“I thought the notes were awful,” Georgina said, rubbing Perdita’s arm. “But I think receiving the message in person is much worse.”
“It’s certainly a more personal approach than our friend has tried in the past,” Archer said grimly. “I don’t like it. It seems to indicate that this person has decided to stop playing nice.”
“If you call trying to make Georgina think her dead husband was alive, then making an attempt on her life, ‘playing nice,’” Con said bitterly. “As far as I’m concerned this bastard has been playing dirty from the beginning, he’s just started out with more force when it comes to Perdita.”
“I suppose it’s because he thinks I deserve it,” Perdita said quietly. “Perhaps I do. I am, after all, the reason that Gervase is dead. And that’s what this person is so angry about.”
“The only reason the late duke is dead,” Archer bit out, “is his own miserable hide. If he hadn’t threatened your life, then you wouldn’t have been forced to defend yourself.”
“Amen,” Trevor said fiercely. “I have a hard time believing anyone mourns the fellow. Though I suppose the dowager must.”
“Which is why I believe she’s the one behind all of these attacks,” Archer said carefully.
“I don’t know if I can agree,” said Perdita with a shake of her head. “She is ruthless, but I don’t see her setting someone upon me to do something like this. I know her, and she is too fond of seeing her own handiwork to ever rely on someone to follow her orders out in the world. And that includes what happened to Isabella and Georgina, as well. I think it must be someone else. Someone who is comfortable giving orders and relying on his surrogates to follow them.”
“Like a general, you mean?” Georgina asked, brow furrowed. “I must admit that it makes some sense. Not having spent much time with the duchess myself, I cannot speak to a great deal of knowledge of her character. But she does strike me as a hands-on sort of person, if that is what you mean.”
“Exactly,” Perdita agreed. “She adored Gervase, and I cannot imagine that she would seek revenge against anyone who might have hurt him without seeing it with her own eyes.”
“Whoever it is that has you in their sights,” Archer said with a shrug, “it is clear that he means to go all out, so to speak.” Turning to Perdita, he frowned. “How many threatening letters have you received thus far?”
Her mouth dropped open. “How did you…?”
“You told us in Bath that you’d already received several of them. It stands to reason that you’ve gotten more since then.”
Her mouth tight, she said, “Five. I have received five threatening letters and one was included with a bouquet of roses.”
“What?” Georgina demanded. “You didn’t tell me that! Why roses?”
“They were what Gervase always sent the day after…” Perdita paused, her eyes revealing her discomfort.
“You don’t need to finish,” Archer said quietly. He was as aware as anyone of just how Gervase had stripped her of her dignity time and time again. “What did the note say? Was it the same as the others?”
“It was a bit different,” Perdita said, twisting her hands before her. “It was a reminder, more than anything else. Of the anniversary.”
“Of your wedding?” Archer asked.
“Of his death,” Georgina guessed. “Oh, dearest, what a horrible thing to remind you of.”
“When is it?” Archer asked, his every sinew on alert. What if this person were merely teasing Perdita as he led up to some spectacle of revenge to occur on the actual anniversary of Ormond’s death? It made a sick sort of sense.
“In five days, on April 25,” she said. “On April 25 it will have been two years since I killed my husband.”
“Do not say it like that,” Isabella protested. “You make it sound as if you set out to do it. And I will remind you that both Georgina and myself were there and might have killed him just as well.”
“You’re a dear, Isabella,” Perdita said, squeezing her sister’s hand. “But even if you were both there it doesn’t mean that I didn’t have a hand in his death. Whoever it is that seeks to punish me is right.”
“By that rationale then he was also right to punish Georgina and Isabella,” Trevor argued. “This is the work of a madman and nothing more. None of you is to blame for his insanity.”
“What’s to be done?” Archer said, cutting to the chase. “We are clearly seeing some sort of intensifying of this person’s agenda as the anniversary approaches. I think it means that we need to take drastic measures.”
Perdita’s fine auburn eyebrows drew together. “What do you mean, ‘drastic measures’? I warn you now that I refuse to live shut up in Ormond House like some sort of prisoner.”
“I wouldn’t ask that of you,” Archer said firmly. “Not least because it would be too difficult to maintain security in the middle of London. We have no notion of whether any of your servants are in this person’s employ, and I refuse to take chances with your life like that.”
“Then where?” Con asked. “You are more than welcome to come to us in Kent,” he said to Perdita. “I’m sure Georgina would be pleased as punch to have you.”
“I shouldn’t like to put you in danger, as well,” Perdita said with a shake of her head. “It’s why I haven’t gone to Isabella and Trevor. Especially with Isabella’s condition. I don’t know how I’d live with myself if I somehow endangered the child.”
“I was thinking of someplace altogether different,” Archer said firmly. “A place where you are a complete unknown. A place where you can come and go as you please without feeling as if you are in the sights of some madman constantly.”
“Well?” Perdita asked, her attention trained upon him. “Where is this magical place?”
“I cannot tell you,” he said with an apologetic tone. “It must remain a secret to all but a very few until we get there.”
“But what am I to tell my maid?” Perdita asked, frowning. “She will need to know what to pack.”
