“Then you realize how important it is that women have a legal right to keep what’s theirs. For many of them, it would mean the difference between life and death.” Her solemn words took on an edge of passionate earnestness. “Money is independence. And independence is the only thing worth having. A woman who can’t keep what she earns can’t support herself outside of her marriage. She becomes her husband’s captive. If her husband is a brute, what recourse does she have? None in law. Not currently.”

Gabriel’s frown deepened. Is this all this was? Effie’s fervent bluestocking ideas about women gaining equality in the law? It was plausible on its face. Even so…

An unsettling possibility took hold of him.

He cut her a sharp glance. “You’re not married, are you?”

Effie was surprised into a short laugh. “Goodness, no. I never will be, either. I am resolved upon it.”

Gabriel felt a disturbing flash of irritation. Her disdain for marriage shouldn’t make a difference to him. He had no vested interest in her matrimonial state. All the same…

“What do you plan to do with yourself, then?” he asked, nettled. “Live alone for the remainder of your life, subsisting on your vast fortune?”

“I won’t be alone,” she said. “I’ll have Franc.”

The indefatigable black poodle gamboled at the end of his velvet lead, sniffing here and wandering there, all the while endlessly pulling at Effie with the strength of his impatience to be off. She resumed walking, letting the little beast take her further up the path.

Gabriel cast a narrow look back in the direction of Rotten Row as he followed. The horses and riders were mere specks in the distance. “Do you often walk him this far alone?”

“It’s not so very far. In Paris I used to take him out for hours at a time. We were frequently on our own in the parks or wandering along the Seine.”

A seed of suspicion took root in Gabriel’s mind. “The finishing school allowed you such freedom?”

Effie fell quiet for several seconds. “Yes.” She paused. “That is…in my final year in Paris, I was a…a sort of companion to a French lady. She didn’t rise until the late afternoon. Most of the day was mine alone. Indeed, that’s how I came to meet Franc. I stopped at the Dog Market one Sunday in the Boulevard de l’Hôpital. A woman was selling poodle puppies from a basket. Franc was the last of them. I daresay I should have walked on, but he gazed up at me with his big brown eyes and…” A soft smile touched her lips. “I knew we were meant for each other.”

“That’s all it takes, is it?”

Her gaze met his. “In that instance it was.”

Warmth infiltrated Gabriel’s veins. What about when we met? he wanted to ask her.