Why Lords Lose Their Hearts (30 page)

“Then why didn’t you come forward sooner?” Perdita asked, injecting some perspective into the maelstrom of pity Simmons was drawing around herself. “Surely it would have made more sense to simply inform the dowager of your identity rather than insinuating yourself into her household as you did. She is intimidating, but she is also fair.”

Simmons’s expression turned cold again. “Because, you fool,” she hissed, “I was my nephew’s lover! Do you really think that would have played well in Mayfair? Should I have simply asked for the dowager’s blessing? Waved away my concerns by rationalizing that the aristocracy are all interrelated anyway? I think not.”

The whole room fell silent as the words sank in. Simmons—Gervase’s aunt by blood—had been his lover.

It made a horrid sort of sense. It especially explained everything Simmons had done to punish Perdita, Isabella, and Georgina since Gervase’s death. If she thought they’d killed him, then of course she’d wish to make them pay. In her eyes they’d murdered her lover. Her nephew.

Archer felt his skin crawl at the idea.

“Yes,” Dolly Simmons said silkily. “It was hardly the sort of thing I could simply announce to the company at large. It’s not done. And you must imagine what I felt when he married you, little coward,” she said to Perdita. “To know that he was going to your bed night after night? Of course after a while, he came back to me. He knew that I could give him what he needed.”

“Stop saying these filthy things about my grandson,” the dowager shouted. “He would never have done what you say he did with you had he known.” She pounded on the floor again. “He. Would. Not.”

But Simmons laughed. “Dear Duchess, do you really think I could keep a secret like that for long? Oh, I’ll admit at first he was taken aback, but he got over it after a bit. He was a man, you see, and his appetites were large.”

Perhaps thinking to distract her, Perdita asked, “So you orchestrated the campaign against Isabella, Georgina, and myself? I must admit that I find myself quite impressed with your skills.”

Simmons preened. “Indeed I did,” she said proudly. “I learned quite a bit at the side of the dowager for all those years. She is quite good at manipulating and scheming, is she not? I simply used what she taught me to manage my surrogates.” Frowning, she continued, “I had no idea how fulfilling it would be to do things myself, however, as I did with you, Perdita. I hired people in London of course—my grandfather, the butcher, left me an inheritance that helped me out there—and one of the dressers at the Theatre Royale was from my old neighborhood. Really, it pays to keep up with old friendships, doesn’t it? In any event, here in the country, I was able to manage on my own. I donned men’s clothes to speak to that young simpleton, Peter. And I watched from the woods as he touched the flame to Vyse’s body. It was most stimulating, I can assure you.”

Revulsion skimmed down Archer’s spine. He’d let this woman watch over Perdita after the attack in the park, he thought with horror. Only luck had stopped her from killing Perdita then and there. Luck and Simmons’s desire to toy with her prey like a cat with a mouse.

Tired of listening to the woman’s rant, he demanded, “What do you want from us now, Simmons? We cannot give you Gervase back. And short of killing this entire household, you cannot leave here without being prosecuted for what you’ve done.”

“Oh, I do not wish to kill you all,” Simmons said, removing her hand from where it had thus far rested inside the folds of her skirts. To Archer’s horror, he saw that she held a pistol there. Which she lifted to point right at Perdita’s head. “Just her.”

Twenty-four

Perdita’s mind raced. Ever since Simmons—Dolly Simmons, if she recalled correctly—had entered the room, she had been on edge. There was relief in knowing who it was that had perpetrated the attacks on her sister and Georgina, and herself for that matter, but from the moment the woman began to tell her story, Perdita had been waiting for her to strike out.

That her threat against Perdita’s life had come in the form of a gun that looked quite similar to the little pistol of Georgie’s came as no surprise. The gun would allow her to kill Perdita from a distance, and since Georgie’s gun had been among the weapons that killed Gervase, there was symbolism there as well.

“I’ve done enough talking, now, I think,” the woman said, just as cool and calm as if they were discussing the weather. “It’s time for you to meet the fate that you wrote for yourself the day you murdered the man I loved.”

