“Like, we didn’t kill him. He’s still alive!” That’s what Shonda Rhimes told Vanity Fair recently, reacting to the uproar over news that fan favorite Regé-Jean Page would not return as Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings, in the second season of Netflix’s hit series “Bridgerton.” Rhimes, an executive producer on the series set in Regency-era England, said she was “really shocked, because usually that happens when I’ve killed off somebody that’s been around for a while” — like the McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey) and McSteamy (Eric Dane) characters on “Grey’s Anatomy.” In the case of “Bridgerton,” Page’s disappearance is mostly to do with the structure of the source material, eight books by Julia Quinn that detail each of the eight Bridgerton siblings’ love lives. Daphne (Phoebe Dynevor), the rakish duke’s eventual one-and-only, had her story told in Book 1 (“The Duke and I”) and in Season 1. And now that’s done.