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

since childhood, all his suspicions about his godfather, were true.
    The prospect of tangling with this fellow known as the Fox could not have given Ives more pleasure. He was used to action and danger, and aside from his grieving, these past months in England had been boring and all too predictable. Even if there had been no connection between the Fox and his father’s demise, Ives would have leaped at the chance to track him down. That the Fox had no doubt murdered his family made it fiercely personal. A smile that would have made even Percival’s blood run cold curved his mouth. Oh, but he was going to enjoy hunting the Fox to his lair.
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    It was well past five o’clock the next afternoon when Ives descended the main staircase of his town house. He was freshly bathed and barbered and looking forward to a quiet evening at home. The hunt for a suitable wife had been temporarily put aside, with no little relief. But that was not to say that he was no longer hunting—he was, for a far different prey.
    Vengeance was a great tonic, Ives thought sardonically, as he sat down in the dining room and heartily ate the meal waiting for him.
    Since his was a bachelor household and he had only himself to please, he ate at hours that suited him, whether it was fashionable or not. Fortunately, his cook, Ogden, was also a former military man, much to the dismay of several of the London staff, and knew precisely what his employer liked to eat and when. Consequently, it was a rare sirloin, spring peas, and roasted potatoes upon which Ives feasted, with none of those fancy sauces to disguise the clean taste of the food.
    Ogden and Ashby were not the only former comrades on Ives’s staff. Upon leaving the military, he had raided the ranks for those men who had proved themselves useful to him under a variety of conditions. In addition to Ogden and Ashby, Cecil Sanderson, the butler, John Carnes, his coachman, and William Williams, his head groom, were also in his employ. His colonel had accused him of taking half his company with him, but Ives had only laughed. His family had been nearly wiped out and, facing the unknown in England, he had wanted men he could trust around him, men he had come to view almost as family.
    Pushing away from the table, Ives said to Sanderson, who was serving him, “Will you get the others and tell them that I need to speak to them in the library? Shall we say ten minutes?”
    Sanderson knew precisely who the others were, and, ten minutes later, the five military comrades were standing respectfully in front of their former commanding officer. Ives waved them to seats around his desk and quickly, succinctly revealed all that Roxbury had told him last night.
    There was a moment of stunned silence, then William Williams, who had grown up near Harrington Chase, burst out, “Are you saying that the guvnor was murdered? By this Fox fellow?”
    Ives nodded.
    â€œAnd we are to catch him?” asked Sanderson, his usually merry eyes cold and determined.
    Again Ives nodded.
    Another moment of silence as they considered the situation. It was Ashby who asked quietly, “How much do we know about him, sir? Did Roxbury tell you anything else? Or do we simply start sifting dirt in the dark?”
    Ives flashed an icy smile. “Roxbury has little to go on, but he did give me a list of three names for us to start with. Be aware that none of the men on the list may be our quarry. But they were all frequently seen in my father’s or my cousin’s company during the weeks just prior to their deaths. Which could mean nothing at all, just mere coincidence, but it seems likely to both Roxbury and me that one of them is our man, or may lead us to our man, else my father and Adrian would not have been so interested in them. They were not, according to Roxbury,” he finished dryly, “the type of gentlemen my father or Adrian would normally have found convivial. Each one has a