Why Lords Lose Their Hearts (4 page)

“I was not aware just how skilled an equestrienne you are, Your Grace,” Dunthorp said as he and Perdita followed the trail through the parklands. “I suppose you learned as a child?”

“Indeed,” Perdita agreed, patting her mare on the neck. “My father’s head groom taught both Isabella and me when we were quite small. Papa believed that a lady should consider riding second only to dancing.”

“Something else that you do exceedingly well,” Dunthorp said with a grin, his voice a caress. “Your father was just as intelligent as his daughter.”

At the other man’s fatuous compliment for Perdita’s long-dead father, Archer nearly spoke out to correct him, but knowing it would embarrass her he said nothing. His silence was, however, difficult to maintain.

Perdita, however, had no such reticence. “I’m afraid there you’re dead wrong, Lord Dunthorp,” she said grimly. “My father was hardly the pattern card of propriety everyone thinks him, and was an even worse parent, I’m afraid. If you don’t mind, I’d be pleased not to speak of him again.”

As Archer had expected, upon hearing her words, Lord Dunthorp apologized profusely, declaring himself to be everything that was sorry for bringing up such a painful topic.

“Don’t be absurd,” she responded, catching Archer’s eye as he rode along behind them. “You had no way of knowing.”

As they neared the Serpentine, Dunthorp said, “I thank you for taking me into your confidence. I simply hope that Lord Archer will be as discreet as I plan to be with the information.”

That took Archer aback. And Perdita, too, if her expression was anything to go by. Bastard must be feeling annoyed at not being able to ride alone with her, he thought, sizing up the other man. Aloud he said, “Oh, I don’t think I’ll be telling anyone about Her Grace’s secret. After all, I’ve known for some years now and haven’t blurted it out before.” Take that, you great looby, he thought, watching with satisfaction as the other man’s eyes narrowed to hear he’d not been the first to learn of Perdita’s difficult relationship with her father.

“I see,” Dunthorp said thoughtfully. “I suppose as a family servant you would be privy to such things, wouldn’t you?”

Perdita, whose fair skin and red hair made her prone to wearing her emotions on her skin, flushed an angry red. “Lord Archer is not a servant, sir,” she said, her clipped tone making it very clear that she was not best pleased with her suitor’s words. “He is a dear friend of the family, and indeed as the son of the Duke of Pemberton he is included among the top families in the ton. I suppose you were unaware of that since Lord Archer is so modest that he chooses not to bruit about his family connections like the veriest mushroom. I hope you’ll keep that in mind in the future. I should hate for you to embarrass yourself, Lord Dunthorp, by showing Lord Archer any discourtesy.”

It was an impressive speech, made more so because she did not raise her voice, or indeed allow any hint of dislike to enter her tone. She was civil and friendly as ever. But if one were to go by Lord Dunthorp’s expression, she’d just shouted at the top of her lungs and made good use of her riding crop. Archer was aware only of how magnificent she looked, and when she glanced back to catch his eye, something passed between them that felt as alive as electricity.

“I b-beg your p-pardon, Your Grace,” Dunthorp stuttered. “I didn’t mean any disrespect to Lord Archer.” He turned to Archer and though his face looked ashamed, the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “Your pardon, old fellow,” he said with a dip of his head. “No harm intended.”

Not one to hold a grudge, Archer nodded his forgiveness, and as they turned their horses back around for the return trip to the Ormond town house, all three riders were silent as they kept their own counsel.

He couldn’t have said what sparked his awareness, but the hair on the back of Archer’s neck stood up as he heard the sound of hoofbeats and another rider coming up behind them. Before he could bring his mount up beside Perdita, the other rider was next to her, taking hold of her arm and pulling her hard, as if trying to unseat her.

A combination of fear and fury rushed through Archer as he tried to get to her, but Dunthorpe, oblivious to what was happening, blocked his way. “Get out of the way, man!”

Startled, Dunthorpe pulled up short, but it was too late. Archer watched helplessly as Perdita shrugged out of the assailant’s grip, and tried in her turn to throw him off balance. But the man shook off her grasp and this time got his arm round Perdita’s shoulders and jerked her. Hard.

Terrified, Archer watched as her foot came out of the left stirrup and she lost her balance, trying desperately to regain it without spooking her mount. Taking advantage of her instability, the masked man pulled her toward him, almost as if he wished to pull her onto his own mount. But as soon as she began listing sideways toward him, the man unhanded her altogether and, spurring his own mount, thundered off.

