Page 27 of Rules for Ruin

“Euphemia,” he repeated.

“You don’t approve?” she tossed back at him.

Gabriel fell silent for the space of a heartbeat. “Quite the opposite. It suits you.”

Even now, clad in unrelieved black, as respectable as a fashionable English widow, there was something of the continental about her. A mysterious quality, conjured by her raven hair and olive-tinged skin, that spoke of warm weather and sultry climes. Gabriel didn’t wonder Compton had assumed she was the offspring of some Spaniard or Italian.

“That doesn’t sound very complimentary,” she remarked.

“Blame the messenger. I’m not one of those fine lords you met at Compton’s, waltzing with you and paying you pretty compliments.”

“No, not waltzing with me, only sending your minions after me for God knows what reason.”

Gabriel thrust his hands into his pockets. “When did you notice the lad? He’ll want to know where he erred.”

“Yesterday at the station. I saw him twice, once at the bookstand, and again at the cabstand. After that, it was easy to spot him.” Her gaze fell to Gabriel’s neck and shoulders. “By the by, you seem to be absent your coat and cravat.”

“Noticed, have you?”

“No lady could fail to. It’s positively indecent.”

An unaccountable flare of heat ignited in Gabriel’s veins. He ignored it, just as he ignored the brush of her skirts. “Violence doesn’t offend you, but my shirtsleeves do? You fascinate me, Miss Flite.”

“What can I say? I’m a fascinating creature.”

Another smile threatened. He ruthlessly suppressed it. “Why were you visiting a school near the Epping Forest? I thought you’d been finished in Paris, not educated in some British girls’ academy.”

She didn’t bat an eye. “I was finished in Paris. That place near the Epping Forest isn’t a school. It’s an orphanage. I’m charity minded—a laudable inclination. It’s the same reason I came to St. Giles today.”

“Not because of Compton?” he asked. An endless pause. “And not because of me?”

She gave him a sidelong look. “I didn’t know you were from here, did I?”

“I’m not originally. I was born in the Black Country. In Birmingham. I came here when I was a lad.” Gabriel heard the gruff-edged words emerge as though they’d been uttered by another person. It was far too much information to share with a female. Personal, and nonessential. His jaw tightened, mouth clamping shut before he could give in to the unaccountable impulse to tell her anything more.

“Now you rule over everyone, is that the story? How enthralling.” She paused before adding, “And no, my visit here hasn’t anything to do with Compton. It’s a benevolent concern, merely. Someone my family knew long ago. I’d like to discover what happened to her.”

“Her given name was Grace? What was her surname?”

“I can’t recall. But I believe she had fair hair, and that she at one time lodged over a rag-and-bone shop. Surely, someone must remember her. It would only have been seventeen or eighteen years ago.”

“Only that?” He scoffed. “The slums were cleared in the forties to make room for expanding the road. Thousands were evicted. Many others left for Church Lane or Devil’s Acre. Even if you could find someone who remembered her, the likelihood of them still being in St. Giles is next to nothing.”

Euphemia’s face fell. Her footsteps slowed as they turned down another alleyway. Franc pulled impatiently at his lead, urging his mistress forward. She didn’t attend him. “I hadn’t any idea.”

Gabriel regarded her with nagging concern. She’d shown little authentic emotion since the night they’d first met. Not a flinch when he’d caught her at Compton’s desk, and not a start when Gabriel had bloodied the scoundrel’s nose in front of her at Mother Comfort’s. But this—this was genuine.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said.

She didn’t appear to hear him. She lapsed into silence for several seconds. And then: “Are Church Lane and Devil’s Acre very far from here?”

He frowned, discerning her intention. “If you’ve got any idea of turning up there as you did here today, you’ll do me the courtesy of putting it straight out of your head. I’ve no interest in you being murdered.”

She adjusted her dog’s lead, reeling the little beast closer. “I shan’t be murdered. Have no fear.”

“Forgive me if I fail to be reassured by your French poodle or the pointy tip of your silken parasol.” Removing his hands from his pockets, he caught her by the arm, arresting her step as they approached Oxford Street. “If it’s charity that interests you, there are plenty of other ways to exert your finer instincts than imperiling yourself to find this Grace woman. Did you look around the streets of the Rookery? Did you see the state of the people there?”

The slum was behind them now, masked by the bustling street ahead. Only someone who navigated the narrow maze of Rookery passages could find the sink of iniquity within—a rotten cancer in London’s West End, its acreage diminished, but its character unaltered.