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over with the dowager herself. Something he wasn’t quite sure he’d ever be prepared to do.
    Hurrying down the stairs, he went in search of Lord Dunthorp.
    *   *   *
    He found Dunthorp in the little drawing room, his fingers drumming repeatedly on the mantel over the enormous old-fashioned fireplace. “Is she well? Dammit, Lisle, you must tell me,” the other man said as soon as he saw Archer.
    “Easy,” Archer said. “She is fine. She’ll have a bump on her head for a few weeks, but other than that the doctor thinks she’ll make a full recovery.”
    The degree to which Dunthorp’s shoulders relaxed said a great deal about what he’d thought the duchess had been up against. “Thank God,” he said finally. “I was so afraid there would be permanent damage and that she’d blame me…”
    “Well, never fear,” Archer retorted smoothly. “She is quite well and will doubtless be calling for tea soon.”
    To his surprise Dunthorp moved forward and took Archer’s hand between his massive paws before he could stop him, and began pumping it up and down. “Thank you, Lord Archer,” the other man said firmly. “If you’d not been there to take the matter in hand I have little doubt that the duchess would be facing a much more serious injury. Perdita and I will see to it that you are handsomely rewarded once we are wed.”
    Any pleasure he might have taken from Dunthorp’s effusive praise was canceled out by the annoyance he felt at the way Dunthorp linked his own name with Perdita’s. In a manner which Archer was quite sure Perdita had not and would not have sanctioned. It was opportunism at its worst and Archer wondered for a moment whether he should call the fellow to task now, or simply let Perdita cut him down to size later. At last he decided to go ahead and nip the other man’s encroachment in the bud, especially considering that Perdita needed her rest.
    “I’m sorry to say it, old fellow,” he began, “but if you mean to convince the duchess of your serious intentions, then simply pronouncing your engagement as if it were a fait accompli is not the way to go about things. Especially when one considers that the widowed duchess has suffered a head injury. She may have forgotten some of her memory, but she hasn’t lost her mind, you see.”
    As Archer continued to speak, the other man’s face grew redder and redder until, finally, he seemed to burst like a bladder filled with air. “How dare you, sir?” Dunthorp clenched his fists at his sides in rage.
    But Archer was not to be easily cowed. “I dare, sir, because I have known the lady for some five years now and do not believe she has ever expressed the intention of marrying you. Oh, she’s considered it, of that I’m sure. But that is hardly the same thing as agreeing. Especially if one considers your exchange earlier this morning.”
    Dunthorp’s jaw clenched and his fists shifted back and forth at his side, as if he were unable to decide whether to take a shot at Archer or not. Archer suspected not. Men like Dunthorp were never quite sanguine with the notion of being hit back, no matter how eager they might be to throw the first punch.
    “You have overstepped your bounds, sir,” he said, his teeth bared like a cur protecting a bone. “I will allow the lady to tell me whether she will or won’t have me. Not some hanger-on, with delusions of his own importance.”
    His shoulders raised in a shrug, Archer said, “Suit yourself. Though I’m afraid that the duchess won’t be able to see you today. She’s had quite an upset this morning and I should like to see her rest before she gets involved in monetary matters again too soon.”
    At the mention of money, Dunthorp’s mouth opened and shut like an angry fish. Finally, he said. “I won’t stand here and be insulted.”
    “I perfectly understand, Lord Dunthorp,” Archer said, flicking an infinitesimal speck of dust from the arm of his coat. “Pray, feel free to sample the