He recognized some of their faces among the fashionable guests this evening. Upright citizens all, by the looks of them. One would never know that handsome, young Baron Mannering had once wagered the clothes he stood up in on a losing bet, only to find himself spending the night in a Rookery alleyway in nothing but his underdrawers. Or that Lord Powell, heir to the Earl of Ingram, was so deeply in debt to a backstreet moneylender that he’d twice come to Gabriel’s betting shop, stinking of cheap wine and sobbing like a baby, begging for Gabriel to intervene.

Which Gabriel had, of course.

Better the young lords were indebted to him than to a poxy wine merchant or moneylender. Influence was currency to Gabriel. He knew how to wield it. To weaponize it. It was invaluable to him, especially now, when the square footage of the Rookery was shrinking by the year. If it shrank any further, the slum threatened to disappear completely. Gabriel had no intention of finding himself displaced and powerless. Not so long as there was something he could do about it.

The orchestra closed the galop with a flourish of strings and horns. Another swirl or two, and a few lively chassés across the room, and the dance was over. Several couples departed the floor and several more came to take their places before the next dance began.

It was then, through a break in the crowd, Gabriel observed two late arrivals enter the ballroom. One was a society matron—blond, buxom, and bejeweled. The other was a younger lady of exceptional poise. Clad in a ball gown of deep blue silk, she stood straight and proud beside her older companion, her chin lifted slightly as she surveyed the room with a dispassionate gaze that spoke more of jaded royalty than of a girl in her middle twenties. So might Cleopatra have regarded a crowd of unruly Romans.

The similarity was only enhanced by the young lady’s striking good looks. She had gleaming raven hair, bound in an elaborate roll at her nape, and a flawless expanse of warm, golden ivory skin revealed by the short sleeves and low neckline of her bodice.

Gabriel marked her presence with the same ingrained detachment with which he marked anything out of the ordinary in his environment. He noted her beauty. Her uncommon self-assurance. But he wasn’t moved by them. He’d seen countless attractive females in his lifetime. They may differ in their allurements, but one was ultimately interchangeable with the next.

A fair-haired lady in amber silk swept over to greet the late arrivals. It was Compton’s wife. Gabriel had never met her formally, but he recognized her pallid face by sight. She’d been an heiress when she and Compton had married, one with a sizable fortune and a notoriously dim intellect. Easy prey for a man like the viscount, on the hunt for money and power.