“Prince Albert had a model lodging house on display,” he said. “It was built full scale beside the Crystal Palace. A structure of red brick, made large enough for four families, with windows, insulation, and other necessities. It sparked my imagination.”

Euphemia sipped her soup. “You must have seen many similar houses in London.”

“Not in the Rookery. The dwellings there were in a deplorable state. They still are, what remains of them. Imagine the improvement if those old buildings were replaced with brick lodging houses like the ones from the Exhibition.”

Her brow furrowed. “You believe that would solve the Rookery’s problems?”

“Many of those problems arise from overcrowding. Not only disease and despair, but drunkenness as well.”

“How do one’s living conditions affect one’s sobriety?”

“When too many people lodge in a single room, the inmates fall prey to thieving. Rather than see their wages stolen while they sleep, they drink their earnings.”

“You’re jesting.”

“I’m not. It happens with unfortunate regularity. Fear of theft leads to drunkenness, and drunkenness leads to every other vice. Men lose their jobs, they lose their wages, and they end up in even more degraded circumstances.”

The phenomenon wasn’t limited to the Rookery. It happened in every slum, in every corner of the realm. Gabriel had experienced it firsthand in Birmingham. His miserable wretch of a father had drunk away the last of their meager savings on a three-day binge that had ended with him stumbling into the cut and drowning. Only eleven at the time, Gabriel had been called to identify his father’s gin-soaked carcass the following morning. In that case, it hadn’t only meant the loss of Gabriel’s lodgings. It had meant the loss of everything.

Gabriel had eventually stolen enough coin to get him to London. At the time, he’d believed he might have an uncle living there who would take him in. It had proven to be another of his father’s many lies. There had been no uncle, only the same brutal existence Gabriel had endured in the Black Country, this time suffered entirely on his own.

He’d come a long way since then. All the way here to a viscount’s table, sitting beside Euphemia Flite. It was a great deal too far to fall. Gabriel had no intention of doing so.

Raising her spoon, Euphemia took another dainty sip of her soup. “What of the women?”

Gabriel attended to his own soup. Like the wine, the creamy blend of potatoes, butter, and vegetables was silky and rich with flavor. Yet another testament to Compton’s wealth. There was no blandness or bitterness in his fare.

“What about them?” he asked.

“When men fall into vice and degradation, every woman with whom they’re connected must partake of it, too. Their wives, their daughters. Even women unknown to them. Only consider how that lout behaved toward me last week.”