“I’m afraid you won’t be bringing your maid,” he said. “And I will forgo my valet.”
“This sounds like a scandal waiting to happen,” Georgina said with a grin. “I like it.”
“Well, I do not!” Perdita said, glaring. “It’s completely improper. And impractical besides. How are you supposed to perform your duties as the secretary to Ormond? It’s not as if you can simply take off for a few weeks and expect Ormond House to simply go on without you.”
“Actually, that’s exactly what I mean to do,” Archer said with a grin. “Or I shall tell Trevor that he is welcome to dismiss me.”
“I can do without you for a few weeks,” Trevor said with a shrug. “It’s not as if I cannot write my own correspondence in the name of protecting my sister-in-law.”
“But … but…” Perdita looked around and found them all smiling like little children at a traveling fair. “You’re all mad!” she said, throwing up her hands. “Utterly mad.”
“Not mad, dearest,” Georgina said, patting her friend’s hand. “I think it might be quite sane, in fact. You certainly don’t wish to sit about here in town waiting for some calamity to befall you. This way, you can wait in safety and seclusion for the anniversary date to pass, then return to town with no one the wiser.”
“But what are we to tell people?” Perdita demanded. “It’s not as if I can simply disappear and expect no one in the ton to notice that I have not been seen in days. I have responsibilities. And social obligations.”
“You let me take care of those,” Georgina said with a reassuring smile. “I will see to it that a story is passed around the ton that you’ve been taken with the measles. Dreadful, but it does happen. And you are quite likely to contract them what with all your charity work in foundling hospitals.”
“An excellent idea,” Archer commended her. “I must admit that’s much better than my plan for her to simply go away to the country for a bit. This way no one will be able to find her out wi
th a well-placed letter to a country neighbor.”
The carriage having slowed to a stop, Archer turned to Perdita. “What say you, Your Grace? Will you trust me to keep you safe?”
In the dim light of the carriage lamps, he was unable to read her expression, but the shake of her head was obvious enough. “I cannot do it,” she said sadly. “I cannot go someplace else and put those people in danger, as well. And if I were to leave, this person—whoever he is—would think he’d won. And I will not let him think it.”
Archer bit back a curse of frustration. If she was still unwilling to concede that she should leave London for her own safety at this point, with her sister and Georgie adding their voices to his own, then it was unlikely that she could ever be convinced.
Knowing he could do little to add to his previous arguments, he left off trying to convince her the whole way back to Ormond House.
He was still fuming, hours later, as he tried and failed to fall asleep. He’d asked her quietly once they were inside whether she’d like company, but she’d rebuffed him, saying she needed to be alone. He wasn’t sure if it was because she thought he’d try again to convince her, or because she was angry about Mrs. Fitzroy, but whatever the reason, he went to bed alone, in his own bedchamber.
“If this keeps up I’m going to have to kidnap her and take her to safety myself,” he muttered, punching his pillow into a more comfortable position. Then as he laid his head down, he thought about what he’d just said. Kidnap her. Kidnap her?
He sat up, the sheets falling down to his waist. “Of course!”
To the room at large he said, “I will simply have to kidnap her.”
Thirteen
After a long night, Perdita arose the next morning not long after dawn. Again and again, she’d fallen into a fitful sleep only to be jolted awake again by the memory of the young man from last night dousing her gown with blood. Exhaustion had overtaken her sometime after three, but the noise of the street vendors had penetrated her light sleep as they began their day, and so she rose and dressed.
She should probably have agreed when Archer intimated that he could come to her last night, but she’d been unwilling to face another argument with him despite her suspicion that having him with her would have allowed her to sleep. Then there was the matter of Mrs. Fitzroy. His concern for her after the attack last night had been all she could have wished, but that he would bring that woman to Vauxhall and parade her in front of the ton like that made her more angry than she was willing to admit. Blakemore, she fumed, was entirely different, and she was not willing to entertain the idea that what was good for the goose was good for the gander.
Geese were silly creatures anyway.
She went down to breakfast, expecting to find the table empty, but was surprised and, despite her pique, pleased to see Archer there. He was often long gone by the time she came down.
“Your Grace,” he said, rising as she entered the room. “I hope you were able to sleep better than I was.”
“Little, I’m afraid,” she conceded once she’d asked the footman for a cup of tea and chosen a rasher of bacon and some toast from the sideboard. “For all that that ruffian didn’t actually harm me, he certainly was able to upset my mind.”
“That’s the point,” he said tersely. “He wishes to steal your peace of mind. To make you jump at every little noise or jostle.”
“Well, he’s certainly succeeded,” she said morosely. “I thought I had more fortitude than this. But it would appear that I am just as mortal as anyone else.”
“Do not be too hard on yourself,” Archer said, putting his teacup down. “Even grown men have found themselves unsettled in such situations. I think you handled the events of last evening admirably.”
“I thank you, my lord,” she said. Then, deciding that they needed to clear the air between them, she indicated that the servants should leave the room. Once they were gone, she said, “I regret not allowing you to come to me last night,” she said, not daring to look at him lest he see the emotion that was sure to show in her eyes. “It was stubborn of me, and I think I robbed us both of some much needed solace all for the sake of my pique.”
