Page 80 of Rules for Ruin

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.”