Twice Tempted Read Online Free Page A

train anyway.”
    Climbing off the bed, Chuffy suddenly grinned. “Your sister’s there. Be happy to help, I’m sure.”
    Alex groaned. “Pippin? Don’t even think of it. I am not letting Pip loose anywhere near a government investigation. She’d muck it up more royally than Prinny’s marriage.”
    Chuffy gave his head a ruminative shake. “Not so sure. Sharp as scissors, Pip.”
    “And too inquisitive by half. Don’t encourage her, Chuffy.” Finishing his own brandy, he put the decanter away. “Now, go be Oedipus.”
    Long after Chuffy left, Alex stood at the window thinking. He knew he should get back to Sussex and follow up on that blackmail attempt. He should ride hard for London and confer with the Rakes, the untidy group of gentlemen spies Drake led.
    But he couldn’t face Ian Ferguson. Not until he’d made some kind of amends. Not until he’d brought home Ian’s sisters. Until he made sure they were safe.
    Until Fiona was safe. Until she knew she wasn’t alone again with no help and no friends and no hope.
    He thought again of that day four years earlier when he’d met her. He could still remember that jolt of awareness when he’d spotted her, the gut-twisting connection from just the sight of a girl leaning out a coach window. He could still see the wild banner of lush red-gold silk that was her hair, hear that throaty voice.
    He smiled at the memory of her standing before him, head back, back straight, determination a living thing in her. He remembered being surprised. He’d set off after a petulant schoolgirl and stumbled over an Amazon. A young, painfully earnest warrior who only wanted to see her sister safe.
    He still didn’t know why he’d kissed her. Maybe it was because she had looked so frustrated, so lost when she’d gotten so tangled up in the briars. Maybe it was the fact that she’d been the most honest thing he’d seen in four months spent trolling London’s underbelly. He just remembered the scent of clean soap and sunlight on her neck as he bent to free her from her prison. He remembered being humbled by her bravery.
    He remembered that he’d been surprised by her innocence and backed right off. And he remembered that he’d carried the memory of that moment with him through the ensuing years of pain and drama, when futility had eaten away at the marriage he’d once seen as a miracle, and around him the world had shown itself to be a place of deceit and violence.
    What if he hadn’t been married the first time he’d met Fiona? Would the ensuing years have been different? Would he have kept better track of her? Would he have missed seeing her the year she should have debuted and wondered what had happened to the sharp, bright girl he’d met?
    He would never know. He would never know just how different his life could have been if he hadn’t fallen so hopelessly in love with Amabelle Taverner. He would never know if he could have changed Fiona’s life. Or his own.
    Fiona was a strong woman. If Alex hadn’t already known that from her life story, he certainly would have realized it the day he’d delivered the bad news about Ian. She had stood up to her grief and her grandfather’s animosity with amazing courage. But she was more alone than ever, penniless and friendless, with Mairead to care for.
    It was up to Alex to find her. Not just for her own sake, or her brother’s. For his own.
    *  *  *
    In a paneled library two hundred miles away in Mayfair, a tall, lean, middle-aged gentleman sat at his desk going through the mail. The room was silent, even birdsong failing to breach the heavy windows, the man’s only company an elderly hound bitch who lay curled up before the fire. The man was so absorbed in the letter he held in hands that betrayed a faint tremor that it took him a moment to hear the knock on his door.
    The white of his thick hair gleamed in the candlelight as he set down the letter and looked up. “Enter.”
    Another unmemorable young man cast in