Twice Tempted by Eileen Dreyer Page B

and turned to go, when a single word drew him up short.
    “Alex.” Alex heard a wealth of history in his voice.
    He turned, suddenly sure he didn’t want to hear what his father had to say. “Sir?”
    His father’s gentle brown eyes looked almost liquid. “Don’t waste more years paying penance.”
    Alex’s head snapped up. “Pardon?”
    His father smiled. “The first time I met you, you were gathering your lead soldiers to melt down so you could sell them to buy…what was it?”
    Alex’s gut crawled with discomfort. “A Christmas goose for the staff. They were working without pay. It was the least I could do.”
    “You were eight. It was not your fault that your father was a…disappointment.…”
    “Don’t try to wrap it in clean linen. He was a wastrel.”
    Sir Joseph’s smile never changed. “Nor was it your fault that Amabelle was imperfect. But what you can learn is that you weren’t put on this earth merely to heal and atone for everyone you meet. Be careful that you don’t find yourself trying to save Ferguson’s sisters all by yourself.”
    Alex felt as if a band were tightening across his chest. His laugh was harsh. “Good heavens, sir. Why would I want to do that? The last time I tried to save anyone, it was my wife. And she was so grateful, she committed suicide.”
    *  *  *
    He had been the one to find her; Amabelle had made sure of it, timing her act to the second, so he would return from a hard trip to find her lying in the bloodred bath, her hair floating about her like obscene seaweed, her eyes open and opaque, somehow looking despairing and accusing at once. He had yanked her from the tub, screaming curses, and tried to stem the flow of blood from her gaping wrists, even knowing he was too late, that he had been too late before he’d walked in the door. He had exhorted her, begged her, bullied her to live. He had kept on until his staff finally pulled him off and covered her up.
    Her suicide note had contained one line. I cannot do it anymore. And only Alex had known exactly what she’d meant. Only he had come to suspect the depth of her need, the impossibility of filling that gaping hole, the lengths to which she would have gone to try.
    He hadn’t truly understood, though, until three weeks ago, when he had received the letter from the Lions.
We believe you would want to know. We have found your wife’s letters.
    It would be enough to ruin them all. A member of the family who had committed treason, even if she hadn’t fully comprehended it. After all, she had just repeated overheard conversations to her lovers. How could she know what they would do with them?
    How, indeed?
    Alex was so caught up in memories as he walked that he turned the wrong way on Piccadilly without realizing it and strode through progressively deteriorating real estate. His first hint of the extent of his wandering was a piping voice at his elbow.
    “Cur, gov, you don’t ’ear nuffink, does ya?”
    Stopping in the midst of teeming foot traffic, Alex looked down to see a scrawny boy of maybe ten glaring up at him from beneath the most disreputable top hat he’d ever seen. “What am I supposed to hear?” he asked.
    The boy huffed, as if Alex were the greatest idiot walking. “Me, ’course. Tryin’ to get y’r ear since bloody ’aymarket. Got a message f’r ya.”
    Alex wanted to smile, but he knew better. Ragamuffins like this were all business and fragile dignity. Alex bent to hear the boy over the din of passing traffic, street vendors, and broadsheet sellers. “Indeed. And what would that be?”
    “You be Lord Whitmore, right?”
    For the first time, Alex felt a frisson crawl down his back. “I am.”
    The boy nodded and pulled a crumpled letter from his pocket. “’Bout time you showed up. I bin waitin’ at that ’ouse nigh on a week. Was told you’d give me a yellowboy for the delivery.”
    Alex raised an eyebrow. “An entire yellowboy? It must be important, then. Who gave it to