To her utter embarrassment, Lottie found herself brushing a tear away. How silly to cry now over something so long ago. Something so utterly beyond her control.

“I believe he has always seen you as his one chance at redemption because he couldn’t save her. He wants your life to be perfect in a way your mother’s wasn’t. That’s why he didn’t mind you being so choosy these last few years.”

“I wasn’t being choosy. They weren’t—they weren’t Alec,” she said hoarsely. Voicing the admission nearly broke her heart all over again.

“I know my dear. I tried to tell him, many times, but he wouldn’t—or couldn’t—hear of it.”

Lottie was astonished. “You talked about us?”

“On occasion. If he wished it. But we often disagreed, especially regarding Alec. He thought you two were too much together.” The housekeeper hesitated, watching her carefully. “That it would give the both of you ideas.”

“So he thought it better to separate us through lies?” Lottie fumed. “I know the truth about Alec, Mrs. Houston. About his parents.”

If the housekeeper was surprised, she did not show it. “As I said, I did not agree with all of his decisions. But I know with all my heart he was only doing what he thought was best.” Mrs. Houston’s face warmed with affection as she defended her longtime employer.

It was as if Lottie had finally discovered the last piece of a long, unfinished puzzle. “You love him,” she marveled.

“Yes,” Mrs. Houston admitted, blushing like a schoolgirl. “For many years now.”

“Does he know?”

Mrs. Houston laughed. “I should hope so, considering he’s the one who said it first.”

“I’m sorry. I…I had no idea.” It seemed impossible to think of Sir Alfred saying such things to anyone, really.

“Well, of course not. That was the point.”

“But you did not wish to marry?”

Mrs. Houston fixed her with a look. “Lottie, I’ve listened to you bang on about women’s suffrage for the last year. Are you really going to turn your nose up on me now?”

“No!” Lottie was mortified to realize that Mrs. Houston was right.

“We’ve an arrangement that suits the both of us. Your uncle has his work, and I have mine,” she said with characteristic firmness. “Besides, if we married it would only cause talk.”

Lottie balked. “What does that matter if you love each other?”

Mrs. Houston gave her a kind smile. “Oh Lottie. You’ve no idea what it would be like for me. People would say I tricked him into marriage. That I was putting on airs. He would lose the respect of his peers and I of the staff. I would never be accepted as the mistress of a house I once worked in. And I don’t want that. For either of us.”

“But isn’t it hard being here while he’s in London?”

Mrs. Houston’s smile slipped a little. “More than I could ever say. He doesn’t want me to see him as anything less than the man he was.”