Effie switched Franc’s lead to her opposite hand so he could wander among the shrubs on the left side of the path. She wondered just how much Gabriel knew about her visit to the paper. Everything, presumably, if he was referencing the commotion Franc’s presence had caused.

“How was I to know the editor of the paper kept cats in his office?” She added tartly, “And I wasn’t asking about Lord Compton, for your information. I was inquiring about someone else.”

Gabriel once again lapsed into silence. Effie felt the weight of it as they walked. She knew he was waiting for her to fill the void, just as she was waiting for him.

This time, she broke first.

“Aren’t you at all curious who that was?” she asked. “But I suppose you already know that, too, else you wouldn’t be here.”

“Is your name really Flite?” he countered.

Effie stiffened. She understood what he was referring to. She’d told the editor of the Courant she was a relation of Mr. Wingard. There had been but one purpose behind the lie—to discover if the Wingard mentioned in the society column was the same man as Miss Corvus’s half brother. The editor had offered no answer in that regard.

But Gabriel had.

“For as long as I can remember,” she replied truthfully. And then: “What connection has Mr. Wingard to Lord Compton?”

Gabriel stopped on the path beneath the birch trees. His face was wiped clean of expression. “Who says he does?”

She turned on him. “Your presence here tells me so. If you’ve come all this way to warn me off, I must be perilously close to something damaging to the viscount.”

He shook his head. “You’re clutching at straws. Just because you didn’t learn anything at the paper—”

She gave him a calculating smile. “Who says I didn’t learn anything?”

• • •

Gabriel looked at her steadily, betraying nothing. She was still difficult to read, but less difficult than she’d been on the first occasion they’d met. He saw her now, the real Euphemia Flite, shimmering beneath her elegantly crafted facade, as uncertain of him as he was of her.

It did nothing to ease the tightness in his chest.

He’d sought her out in a hot burst of fury—angry with her for meddling with things she didn’t understand and even angrier with himself for underestimating her. But when he’d seen her walking Franc beneath the silver birches, time had slowed. His temper had cooled and something else had come to take its place. An odd warmth. A strange softness.

He’d thought of holding her again. Of kissing her in the moonlight.

But not now. Once again, his temper threatened to get the better of him.

“What did you learn?” he asked.