Perdita braced herself for the bullet, thinking of Archer and closing her eyes. At the sound of the gunshot, she flinched, only to realize that she’d not been hit. She opened her eyes to see Simmons flat on the floor, her arms stretched out at her sides, her face to the thick carpet.

“Are you all right?” Archer demanded, jumping up from the floor where he must have leaped to push Simmons down. “My God,” he said, holding her so tightly she almost lost her breath. “If she’d succeeded in killing you I’m not sure how I’d have gone on.”

“I am fine,” she said, surprised to feel that he was shaking against her. “Archer,” she whispered, pulling back to look him in the eye. “I am well. I am safe.” Perdita felt tears in her eyes as she kissed him.

He kissed her back, neither of them mindful of the room behind them which was quickly filling up with Archer’s family thanks to the sound of the gunshot.

At the sound of several coughs they pulled apart, though Perdita remained in the circle of Archer’s arm. “What?” he demanded.

“We thought perhaps you’d like to stop before you consummated things here on the drawing room floor,” Frederick said with a grimace. “What with the dead body and all, it wouldn’t be quite the thing, you know.”

“Dead body?” Perdita asked, frowning. “I thought she was just unconscious.”

“No,” Archer assured her. “She is indeed dead. I’m not sure whom, but one of my brothers shot her from the secret door.”

They all watched as Simmons’s body, covered in a sheet, was carried from the room by two footmen.

“That would be me,” Cam said with a bow. “We heard the dowager’s repeated thumps on the floor with her cane and thought that Archer and Dunthorp had come to blows—he’s run off, by the way—and I was about to open the door when I heard that woman saying something about beatings. So I listened for a bit, realized who she was, and snuck into the secret passageway.”

“Dunthorp has run away?” Perdita demanded. “What a coward!

“I always said the fellow was unreliable,” the dowager said, her complexion white beneath the thick layers of powder. “Whatever were you thinking to entertain the man, Perdita?”

“Grandmamma,” Perdita said, rushing to the old woman’s side. “You must be exhausted. I’m so sorry about Simmons.” Even if the maid had been a madwoman bent on killing her, Perdita knew it couldn’t have been easy for the dowager to learn she’d been harboring a viper in her bosom for all these years.

“No more sorry than I am, my dear,” the dowager said emphatically, shaking her head in disbelief. “When I think of how much I entrusted to that … that…” And to Perdita’s astonishment the redoubtable dowager Duchess of Ormond burst into noisy tears.

Perdita indicated to Archer that he and his brothers should leave her to speak to the dowager alone. And like the males they were the Lisle men fled the scene.

“I always knew there was someone else,” the dowager said once her tears had subsided. “A wife knows.”

Remembering how fondly the dowager had always spoken about the late duke, Perdita felt her heart constrict. Though from the stories she’d heard—such as how he’d banished Trevor’s father from the family simply for marrying someone his father disapproved of—she’d never thought the duke was someone she would particularly like, she had thought he at least held his wife in some affection.

“But I knew,” the dowager continued. “I pretended ignorance, of course, because that’s what we were taught to do, the gels of my generation. We did not live in our husband’s pockets like you young people today.”

Reflecting upon her own marriage, Perdita disagreed, but let the dowager continue uninterrupted.

“I even thought Simmons seemed familiar when she first applied for the position,” the dowager continued. “Of course now I know why.”

Perdita took the dowager’s hand and squeezed. “There’s no reason why you should have suspected her true origins, Duchess. It’s not as if her origins were plainly writ upon her face. I certainly never suspected her of anything untoward.”

“But…” The other woman shuddered. “Her own nephew! It’s disgusting. When I think of her hands on me while she helped me dress and bathe…”

“Don’t think of it,” Perdita said quickly. She would do well to heed her own advice, she told herself. For she was having as hard a time as the duchess banishing from her mind all the little familiarities she’d granted Gervase’s lover over the years. “I pray you, do not.”

They sat in silence for a moment before the dowager said, “There is something I must tell you, Perdita. Something that is very difficult to admit.”

What on earth could she be talking about? Perdita wondered before saying, “I feel sure it cannot be as shocking as what Simmons told us, Your Grace.”

But she was wrong.

“I poisoned Gervase,” the dowager said baldly. “That is how he died. Not the gunshot or the knife.”

