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“Tell him you won’t do it,” Alec muttered as he stared at the flames. “Tell him you don’t owe him anything more. For God’s sake, howlongare you supposed to be indebted to him?” He curled his fingers into a fist and was about to pound it against the mantel when someone loudly cleared their throat behind him.
Alec spun around and found Lottie tucked up on the window seat with a book on her lap. She gave him an amused smile. “Are the guests really so boring you’d rather converse with the fireplace?”
How would heeverbe a spy if he couldn’t even deduce when he was alone? “I didn’t know you were back,” he blurted out once he recovered from his shock.
Lottie had spent the summer traveling the continent with the family of a school friend. They had not seen each other since Easter. She set aside the book and placed her feet on the floor. As she crossed them, Alec caught a flash of slim ankle. She must have slipped off her shoes. “After the French Riviera Abigail’s father decided he had seen enough of the continent, so we came home early.” Her mouth briefly tightened with disappointment. Then she brightened. “Now, tell me why you’re skulking about the library instead of talking with my uncle’s boring friends.”
Boring indeed.Lottie hadn’t any clue just how powerful her uncle was. Alec himself hadn’t realized it until a few months ago. And he couldn’t say a word to her about it. Guilt settled deep in his belly.
“You won’t ever make new friends if you don’t try,” she continued as her lips curved in an impish smile. She was only teasing him. Possibly even mildly flirting with him. Attention from women was hardly anything new, but Alec’s ears still grew hot. They hadn’t been alone in a room together for many years. He scratched his fingers against the smooth surface of the mantel as he tried to brush the thought aside, but it stubbornly remained.
“I don’t need any more. Apart from you.”
This wasn’t entirely true. Alec had friends, but they kept a polite distance, both of their own accord and his. At school everyone knew about his father, the tragic dead poet, that he had married a servant—aforeignone—and how his uncle, the current Viscount Gresham, still refused to acknowledge Alec’s very existence.
Lottie was the only person who had ever seemed interested in him. Not where he had come from or what had happened. Just him. What else could one call that but friendship?
Her teasing smile faded but her steady gaze seemed to bolt him to the ground.
“I enjoyed your letter from Cannes,” he pushed on while the air thickened between them. “Are you disappointed not to have gone on to Italy?”
Lottie openly stared at him for another excruciating moment, until Alec’s ears grew hot once again, but then she shrugged and glanced away. “No, not really. I’d rather not have my first experience tainted by Mr. Thorne’s complaints. Besides, Italy isn’t going anywhere. I’ll journey there some day.”
“Yes, you will.”
How innocent they both had been. Alec’s chest ached with a useless desire for the impossible. To travel back to that exact moment and make the opposite of every decision that had followed. A vicious longing now flooded through him to storm back into the compartment, to tell Lottie the truth about everything, to fall at her feet and selfishly beg forgiveness for all his sins. It was sheer madness, and yet he shifted a foot, braced his hands on the table, and began to rise from his seat, determined to do just that, when someone called out his name. Alec looked up as a fashionably dressed older man sauntered down the aisle toward him, and his heart plummeted.
“I thought that was you, Professor! Enjoying your school holiday, I see.”
It was none other than Signore Cardinelli, one of Italy’s more unscrupulous businessmen and a major player in the country’s constantly shifting political scene. He counted several of the more corrupt cabinet ministers among his closest friends—though less clear was whether these friendships stemmed from camaraderie or coercion.
Alec gripped the edge of the table and plastered a smile on his face. He had met Cardinelli under innocent enough circumstances—he liked buying ancient artifacts and sought Alec’s opinion on a piece of Etruscan Bucchero earthenware he was considering—but the signore had gone on to become his most valuable source, and the greatest gain of his intelligence career. No matter what Alec thought of him personally, it was vital that he keep things amicable between them. His association with men like Cardinelli was exactly why he needed to stay away from Lottie. Why he could never truly be forgiven. Alec had made his choices. And now he had to live with them.
“Hello, signore. This is quite the surprise.”
“I should say so! I was thinking of inviting you to dinner this evening.” Cardinelli grinned but his sharp gaze closely watched Alec. He possessed a rare kind of animal magnetism Alec had only seen in one other man: Sir Alfred. “I’ve a guest coming who has an interest in Etruscan art. You two should meet.”
“It’s kismet, then.”
“And where are you traveling from?”
“Pistoia. I was visiting some friends over from England. Yourself?”
“Roma. Business. You know how it is,” he said with a wink.
Where Cardenelli was concerned, that could mean anything. Alec would need to send word to Rafe Davies, his point of contact. The signore’s activities were always of great interest to the Crown. “Would you care to join me for a drink?”
The man glanced toward the doorway. “Tempting, but I saw the most alluring creature boarding earlier. I think she came this way. She looked English. Did you happen to see her? She wore a pink gown and was in possession of a divine backside.”
Alec bit the inside of his cheek. What a poet. “Sorry. Haven’t seen anyone matching that description.”
“Oh,youwouldn’t have missed her,” Cardinelli laughed.
“Come, signore,” Alec cajoled. “One drink.” His mouth was beginning to strain from smiling so tightly.
The man let out a wistful sigh and, thankfully, took the seat across from Alec. “Ah, well. She’s probably too expensive for me these days.” In addition to a long-suffering wife who mostly lived abroad, Signore Cardinelli had a rotating group of mistresses, each one younger than the last. Alec didn’t know where he found the time, let alone the stamina.
The man then gave him a wily look as the waiter handed them menus. “And as you know, I am a man ofexquisitetaste.”
