Page 12 of Rules for Ruin (The Crinoline Academy #1)

10

Lord Compton’s bedroom was awash in darkness. Effie stopped inside, the door clicking shut behind her. She blinked into the murk, willing her eyes to adjust.

This time, there was no Gabriel Royce to light a friction match. Fortunately, Effie hadn’t come unprepared. Raising her skirts, she felt for the small taper candle she’d tied to the wires of her cage crinoline. It was still there, along with the small candleholder, and the silver vesta case.

Unlike regular friction matches, vesta matches were made of wax, with red phosphorus tips. One could strike them anywhere. Effie waited to do so until she was certain there was no one else in the room. Only then did she light her candle. It produced just enough of a flame for her to see in front of her.

Like his daughter’s bedroom, Lord Compton’s chamber was of an enormous size. In the dim glow of the candle, Effie beheld a monstrous mahogany four-poster bed, several towering wardrobes, and a full-sized sofa and chairs arranged around a marble fireplace. A bank of windows lined the opposite wall, the glass covered in thick folds of velvet draperies.

Effie moved past them toward the open door across the room. It led to his lordship’s dressing room and bathing chamber, the luxury of which seemed to her even greater than in his bedroom. But Effie didn’t have time to reflect on Compton’s propensity for extravagance, nor on the possibility that some of that extravagance had been funded by Miss Corvus. She kept her eyes ahead of her, scanning every surface as she went, lest—like that night in the library—she should be taken unaware.

She found Compton’s study on the other side of his bathing room. Entering it in the tiny halo of candlelight, Effie’s already fizzing pulse surged with a mixture of anxiety and anticipation. She couldn’t think when she’d have another opportunity such as this. She was determined to make the most of it.

The study was small in comparison to the other rooms. It contained a secretary desk, a chest of drawers, and several leather chairs. Two bookcases rose on either side of the desk. They held row upon row of thick, leather-bound volumes, their titles stamped in gold on the spines. No medieval texts, these. They were books on geography, history, and law.

Effie skimmed the titles on her way to the desk. Were these books more personal to him than the ones in his library? If they were, it wasn’t readily apparent why.

She sat down in the chair in front of his desk. Placing her candle atop the surface, she quietly began testing the drawers. To her surprise, many of them were unlocked. Surprise swiftly gave way to disappointment as she searched each one, finding nothing but tradesmen’s bills, a few dry letters from Compton’s colleagues in Parliament, and a document that appeared to be the lease agreement on a house.

Hope sprang anew with the next drawer. It was located behind a small door on the side of the desk. Unlike the other drawers, this one refused to open.

Removing her two remaining dragonfly hairpins, Effie set to work. She inserted the first hairpin into the lock until she felt resistance from the lock pins. Using that hairpin as leverage, she slid the second hairpin into the lock and manipulated the tumbler. It took a bit of doing, but after a few nerve-racking minutes, Effie felt the unmistakable click as the lock opened.

Satisfaction flared in her breast. Next time she saw Nell, Effie looked forward to informing her that she hadn’t, in fact, forgotten everything she’d learned at the Academy. After returning her hairpins to her hair, Effie slid out the small drawer. It contained a stack of loose papers that smelled faintly of violets. Withdrawing them, she quickly ascertained that they were handwritten notes, all penned in the same script and signed with the same initial— D . Effie pored over them in the candlelight. They didn’t contain anything damning in regard to Miss Corvus, but neither were they entirely innocent.

My dearest, what pleasure you gave me (one of the notes read). My poor body has not yet recovered.

And…

How virile and strong you were yesterday afternoon. Shall we repeat the performance Thursday morning next?

The more Effie read of the notes, the more she became convinced of two things: 1) Compton had a mistress; and 2) he and that mistress had a regular appointment on Thursday mornings.

But where did they meet? The letters didn’t specify. Effie presumed it was a prearranged location. A hotel room or a house, perhaps.

Her thoughts instantly returned to the lease agreement. She removed it from the desk again, this time examining it more closely. The house was located in Ellis Street. Had Compton let it for his mistress? Effie suspected he might have done. She committed the address to memory.

“Lord Solomon, indeed,” she murmured disdainfully as she returned the lease to its place. She put the letters back in their drawer and locked it.

Evidence of a mistress wasn’t what she’d hoped to find, but it wasn’t nothing. For now, it would have to do.

Rising from the desk, she paused to blow out her candle. Once the wick was sufficiently cooled, she resecured the taper and the holder to her crinoline and prepared to make her exit in the darkness. She’d already been away from the performance too long. Any longer and her absence would be remarked. A lost hairpin could only explain so much.

She was just making her way back through Lord Compton’s bedroom, preparing to slip out the door, when a male voice sounded in the hall.

Effie froze where she stood. Her heart leapt into her throat. Good lord. It was a servant!

