Page 16 of Rules for Ruin

Straight-backed wooden chairs were arrayed opposite him, as though he’d just ended a meeting with his staff. A single tall window faced the busy street below. There was a portly black cat with golden eyes perched on the sill, idly swishing its tail.

Gabriel strolled across the office to give the complacent little beast a scratch. He didn’t know its name. Miles had too many felines to keep count of. They’d always been his weakness. “What does it matter?” Gabriel asked in return. “It’s a few sentences in your society column, not the front page of the paper.”

“It matters.” Miles sat back in his chair, frowning. He was a taller man than Gabriel, dark-haired and clean-shaven, with the solemn face and lean figure of an ascetic. “That column can be relied on for its accuracy. If I start reporting nonsense—”

“The circulation of the Courant will go down exactly zero percent.” Gabriel turned away from the cat to address his friend. “By the by, how are all those ladies’ maids and valets on your payroll? Brought you any exciting gossip lately?”

Miles’s expression was completely inscrutable. “What you’re suggesting would be a reprehensible breach of courtesy, not to mention journalistic malpractice.”

“I’m to believe that society scribe of yours finds out the gentry’s secrets by other means?”

“Yes. It’s called reporting. Now, if you’re quite finished impugning my paper and my staff—”

“I don’t judge.”

“How reassuring, coming from a man who puts his spies in private residences all over the city.”

Gabriel sank down in one of the chairs across from Miles with an unapologetic smile. “We can’t all be journalists.”

“What is it you’re playing at, Gabriel?” Miles asked. “We’re not two lads in St. Giles anymore, conspiring to steal apples from the costermonger. Those days are long past. You’ve since gone your way and I’ve gone mine.”

It was an apt assessment of their friendship. Though Miles had spent most of his youth in the Rookery, his mother, Rose, had ultimately found a way to get him out. She’d been a devout, hardworking woman, both whip-smart and determined, with the soul of an academic and the mind of a social reformer.

Gabriel had no mother of his own. None he’d ever known. But Rose Quincey had been something like a mother to him. She had frequently given him shelter as a boy. She’d even taught him to read—a kindness that had paid dividends toward Gabriel’s future success.

Rose’s aspirations for her own son had been that much greater. On Miles’s thirteenth birthday, she had arranged an apprenticeship for him with a printer in the West Country. It was there Miles had resided for the remainder of his childhood. He’d finally returned to London years later, a sober, educated gentleman determined to become a newspaperman.

He had come to see Gabriel then, the friendship of their youth unforgotten. As boys, they’d been as close as brothers. But there was no denying their differences as men. They had little in common anymore, save for memories of their past.

“I told you when I came to work at the Courant that I wouldn’t permit you to make use of it,” Miles reminded him.

“Always so cynical,” Gabriel said. “It’s not as if I’m asking you to divulge the secrets of the nation.”

“No, only that I print some dross about a man named Wingard who’s rumored to be in possession of important papers.” Miles tossed aside his pen in a rare burst of temper. “Who the hell is Wingard? And what papers? And why should anyone care?”

Gabriel had no intention of enmeshing straitlaced Miles in his web any more than was necessary. And to tell him the tale would be to ensnare him utterly. No one except Compton need know about that fateful day Tobias Wingard had stumbled into Gabriel’s betting shop, wasting with fever and desperate for coin to pay his debts.

Why Wingard hadn’t gone to Compton directly, Gabriel could only guess. He suspected it was because the two men’s lives had diverged so dramatically after their joint venture in defrauding Wingard’s vulnerable half sister.

Compton had used his part of the fortune they’d stolen to set himself up in London as a gentleman of means. There, he’d married a wealthy heiress, biding his time in luxury until his father and older brother had died and he’d inherited the title. From thence, a career in politics, and a lofty position in society, his slate wiped clean of any trace of the evil he had done.

Wingard had, meanwhile, squandered his portion of the fortune on gaming. Addicted to drink and drug, and ailing from a rotting liver, he’d had no position in society to speak of. No friends or connections he might turn to in his time of need. All he’d had were a few damning documents, and a handful of mightily compromising letters Compton had penned to Wingard’s half sister.

You must trust me to manage the funds for you, my sweet, Compton had written in one of them. Such things are a husband’s privilege. As we are to be married, and the right will soon be mine by law, there can be no objections in it, only the easing of a burden which I know has weighed too heavily on your delicate shoulders since the loss of your estimable father.

The letters had been stained with Wingard’s sister’s tears. To hear Wingard tell it, Compton had had everything from the girl—her fortune, her reputation, her heart. What had become of her afterward, Wingard hadn’t known. Gone abroad, he’d surmised, very probably determined to make an end of herself.

As for Wingard himself—

Gabriel stood. “Wingard’s dead. I have the papers. And only one man will care. That’s more than enough for me.” He pressed Miles’s shoulder hard before taking his leave. “Print it, old friend. And if anyone comes inquiring, send them to me.”

4

Sun streamed through the gold silk–curtained windows of Lady Belwood’s well-appointed guest room. It was a beautiful morning in London, neither damp nor excessively chilly. The perfect day for an excursion.

Effie buttoned her black velvet mantelet over her plain black silk walking dress, preparing to go out. There had been no opportunity for her errand yesterday. The day after a ball was always a busy one, especially if a young lady had made as great an impression as Effie had.

Large bouquets of flowers had arrived throughout the morning, sent by the gentlemen she’d danced with. The generous tributes had been followed by afternoon calls—more gentlemen, and some ladies, too, paying their respects, issuing invitations, and assuaging their curiosity.