Page 21 of Rules for Ruin (The Crinoline Academy #1)

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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.

Effie was too upset to be ignored. Closing the distance between them, she gripped the lapels of his jacket in her fists. Her crinoline was crushed between them as she gave him a shake. “I want them.”

A flicker of some unnameable emotion crossed his face. If Effie didn’t know better, she’d think he was experiencing something like regret or remorse.

As if that were possible!

She shook him harder. “You liar.” Raw hurt vibrated in her quaking voice. “You knew about Mr.Wingard. You knew about all of it. And you let me—”

He covered her hands with his. “Effie—”

“I should have recognized it from the beginning. Why else would Compton be helping you? Why would you be protecting him? All for your mercenary, selfish—”

“I need him, Effie.” He pressed her hands. “I need him.”

She jerked away from him, wrenching her hands free. Tears smarted in her eyes. The sting of them only served to stoke her temper. That she would cry over a man! And not a man who had perished like poor Mr.Galezzo, but a man who had tricked her and, very probably, laughed at her.

Turning her back on him, she marshaled her senses. It took a Herculean effort. The entirety of their acquaintance was flashing through her brain at lightning speed, every move he’d made cast in a new light. A damning light.

“For your betting shop,” she said flatly. “Of course. How silly of me.” She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling colder by the moment. “How did you gain possession—”

“Wingard gave them to me himself. He was dying of drink. He needed someone to settle his debts, and to pay for a doctor.”

“And you naturally obliged him.”

Gabriel advanced on her slowly. “ Was he a relation of yours?”

“He was no one to me. But I know who he was. I know what he did. He was as vile a man as Compton. But villains will find each other, I daresay, and help each other, too. It’s ever been thus among men.”

“Effie—”

“The Courant said there were rumors circulating about his papers. Other people must know of them.”

“There have been no rumors. I’m the one who had Miles Quincey put those lines in the Courant . They were meant to be a warning to Compton. It never occurred to me that anyone else would even notice them.”

Effie was jolted anew by this latest revelation. She flashed him a stunned glance over her shoulder. “You’re acquainted with Mr.Quincey?”

“We grew up together in St. Giles. It was me he came to see after you left him that day in Fleet Street. That’s how I knew you’d been there, not because I had you followed.” He paused, adding, “I haven’t, by the way. Not since Ollie failed so abysmally.”

His assurance did nothing to mollify her.

“Your ideas for reform must be dreadfully important to you if you’ve gone to such trouble,” she said bitterly. “Blackmailing Compton? Using your friends?”

“Whatever you’re thinking—”

“I’m thinking that I’m a colossal fool. What else could I be thinking?”

He reached for her arm. She pulled away from his touch. “I didn’t lie to you,” he said. “I warned you from the first that you had to leave Compton alone.”

“Yes,” she replied. “You’ve been strikingly honest.”

“I’ve been as honest with you as you’ve been with me.”

Effie absorbed his words in silence, grudgingly acknowledging the truth of them. Her entire identity here in London was a lie. And before that, too, for as long as she could remember. How could it be otherwise? She didn’t know who she was herself, or who she’d been in those years before Miss Corvus had found her in the slum. How could anyone else?

It was why Effie and Franc had to have a home of their own. Somewhere they could truly belong. That was all that mattered, not this. Not him .

“What’s to prevent me from taking the documents from you?” she asked.

Gabriel fell quiet for a moment behind her. “You could try,” he said, “but I wouldn’t advise it.”

It didn’t sound like a threat. Effie registered it as one nonetheless. Gabriel had power in his world. More power in his way, she suspected, than Compton himself. At least with the viscount there was a veneer of civility. One must maintain outward standards and observe proper decorum. With Gabriel, there was no such veneer. No game board. No rules. She couldn’t simply waltz into his betting shop or his fine house in Sloane Street on some social pretext.