With nothing left to block her fall, Perdita tumbled onto the hard ground of the bridle path.

Cursing, both Archer and Lord Dunthorp were able to keep their own mounts from trampling her, but it took some moments to bring them to a halt. Finally, his gelding under his control again, Archer turned him around and walked back to where Perdita lay unmoving on the ground. His heart in his throat, he hopped down and threw his reins over an obliging tree branch. Kneeling beside Perdita, he was relieved to see that she still breathed, and turning her onto her back, he watched as her eyelids flickered.

Archer had never been a particularly religious man. He left that sort of thing up to his brother Benedick, the vicar, as a general rule. But as he looked down at Perdita’s wan face, he could not help but pray silently that she would open her eyes again.

He was assessing her arms for broken bones when Dunthorp dropped to his knees on her other side. “Is she alive?” the other man asked, his face filthy with sweat and dust.

Wishing the other man anywhere but here, Archer bit back a curse and instead nodded. “She’s breathing,” he told Dunthorp.

Dunthorp’s obvious relief made him feel a bit of a heel, but he couldn’t help it. When he’d seen Perdita fly through the air, Archer had lost all sense of perspective. If Perdita had been killed, he wasn’t sure what he’d have done, but it wouldn’t have been pretty. Of that he was sure.

“I need for you to ride to Ormond House for a carriage,” he told Dunthorp, his mind already planning how to get her home and in the care of a physician. “Tell the butler that there’s been an accident and the widowed duchess needs to be brought home. Tell him to send to Harley Street for Dr. Johnson. He’ll have the fellow’s direction.”

“Why can’t you do it?” Dunthorp asked, his voice revealing just the hint of a whine. “I am hardly an errand boy.”

“Because the widowed duchess is hurt and I asked you go,” Archer said icily. “I hope you don’t think that I won’t tell her if you behave as less than a gentleman in her time of need. Because I will. I have no reservations about doing so.”

Dunthorp’s lips thinned. “You would, wouldn’t you, conniving rogue?”

“I have no care what you think of me,” Archer said, his eyes not leaving Perdita’s wan face. “I only wish for Her Grace to be in the care of her physician immediately.”

His face reflecting his anger, Dunthorp rose and retrieved his horse. Once he’d mounted he turned to Archer. “I’ll send the carriage as soon as I get there. Then I’ll ride to Harley Street myself. I have some familiarity with Dr. Johnson.”

If he was hoping for effusive thanks, he was doomed to disappointment. Instead Archer gave him a sharp nod, and began chafing Perdita’s hands

He heard Dunthorp leave and hoped that the man wouldn’t allow his pique to get in the way of Perdita’s health.

Three

The first sensation Perdita became aware of was pain. Her head hurt worse than the morning after she and Isabella had secretly drunk half a bottle of their father’s best brandy while still in the schoolroom. It had been the first and the last time she’d overindulged like that, and some part of her brain couldn’t make sense of the fact that she’d done it again after vowing so vociferously not to.

But when she opened her eyes, it wasn’t to see Isabella—her eyes bloodshot from too much alcohol—leaning over her but a very worried Archer.

“Thank God,” he said, closing his own blue eyes. “Thank God.”

She opened her mouth to speak but all that came out was a dry croak. “What … happened?” she asked before he brought a glass of water to her lips. She drank greedily, appreciating the smooth slide of the water over her parched throat.

“What do you remember?” he asked, taking the glass from her hand and setting it aside. “The doctor wishes to know how much of your brain has been affected.”

The mention of a doctor made Perdita mentally sit up. If a doctor had been called, she must have been very ill. “I don’t know,” she said, after thinking the matter over for a few moments. “The last thing I remember is going out for a ride with Dunthorp—and you, as well—but only leaving, not returning,” she said, remembering the events as if they’d taken place years ago. “Did we go riding?”

His finely sculpted lips were tight. “Yes, that happened this morning. I insisted on accompanying you and Dunthorp because I was worried for your safety.”

Her brow furrowed as she tried to remember. “You were worried,” she said finally. “For my safety.”

“Yes,” he said, his voice clipped. “I accompanied you, and it’s a good thing I did because we weren’t in the park for more than a few minutes before a masked rider came racing toward us and tried to unseat you.”

