Just as it hadn’t occurred to her that a wolf might be lurking in the darkness of Lord Compton’s library.

“I shall be on my guard in future,” she vowed.

“See that you are,” Nell said. “If you need to reach us again, send a sampler.”

A sampler?

“Joy,” Effie muttered.

5

Gabriel’s betting shop was located at the dark heart of the squalid maze of narrow, intersecting alleyways that characterized what remained of the Rookery. It was an outwardly unobtrusive building, faded and splintering, crammed between the sagging facades of a gin shop and a brothel.

Unlike its neighbors, Gabriel’s shop bore no markers to identify its purpose. There were no staggering drunkards or dissipated former soldiers lined outside, and no bawdy working girls plying their trade. There was only a single guard—one rough-looking and exceedingly large man employed to keep watch over the door.

Inside the shop was another matter. Amid the smoke, the sweat, and the shouting, a disparate and ever-changing crowd of men gathered around long slips of paper nailed to the back wall. These were the all-important betting lists. Each race had their own, which stated the odds against the horses. There were other lists, too, on everything from boxing matches to the inane wagers of private gentlemen. If a contest was involved, Gabriel was generally offering odds on it.

As a consequence, his shop attracted men of every stripe; tradesmen, clerks, aristocrats, and rascals. After studying the lists, they lined up at the large desk in the front of the shop to lay their bets. And if any of those fellows lost and couldn’t pay up, Gabriel dealt with them the same, whether they were landed gentry or the lad who emptied chamber pots at the local lodging house.

None of it was strictly legal. The 1853 Act for the Suppression of Betting Houses had seen to that. But Viscount Compton kept the law from Gabriel’s door. There was no need any longer to bribe the police, or exert pressure on the local watch. With Compton in his pocket, Gabriel conducted business just as he always had, only now entirely free of interference.

Well, not quite as he always had.

With the size of the Rookery rapidly decreasing, Gabriel’s only hope of retaining some semblance of power was to rebuild the fading slum into something like a respectable neighborhood. A man touting reform couldn’t be seen resorting to physical violence. For that, Gabriel now relied on his men. It was they who dealt with the fellows who fell behind in paying their debts, while Gabriel himself remained above the fray, holding court from his private office at the back of the shop.