The girl hung her head. “She told me nothing, Professor. I swear! She was so unhappy. So scared. And now you have come for her, and she is lost!”

Alec pulled the sobbing girl’s head against his shoulder. “There now. Don’t cry. I’ll find her.”

“You never should have sent her away,” she scolded through her tears.

“Yes,” Alec said softly. “You’re right.” Then he leveled a glare at Mr. Wetherby. “Where is Sir Alfred?”

As Alec stalked down the hallway to Sir Alfred’s room, Wetherby was hot on his heels. “Stop! You can’t go in there. He’s not to have any visitors.”

Alec paused by the door. “Oh, I’m no visitor,” he said over his shoulder before entering the darkened sick room. There he found an older woman standing by the bedside helping an elderly man use a spoon to feed himself.

It was a moment before Alec recognized Sir Alfred.

His hair, always a healthy mix of salt and pepper, was now mostly white. Yet he looked almost childlike in a billowing nightshirt with a napkin tucked into his collar.

The sight brought Alec to an abrupt halt. The pair turned at his entrance and seemed just as surprised to see him.

Alec had come here to exact his revenge on a formidable opponent. To utter every word he had ever swallowed, express every emotion he had ever tamped down, every opinion he had ever been forced to doubt. But now…

Sir Alfred recovered from his shock first. He threw down the spoon and tore the napkin from his collar. “Get this out of here,” he growled to the woman, who bobbed her head and immediately whisked the tray away. He then tried to sit up straighter, pushing against the mattress with one hand while the other hung limply by his side. Sir Alfred let out a low curse and glared down at his body, already exhausted from the movement. Scores of people had quivered under the weight of his glare, but it held no power here.

Before Alec could think better of it, he was at the bedside with his hand on Sir Alfred’s shoulder, hoisting him up with uncomfortable ease. The man seemed to weigh no more than a doll. Sir Alfred wouldn’t meet his gaze as he grumbled a word of thanks and resettled himself. Alec stepped back and gave a short nod, then detected movement out the corner of his eye. Rafe and Wetherby had entered the room.

“Sir, I’m so sorry for the interruption,” Wetherby began. “I will have them dismissed at once––”

But Sir Alfred merely held up a hand to silence his secretary, and faced Alec. “So, then. You came after all.” He spoke more slowly than Alec remembered, as if he was taking great care to pronounce every word. But with his spine straight and shoulders back, any trace of vulnerability had vanished. His brown eyes looked nearly black in the dim light, as familiar to Alec as his own. As Lottie’s.