Alec entered the bar he and Rafe used as a meeting place. It was mostly empty given the early hour. Rafe was already standing in his usual spot at the end of the counter calmly sipping his coffee and joking with Gianni, the bartender. Beside him was a small glass of grappa.
“I thought you might need this,” Rafe explained unprompted as Alec approached. “Christ. You look like hell.”
Without a word, Alec picked up the glass and swallowed the contents. The warm burn cut through the numbness that had enveloped him for the past hour. Then he set the glass down, turned to Rafe, and immediately punched him.
“God damn it, man!” Rafe cried out, clutching the side of his face.
Alec turned to Gianni and pointed to his glass. “Another.”
The man simply nodded, not at all fazed by Rafe’s yowling, and went to retrieve the bottle.
“I suppose I deserved that,” Rafe said as he felt along his jaw. Alec had only clipped him. They both knew he could have hit him much harder. “But you could have told me who she was. I might not have—”
“—threatened her?”
“I thought—”
“I know what you thought,” Alec bit off and turned away. In all the years they had known one another, Alec had never seen Rafe express anything close to the regret clearly etched on his face now. But it wasn’t enough to quell the anger churning inside him. Gianni refilled the glass, and he drank it as quickly as the first. “I appreciate your complete lack of confidence in my abilities, by the way. So tell me, who was the plant last night?”
Rafe hesitated. “Drakos.”
Alec let out a harsh laugh. “Is he even an olive oil magnate?”
“Yes,” Rafe said testily. “Mr. Drakos is an international businessman and a valuable Crown asset. You were acting strangely yesterday, so I called in a favor. Thanks to him last night wasn’t a complete loss.”
Alec shot him an expectant look. “Well? What of Madame Noir?”
Rafe wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Nothing useful. Yet,” he couldn’t help adding.
“A bloody waste,” Alec grumbled. “All of it.”
“I’m going to ignore that remark because you have every right to be angry with me. But be that as it may, I still have a few questions of my own. Starting with how the hell Lottie Carlisle ended up in Venice. With you.”
Alec let out a breath. “She was taking a tour of Florence and disappeared. Made it look as though she had run off with someone.”
“Naughty girl,” Rafe said with a smirk, then immediately winced. “Dammit,” he hissed, then gestured to Gianni. “Something cold, pronto.”
Alec gave him a rather satisfied smile before he continued. “Sir Alfred telegraphed me asking for help.”
Rafe pressed a cool glass of ice against his bruised skin and groaned with relief. “I’m sure that must have cost him a great deal of pride to ask such a thing of you.”
“Hardly. He knew exactly what he was doing. That I would immediately set out to find her,” he murmured.
“How did you manage to track her down?”
“A hunch. Her parents had spent their honeymoon touring Tuscany. Lottie always talked about someday visiting a particular village where they stayed. I asked around and someone remembered selling a train ticket to a woman matching her description. And it fit.”
Rafe raised a skeptical eyebrow. “It seems you’ve been having a number of fruitful hunches lately.”
Alec stilled, remembering his words from yesterday. In the tumult of this morning he had entirely forgotten why they had arranged this meeting in the first place.
“So you arrived in this village and there she was. I take it there was no man about?”
Alec shook his head. “She was alone.”
“Well, then she must have been happy to see you.”
Alec recalled the thunderous look on her face. He should have turned around and left right then. He could have told Sir Alfred where she was and been done with it. “What makes you think that?”
“She went with you, didn’t she?” Rafe shrugged. “Or maybe she had tired of her little adventure and wanted another.” The sly grin returned, slightly diminished. “She did look freshly tumbled this morning. I thought you didn’t sleep with virgins.”
Alec gripped the empty grappa glass so hard the stem cracked.
Rafe let out a surprised laugh. “My God, I was only teasing. But thank you for answering that question. She’s game for anything, though, isn’t she?” Rafe’s eyes glinted with a kind of admiration. “Slapped me clean across the face when I got too fresh. She’s not at all how you described her.”
Alec didn’t like his knowing tone one bit. “What do you mean?”
“You always made her sound so angelic. Like she needed protection from the big bad world.”
Alec bristled. “Well, that was more the case when we were children.” But up until a few days ago he had still believed that about Lottie, hadn’t he?
Rafe looked thoughtful as he set down the glass. “You know, it’s rather surprising that she never entered the field herself,” he mused. “Many women can be an asset. And she certainly has the character.”
“Sir Alfred never would have put her at risk. She’s his only family. It’s one of the few things he values.”
“But there are plenty of things she could do that wouldn’t be dangerous. She could gather information.” Then Rafe’s gaze narrowed. “Say, during a trip to Italy.”
Alec’s neck heated. Remembering his earlier suspicions, he chose his next words with extreme care. “What are you suggesting?”
“Only that it sounds rather convenient to me,” Rafe said a little too casually. “She goes through all the trouble of leaving Florence, cooking up a delicious story, and settling in a place you just happen to know about—then drops everything as soon as you appear.”
“You’ve got it all wrong—”
“Do I?” Rafe asked sharply. “Because what I see is a woman loyal to Sir Alfred Lewis accompanying you on a mission. And then distracting you at the worst possible moment. Sir Alfred doesn’t have the influence he once did. And he isn’t content to fade into obscurity, like his contemporaries.”
Alec’s voice grew deadly quiet. “Lottie hates this business, and she came to Italy in part to escape him.”
“Then why did she leave with you?” Rafe pressed.
He would have to say it. In order to quell Rafe’s suspicions, he would have to say it. “She loves me.” Uttering the words was even more painful than hearing them. Because it meant a part of him, however small, believed them.
“You sound quite certain.”
But you were loved. By me.
And I love you still.
Alec swallowed hard. “I am.”
