Page 79 of Rules for Ruin

Music reached her ears from the orchestra pavilion, reminding her that they were not alone, no matter how much it felt they were. Their embrace could go no further. Most would say it had already gone too far.

Inwardly cursing the necessity of it, she broke their kiss. Her cheek came to rest against his, her hands drifting to his shoulders. “Would that there was nothing at issue between us but this,” she said softly. “We could happily cry friends.”

His hand stroked over her back in a slow caress. “There needn’t be anything between us.”

“No, indeed. If you’d abandon your allegiance to Compton and help me instead—”

“Compton again?” Gabriel’s hand stilled on her spine. He drew back from her with a scowl. “Do you never cease thinking about the blasted man?”

Effie’s hands slipped from his shoulders. “You know he’s a villain, yet still you protect him.”

“I’m not protecting him. I’m protecting myself—and the Rookery. While rich, fashionable ladies like you are playing at politics, I’m fighting for survival.”

“I’m not playing,” she replied, offended. “And it has nothing to do with being rich or fashionable. A married women’s property bill would change the lives of countless women of every class.”

“Strangers. They’re nothing to you. While the people of the Rookery—they’re all I have. All I’ve known.” Releasing her from his arms, he abruptly stood. He paced to the edge of the small clearing, raking a hand through his hair. “If I do nothing, the Rookery will be gone within a year. Its size is already diminished. My betting shop won’t last.”

A chill settled over Effie. She still had his overcoat around her, but without the furnace-like heat of his body, the night became far colder. She felt, all at once, very much on her own. “You would value a gambling enterprise over a bill that would save thousands of women from being used and exploited by their husbands?”

“A bill we both know will never pass,” he said.

Her temper rose. It may well be so. There had been previous attempts to reform the married women’s property law. All of them had failed. Why should this attempt be any different?

“What about Compton’s other crimes?” she asked. “Is he never to be held to account for those?”

“What crimes?” Gabriel returned. “What proof do you have that he’s done anything illegal—or immoral?”

Effie gave an eloquent huff, thinking of Mrs. Naismith’s ruffle-clad arm pulling Compton through her door. Exposing the viscount’s immorality wouldn’t be any trouble. As for uncovering the rest of Compton’s villainous deeds…

“The proof exists,” she said. “Those papers the Courant referred to, for starters. You know where they are, don’t you?”

He shook his head, refusing to be drawn on the subject.

Gathering her skirts, Effie moved to stand. Gabriel was back at her side in an instant. The fearsome glower he wore was belied by the tenderness with which he assisted her to her feet. He remained close to her after she stood, his hand lingering on her elbow.

A dreadful thought occurred to her.

“Is it you who has them?” she asked.

Gabriel’s hand fell from her arm as though he’d been scalded. He took a step back. His face went suspiciously blank, just as it had when she’d questioned him about Wingard and Compton that day in Hyde Park, but not before Effie saw the terrible truth in his eyes.

Her stomach plummeted. Her question had been impulsive conjecture at best. She hadn’t really thought it could be true.

But it was, wasn’t it?

Effie understood it in that bleak moment with absolute certainty.

The papers proving Compton’s crimes against Miss Corvus weren’t in the viscount’s desk, or in his study, or anywhere in his house in town or at his grand estate in Hampshire. They were in Gabriel’s keeping. They had been all along.

19

Effie had dealt with many unexpected events in her life and managed to maintain her composure through most of them. She took pride in her sense of self-possession. It was one of her particular skills. Even Miss Corvus had been impressed by the degree to which Effie could keep her countenance. Self-control was a powerful tool in an Academy girl’s arsenal of concealment. The less the world knew what a lady was thinking, the more dangerous she became.

But standing by the oak tree where she and Gabriel had just kissed so passionately, glaring at his suddenly expressionless face, something inside of Effie crumbled. She no longer cared about power, and she didn’t give a fig for concealment.

Her throat clogged with acrid emotion. “I want them,” she said.

Gabriel didn’t reply. His harshly hewn features were coldly stark, the colored lanterns in the tree casting shadows over his high cheekbones and sunken cheeks. He was at once so remote. So ruthlessly detached. He might have been the devil himself standing there, willfully deaf to the entreaties of some hapless mortal maiden.