As soon as she spotted Alec, her commanding expression melted into a heart-stopping smile. She gave a few more directions to a footman, then came over. “Oh, it’s such a treat to see you here, Alec,” she said as she grasped his hands. She still retained a soft lilt from a childhood spent in Ireland’s West Country, and her doe-brown eyes glistened with genuine warmth as she took him in. “My goodness, how handsome you look!”

Alec couldn’t help blushing at the compliment and glanced down at the remarkably spotless floor. “Commanding the troops, I see. Don’t go too hard on them now,” he teased.

Mrs. Houston threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, they’re useless. The lot of them,” she said with a wave of her hand. “But it will do for tonight.”

She had been a great beauty once, and was handsome still, yet she had never married, preferring instead to dedicate her life to Sir Alfred. Alec had never given it much thought when he was younger, but now he suspected something far greater than money had kept her in the Lewis household all these years.

“And Miss Lottie will be so pleased you’ve come,” she added, watching him carefully.

Mrs. Houston had been a sort of motherly figure to both Lottie and himself. Back in Surrey they had often spent rainy afternoons in front of the hearth in her sitting room, sharing cups of milky tea and listening to stories of her wild Irish childhood. Alec could nearly taste the shortbread she always served.

He swallowed past the tightness in his throat and forced a smile. “I noticed quite the well-heeled crowd outside. No doubt she’s too busy dancing with a duke to pay me any mind.”

To his amazement, Mrs. Houston reached out and cupped his face right there in the kitchen. Her sharp gaze had always fascinated and repelled him. She seemed to know things, deep things, about people only by looking at them. “My boy, we both know that is impossible.”

His cheek heated under her palm, which was rough from decades of work. She gave him another warm smile, but there was no hiding the sadness in her eyes as she pulled away. “Now, get out of the way,” she said with a flick of her wrist. “Unless you plan to play footman for the night.”

“I trust you don’t want Sir Alfred’s expensive champagne to end up on the guests,” he quipped, relieved to retreat back into the safe confines of good-natured banter.

“Off with you, then.”

Alec did as he was told and traveled up a back staircase that deposited him into a hallway near the receiving room. As was usually the case, Sir Alfred was surrounded by a circle of admirers of all ages looking every inch the distinguished pillar of society in his black tails and carefully styled salt-and-pepper hair. He guarded his reputation as fiercely as the Crown’s secrets and had never been attached to even a whiff of scandal.