Why Lords Lose Their Hearts (26 page)

The older man’s brow arched, in a manner that looked familiar to his son. “Then why haven’t you done it?” he asked quietly. “I’d have expected something like this from Frederick. Or even Rhys in one of his more high-handed moments, but you are the one I thought I needn’t worry about.”

“And you needn’t worry about me now,” he assured his father. “I mean to marry her as soon as I convince her to have me.”

“What can be her objection?” To Archer’s amusement, he looked affronted that Perdita hadn’t leaped at the chance to become Mrs. Archer Lisle. “You are a fine prospect. Especially now.”

“What do you mean, now?” Archer asked. If he’d suddenly been given a peerage or inherited a fortune, he’d like to know it.

“Well, I was waiting until the last bit of the paperwork was finalized,” his father said, drawing on his spectacles as he shuffled through the papers on his desk. “Ah, here it is.” He handed a piece of parchment across the desk.

“What’s this?” Archer asked, even as he noted that it was a deed. With his name on it.

“It’s the Waltham estate,” his father said with a rather pleased expression on his countenance. “I’ve had it made over to you.”

“Yes,” Archer said, still dumbfounded. “But why? I thought you meant to settle this on Rhys when he married.”

“As it happens,” the duke said mildly, “Rhys has decided that he does not wish to marry yet. And for all that your Perdita seems resistant to the idea, you are.”

“But you’ve only just learned of my attachment to her in the past couple of days,” Archer argued. “Have you been studying fortune-telling at the gypsy encampment?”

“Not at all,” the duke said, leaning back, folding his hands across his middle. “But I’ve known from what you weren’t saying in your letters that you had some kind of attraction for the lady. Your position is as the private secretary to the Duke of Ormond, but your talk was of little other than the young dowager.”

Archer fought the sudden desire to duck his head. Apparently he’d been more transparent in his missives home than he’d thought. “I’m not sure I know what to say, Papa. I’d planned to use the money that Aunt left me to purchase a small farm, but this is more than I could possibly have afforded on my own.”

“I expect it is,” the duke said. “There’s a rather good living at Waltham. And I’ve got a good man as estate agent there, so you won’t need to rush there and take over the running of it before you’re ready.”

Standing, Archer offered his hand to his father, which he took then covered with his other hand. “All I want for you, Archer. All I want for all my sons, is for you to find the one woman who will give you the same kind of happiness your mother has given me.”

“I think I have,” he said. “And once we get this madman who threatens her in shackles, I shall convince her that she wants me as much as I want her.”

“Then you’d better stop her leaving in the morning.” The duke’s face turned serious. “For the sake of your heart, and her safety.”

Archer’s jaw clenched in determination. “That’s exactly what I intend to do.”

But first, he had to go back and see what his brothers were getting up to.

Twenty-one

The next morning, Archer felt as if a small man were hammering on the inside of his skull. His mouth was dry and if the response of the footman who was acting as his valet to seeing him was any indication, he looked like death. Fortunately, Jem had been talking with Frederick’s valet that morning while he mixed a morning-after remedy for his master, so he’d been able to nip down to the kitchen and have Samson mix up another one for Archer.

So, by the time he walked into the breakfast room—having tracked Perdita there—the smell of food didn’t make him want to put a bullet in his brain like it had on previous occasions the morning after overindulging.

Perdita was seated at the table in conversation with his mother, who was telling her about some system for organizing the linen closet or whatnot. Archer didn’t particularly care what they were talking about so long as they were doing so and Perdita was still there. She was so beautiful, despite the late night they’d all had. And he was reminded of how glorious she’d been when they’d stood together in the pier glass, before the horror that had occurred on the lawn.

Reminded of the reason he’d wanted her to stay, he was suddenly glad for more reasons than his foolish heart that she was still here at Lisle Hall.

“I’m grateful to find you haven’t left,” he said as he took the seat next to her. “Were you not able to get a lift into the village?”

She looked a little sheepish. “I’ve decided,” she said, letting her gaze meet his for just the barest moment before she lowered her lashes, “to remain here for the time being. You were right to say that it is safer here. I was so overset by what happened last night that I was thinking only of the most expedient way to keep you out of danger.”

