Page 60 of Rules for Ruin

Last night they had used each other’s given names. It had felt as though they’d drawn closer. As though they were halfway to being friends.

But he wasn’t her friend today, whatever name he chose to call her.

“Well? Pray, don’t keep me in suspense,” she said. “We’ve already established that you’re not here to court me. And you obviously aren’t here out of any gentlemanly concern. Not for me, anyway. So, who is it that’s caused you to come and see me in all this state? Shall I hazard a guess?”

“I warned you,” he said. “I told you I had a vested interest in Compton’s well-being.”

“Because you need his money to reform the slum? Surely, one rich man’s pocketbook is as good as another’s.”

“Compton isn’t only wealthy. He holds influence in Parliament. Reforms require changes to laws. He can do that—and convince the other politicians to follow his lead.” Gabriel flashed her a blazing look. “So, whatever it is you’ve been looking for in his library, in his bedchamber, and at the offices of the London Courant—”

Effie’s gloved fingers tightened reflexively on Franc’s lead. She’d suspected her visit to the paper was Gabriel’s motive for being here, but hearing it confirmed nevertheless provoked a private flinch. “Are you having me followed again?” she asked before he could finish.

He didn’t deny it.

She racked her brain, trying to recall any faces she’d seen more than once during her journey to and from the Courant. But there hadn’t been anyone. Effie would have known if there had. She’d been that careful.

“I understand you caused quite a furor,” he said.

Effie switched Franc’s lead to her opposite hand so he could wander among the shrubs on the left side of the path. She wondered just how much Gabriel knew about her visit to the paper. Everything, presumably, if he was referencing the commotion Franc’s presence had caused.

“How was I to know the editor of the paper kept cats in his office?” She added tartly, “And I wasn’t asking about Lord Compton, for your information. I was inquiring about someone else.”

Gabriel once again lapsed into silence. Effie felt the weight of it as they walked. She knew he was waiting for her to fill the void, just as she was waiting for him.

This time, she broke first.

“Aren’t you at all curious who that was?” she asked. “But I suppose you already know that, too, else you wouldn’t be here.”

“Is your name really Flite?” he countered.

Effie stiffened. She understood what he was referring to. She’d told the editor of the Courant she was a relation of Mr. Wingard. There had been but one purpose behind the lie—to discover if the Wingard mentioned in the society column was the same man as Miss Corvus’s half brother. The editor had offered no answer in that regard.

But Gabriel had.

“For as long as I can remember,” she replied truthfully. And then: “What connection has Mr. Wingard to Lord Compton?”

Gabriel stopped on the path beneath the birch trees. His face was wiped clean of expression. “Who says he does?”

She turned on him. “Your presence here tells me so. If you’ve come all this way to warn me off, I must be perilously close to something damaging to the viscount.”

He shook his head. “You’re clutching at straws. Just because you didn’t learn anything at the paper—”

She gave him a calculating smile. “Who says I didn’t learn anything?”

• • •

Gabriel looked at her steadily, betraying nothing. She was still difficult to read, but less difficult than she’d been on the first occasion they’d met. He saw her now, the real Euphemia Flite, shimmering beneath her elegantly crafted facade, as uncertain of him as he was of her.

It did nothing to ease the tightness in his chest.

He’d sought her out in a hot burst of fury—angry with her for meddling with things she didn’t understand and even angrier with himself for underestimating her. But when he’d seen her walking Franc beneath the silver birches, time had slowed. His temper had cooled and something else had come to take its place. An odd warmth. A strange softness.

He’d thought of holding her again. Of kissing her in the moonlight.

But not now. Once again, his temper threatened to get the better of him.

“What did you learn?” he asked.