Why Lords Lose Their Hearts (29 page)

Seeing her dismay, Archer gave his head a slight negative shake. Whatever her feelings for Dunthorp, Archer wished for her to let him talk. Bracing herself, she forced herself to relax.

“My dear duchess,” Dunthorp said breathlessly, “I cannot tell you how relieved I am to find you safe. I was given to believe you were harmed, or worse!”

He paid not the slightest bit of attention to Archer or the dowager who both looked at him askance, albeit for different reasons.

“Hello, Dunthorp,” Archer said tersely. “I am surprised to see you here. I had supposed our direction was unknown to our London friends. Unless,” he continued, casting a glance at Perdita, “the widowed duchess informed you of where we’d gone, as well.”

“Certainly not!” Dunthorp said, his brow descending in anger. “It would be highly improper for the widowed duchess to correspond with me.”

“It’s interesting you should say so,” Archer said. “For I thought you considered yourselves all but betrothed.”

“It’s the first I’ve heard of it,” the dowager said. “And I have no doubt that Perdita would inform me should she take such a step.”

“Well,” Dunthorp conceded, “I might have overstated things in an effort to make you see my point. But it’s just a formality between us.” He looked at Perdita, and she schooled her features not to show her disgust. “My dear duchess, you mustn’t leave town without informing me again. I was terrified that the lunatic who attacked you in the park and at Vauxhall finally managed to harm you seriously.”

“Yes, well,” Perdita said, hoping she sounded more friendly than she felt, “that is why we left. To avoid more attacks.”

“Only,” Archer said conversationally, “we found that the fellow followed her here into south Sussex. You wouldn’t happen to know how he found us out, would you, Dunthorp?”

Not taking his eyes from Perdita, the other man said, “Of course not. I only learned it because I happened to follow the dowager’s coach thinking she knew your true location. It was fortunate that I had a bag packed and waiting in my coach.”

“Wasn’t it?” Archer said grimly. “I say, Dunthorp, are you acquainted with Lord Vyse?”

Shifting on his knees—it was clearly not the most comfortable position for the fellow—he said with a frown, “Of course, but I don’t like him. Keeps bad company, that one.” Patting Perdita on the hand, he said, “No offense to your departed husband, my dear. I know Vyse was his friend.”

“Indeed,” Perdita said, her lips pursed. “He was. In fact, I’m sorry to say that an accident has befallen Lord Vyse and he is dead. What do you say to that, Lord Dunthorp?”

If he was trying to distance himself from the dead man, he was doing a very good job, Perdita thought. Dunthorp shrugged at the news of the other man’s death. “I am sorry to hear it, of course, but as I said we were little more than acquaintances. What has his death to do with me?”

For the second time since they’d come into the drawing room, the conversation was interrupted by an arrival. The butler didn’t announce this person, who stood just inside the door, her dull gown perfectly pressed. Her hair coiled tightly against her head.

“Simmons,” the dowager said when the servant cleared her throat. “Whatever are you doing here? I thought you were on holiday visiting your ailing mother.”

“I’m afraid not, Your Grace,” the ladies’ maid said, her plain face alit with some emotion Perdita couldn’t name.

Heedless of proper behavior, she walked toward them, one hand hidden in her skirts as she came. “I am sorry to do this here, Your Grace,” she continued, “but I’m afraid it isn’t to be helped. You see, I’ve spent a very long time trying to make this one atone for what she did.”

Perdita felt the hair on the back of her neck rise as the woman looked at her.

“You see, Duchess Perdita,” she said coldly, “I know what you did last season.”

Twenty-three

At the drab woman’s words, Archer’s body went on alert. A glance at Perdita revealed that she was on guard, as well. “What did you say?” she asked the eerily calm Simmons.

“Oh, let us not play games now, Your Grace,” Simmons said with a slow smile. “We are old foes by now, are we not?”

“Tell us what you mean by this, ma’am,” Archer said, hoping to draw the woman’s attention away from Perdita. Though she was in no position to run given that Dunthorp was clinging to her gown like a limpet, he thought angrily. Would the man do nothing but drag her down?