Perdita opened her mouth and then shut it again.

“You … you what?”

“I poisoned him,” the dowager said morosely. “I didn’t know about his…”—she seemed to search for a word—“
relationship
with Simmons, of course. But I knew he was carrying on with other women.”

Sensing that the older woman needed to get the words out, Perdita remained silent.

“And I knew about the beatings,” she continued. “I … I overheard him hitting you just days earlier. I’d known about it for a long while, but I’d never actually witnessed anything.” Her eyes were troubled. “I thought if you were a better wife he would not have to hurt you, you see. But I didn’t know the extent of it. I never realized just how vicious he could be.

“Perdita, I do hope you will forgive me. For waiting so long. I could not admit it, you see. I could not admit that my precious boy could be that sort of man. A man cut from the same cloth as his grandfather, I mean.”

“As his grandfather?” Perdita asked hollowly. “Do you mean to say that the old duke did to you what Gervase did to me?”

The dowager nodded. “I thought I deserved it, too. It’s really why I never confronted him over the affairs. Oh, I told myself it was because weeping over a husband’s indiscretions was not done, but it was actually because I feared what his response would be. Bertie could be incredibly kind, but he could also be ruthless. And I knew that if I complained about the mistresses that he would just come back to my bed.” She frowned. “I could not do that again. It … it hurt too much. What he wanted from me.”

Perdita knew what it must have taken the dowager to admit such a thing. “I do not blame you,” she said kindly. “Not a bit.”

“I’m just sorry it took me so long to come to your aid, my dear,” the dowager said. “And equally sorry that the people of the ton blamed you for my crime. For I really did mean for it to free you. Not to make your life more difficult. And I certainly had no notion that Simmons would hold my sins against you.”

“How can you have known?” Perdita asked simply. “We certainly had no notion that you poisoned Gervase. Indeed, I had thought you knew nothing of what went on between us.”

“Can you ever forgive me for turning my back on you?” The dowager’s face constricted with remorse. “I will never feel more disgusted with myself than I do right now.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” Perdita patted the old woman’s hand. “I do not think it would have done you any good to confront Gervase any earlier, either. He would likely have hit you just as he hit me.”

“What a mess things are,” said the dowager in a sad voice. “When I think of the hopes I once had for Gervase. Of the great-grandchildren he’d bring me … and all the while he was
fornicating
with that woman.”

Perdita shuddered. “Let’s not think of her any longer,” she said with a smile. “Why don’t I fetch the duchess for you. I’m sure she can have one of the housemaids act as maid for you while you’re here.”

Looking older than her years, the dowager nodded. “I hope you will not abandon me, Perdita. For I do think of you as my granddaughter. Even if I have not shown you the affection you are due as such.”

“Of course I won’t, Duchess.” Perdita gave her a little hug. “And I do thank you. I know what you did must have been terribly difficult for you.”

Before the dowager could apologize again, she left the room, closing the door firmly behind her.

The Duchess of Pemberton was waiting outside the door along with Archer. Telling the duchess that she was wanted within the room, Perdita then allowed Archer to lead her into a small sitting room down the hall.

Shutting the door, Archer pulled Perdita into his arms. “I thought I’d lost you,” he said fiercely as he held her against him. “When I think again of that woman pointing her pistol at you…”

“Do not think of it,” Perdita said, kissing him.

They moved to sit together on a small sofa. “Was the dowager terribly upset about Simmons?” Archer asked once he’d kissed her again. “It cannot have been easy for her to hear that her maid was her husband’s baseborn daughter as well as her grandson’s lover.”

“No, it was not easy,” Perdita agreed. Quickly, she explained what the dowager had just told her.

When she was finished, Archer whistled. “Just when I thought things could get no worse.”

“Will you mind very much being married to a member of such a disturbing family?” Perdita asked, her voice betraying her worry. “For if you wish to cry off, I will understand.”

“Of course I do not wish to cry off,” Archer replied, in a chiding tone. “It takes more than a little incest and murder to frighten me off.”

Perdita couldn’t help it. She giggled. And all the tension of the day seemed to overtake them as they dissolved into helpless laughter.