With all the guests seated, the soup course was served. The footmen started at the top of the table, and worked their way down, ladling out potage à la julienne into each of the guests’ dishes. Parker moved among them, pouring out the wine.

Gabriel kept an eye on the man as he came to fill his glass. Parker’s face tightened as he poured. It plainly rubbed him on the raw to be serving a man like Gabriel. Servants were often as arrogant as their employers when it came to questions of rank, but Parker was more than snobbish. There was a ferocity to him that made every movement feel a threat. At least, where Gabriel was concerned.

Where had Compton found him? And what was he using him for? It couldn’t only be for pouring wine and conveying cream-laid invitations to parties.

Turning his head, Gabriel caught Euphemia observing the man, too. For a split second he had the uncanny impression that she was wondering the same thing he was. She had a thoughtful frown in her gaze as Parker poured her wine. Only when he, and the footman who served her soup, had passed on to the gentleman on her opposite side (Lord Mannering, by God!) did she resume the conversation she and Gabriel had been having.

“How would you do it?” she asked, picking up her silver soup spoon. “Reform St. Giles, I mean.”

He downed a swallow of wine. It was pale ruby in color, delicately fragrant and smooth as silk, with no trace of sourness to it. As ever, nothing but the best for Compton. The man had a weakness for fine things.

“Did you attend the Great Exhibition?” Gabriel asked abruptly.

Euphemia’s lush mouth quirked at the brusque change of subject. “No. I was but a child of ten or eleven then, and not at liberty to do as I pleased.”

“I was a bit older,” he said.

The Great Exhibition had taken place in 1851. Housed in the Crystal Palace—a sparkling cast iron and plate glass building erected in Hyde Park—it had showcased the finest Britain had to offer in the way of industry and design. It had also presented the art and inventions of other nations. People had traveled from all over to goggle at the displays.

Gabriel had been seventeen at the time, swiftly rising through the ranks of Rookery villains. Miles had gone away for his apprenticeship. Rose Quincey had died. There was no one to soften Gabriel’s hard edges any longer, and nothing to stand in the way of his worst instincts.

With its ever-changing crowds of tourists, the Crystal Palace had been a prime spot for thieving. It was what had brought Gabriel there on that particular day, but it hadn’t been what had possessed him to linger.