuddered. He was not cut out for the dull, dutiful existence of a clergyman, but a life in the military—its structure and rules and hierarchy—was not a life for him either.

No, he had to meet his brother displaying an appropriate amount of chagrin and with a good argument for why his adventures on the continent should continue. Maybe he could say he was writing a book or getting a hands-on foundation of geopolitical issues for a future, not-ever-really-going-to-happen-for-a-man-like-him career in politics.

“His lordship might wait,” Pat said, “but we won’t. Get movin’!”

Rhett looked over his shoulder. Behind him the entire crew was waiting, arms full of cargo, for him to get off the bloody ship. Every man but the bosun was rolling his eyes or sniggering at his reluctance to set foot on English soil.

“It was a pleasure, gentlemen.” Rhett saluted the men he’d eaten, gossiped, and gambled with for the past week. Then, when Pat’s frown deepened further, he grabbed the bosun’s face and planted a firm kiss on his cheek before skipping out of reach.

The crew cheered, and Pat’s cheeks turned bright red, but with a sail on his shoulder, he had no way of clipping Rhett behind the ears, an admonishment that had played out a dozen times in the past few days.

Rhett laughed, hoisted his pack on his shoulder, and walked the gangplank with a swagger that belied his nerves. However lighthearted he might try to appear, the upcoming confrontation with Peter weighed heavy. If he didn’t play it just right, his fun on the continent would be over.

Rhett scanned the dock for the ship’s captain so he could say his goodbyes and give his thanks. The grizzled older man was just at the edge of the gangplank, arguing with the most stunning woman in existence. Damn.

Rhett was an expert in the fairer sex. He’d wooed women in France and Spain, Germany and Italy, even as far away as Russia. But never had he set eyes on a woman as beautiful as the one who was currently waving a finger in the ship captain’s face. Her strawberry blonde hair, locks of which had escaped her boring chignon, could be Scottish or Irish. Her delicate features could be French. Her bold stance and wild gestures reminded him of Mediterranean women.

He’d escaped England to see all the beauties Europe offered. How ironic that the most beautiful of them all had been waiting for him back home, looking completely out of place—a perfect bloom amid the mud and trash and dead fish for sale.

Instead of continuing down the jetty toward the wharf, he veered toward her instead, placing himself at the captain’s shoulder. Up close, she was even more magnificent. Her blue eyes flashed like the excess of jewels sewn into her dress, which caught the morning sun and refracted rainbows onto the dark and dirty docks. She had a smattering of freckles across her cheeks—an unusual sight in a highborn woman, but one that made his fingers itch to trace them. Long, deep red lashes framed her eyes.

“We can finance our passage at twice your usual fare,” she said. “We need only a few hours to have the blunt ready.”

The captain crossed his arms in the same bullish stance he used when Rhett, or any of his actual subordinates, got caught messing about. “I dunnae care for the blunt. I willnae have unmarried women aboard my ship.”

The vision was unmarried. Huh. Surprisingly, that made his day better. Married women, especially those who were shackled to old men, were more fun. Their affections were more free than those of young women on the marriage mart. But he was illogically pleased that no one had claimed this beauty as their own.

“Only unmarried women are forbidden?” The chit appeared to swell with anger, though when Rhett looked down, he could see she’d simply risen onto the balls of her feet and leaned forward. “You superstitious jackass. You cannot truly believe my sister and I would be bad luck.”

“Bad luck, bad juju, ill fortune. Whatever way ye wish to describe it, yer nae coming aboard. I willnae anger the seas.”

The woman huffed; a lock of hair got caught in her breath, flying upward. “But if we were men, you would allow us onboard?”

“Aye. If ye were men. Or if ye had husbands to accompany ye and ward off any tempting thoughts my men might have.”

She stood still for a moment, inhaling deeply as though she was preparing to breathe fire. “Damn you, you gullible prick.”

The captain turned white. Even Rhett was taken aback by such language coming from a young, well-bred woman. Taken aback, but bizarrely aroused.

She shifted, as though done with this conversation and ready to leave. Before she could, Rhett grasped her elbow, ignoring the frisson of energy that shot through his fingertips. “Can I be of service, my lady?” Any kind of service? There were a hundred ways he could think of to serve her.

The young woman pursed her lips. Her gaze arrested him entirely. “Do you have the authority to force Captain Jenkins to let me on his ship?”

Rhett looked back over his shoulder to where Jenkins was glowering. “I do not have that power, no.”

“Do you have a boat of your own that can take my sister and me to France?”