Unless…

She briefly considered obtaining the documents by other means, only to discard the idea. She was no seasoned seductress. Despite her skill at flirtation, she’d never truly been with a man. The stolen kisses she’d shared with Gabriel had been the closest she’d come. She couldn’t imagine taking things further, certainly not for mercenary gain. Not when her heart was so much engaged.

Gabriel seemed to sense the wretchedness of her dilemma. He reached for her again. This time she didn’t flinch. His fingers curled around her upper arm. He turned her to face him. “Don’t be angry.”

“I’m angry at myself.”

“For ever thinking well of me?”

“Yes, quite. For imagining that we—” She stopped before she could finish. She had no desire to make herself even more weak and pitiable in his eyes than she doubtless already was.

Gabriel’s face was no longer cold. There was a brooding look about him—a guarded concern in his eyes, coupled with some troubling emotion she couldn’t interpret. “May I kiss you again?” he asked.

“No.”

He nodded solemnly, taking the rejection in stride. “That’s fair,” he said. And then: “Shall I tell you something that might cheer you?”

She looked up at him mulishly. She hated this feeling. It was anger and mortification all rolled into one. While she’d been sparring with him, imagining that she had the upper hand, he’d been in control the whole time. It made her wonder, were women ever in control? Or was the control they wielded only an illusion permitted by men? If so, it wasn’t any kind of control worth having, not as far as Effie was concerned.

“Shall I?” he asked again.

“If you must,” she said sullenly. “But it won’t change anything between us. You and I will never—”

“I found someone who knew your friend Grace,” he said.

Nothing else on earth could have distracted Effie from her misery. She stepped forward with a start. “ What? When?”

“I made inquiries, just as I told you I would. My man discovered a woman in a village outside of Sawbridgeworth who used to live in St. Giles before the clearances. She claims to have known her.”

Effie searched his face, almost afraid to ask. “What did she say?”

He ran his hand up and down her arm in a slow, reassuring pass. “I haven’t spoken to her yet. She won’t come to London. She expects me to call on her in Hertfordshire. I mean to go next week, before the Epsom Derby.”

Effie recoiled at the thought. He couldn’t go. Not if there was a chance the old woman would reveal something about Effie’s mother. Or worse, about Effie herself. “No,” she objected. “I must go myself. If you’ll give me her direction—”

“I’m going.” Gabriel’s tone left no room for argument. His hand moved on her arm again, both gentle and unmistakably proprietary. “If you’d like to accompany me—”

“To Hertfordshire? Are you mad?” It was miles away. An even greater distance than the Academy. “An unmarried lady can’t travel alone with a gentleman. It would be scandalous.”

Not to mention the risk to Effie’s heart. She was furious with Gabriel, yes, but that didn’t mean she had the strength to resist him. Not if they were on their own together for a prolonged period, and not if he would insist on stroking her and cajoling her like some fractious wild creature.

“Traveling alone with me is taking things too far, is it? After rooftops, terraces, and a jaunt through the slum? After this evening?”

“Yes,” she said. And then more emphatically. “Yes.” Her voice splintered. “I have no desire to see you again.”

He shook his head. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do mean it.” It didn’t feel like a lie, though the words nearly stuck in her throat. “I don’t know why you should care about the fate of my old servant in any case.”

His eyes kindled. “It’s not your old servant I care about.”

Effie’s injured heart gave a traitorous thump. The implication was clear. She refused to let it soften her resolve against him. She was too hurt and disappointed. “If that’s true, then you’ll give me the woman’s direction so I can go alone. You won’t force me to forgo this chance merely to avoid being in company with you.”

He stared down at her for an endless moment. A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Very well,” he said. “If that’s truly want you want.”

A queer burning sensation prickled at the back of Effie’s eyes. Again, she feared she might cry. “It is.”

The truth was, she didn’t know what she wanted anymore. Her head and her heart were in a terrible muddle. She’d seen a man die tonight. She’d learned that the gentleman she was coming to care for had lied to her. The same gentleman she’d shared intimacies with that she’d never shared with anyone before.

She needed to think. To gather her wits and regain her composure. Until such time, she needed to be as far away from Gabriel Royce as possible.