Page 98 of Rules for Ruin

Gabriel lowered the window shade. He removed his hat, placing it on the empty seat beside him. “You no longer need your veil.”

Effie slowly pushed the black net back over her bonnet, revealing her beautiful face by degrees. She was unusually pale. The shadows under her dark blue eyes appeared deeper in comparison. He’d noticed them earlier at the cottage. She looked as though she hadn’t slept since they’d parted in Cremorne Gardens.

His chest tightened with guilt.

It had been a calculated choice not to seek her out before today. One he’d made the night of Galezzo’s fall. Then, Gabriel had believed he was giving Effie an opportunity to recover from the upset she’d suffered. That, in his absence, her temper would cool and, when next they met, she’d be able to face him with something like an open mind.

When she’d flung her arms around him on the platform at Sawbridgeworth Station, he’d dared to hope he had been right.

But he understood now that one impulsive embrace wasn’t enough to offset the hurt he’d caused her. A hurt that paled in comparison to the devastation she had suffered at that cottage today.

He gazed at her solemnly as the train rattled down the track. “Effie—”

“She was my mother,” she said.

“I gathered that much.”

He’d understood it from the instant Mrs. Young had described Mrs. Grace putting her child on the roof. He had looked at Effie then, had seen the dull horror in her face, and he had known. This was why she was terrified of heights. Why the mere possibility of falling left her incapable of moving or adequately drawing breath.

“I didn’t know,” she said. “I couldn’t remember.”

“How old were you when you left the Rookery?” he asked.

“Five, I believe.”

“Was it your father who took you away?”

“No.” She numbly shook her head. “I never knew anything about him. Not that he was a lascar or…or anything.”

Gabriel hadn’t been entirely surprised by that bit of information. Indeed, it explained much about Effie’s singular beauty.

As for the less savory aspects—the idea that she was somehow tarnished by being mixed race, Gabriel had never subscribed to those beliefs. Purity of pedigree was a rich man’s game. An obsession clung to by those who couldn’t distinguish themselves in a more substantive manner. But poverty didn’t discriminate. The Rookery was rife with people of every color and caste. Gabriel had learned early on that it was character that was important, not the vagaries of one’s birth.

“It was a woman who took me,” Effie said. “I stole her reticule.”

Gabriel received this news without batting an eye. So, Euphemia Flite had been a child pickpocket. Another revelation—and one that strangely didn’t surprise him, either. Rather the reverse. The scandalous fact of Effie’s unsavory origins settled in his heart, warm and deep, an affirmation of everything he’d been feeling since the first night they’d met.

Like recognized like.

He had sensed it then, without doubt. Had seen something in her that told him they were the same. At the time, the feeling had defied common sense. She was a well-bred young lady taking part in the London season. A lady residing in Mayfair, garbed in fine clothes, and possessed of impeccable manners.

But all that was merely window dressing, wasn’t it?

Underneath, she was the same as he was. A child of the slum who had, by some method, managed to infiltrate the razor-thin layer of the upper crust, turning her talents to her advantage.

“She took me when I was small,” Effie said. “I was raised in an orphanage.”

“The Crinoline Academy,” Gabriel murmured.

She gave him a sharp glance.

His mouth quirked wryly. “That’s what the barman in the village told Ollie the orphanage was called. I presume that isn’t its name?”

“Some people call it that. But no. It’s Miss Corvus’s Benevolent Academy for the Betterment of Young Ladies.” She paused before adding, “It isn’t your typical charitable institution.”

“I should say not.” Not if they were raising up their inmates to masquerade as elegant ladies rather than women who kept to the humble station to which they’d been born.

Effie stared down at her folded hands in her lap. A deep line of anguish etched her brow. “I wasn’t supposed to return to the Rookery. Miss Corvus forbade it. But I have always imagined that, one day, I might find my mother. It’s been the secret dream of my life.” Her voice cracked and her eyes filled with tears. “I might have known it would prove to be a nightmare.”