With a smooth flick of her wrist, she opened her fan. “I don’t care. Good night, Professor.” Then she turned pointedly away from him. Their conversation, and any hope of securing an alliance, was over.

Alec sighed and headed for the door Lottie had passed through. He crossed the hallway and then entered another room as grand as the last, but after two steps, he stopped in his tracks. Several couples in various stages of undress huddled in every available corner. He glanced back through the doorway of the room he had just exited. Madame Noir appeared to have already recovered from his rejection with Mr. Drakos. Alec turned away before he could see any more.

So the rumors were true, then. Anger gripped him as he stalked down the marble hallway. What had he been thinking, bringing Lottie here? He had to find her. Immediately. He passed by another room as the good signore himself emerged with two giggling courtesans.

“Where are you off to, Professor?”

“I’m leaving,” Alec growled.

The man’s face screwed up in a frown. He shooed the young women away and blocked Alec’s path. “But the festivities are only beginning. And we still have much to discuss. I noticed you seem to be enjoying Madame Noir’s company. I have some information about her that might interest you…”

Alec knew he was supposed to take whatever crumbs this man offered, especially now that he had failed to win over Madame Noir herself, but all that mattered at the moment was finding Lottie.

“I don’t give a damn, Cardinelli. I’m looking for my cousin.”

Signore Cardinelli managed to give him a pitying look. “Come now, Professor. Are we not friends? We both know that only a certain kind of lady travels alone with an unmarried man.” He even gave him a wink. “It isn’t very gentlemanly of you not to share her.”

Before he could think twice, Alec had grabbed Cardinelli by the lapels and hauled him against the wall. “If you so much as touch a hair on her head, I will kill you myself.” He then unceremoniously dropped the signore, who stumbled inelegantly against the wall, and continued down the hallway.

“You will regret that, Professor!” Cardinelli called after him, his tone full of rage. “I won’t stand for such treatment in my own home!”

As Alec hurried through the stately home, various sounds of a decidedly amorous bent wafted through the air, but there was no sign of Lottie. Alec grew increasingly more irritated, until he turned a corner and saw a figure peering into a partially opened doorway.

“Lottie!” he hissed.

She straightened and turned toward him, looking very much like a mischievous child caught in the act. God only knew what she had been watching. Alec strode over and grabbed her arm. He then tugged her down the hall, not even stopping to see what had arrested her attention so.