Wishing that he could kiss her, or at least take her hand in his, Archer had to make do with dipping his head so that he could meet her downcast eyes. “I’m glad you stayed. And I hope that you won’t spend time worrying about my safety. I am well able to take care of myself. And if you are concerned for me, think of how out of my mind with worry I would be if you went back to London without me.

“Speaking of London,” he continued, accepting the cup of tea from a hovering footman, “if you really wish to return, I will take you back. I don’t think that you will be as safe there as you are here, but if you wish it we can leave as soon as I can arrange it.”

But Perdita shook her head. “No,” she said, glancing at his mother who was making no secret of her interest in their conversation. “I had a long think last night, and after some discussion about it with your mother, I decided to stay.”

Archer was at once suspicious. “What did you say to her, Mama?” It wasn’t so much that he wanted to know how she’d persuaded Perdita, it was more that he wanted to know what she’d said about him. Because his mother had been known to reveal embarrassing secrets in her quest to get what she thought her sons deserved.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business, Archer,” she said with asperity. “It was private between Perdita and myself.”

“Count on it,” said Frederick as he carried a plate heaped with food to the table and took the seat beside Archer. “It is something incriminating. Remember what she told Louisa Claremont on the day of the village fair.”

“Oh, really?” Their mother groaned. “Must you bring up Louisa Claremont at every turn, Frederick? She is married with four children now. And has become a dead bore besides.”

“She was not a dead bore when I was fourteen, Mama,” Frederick said with as much dignity as a thirty-one-year-old man can muster while discussing an injury done to him by a parent some twelve years previous. “When I was fourteen she was as close to a Greek goddess as I’d seen, and when you called me ‘Freddykins’ in front of her, she looked at me as if I were four and wearing short breeches.”

Archer whispered to Perdita, “This is a sore subject with Frederick, as you can see.”

“I should think so,” she whispered back, “‘Freddykins’ is an awful nickname.”

“Freddykins,” their father said from where he was filling his own plate at the sideboard, “stop castigating your mother. It’s been twelve years and, as has been noted, Louisa Claremont is many years happily wed. If a match were going to be made between you then it would have happened by now.”

“It wasn’t a life match I was hoping for,” Frederick said under his breath.

Perhaps deciding that a change in subject was needed, he said to Archer, “Any news on your dead man from last night?”

Brought back to earth by the reminder of last night, Archer winced. He’d need to tell Perdita about the man’s identity, but he didn’t think she’d want an audience for it.

But beside him, she frowned. “What is it?” she asked. “What have you learned? Is it someone I know?”

When he hesitated, she said, “Archer, you’re frightening me. Who is it?”

Deciding that he’d better tell her before she worried any more, he said, “It was Lord Vyse, I’m afraid.”

Perdita gasped. “But why?”

Before Archer could answer, Frederick interrupted. “Vyse? You mean he was the man on fire last night? But I just saw him at the tavern only a few nights ago.”

Archer turned to him. “You did?” he demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“How the dev … er, deuce, was I to know he’d go getting himself burned to death in view of Lisle Hall?” Frederick defended himself. “Last I saw of the man he was beating me at darts and pinching the barmaid’s ar … er, cheek.”

“It’s not as if he could know that Vyse accused me of murder in London,” Perdita said rationally. “For all Lord Frederick knew he was just a friend from London staying in the neighborhood.”

“But wouldn’t we have heard if a nobleman was staying in the neighborhood?” Archer asked his mother. “Whoever he was visiting would surely have sent word if only to blow their own trumpet at getting such a prestigious guest.”

“I’m hardly going to be impressed by a mere lordling, Archer,” his mother responded with a shrug. “I am married to a duke, you know.”

“He wasn’t staying with anyone,” Frederick said. “He told me he was in town looking to buy a horse from some fellow on the other side of the village. A man named Cartwright. I had never heard of him, but this is the first time I’ve been home in a year or so, so I thought it was just some newcomer.”

