Why Lords Lose Their Hearts Read Online Free PDF

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