Read Online For Love Alone by Shirlee Busbee - Free Book Online Page A

If they were all drugged, it would explain the yawing and erratic movements of the vessel just before she went down. There was literally no one at the helm. And when she sank, the crew and the others were already unconscious. They sank right along with her.” Roxbury met Ives’s eyes. “The Fox,” he said grimly, “killed them all.”
    There was a long pause as this sank in.
    â€œAnd you want me to catch him,” Ives said softly.
    Roxbury lifted his snifter, clinking it against the one held in Ives’s hand. “And I want you to catch him.”

Chapter Three

    F or a long time after Roxbury had departed, Ives roamed the confines of the study, his thoughts dark and deadly. His father had been murdered. Murdered by a traitor.
    A cold implacable rage filled him. In the lonely silence of his study, Ives made a vow. The Fox would die.
    Dawn was sending delicate pink-and-gold fingers of light over the city when Ives eventually made his way up the stairs to his room. His valet, his former batman, Ashby, had long ago sought out his own bed, and so Ives was alone in his bedchamber as he quickly stripped and crawled beneath the crisp linen sheets.
    For a brief moment, the sensation of the cool, clean material caressing his body made him smile. Thinking of the many nights over the years that he had slept in places he would not wish on the worst felon made him appreciate the fine feather bed and the sheer comfort of his surroundings.
    But his enjoyment of the physical pleasures faded immediately, and sorrow at his father’s death washed over him once again. This time it was deeper and almost more painful than it was when he first heard of the tragedy which took his father’s life, along with those of his uncle and cousins. But now! To suspect that it had not been just an act of fate but that it was very likely—nay, almost certain—that they had been murdered, was to rip open the wound anew.
    Ives did not allow himself to dwell on the tragedy. During his time in the military, he had seen much death and suffering and had learned quickly to assimilate it, then put it aside. A man could not think clearly, methodically, if his emotions were involved. Now more than ever he needed to be able to keep a cool head.
    Roxbury’s information tonight had been stunning. Not in his wildest fantasies would he have conceived that not only Adrian, but his own father as well, had been working secretly for his godfather. A grim smile crossed Ives’s features. He shouldn’t have been surprised. He had known that Adrian was ripe and ready for mischief, and that his father, despite being nearly forty years older than Adrian, had not been much better.
    And as for Roxbury’s part . . . Ives shook his head. Roxbury was every bit as secretive and conniving as the man known as Le Renard. Perhaps more so, since he was a well-known member of the aristocracy and welcomed everywhere.
    While there were those who knew or suspected Roxbury’s other side, the general public had no idea of how far his tentacles reached; the shadowy figures who wandered in and out of his life as he collected information, like a spider in the center of a web; the cold-blooded schemes he would boldly concoct for England’s benefit. It was whispered that few major decisions were made at Whitehall without Roxbury’s advice, or approval.
    Because of his relationship to Roxbury, Ives had been aware that his godfather was not quite the dilettante he appeared to be. During his years in the military, there had been one or two odd activities he had been asked to undertake that had come at the direct behest of his godfather. He had always been puzzled by the apparent control Roxbury exerted over his various commanding officers, but he had not thought too deeply about it. He had been, he admitted with a wolfish grin, too busy trying to stay alive. Tonight, however, Ives had discovered that the hints and whispers he had heard