Alec, the devil, paused before answering. “Five years.”

The woman fell back against her seat. “Five years! Oh, the separation must have been so difficult for you, my dear.”

Lottie glanced at him from under her lashes. His expression had taken on that unfathomable quality once again. “Yes,” she answered, pushing past the burn in her throat. “But it was the silence that was hardest to bear.” He turned the full weight of his gaze on her then and Lottie’s cheeks flushed under his heavy scrutiny, but she continued. “I came to believe he had forgotten me. Long ago.”

Mrs. Huntington was scandalized. “Sir, did you not write?”

But his eyes never left Lottie. “I had nothing to offer her back then. No fortune, no future.”

Her heart turned over. He couldn’t truly believe his lack of fortune stood between them. With her inheritance, she had no need to marry a wealthy man. They could have built their own future. Together.

“And her parents did not approve.”

Lottie’s breath caught. No. It was only for the story. It had to be. Uncle Alfred had no reason to stop them from marrying. Alec had left of his own volition. Because he had been determined to serve. Because he wanted to live a life beyond anything she could offer. She searched for the answer in his eyes, in his face, but he only stared back as solemn as ever.

Across from them Mrs. Huntington clucked her tongue. “Still. Not one word in five years?”

Alec finally gave the woman his full attention. “I did not want to give either of us false hope. It seemed cruel to do so.”

“But you were torturing the poor girl!”

“I know that now, Mrs. Huntington,” he said with a rueful smile. “But I was an ignorant youth at the time. Blinded by pride. When I had finally made something of myself, I returned to the house she had grown up in, but she was long gone. No one would tell me where she was, so I searched far and wide, crossing countries and then continents looking for the girl with the russet hair and emerald eyes. But she was not anywhere a fashionable young lady of means might travel to—not in Paris, nor Rome, or Zurich. Then, it finally came to me. I hurried back to England. To the secret place only we knew about, an old fairy cottage not one mile from our childhood homes. And there she was. There she had been the whole time.”

Lottie couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe.

Every limb vibrated as she wavered between wanting to slap Alec and kiss him senseless.