“How—how do you know all this?”

He faced her. “Because I was there. In Venice.”

There was no need to explain why.

Lottie’s stomach turned. “But, if the count didn’t care…”

“She began to inform on her husband.”

Lottie swallowed against the bile rising in her throat. Uncle Alfred and his wretched business once again. A family hideously torn apart, the parents dead, and their son wrecked for life, all for what?

“We almost had him, too,” he groused, as if that were the real tragedy. “So many damned times.” Uncle Alfred’s left hand clenched the bedsheet. “But the bastard always managed to slip away. Then, somehow, he found out about his wife and threatened to have Edward thrown in jail unless she came back to him permanently. So she made a bargain. Her life for his. Not that it mattered in the end,” he added bitterly. “When Edward was with her, he could keep the darkness at bay, but once she was gone he succumbed to it completely.”

“Did you not tell him the truth?”

He looked scandalized. “That would have put everything at risk. No,” he insisted, shaking his head. “I couldn’t do that. Edward should have been stronger. Like his wife.”

Lottie took a few deep breaths until she could speak without shouting. “What happened to Alec after his death?”

“The count drew the line at allowing his wife’s bastard son to live under his roof. None of Edward’s family knew who she really was. They thought the idea of Edward marrying a common Italian was a disgrace; they never would have taken him in if they’d known the truth. So he was shuttled around to some of Maria’s distant relatives for a while. Then the contessa finally wrote, begging that I watch over him.” He paused, lost in his memories. “She must have been quite desperate to send him to me. But I suppose I owed her that.” He trailed off.

Lottie managed to hold back her vitriol, for there was still more she needed to know. “But why—why did you never tell him the truth?”

“She thought it would be harder if he knew, especially while she was still alive. And I agreed. Neither of us expected the count to outlive her.”

A pit formed in her stomach. “You forget, Uncle, that when you finally told Alec the truth, you didn’t tell him everything. He thinks she did not love him. That she chose to leave. It’s been torturing him all these years.”

Uncle Alfred shook his head. His expression turned foggy. “No. I—I told him it wasn’t her choice.” But he didn’t sound at all sure.

“No, you didn’t,” she protested. “You only told him enough to make him leave. To make him think that he could never have me.”

Uncle Alfred turned to her then. She was furious with him, but the shock in his face still pained her. “I did. You’re right.” Then he looked away again. An old man now paying for his sins.