Page 13 of Rules for Ruin

Effie felt his bold caress like a thunderbolt. Heat shot through her midsection, pooling in her belly with a hazardous simmer. Her gaze jolted back to his.

She was no stranger to the game of flirtation. During her time in Paris, many men had attempted to woo her with sweet words and kisses. But this was different. Mr. Royce was no courtly French gentleman. His touch wasn’t sweet. It was incendiary.

His knuckles lingered, a scorching brand at the pulse of her throat. “Though it’s not quite as steady now, is it?” he added smugly.

Effie kept her countenance through pure strength of will. Her heart might be thumping like the dickens, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing the rest of her melt into a puddle of treacle.

Holding his gaze, she removed his hand from her throat with the same deliberation with which he’d put it there. She pressed her bare fingertips to the inside of his equally bare wrist. His pulse surged beneath her touch. “Refresh my memory, Mr. Royce,” she said. “What is it that they say about people in glass houses?”

He made no effort to extricate his large hand from her grasp. “Shall we compare racing pulses, Miss Flite?”

Effie detected a hint of mockery in his deep voice. It was as effective as a dash of cold water. She released him. “You forget yourself.”

“Do I?”

“Outrageously so. Is it your habit to insult ladies of brief acquaintance with your forwardness? Or am I to believe I’m a special case?”

He set his hands on the desktop on either side of her. “I’m not sure what you are yet, Miss Flite. But make no mistake, I mean to find out.”

“What I am, sir, is a gently bred young lady, here as Lord Compton’s guest.”

“A gently bred lady who enjoys picking the locks of her host’s desk? A lady who didn’t run screaming the moment I revealed myself?”

“Perhaps I shall scream now.”

“You won’t.”

“Perhaps,” she said levelly, “I shall knock you down.”

A slow, distinctly predatory smile curved his lips. He kept her caged against the desk, his eyes locked with hers. “There you are,” he said, with a husky scrape of triumph. “I see you now.”

Effie’s already pounding heart gave a disconcerting double thump. “And I see you,” she returned. “You’re obviously a good friend of the viscount’s. His best friend in the whole world, if your behavior is to judge.”

Mr. Royce uttered a derisive snort. “I’m no friend of Compton. But I do have a vested interest in his well-being. Any mischief threatened against him will force me to act.” His gaze held hers. “You don’t want me to act, my lady.”

Effie didn’t flinch. “I might say the same to you, sir.”

Amusement briefly edged his mouth. “I’m quaking in my boots.”

“You should be.” Setting her hand flat on his chest, she firmly pushed him back a step. She may as well have been pressing against a slab of solid marble. The muscles beneath his black silk waistcoat were that lean and hard. He nevertheless submitted to the pressure, removing his hands from the desk and backing up just enough to allow her to extricate herself. “Now then,” she said calmly, “if you would be so good as to allow me to go about my business?”

“By all means. We wouldn’t want anyone catching us alone together.”

“They won’t.” Effie gave her rumpled skirts a brisk shake. Her crinoline sprang back into place. “Indeed, I wager you and I shall never be alone in each other’s company again.”

Mr. Royce returned to his chair, sinking back into the shadows. Without his cigarette illuminating his face, Effie could no longer make out his features, only the sinister silhouette of him. “I’d take that bet,” he said.

It sounded very much like a threat.

Effie refused to acknowledge it. No one was going to intimidate her, this gentleman least of all. No matter that only moments ago he’d made her temperature soar. She crossed to the library door.

This time, he didn’t attempt to stop her leaving. But she felt his unsettling pale gaze on her as she exited the room—no longer remote or detached, but distinctly, unmistakably awake.

She had the uneasy feeling that she’d roused a sleeping wolf.

3

Gabriel didn’t have a single residence in London. He had three altogether, each placed in locations strategic to his interests. There was the set of rooms he kept in the Rookery, above his betting shop. There were his lodgings by the docks. And there was his newly leased house in Sloane Street—a good-sized premises that had come furnished, and that kept Gabriel at the heart of his operations among the upper classes.