Twice Tempted Read Online Free

“Depends on whether they feel comfortable battening down on any of these folk. Not sure I would, but I’ve never had the nerve to correspond, either.”
    Alex separated out a few letters. “Fiona bought coach fare to London. A few of these addresses are in the vicinity. We might as well look there first.”
    Chuffy began to carefully fold his letter. “Read the others later. Right now, need to do some more work on those blasted ciphers.”
    Alex looked up. “No luck?”
    “Dead annoying. Have half a dozen messages. Have a whole bloody poem full of keywords. Nothing seems to fit. Awful poem. Hurts my eyes.”
    Alex cuffed him on the shoulder. “Well, if anybody can crack the thing, it’s you.”
    It was the Rakes’ greatest secret. No one who met Chuffy would think him a code-breaker without equal.
    Chuffy frowned. “Feel like Octopus, solvin’ riddles all the time.”
    Alex tried not to smile. “You mean Oedipus? Well, it could be worse, Chuff. He did solve the Sphinx’s riddle and get the fair princess.”
    “Don’t want a princess. Want to sleep.” Handing over the letters, Chuffy gave a mournful sigh. “Might have known it’d be back to the minx fellow.”
    Alex grinned. “The Sphinx is actually female.”
    “Figures.” Chuffy shook his head and slid his glasses back into place. “At least I don’t have to tell Drake we’re deserting the princess’s house party. I’ll let you do that.”
    Alex felt a new weight drop on his chest. An old weight, really. A weight Chuffy didn’t know about. “I’m not sure Drake will understand.”
    Chuffy gave him a look that reduced him to a first-former. “Gentlemen first, old lad. Spies second.”
    Gentlemen first. But was he? Alex wondered.
    The truth twisted in his gut like bad meat. Gentlemen didn’t betray their friends. Gentlemen didn’t sell their souls to retrieve incriminating letters. Alex had done both not a week earlier, at the house party he and Chuffy had been monitoring. But at the time he had convinced himself that he could save Ian once he’d saved his own family.
    It hadn’t worked out that way.
    Alex couldn’t shut his eyes without seeing Ian Ferguson torn and bloody and bowed from his encounter with Minette Ferrar, only still alive because others had found him. He couldn’t think of what he’d done without wanting to vomit.
    Every day he promised to make it up to his friend somehow. And now, already, he had failed him again.
    He had to find Fiona for Ian.
    He had to find Fiona for himself.
    “Indeed, Chuff,” he said, downing his drink as if the matter were that easy. “I wouldn’t be able to face my father if I deserted two innocents just to save the nation.”
    Chuffy gave that little huff of his as he bundled the letters. “Others can save the nation. No one around for the ladies. Not worried, though. White Knight and all.”
    Alex’s stomach lurched again at the hated appellation. “I’m no White Knight, Chuff.”
    Chuffy blinked. “You are. Always do the right thing.”
    Alex clenched his brandy glass so tightly he almost snapped the stem. “Don’t you dare burden me with that kind of nonsense. No one can always do the right thing.”
    But Chuffy’s smile was complacent. “First time I met you, down at Eton. Being beat to flinders. Got your lights darkened for me. Never forget. Haven’t changed.”
    Have , Alex thought, his gut on fire. Only Chuffy still saw the world in absolutes. Mortals like Alex had had their ideals eroded by time trudging along battlefields, lurking in alleys, betraying friends, being betrayed by friends. By lovers and wives. A man didn’t come out of that unscathed. He learned too quickly that he couldn’t save everybody.
    God knew he hadn’t saved his wife. He hadn’t even saved Ian Ferguson.
    But Chuffy wouldn’t understand. So Alex grabbed the letter in Chuffy’s hand. “I’ll notify Drake that we’ve been detained. He can get Beau Drummond to take over. He was in the princess’s