Page 82 of Rules for Ruin

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.

20

Gabriel was accompanying Effie out of the woods and back onto the main promenade of the Gardens when Mannering intercepted them. Seeing the young lord step into their path, Gabriel’s already dangerous mood took a sharp turn for the worse.

He might have known Mannering would come searching for Effie. The idiot was plainly infatuated with her. He’d been pursuing her doggedly enough with all his formal calls and bloody invitations.

Gabriel should have been amused. But he was no fool. For all Mannering’s faults, he was still in possession of an estate and a title. The woman he married would become Lady Mannering. She would have a position in society that demanded respect. While the woman who married Gabriel…

But Effie didn’t want marriage—or so she’d claimed. And Gabriel didn’t know what he wanted anymore.

He had begun the evening determined to rid himself of his attraction to her, but he was ending it in a far different frame of mind. Perhaps it was because of how well she fit in his arms. Perhaps it was because of how she’d returned his kisses. Whatever the reason, in those moments after Effie had discovered the truth about Wingard’s documents, knowing that she was about to walk away from him forever, Gabriel would have done anything—said anything—to keep her there.

He’d had but one final card in his favor—the location of the old woman in Hertfordshire. He hadn’t intended to play it. When he had, it had been less out of strategy than desperation.

A novice mistake. A desperate card player was a losing card player. Everyone associated with the world of betting knew it. When the stakes were high, a man had to remain cold and emotionless in order to win.

For Gabriel, the stakes had never felt higher.

He supposed he was infatuated with Effie, too, in his way. How else to explain the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about her? That he wanted to see her every minute? Kiss her, talk to her, make her smile one of her genuine smiles?

But infatuation was too small a word.

When a man contemplated giving up everything he held sacred for a woman, it surely must be love.

Once acknowledged, the emotion surged in Gabriel’s veins, as irksome as it was unmistakable. He recognized it with a grim sense of certainty. He was in love with Euphemia Flite.

He and every other gentleman in London.

Unlike them, Gabriel had nothing tangible to offer her. Not a title. Not a vast fortune. Not even the distinction of formal education. He had nothing save himself.

It wasn’t enough.

Indeed, judging by the fleeting glimmer of relief in Effie’s face when she saw him, Mannering was, at the moment, a far preferable alternative.

It was some consolation that the dapper young baron wasn’t at his best. His hair was rumpled, his cravat unknotted, and his coat missing a button. “Miss Flite,” he said with evident relief. “Thank God you are safe.”

Effie still wore Gabriel’s heavy black coat draped over her shoulders. She slipped it off, returning it to him without a word.

He took it from her, equally silent. The interior was warm to the touch. A whisper of her fragrance lingered where the collar had brushed her bare skin.

“I’m quite well,” she said to Lord Mannering. “And the others? Are they—”

“Miss Compton was in a bad state. Powell has taken her and my sister home in the carriage. I saw them off before coming to find you. Someone said that Royce had carried you away from the fray.” He looked to Gabriel. “I owe you a debt, sir.”

“You do,” Gabriel agreed without inflection. “But nothing on her account.” Standing half a step behind Effie in the shadow of the trees, he exercised a ruthless control over his emotions. The same control that had allowed him to relinquish her in the woods. It wouldn’t take much to break it. A word from her. A look. A touch.

“May I kiss you again?” he’d asked her only minutes before.

But she hadn’t wanted him then, and she didn’t want him now. She’d scarcely even looked at him since they’d emerged onto the path.

If Mannering suspected anything, he didn’t show it. The events of the evening had been too fraught to allow for a strict enforcement of any social rules. Gabriel had spirited Effie to safety; that was all his lordship seemed to care about.

“I shall take charge of her now,” he said manfully. “I have a cab waiting.” He approached Effie, proffering his arm. “Miss Flite?”

Gabriel’s jaw hardened. If he insisted on escorting Effie home himself, it would only put her in the position of refusing him again, just as she’d refused his request to kiss her. She’d made it perfectly plain that she never wanted to see him again.