She tried to remember, but the images simply were not there. But the aches in her back and on her bottom, as well as her foot, which she supposed had gotten caught in the stirrup, all told her that the mysterious man had succeeded. “How long have I been unconscious?” she asked, closing her eyes against the tears that threatened. She knew it was the situation that brought her emotions to the surface, but even so the weakness was lowering. Especially in front of Archer.

“Only about a half hour,” he responded, taking her hand in his and squeezing it, as if he knew instinctively that she needed comfort. “The physician said there were no broken bones and that as long as you awoke within an hour or so you’d likely be well.”

“Thank heaven for small favors,” she said, moving to shake her head, then stopping as she realized how much it would hurt. “What happened to the man who attacked me?”

She knew before he spoke that the blackguard had gotten away. “I’m sorry,” he said simply. “I was too focused on seeing that you were all right, and Dunthorp could not leave while you were as yet unconscious.”

Something in the way he said those last words told Perdita that there was a story buried in his words. But she was too tired suddenly to worry about what Dunthorp had or hadn’t done. “So sleepy,” she said, hearing the fatigue in her voice as she spoke, but unable to control it.

“Rest,” Archer said, his hand caressing her cheek in such a tender way that if she’d been in her right mind she would have remarked upon it. As things were, however, she hadn’t the strength of a newborn kitten and her eyes closed before she could complete her thought.

*   *   *

Archer’s jaw was clenched so tightly that he feared some damage to his teeth. He looked down at Perdita, the shadows beneath her closed eyes giving her a pale and wan look that worried him. For as long as he’d known her, Perdita had been a fighter. Even during the worst of her marriage to Gervase, she’d tried desperately not to let her fear or hurt show. But seeing her thus, laid low by someone they didn’t even know, terrified him in ways he could only begin to explain. When he’d seen that masked figure put his hands on her, Archer had wanted to kill the other man and damn the consequences. But when she’d fallen to the ground, in danger of being trampled by the horses, his priority had shifted to protecting Perdita. A few more inches and she’d have been facing an injury to her head that would not be so easy to come back from. The very notion was unthinkable. And he was more grateful than he could say that she’d escaped with only a bump on the head.

“She’ll come around, my lord,” said Simmons, the dowager Duchess of Ormond’s personal maid. She’d been at the Ormond town house to visit the housekeeper—she now lived with her mistress at another house in town—and Archer was grateful for her help. Perdita’s own maid had dissolved into a fit of tears and shrieks just as soon as she’d laid eyes on her mistress and had had to be sedated by the physician. Simmons, however, had been through every sort of family injury with her mistress and was really the best candidate for looking after the widowed duchess. “I’ll just send a note round to my mistress and let her know where I am,” she continued. “It’s a good thing I came today, else you’d have been left high and dry, if you don’t mind my saying so, your lordship.”

Stretching his back, which had grown stiff from tension while sitting at Perdita’s bedside, Archer couldn’t help but agree. “I’m grateful, Simmons,” he told the dour woman. “And I know the duchess would say so, too, if she were awake to do so.”

Her harsh features softening for the barest moment, Simmons, ran a gentle hand over Perdita’s brow. “She’s a sweet lady, is Miss Perdita,” she said, unconsciously referring to the young duchess by her name before marriage. “She takes enough care of the rest of us, I’m sure.”

Archer couldn’t help but smile, because her words were true. Perdita did take care of everyone. And perhaps it was time she allowed herself to be taken care of. Standing, he laid a companionable hand on the maid’s shoulder. “I do thank you, ma’am,” he reiterated. “And now, if you don’t mind my leaving you here with her, I must go inform Lord Dunthorp of her condition and find someone to stand watch over the house.”

“I don’t understand, Lord Archer,” she said, her gray brows furrowed. “I thought it was an accident.”

Not wishing to let on more than he was ready to, Archer merely raised his brows. “I am just being extra cautious,” he assured her. “Nothing more.”

He left before she could ask him any further questions. The problem with old family retainers, he decided, was that they expected one to tell them the whole truth of the matter. And in this case, he wasn’t prepared to tell even a fraction of the truth. Not only because it might endanger Perdita’s life, but also because to say the words aloud would make Archer feel like an insane fool. Even so, the situation threatened to strain the bounds of credulity no matter whom he decided to tell. For Perdita hadn’t simply been accosted for no reason. He was quite sure the man in the park today had intended to do something much worse.