She looked up and saw that he was smiling. Since there were no witnesses, she supposed, he put his hand over hers where it lay on the table. “I am sorry about Mrs. Fitzroy,” he said wryly. “I admit that I was a bit … well…”—he looked sheepish—“jealous that you’d agreed to accompany Blakemore to Vauxhall. So I sent round a note to Mrs. Fitzroy. But you must know that there is nothing between us.”
Perdita felt a weight lifted from her heart at his words, but she also knew that she had to stop this if they were to remain friends. “Archer, you cannot continue to pretend that we will live happy ever after. I am determined that when I marry again it will be to someone who cannot possibly break my heart. And that will be someone like Blakemore, if not the man himself. I must have your promise that you will not cut up rough every time I am seen in public with another man.”
She saw his frown at her words and knew that he was not convinced.
He pulled his hand away, but though she expected an argument, he only said, “I will agree to let you go to another man only when you have agreed to give us…”—his eyes flashed with emotion—“give me a chance. Until then, I fear we will have to agree to disagree.”
Disappointment flooded her, but she knew that it had been a foolish dream to think that a man as passionate as Archer would take kindly to sharing her with someone else. His loyalty was one of the things she liked most about him. “Then I suppose we will,” she agreed. Then, hating what she had to say but knowing it was the only fair thing for both of them, she continued, “I think that until we reach some sort of agreement, we should not sleep together again.”
She’d expected him to balk, but instead he simply nodded. Though his jaw did clench, so she knew he wasn’t entirely unmoved.
“If that is all,” he said, standing, “I have work to do.”
Alone in the breakfast room, she allowed herself to shed a tear over the dissolution of their liaison.
* * *
Any hopes Perdita had of the incident at Vauxhall being ignored by the gossip sheets were dashed when soon after breakfast, while she was writing letters, one of the maids appeared at her door bearing a note from the dowager accompanied by a copy of the most lurid of scandal sheets, The Daily Whisper.
The note was short and to the point:
Perdita,
How dare you make a spectacle of yourself? Come to me at once.
She knew the dowager was especially overset because she’d not even bothered to sign her name—something she rarely omitted since she enjoyed using the power of her title if at all possible. It was tempting to ignore the summons. After all, Perdita was not a child, and since her sister had succeeded her as the duchess, she need not answer to the dowager any longer. Well, she amended, to a point.
Putting off the inevitable, however, had never been something Perdita was very good at. She’d much rather get the meeting over with than to have it dangling over her head all day. Calling for her maid, she had the carriage brought around, donned a pelisse and hat, and set off for the lavish town house the dowager Duchess of Ormond now called home.
Though there were but a few streets between Ormond House and the dowager’s new abode, the traffic was such that it took nearly half an hour for the carriage to pull up before the elderly lady’s town house. Clearly the butler had been instructed to expect her, for no sooner had she been handed down from the carriage by the dowager’s footman, than she was being ushered into the entrance hall, with its gleaming white and black checkerboard-patterned marble floors.
“Her Grace awaits you in the front parlor, Your Grace,” Jennings said as he took her things. Perdita had long become accustomed to being the second dowager Duchess of Ormond. Though it did feel a bit redundant at times. It was a rarity among the ton, simply because it was a rarity for a duke to predecease his grandmother as Perd
ita’s late husband Gervase had done. And it was the circumstances of that death which had caused so much trouble for her. Including the frightening assault she’d endured the evening before.
Following Jennings upstairs, Perdita reflected that she might be able to better explain why she’d been accosted at Vauxhall if she were at last to tell the dowager about the threats she’d been getting since Gervase died. But when the threats had begun—first with Isabella, and then a few weeks later with Georgina—it had been decided that none of the three ladies would tell the dowager why they were being threatened. The dowager still thought that Isabella’s maid had simply gone mad and threatened her mistress. And she had had no reason to be informed of what had occurred with Georgina in Bath, though there had been some talk of it. She’d never thought Georgina, as the daughter and widow of mere army officers, was worth the notice of a duchess in any event. That both Isabella and Perdita counted her as a friend, and the Earl of Coniston had wed her a few weeks ago, was neither here nor there.
As they reached the doorway to the parlor, Jennings announced Perdita and then discreetly disappeared. Perdita found the older woman seated before the fire, her feet up on a footstool, and her color better than the last time they’d seen one another. An apoplexy had left the dowager in a weakened state some months ago, but she seemed to be recovering. Especially now that she no longer had to share a house with Isabella, whom she saw as a snake in the grass for having tempted Trevor into marriage before his grandmother could parade him before the ton like a prize cow. Or bull, Perdita corrected herself with an inward smile.
“Grandmamma,” she said, leaning down to kiss the dowager’s cheek, “you’re looking well. I trust you’ve been resting as the doctor has advised.”
“Tcha,” the dowager spat, “that ninny would have me an invalid if he had his way.” As Perdita pulled away, the old woman looked up at her through narrowed eyes. “I’m glad to see I can still have you at my side when I wish to,” she said with some degree of satisfaction.
Why Lords Lose Their Hearts Page 13