Page 9 of Rules for Ruin

The offense couldn’t be overlooked. To pardon one affront was to invite a host of others.

Gabriel fully intended to address the issue. To forcibly remind Compton of the very real harm he could do to him. But not here. Not tonight. This evening was for finding benefactors for the people of St. Giles. Not just men of property, but men who understood how to get things done in London, and who had the coin, and the political capital, to do so.

Turning away from his insolent host, Gabriel searched the room for himself.

It was unforgivable ignorance to assume the paths of the poor and the well-bred wealthy never crossed. Indeed, Gabriel himself had placed former denizens of the Rookery in many of the great houses in Mayfair. They worked as scullery maids, stable hands, and footmen, washing pots, mucking out loose boxes, and stoking the fires.

And the flow of cross-class commerce didn’t only move in one direction.

The sons of the aristocracy regularly made their way to Gabriel’s betting shop in St. Giles. They visited the gin merchants, the flesh peddlers, and the public houses, indulging in all of the worst vices and inventing a few new ones along the way. Often, it had been up to Gabriel to deal with them at the end of their revels, administering his particular brand of Rookery justice.

He recognized some of their faces among the fashionable guests this evening. Upright citizens all, by the looks of them. One would never know that handsome, young Baron Mannering had once wagered the clothes he stood up in on a losing bet, only to find himself spending the night in a Rookery alleyway in nothing but his underdrawers. Or that Lord Powell, heir to the Earl of Ingram, was so deeply in debt to a backstreet moneylender that he’d twice come to Gabriel’s betting shop, stinking of cheap wine and sobbing like a baby, begging for Gabriel to intervene.

Which Gabriel had, of course.

Better the young lords were indebted to him than to a poxy wine merchant or moneylender. Influence was currency to Gabriel. He knew how to wield it. To weaponize it. It was invaluable to him, especially now, when the square footage of the Rookery was shrinking by the year. If it shrank any further, the slum threatened to disappear completely. Gabriel had no intention of finding himself displaced and powerless. Not so long as there was something he could do about it.

The orchestra closed the galop with a flourish of strings and horns. Another swirl or two, and a few lively chassés across the room, and the dance was over. Several couples departed the floor and several more came to take their places before the next dance began.

It was then, through a break in the crowd, Gabriel observed two late arrivals enter the ballroom. One was a society matron—blond, buxom, and bejeweled. The other was a younger lady of exceptional poise. Clad in a ball gown of deep blue silk, she stood straight and proud beside her older companion, her chin lifted slightly as she surveyed the room with a dispassionate gaze that spoke more of jaded royalty than of a girl in her middle twenties. So might Cleopatra have regarded a crowd of unruly Romans.

The similarity was only enhanced by the young lady’s striking good looks. She had gleaming raven hair, bound in an elaborate roll at her nape, and a flawless expanse of warm, golden ivory skin revealed by the short sleeves and low neckline of her bodice.

Gabriel marked her presence with the same ingrained detachment with which he marked anything out of the ordinary in his environment. He noted her beauty. Her uncommon self-assurance. But he wasn’t moved by them. He’d seen countless attractive females in his lifetime. They may differ in their allurements, but one was ultimately interchangeable with the next.

A fair-haired lady in amber silk swept over to greet the late arrivals. It was Compton’s wife. Gabriel had never met her formally, but he recognized her pallid face by sight. She’d been an heiress when she and Compton had married, one with a sizable fortune and a notoriously dim intellect. Easy prey for a man like the viscount, on the hunt for money and power.

After an exchange of curtsies, and a short dialogue with the older blond lady, Lady Compton turned to the crowd in search of her husband. She easily found him.

“It seems I’m not the only latecomer,” Gabriel said as the three ladies made their way toward them.

Compton followed his gaze. “That is my lady wife,” he said tightly, having no idea Gabriel already knew exactly who she was. “And that is Lady Belwood, wife of Sir Walter Belwood. As for the younger lady…” This time Compton stared. “I’ve not yet had the pleasure.” He stepped forward. “Doubtless her ladyship wishes to provide an introduction.”

Gabriel’s expression hardened. He had as little interest in being introduced to society ladies as he had in meeting aged Northumberland squires. But it was too late to avoid the tiresome obligation. Lady Compton was already bearing down upon them, her two guests in tow.

“My lord!” she said to her husband. “Thank goodness you’ve returned. I trust this means your business in the library is completed for the evening? You’ve already missed the arrival of Lord and Lady Martindale, and the Marquess of Whitby. And here is Lady Belwood, just come. She has brought her protégé, Miss Flite, to grace our party.”

“My apologies, madam.” Lord Compton bowed to the two late arrivals. “Lady Belwood. Miss Flite.” His eyes lingered on the younger lady’s face for a moment before he grudgingly acknowledged the necessity of introducing Gabriel. “Allow me to present Mr. Royce, an acquaintance of mine. We’ve been discussing a charitable endeavor, but all is settled now. I’ve invited him to join us. Mr. Royce? My wife, Lady Compton. And this is our near neighbor, Lady Belwood, and her companion, Miss Flite.”

Masking his growing impatience, Gabriel bowed to the three ladies as civilly as if he were a gentleman himself. “Lady Compton. Lady Belwood. Miss Flite.”

As he straightened, he held Miss Flite’s gaze a fraction longer than was proper. Her eyes were the deepest blue he’d ever seen. More akin to a deep midnight purple in the gaslight.

“Miss Flite has just returned from finishing school in Paris,” Lady Belwood said, with a flutter of her ostrich feather fan. “She’s staying with me in Brook Street for the season.”

“A relation of yours?” Compton asked. “I seem to remember one of your second cousins married an Italian. Or was it a Spaniard?”

Lady Belwood wafted her fan with increased vigor. “Miss Flite is not a blood relation. I was, ah, acquainted with her guardian when I was a girl. I promised, when the time came, I would introduce Miss Flite into society. It is the least I can do for her.”

“I’m amazed I’ve not encountered you before, Miss Flite,” Lady Compton said. “Is this your first visit to London?”

“It is, my lady,” Miss Flite replied. A faceted glass hairpin in the shape of a dragonfly was nestled in her hair. It sparkled as she moved.

Lady Compton flicked a dubious glance over Miss Flite’s elegant face and figure. “You don’t strike me as a country girl. But if you’ve been finished in Paris—”

“Finishing schools accomplish marvelous things these days,” Lady Belwood interjected. “The girls they turn out have remarkable polish. One can take them anywhere.”

Gabriel directed a cold glare at Compton. It was bad enough to have his time wasted by old country squires and frivolous, fan-fluttering ladies, but now he must affect an interest in finishing schools? Until Gabriel had intervened, the children of the Rookery had had no school at all. Boys and girls of five had already been working. The alternative was starvation.