Page 23 of Rules for Ruin

A sampler?

“Joy,” Effie muttered.

5

Gabriel’s betting shop was located at the dark heart of the squalid maze of narrow, intersecting alleyways that characterized what remained of the Rookery. It was an outwardly unobtrusive building, faded and splintering, crammed between the sagging facades of a gin shop and a brothel.

Unlike its neighbors, Gabriel’s shop bore no markers to identify its purpose. There were no staggering drunkards or dissipated former soldiers lined outside, and no bawdy working girls plying their trade. There was only a single guard—one rough-looking and exceedingly large man employed to keep watch over the door.

Inside the shop was another matter. Amid the smoke, the sweat, and the shouting, a disparate and ever-changing crowd of men gathered around long slips of paper nailed to the back wall. These were the all-important betting lists. Each race had their own, which stated the odds against the horses. There were other lists, too, on everything from boxing matches to the inane wagers of private gentlemen. If a contest was involved, Gabriel was generally offering odds on it.

As a consequence, his shop attracted men of every stripe; tradesmen, clerks, aristocrats, and rascals. After studying the lists, they lined up at the large desk in the front of the shop to lay their bets. And if any of those fellows lost and couldn’t pay up, Gabriel dealt with them the same, whether they were landed gentry or the lad who emptied chamber pots at the local lodging house.

None of it was strictly legal. The 1853 Act for the Suppression of Betting Houses had seen to that. But Viscount Compton kept the law from Gabriel’s door. There was no need any longer to bribe the police, or exert pressure on the local watch. With Compton in his pocket, Gabriel conducted business just as he always had, only now entirely free of interference.

Well, not quite as he always had.

With the size of the Rookery rapidly decreasing, Gabriel’s only hope of retaining some semblance of power was to rebuild the fading slum into something like a respectable neighborhood. A man touting reform couldn’t be seen resorting to physical violence. For that, Gabriel now relied on his men. It was they who dealt with the fellows who fell behind in paying their debts, while Gabriel himself remained above the fray, holding court from his private office at the back of the shop.

It was there he’d retired this morning, to the chair behind his heavy oak desk, temporarily abandoning his fashionable premises in Sloane Street. Miles had done as Gabriel requested. Yesterday’s edition of the London Courant had contained the vague lines about Wingard in its society column. Now all that remained was for Compton to formulate his response.

Gabriel was confident one was forthcoming. Until such time, he had plenty to occupy himself—odds to make, bills to settle, and neighborhood disputes to mediate. Conducting business in the Rookery kept him grounded. It reminded him who he was, obliterating any delusions of grandeur.

He’d seen too many men who, once quit of the slum, were ashamed to reveal the truth of their origins. He refused to be one of them, no matter how much money he made. There was no point in his trying to forget where he came from when no one else ever would.

Unlike Miles, Gabriel hadn’t any formal education or training to fall back on. He was someone important purely because the residents of the Rookery recognized him as such. Take that away, and what was left? A handful of nefarious investments? A sparsely furnished house in Sloane Street and a half-empty set of rooms by the docks?

Gabriel had no real home. Nowhere he truly belonged except here.

Money hadn’t changed that. Not the fine clothes he wore, the expensive stable of horses he kept, or even the cultivated accents he spoke. He would always be a street rat at heart.

The door of his office opened. One of his men—a hulking brute named Liam Murphy—popped his head in. “There’s a man what wants to see you, Mr. Royce. Come from your house in town.”

Gabriel looked up from his papers. He removed the round, gold-rimmed spectacles he wore when he worked, casting them aside. “Send him in.”

Murphy ushered through the liveried footman from Sloane Street. The footman hastened to Gabriel’s desk. “Mr. Kilby sent me, sir.” He extracted an envelope from his coat and handed it to Gabriel. “This was delivered by one of Lord Compton’s servants but half an hour ago.”

Gabriel took the envelope, breaking the monogrammed seal. “What servant did he send?”

“An older man with a crooked nose, Mr. Kilby says.”

“His butler, Parker,” Gabriel mused. No doubt Compton meant it as a message. A counterthreat to Gabriel’s threat in the Courant. Parker was a villain, after all, and one who wasn’t a stranger to using his fists.

Gabriel was amused rather than intimidated. If Compton believed implied threats of violence would work to keep Gabriel silent, the man was in for a very rude awakening.

He extracted a cream-laid note card from the envelope. It was a printed invitation to a musicale at Compton’s home next Monday evening. The same musicale to which Gabriel had overheard Lady Compton inviting Lady Belwood and Miss Flite. The viscount had appended the card in black ink:

Lord Haverford will be in attendance. He is a gentleman worth knowing.—C

Gabriel chuckled. “That’s more like it.” He addressed the footman. “I’ll be returning to Sloane Street on Sunday. Tell Kilby to have all in readiness.”

“Yes, sir.” The footman retreated. As he exited the office, another, much smaller figure pushed passed him to gain entry.

Murphy grabbed the lad by the back of his coat.

Ollie slipped free of the garment without losing a step. “Mr. Royce!” he panted. “Beg pardon, but—”

“O’Cleary.” Gabriel tucked Compton’s invitation back in its envelope. “You shouldn’t be here.”