Rafe held his gaze. “And yet you never told her the truth. How her uncle essentially blackmailed you into service.”
Alec’s eyes widened. It was all a trick, but before he could speak Rafe held up a hand.
“Please don’t hit me again. I’m only trying to make a point.”
“Yes, I can see that,” Alec groused and turned away. “I told her what she needed to know. To ensure she left.”
“I can’t imagine she went willingly.”
You were so lonely, so desperate, you would have been friends with anyone who paid you the least bit of attention.
“After the things I said to her, she had no desire to stay.”
Then he had stormed out of the flat and skulked in the shadows across the street, telling himself it was only to make sure she and Valentina left in time to catch the train. Not because he was so pathetic that he craved to see her just once more.
“She will be safe now,” he insisted. “If it means she must hate me, so be it.”
“I’m not certain she’s safer in England.” The slight note of foreboding in Rafe’s voice sent a chill through Alec.
“The leak.”
Rafe’s eyes held the answer: Sir Alfred.
Alec let out a foul curse. “Whatever he has done, Lottie isn’t involved. I will swear on my life—”
“I know,” Rafe nodded. “I thought it could be a possibility, but not after this morning.”
“And yet, you let me think the worst.”
“Only so you would see that you have the chance for something more. Don’t let your pride get in the way.”
“You think this is pride?” Alec let out a bitter laugh. “I’ve no pride to speak of. I’m the boy whose own parents didn’t even want him.”
Rafe tilted his head. “Is that all that’s stopping you? You can’t let your parents’ mistakes rule your entire life. Even I know that.”
Alec bristled again. Rafe was making far too much sense far too early. “A mistake would indicate they felt some kind of regret.”
“I was going to tell you this right away until you hit me, but I learned something rather interesting last night about Sir Alfred. In addition to the possible treason, of course. What do you know of his time in Venice?”
“When he was here decades ago?” Alec tried to recall what he knew. “Only a little. He frequently wrote about his travels, and Venice was among them. I believe he stayed with my parents for a time.”
Rafe’s grave expression was unsettling enough, but then he spoke. “Sir Alfred was already a spymaster by then. And, according to my London contact, your mother was working for him. I’m not sure your father even knew.”
It was as if Alec’s very blood had frozen in his veins. He couldn’t make his mouth move.
“Last night I was introduced to a man who worked in the same ring,” Rafe continued. “This fellow was shocked to learn that you would have anything to do with Sir Alfred after, as he put it—” Rafe paused to clear his throat “—after what he did to your mother.”
“Did what, exactly?”
“This man didn’t know all the particulars, but he claimed that Sir Alfred used your mother to get information about her husband, the count, in exchange for money.”
His parents and their damned debts. He furrowed his brow. “There were times during my childhood when she would leave abruptly. Sometimes for weeks. My father claimed she was visiting family. When I was a boy I believed him, but later, after I learned the truth about their relationship, I assumed she had been with her husband. And that those visits led to their eventual reconciliation.” He shook his head, still trying to make sense of it all. “Could she really have been spying on him then?”
“It’s very likely, yes.” Rafe then hesitated.
“What?” Alec could barely get the word out. He would not like whatever came next.
“Well, according to this source, eventually the count discovered her. And he was furious. I’m not exactly sure how it all came about, but in the end she was forced to return to him. For good. He called it a sacrifice.”
A sacrifice?
It felt as if someone had punched a hole in Alec’s chest. “But why did she never tell my father any of this? He died thinking the very worst.”
“There’s only one person alive who can answer that.”
Sir Alfred.
Rafe had more to say, but Alec heard none of it. He didn’t realize what he was doing until he was already on the bustling street. Already racing toward the train station. Already too late.
Alec braced a hand against a wall, struggling to breathe as his entire world crashed all around him. This massive deception had shaped everything he ever believed. Tainted every relationship he ever had. He silently raged for the years Sir Alfred had stolen from him, for his family torn apart, for his parents’ doomed love—all to sate the infinite ambitions of powerful men.
But the very darkest thoughts were saved only for himself.
For no matter what had happened decades before or what choices his parents had made, he alone had driven away the woman he loved that morning. He alone had uttered the words designed to break her heart. And he alone had turned his back on the one person who had been there, always, when he had bothered to let her.
Lottie didn’t want a place in society, a circle of blue-blooded friends, or a man of impeccable pedigree. She wanted only him. And Alec hadn’t bothered to listen. Had never once dared to consider that he could be enough for her, that his illegitimacy didn’t matter, or that he could be wrong about what she truly needed.
Just like his mother before him, he had thought of his leaving as a sacrifice that would only benefit Lottie.
But Alec and his father had suffered unimaginably when Maria Petrucci left.
What if they both had been wrong?
Alec felt achingly empty, as if someone had carved out his insides. He walked around for hours trying to make the hollowness go away. But no matter how many steps he took, it remained. By the time he found his way back to his flat, the daylight had begun to fade.
The feeling only intensified as he trudged up the stairs, entered his front door, and made his way to his bedroom. Without thinking he hauled off the sheet covering his father’s desk and nearly wrenched the drawer out entirely. His trembling hand closed over the miniature. Over the face that had haunted him as a boy.
He had seen his father’s image a few times over the years—always unexpectedly while perusing newspaper articles or magazines. But never his mother’s. He took a breath and turned it over in his palm. The hollowness grew and grew inside him until he crumpled to the floor under its great weight. He had forgotten everything about her, and nothing at all. As if time itself was immaterial. Meaningless.
He stared until his eyes watered, devouring every tiny brushstroke. Every curved line. Every gradient of faded color. Until he could take no more. Then he gently set it down beside him and pressed the heels of his hands against his damp face. And there on his knees in a room bathed in twilight, Alec finally wept.