“No,” the duke said, his expression serious, “there’s no one named Cartwright in the neighborhood. Not that I’ve heard of. On either this or the other side of the village. It sounds like your Lord Vyse was telling tales.”

“So we know he wasn’t brought here against his will,” Archer said, stroking his chin. “And if that’s the case, then he very well might have come here at the stalker’s behest.”

“But why?” Perdita asked. “Was he working with the man who is threatening me?”

“Either that,” Archer said, “or he was here on his own.”

“The question is,” the duke said thoughtfully, “how can you find out what Vyse was up to? Could it be that his things are still at the inn?”

“It’s worth a look,” Archer said. He turned to Perdita. “Would you care for a trip to the village?”

“I’ll go get my hat,” she said, hurrying out of the breakfast room.

*   *   *

Despite the drama of the night before, Perdita enjoyed the walk with Archer into the village of Little Lisle. The fresh air was invigorating, reminding her just how much she enjoyed the country.

As they went, they chatted about any number of things that were completely unrelated to threats against her. For the first time in a long while, Perdita began to think she could have a life without being constantly under the cloud of her previous marriage and the fear of how he’d really died coming to light.

“What did my mother say to you last night?” Archer asked after a while. “And don’t gammon me with something about your safety because you were dead serious about leaving when you stormed out of the drawing room. And it was over my safety, not yours.”

She thought about what the duchess had told her, and how it might make him feel to know his mother was meddling in his affairs. But when it came down to it, she would give anything to have a mother who was so obviously interested in her life as Archer’s was with his. “I will tell you,” she said, “but you must promise me that you won’t tell her that I told. We came to a meeting of the minds last night, and I don’t wish to endanger that.”

“All right,” Archer said without hesitation. “I won’t tell her.”

“Well,” she said, “the first thing she asked was what my intentions were toward you.”

“I’m going to kill her,” Archer said, shaking his head in disgust. He stopped in the middle of the path. “I hadn’t thought I was the sort of man who could stoop to matricide, but sometimes it’s just necessary for the good of humanity, and—”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” she said, gripping him by the shoulders. “It’s not how you think.”

“How can it be anything other than what you just said?” he demanded. “My mother, as if I were a gentle young debutante being pursued by a fortune-hunter, asked you what your intentions are. I don’t see how there’s any way I can salvage my manhood from that. When all this time, I thought I was the one debauching you!”

“You were!” she said hotly. “Of course you were!”

“Well,” he sniffed, “I hadn’t realized you thought about it in those terms.”

“Do not split hairs, Archer,” Perdita said, getting annoyed. “We have debauched each other. And it has been wonderful. Your mother simply guessed that you might harbor feelings for me, so she wished to know if I meant to marry you.”

“Which is none of her business,” he said, turning to stare off into the trees. “I cannot believe her!”

“I told her it was none of her affair,” Perdita said, walking up and placing her hand on his back, feeling the strength of his muscles beneath her hand.

“You did?” he asked, turning toward her.

“Of course I did,” she said. “I’m not a green girl. And I’ve lived with the dowager for all these years. I know how to tell a duchess to get out of my business.”

“I’ll bet you do,” Archer said, pulling her into the circle of his arms. “So what did you tell her?”

“That I was still figuring things out,” she replied. “Which is the truth.”

“It is,” he said, kissing the end of her nose. “I hope you’ll figure them out soon.”

She sighed. “I know,” she said. “Me, too.”

He took her hand in his and tugged her along, “Come on, I’ve something to show you.”

Curious, she followed him as the woodland path emerged into wide open fields on the left and the English Channel on the right. They were on the South Downs, she realized.

“We are still on my father’s land here,” Archer said as he stood beside her staring out at the choppy surf before pointing out a well-worn path leading to a set of stairs cut into the chalk cliff. “I want to show you something.”

Perdita allowed him to lead her down the steps to the beach below, appreciating the moment. The feel of the sea breeze against her skin and the sight of Archer looking perfectly at home in the out of doors, his dark blond hair ruffled from the wind. Finally they reached the rocky beach below and she was shocked to see a blanket spread upon the ground, a picnic feast arranged there, complete with a bottle of wine and two crystal glasses.