“I, uh… No I don’t, my lady. However…”

She raised a hand to cut him off. “Then you cannot be of service.”

Her dismissal should not have cut the way it did. People had been dismissing Rhett his entire life. He was the second son of whom no one expected anything, and that had created a thick skin.

But her words pierced through it, drawing blood, as did the way she turned back to the captain as though Rhett wasn’t worth thinking about. “Are there any captains who don’t share your ridiculous superstitions?”

Jenkins brought a hand to his eyes and peered at the long line of ships that were tied to the wharf. “None that are sailing today.”

Rhett nudged the captain with an elbow. “My lady,” he murmured and then threw the woman his most charismatic smile, the one that never failed to make a woman snap open her fan, the one that was sure to win her over.

She didn’t flutter her lashes or go pink at the cheeks. Instead, she rolled her eyes, blew the loose strand of hair from her face, and looked to the heavens. “Lord save me from—” Her eyes widened, and she stepped forward, grabbing him by his lapels.

Well, all right. Unexpected, but I’ll take it. He reciprocated her embrace, catching her by her waist. As he did, there was a yell from above, and she threw all of her weight into spinning them away from the gangplank.

He was vaguely aware of the giant barrel that whooshed past his head and the splintering of wood exactly where he had been standing. He tried to right himself, but the turn was unexpected, and the press of her body against his had his balance off-kilter.

Together, they stumbled. He held onto her when he should have let go. He could see what was about to happen but had no way of preventing it.

They tumbled into the filth that was the Thames.

He should’ve closed his mouth. He should’ve worn a coat that was less heavy. He definitely should have expected her ear-piercing shriek.

“Why, you miserable cur.” She gagged and then spat. He prepared himself for a further, well deserved, tongue-lashing, but the outrage on her face turned to panic. Her head bobbed lower in the icy water. She moved her arms frantically, but it took a moment before he realized she could not free her legs from her voluminous skirts. She was kicking and kicking, but she was going down anyway.

It took four strokes to reach her. She latched onto him, trying to push herself up using his shoulders, but all that did was push him under. It took but a second for them both to go down.

He couldn’t see through the muck, but his hand collided with what was definitely a well-formed breast, and he wrapped an arm around her chest. His lungs and eyes burned. He used all his power to kick him, her, and her ridiculously heavy gown to the surface.

When they surfaced, she was spluttering and gagging. The men on the deck had thrown out a rope, and Rhett pushed her toward it.

She grabbed hold with desperate hands, and the men on the jetty towed her to shore. Once they’d hoisted her from the water, they stood back, offering handkerchiefs and wine from a distance, the latter of which she uncorked and drank directly from the bottle.

There was no rope thrown for Rhett. His legs were tiring from the additional weight of his sodden clothes and shoes. “I’ll just make it back on my own, then, shall I?”

Adelaide heaved in breath after breath, choking and spluttering each time. She could kiss whoever thought to give her a bottle of cheap red wine, the bitter taste of tannins and strong oak going some distance toward masking the sour filth of river water that was at the back of her throat and up her nose. She could even feel it in her ears.

She accepted a handkerchief from a sailor, who remained as far from her as he could. Adelaide didn’t blame him. She’d never smelled worse in her life.

As she blew her nose to clear out all the muck, a body crashed to the ground beside her. Him. She balled her fists by instinct. The bastard had almost killed her. If he had simply released her before he fell, then her lungs wouldn’t now be on fire. She wouldn’t be freezing. She wouldn’t have pulled a muscle in her shoulder trying to fight Cordelia’s skirts. She wouldn’t smell like the lavatory of a dockside inn.

She turned to him, ready to unleash her fury, but stopped when she saw him roll over onto his side, his coughs still ejecting splatters of water, his eyes closed, and his muscles limp as though they’d exerted all the energy they were capable of and had given up.

Merde, Adelaide. You can’t yell at a man in this state. Even if he did almost kill you. Besides, technically, he had also saved her. One might not completely erase the other, but it counted for something. She wiped a sodden lock of hair out of his eyes. “Sir? Are you okay?”

His coughing had stopped. His entire countenance was now limp. His lips were the palest shade of purple, and panic shot through her.

“Sir…?”

The ship’s captain cleared his throat. “Montgomery,” he said. “Everett Montgomery.”

Adelaide leaned over him, cupping his head in her hand. “Mr. Montgomery, can you hear me? Are you alive?” She leaned closer to feel for breath. That was when he opened his eyes, when her lips were two inches from his and her gaze could go nowhere but to him.

“No,” he rasped. “I am certainly dead. For what other explanation can there be for the s. . .