“Then don’t,” he urged. “Wait for someone you truly care about.” His voice turned thin and reedy as he spoke those last words, and he paused to clear his throat. “But don’t give up on the possibility. If you throw your whole future away now, you will regret it.”

“I can’t,” she cried. “Uncle Alfred insisted that I marry a man of his choosing by the end of the season while he still has some control over my inheritance.”

“What?” Alec’s voice rang out in the darkened cabin. “And you didn’t think to mention this?”

“I—I assumed you knew,” Lottie said weakly as guilt flooded through her.

Alec huffed. “I’ve sins aplenty, but forcing women into marriage isn’t among them.” Then he muttered a curse. “I knew you thought poorly of me. Knew you didn’t trust me. But dammit, I didn’t realize…”

Dear Lord. She had hurt him. Lottie didn’t think she had the ability to do so. It now seemed superbly childish not to have told him earlier.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know if he would have gone through with it,” she added. “But I couldn’t take the chance.”

“So you decided to ruin yourself as insurance,” he said flatly. “With that man in Florence.”

Lottie was tempted to correct him, but he was already sore enough. “I hate that term, you know,” she muttered instead. “Why does my entire worth depend upon my sexual experience, or lack thereof, while men can bed as many women as they like and are congratulated for it? How is that fair?”

“Lottie,” Alec murmured gently.

But she wasn’t in the mood to be coddled. “It’s insulting. It’s the height of hypocrisy. You must see that.”

“Of course I do,” he huffed. “And you’re right. It isn’t fair. But I don’t make the rules––”

“You don’t have to enforce them, either,” she countered.

“For God’s sake,” Alec grumbled as he scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m not trying to enforce them, but I’m not exactly in a position to ignore them, either, am I?”

Lottie turned away. He had a point. And she knew it even better than he realized. But she couldn’t be the one to bring up his parentage.

Outside Venice floated by, a mixture of moonlit stone and glowing torchlight. “All I ever wanted was what my parents had: a partnership built on love.” Her voice cracked. “It seemed such a simple thing when I was a girl. I actually thought I was being prudent. Reasonable. But I might as well have been wishing for a fairy tale.”

“Don’t say that,” he pleaded even while he stubbornly held himself away from her.