Page 104 of Rules for Ruin

“You forgot the thirty pieces of silver,” she replied quietly.

He stilled. A derisive huff emerged from his lips. “My offer makes you a Judas, does it?”

“I would be if I accepted it. I’d be betraying my sisters.”

“Your sisters,” he scoffed.

“I’d be betraying myself. What security is there in being dependent on you for the smallest thing? You’re not, after all, offering me marriage.”

He looked at her steadily, his face taut with anger and some other emotion she couldn’t fully grasp. “Why offer what you won’t accept?”

“No. You’re right. There’s no need at all.”

The train slowed on the track, approaching the station.

Know your surroundings. Know your opponent. Know yourself.

The three rules reverberated in Effie’s muddled brain in time with the rattle of the wheels on the track. She had always believed that, whatever else happened, she knew herself. Her goals, her desires. But not any longer. She’d had everything backward and inside out. What she needed was clarity, and there was only one person who could give it to her.

Coming to an abrupt decision, Effie stood from her seat.

Gabriel rose at once beside her, his hat in his hand.

She backed to the door of the compartment, the floor of the train shuddering beneath her feet. “I’m disembarking. Pray don’t follow me.”

A flash of emotion crossed Gabriel’s face. “Effie, wait—”

“I have something I must do alone.”

“Next stop, Waltham Station!” the brakeman shouted down the corridor as the train rolled to a halt. “Waltham Abbey, Loughton, and the Epping Forest!”

Understanding registered in Gabriel’s eyes. “You’re going to the orphanage.”

“I must,” she said.

He moved to follow her.

She set her hand flat on his chest. “No.”

His fist clenched on the brim of his hat. His jaw clenched as well. Every fiber in him seemed to be at war.

“Please,” she said. “I know what I’m about.”

“We’re not finished,” he informed her stonily.

“I know.”

“When I return from Epsom, we’re going to settle this thing between us once and for all.”

Effie opened the door as the train came to a halt. Her gaze held his, raw and unflinching. She comprehended, then, exactly what it was she felt for him. This wild, aching madness that complicated her plans and defied common sense, while at the same time feeling so wonderful, so right. It could only be one thing.

Recognizing it now was hardly convenient. But Effie could deny it no longer. Not to herself—and not to him.

“I love you,” she said.

Gabriel’s cold expression fractured. He looked astonished. Shaken. His lips parted to speak.

She didn’t wait to hear what he might have said. There was no time.