“Oh, Lord Archer,” Simmons said, her eyes not leaving Perdita. “You needn’t play coy with me. I know you’ve been party to all of my missives at this point. It’s hardly possible for you to ignore them given how
close
you and the young duchess have become of late.”

He was more than aware of the meaning she imbued in that one word, “close.” Though how she’d known about him and Perdita when she lived in an entirely different house was baffling. Unless of course she had spies in Ormond House; which was not impossible given that she’d made her home there for many years and likely knew all the servants as well as anyone.

“You see, even before this one killed my young master I could see how your eyes followed her.” Simmons grinned as if she were sharing a great joke. Archer wondered if she was mad or just evil. Whatever the case, she’d been able to dissemble in a way he’d never seen anyone do so skillfully. “There was no shame in it until she took you to her bed, of course.”

A gasp—he thought from Dunthorp—shattered the utter silence in the rest of the room.

“And when I heard your father offer you the estate nearby, Lord Archer, I knew I had to act quickly. I tried to rid myself of the young dowager when you were passing through the woods earlier. But, unfortunately, my aim from a distance isn’t so good.” The maid smiled malevolently. “I don’t think I’ll have that same issue in this setting, do you?”

Simmons walked forward and stood beside where Dunthorp hovered over Perdita. Like the brave specimen he was, the marquess scrambled away to the other side of the room almost as soon as the maid reached them. It was hardly surprising, Archer reflected, but he still despised the other man for his cowardice. When he thought about the fact that Perdita had considered marrying that buffoon, he felt ill.

A movement by the maid distracted him from thinking about Dunthorp, however. Almost like a master stroking a favorite spaniel, Simmons reached out and ran a hand over Perdita’s hair. “You were such a pretty girl. I thought when you wed the young master that you’d be happy ever after. But it wasn’t long after the celebrations had ended that I realized you weren’t nearly what he needed. Did you really think that shrinking from him was what he needed? When he was crying out for your strength?”

There was something about the way she said the words, her voice gently chiding, that put the hair on the back of Archer’s neck up. Clearly she had a different opinion of the late Duke of Ormond than nearly everyone else of the fellow’s acquaintance. He wondered if she’d been Gervase’s lover. She was quite a bit older, but he supposed she was comely enough for a man of his appetites. Archer wondered if she’d always had a tendency toward madness or if it was her involvement with Ormond that pushed her over the edge. His behavior had certainly caused Perdita her own share of torment. But the difference between Perdita and Simmons was that Perdita had an inherent goodness about her that was missing in the other woman.

“I wonder if you know what it is like to fight back against a man who weighs stones more than you do, Simmons?” Perdita demanded of the other woman, her face white with fear and anger. “I can assure you that Gervase managed to show me just how little my strength, as you call it, could compete with his own.”

Though she was clearly overset by the situation, Archer was pleased to see that Perdita wasn’t allowing the other woman to cow her. He’d always admired her, but seeing her now, standing firm in the face of this woman who dared take her to task for her very natural response to the brute she’d married, Archer could not help but feel a thrum of pride that she was his. For this situation had only made it clear to him that no matter how she protested, he would convince her that they belonged together. He was surer of that than he was of anything else in the world. If only they could get out of this situation alive.

“Not like that, you ninny,” the maid said with disgust, her face twisting into an expression of distaste. “You weren’t supposed to fight back. It was his right to punish you. You were supposed to accept the pain. It’s the pain that matters, you see. It’s what makes you feel alive! It is the bond that ties you together forever. But you were too weak. You shrieked at his first strike. Like a coward.”

Archer felt his stomach turn. He’d known Gervase to be a monster, but he hadn’t realized that pain and domination had been part of his repertoire of brutality. He should have guessed it, though. The outsized appetites, the demands he’d made on Perdita—it was all beginning to make sense now. There was even, Archer knew, a particular brothel in town that catered to men with such tastes. But he’d never heard a whisper about his former employer frequenting it. Perhaps Gervase had been discreet about one thing after all.

Now as he listened to Simmons, he knew that his suspicion that they’d been lovers was right. But despite the woman’s words, he didn’t think she was mad. Angry? Yes. Though she might not have admitted it yet, she was most angry that Gervase had married Perdita and not her. Jealousy was there in every word she uttered to the other woman. Vindictive? Absolutely. But though there was the hint of fury in her eyes as she looked at Perdita with hate, there didn’t seem to be madness. Besides, no madwoman could have orchestrated the campaigns against Isabella, Georgina, and Perdita. They had been planned down to the last detail.

Oh, no, Simmons was quite sane.

Just evil.

“Of course I cried out,” Perdita said to the other woman, her back ramrod straight, “he struck me in the face. With his fist. I shouldn’t wonder if even the likes of you would cry out at such abuse, Simmons.”

“Never,” Simmons said coldly. “I took every blow he gave like the gift it was. Every stroke of the lash meant we were growing that much closer. Each time I felt the leather it was as if the pain were binding us closer together.”

She laughed, and it was an ugly sound. “And you may well speak of me as if I am some ugly thing beneath your notice but Gervase never did. He thought I was beautiful. Far more beautiful than you with your simpering looks and missish ways. You disgusted him with your weakness. I was the true lady.”

But the dowager could not possibly let that pass without protest. “Tcha, Simmons,” she chided, pounding the floor with her walking stick for emphasis. “You are no more a lady than my best spaniel Toby. Your father was a butcher, woman. There are no ladies born above a shop.”

To Archer’s surprise, instead of responding angrily to her mistress, Simmons’s expression softened. “I do regret having to lie to you, Your Grace,” she said, her brow furrowed with real distress. “But there was no other way for me to get close to my dear Gervase. So I had to apply for the position with you. In all our time together his one regret was not telling you the truth of things. He was so fond of you, you see. So very fond.”

“You have lied to me about quite a lot, I think,” the dowager said sharply, her eyes narrow with annoyance, “about any number of things.” Archer suspected that she was more disappointed at having trusted the other woman than she was letting on. “And of course Gervase was fond of me. He was my grandson. But I don’t see where you think saying these things against Perdita will do you any good, for it’s plain that you’re as mad as a hatter.”

Despite her affection for the dowager, however, Simmons was still not able to let that particular slur pass unremarked upon. “I am not mad,” she said through clenched teeth. “And I will thank you to remember it. As well as the fact that I am a lady and as such I deserve your respect.”

“Why must you continue with this fiction?” the dowager demanded, thumping her stick on the floor again. “How is it that you think you, of all people, can be called a lady? Hmm? Tell me that, if you please!”

The smile that broke across the maid’s face was one of devilry. “Remember once this is finished that you did ask, Your Grace,” she said with something akin to glee. “I am a lady because my father was a duke.”

The words hung there in the air for a moment, as if the very atmosphere were affected by the woman’s enmity.

“Really?” the dowager asked, having recovered herself. “And who, pray, is this duke you claim to be your father?”

But Archer had guessed, and when Simmons said the words he nearly cried out for her to stop before they could escape her. Whatever impulse he’d felt, though, was not fast enough and the words fell into the chamber like a live round of ammunition.

“Your late husband, my dear duchess,” Dolly Simmons said with an expression like the cat who licked the cream. “I wonder you have never noted the resemblance.”

He’d rarely seen the dowager Duchess of Ormond speechless, but she was now. The old woman’s face was white, and it was as if all the temper that had kept her upright had seeped out. She leaned forward, her shoulders drooping with the weight of Simmons’s declaration of war.

“You see,” Simmons continued, “before he ever met you, he married my mother. Of course his father thought it was an ineligible match, my grandfather being a butcher, and did all he could to separate them. But they were clever, and managed to see one another even after you married him and bore him sons. My mother died soon after giving birth to me, the silly bitch.”

The woman’s voice dripped with contempt for the mother she clearly saw as too weak to fight for her child, and Archer found it impossible to pity the creature.

“This is absurd,” the dowager said, regaining some of her vigor, banging the floor with her walking stick. “My Bertie would never have left a child of his to be raised by a butcher. Even if your mother was a butcher’s daughter.”

Simmons gave a ghost of a smile. “He never knew,” she said softly. “And by the time I knew he was long dead.” For a moment Archer almost felt sorry for her, the little girl who’d lost both her parents before she could know them. But that didn’t make up for the lives she’d affected with her vitriol.