Her gaze darted about the darkened room. With only seconds to act, she did the only thing she could. She dashed behind the heavy curtains, hoping against hope that there would be a window seat she could squeeze into. It was the only way to disguise the fullness of her skirts.

But there was no window seat.

And the windows weren’t windows, either. They were tall glass doors leading out to a stone terrace.

Effie tried the handle of the first one. Relief flooded through her to find it unlocked. Pulling the door open, she slipped out onto the terrace. There was no time to shut it, for in that same instant, the door to Compton’s chamber opened and a servant entered the room.

Cold night air washed over Effie. With the moon hanging overhead, it was lighter outside than it had been in Compton’s room. Anyone might see her. She hastily backed to the edge of the terrace, as far away from the open glass door as she could, until she felt the low stone railing press at her back.

A cool breeze passed over her, stirring her skirts. The same breeze rustled the velvet curtains, catching the servant’s eye.

“Now who left that open?” the man muttered to himself.

Effie held her breath, listening to him cross the room to the terrace doors. She waited for him to pop his head out. To see her and sound the alarm. A dozen excuses for her presence ran through her head in a furious rush.

But the servant didn’t look outside. He only pushed the glass door shut. There was a dull clunk as he locked it.

Effie’s hands gripped the railing behind her. Minutes later, she heard the man depart. Only then did the reality of her position hit her. The terrace doors had no proper handles on the outside. She’d been locked out here. Left out here.

She cast a look of cold panic at the moonlit gardens below. Her stomach plummeted. For a moment, it was as if she’d already fallen, down, down, down, to the paving stones. It was that real. That visceral. The terrace floor seemed to shift beneath her feet. She squeezed her eyes shut as a wave of dizziness assailed her. It was coupled with the same wash of clammy perspiration she’d felt that day so long ago when she’d been trapped on the tower roof of the Academy. Then, Nell had climbed up to save her. But Nell wasn’t coming this time.

No one was coming.

· · ·

Gabriel strolled down the secluded tree-lined path that ran along the edge of the Comptons’ expansive gardens. The tip of his half-finished cigarette glowed in the darkness. Along with the moon and a blanket of shimmering stars, it was the only light to guide his way. No lanterns or torches had been set out for the evening. Lady Compton had doubtless anticipated her guests remaining inside.

Inside was the last place Gabriel wanted to be.

He’d just been discussing the rot and disease of the Rookery. To go from that to the cloying luxury of the drawing room, with its passel of rich young ladies singing in Italian, was too bitter a contrast. In his present frame of mind, Gabriel knew it would only fire his temper.

Instead, on leaving the library after his talk with Haverford, Gabriel had withdrawn to the gardens for a smoke. With luck, a cigarette and some fresh air would restore his equanimity.

Music drifted over him as he walked—the faint sounds of the piano and violin accompanied by a feeble contralto. The musicale was still in full swing. There was no hope of avoiding the whole of it. He would have to return eventually, if for no other reason than to show himself amenable to society’s rules.

And to see Euphemia again.

It was a damnable urge. An unwelcome attraction all mixed up with his growing feeling of frustration and disillusionment. He had no place in this world. Her world. And it wasn’t some mistaken sense of inferiority that compelled him to acknowledge it. It was the grim understanding that these people—these illustrious lords and ladies of London—would never change.

They existed in a sphere too far above the struggles of the common man and woman to ever comprehend them. For them, charity was entertainment. Compassion a performance. To gain their fickle attention, humble working people had to debase themselves, exposing their misery and abdicating their pride for the merest chance at a few scraps from the rich man’s table.

There was no dignity in it, this glorified begging. Especially for Gabriel, who scorned to ask anyone for anything. He’d had to swallow his rancor to talk with Haverford. Whether or not the sacrifice had been worth it, Gabriel didn’t yet know. Haverford hadn’t spoken in terms of swift reforms. He’d approached the matter legally and theoretically, referencing scholarly reports, parliamentary opinions, and possible amendments to the 1855 Metropolis Management Act.

Haverford had also discussed the upcoming elections to the St. Giles District Board of Works. The character and opinions of the newly elected board members would have an outsize impact on the Rookery’s future. As much of an impact as that of Compton and politicians like him.

Whatever action was taken, it would depend on them to implement it. Which meant that, soon, Gabriel would be even more reliant on Compton than he was already. And Compton would know it.

Gabriel took a scowling drag of his cigarette. He was in a foul mood, that was the trouble. He had been ever since dinner, when he’d been obliged to tell Euphemia that his lofty position in St. Giles had originated not by order of his birth or connection or honest hard work, but by virtue of being a bookmaker—a glorified Rookery villain, who had risen to his current status through violence and intimidation.

He wasn’t ashamed of what he was or where he came from. But in that moment, seated next to her in the candlelight, he’d felt something resembling regret. An earnest, elegant young lady like her—one who had been finished in Paris, by God—was so far removed from a man like him she practically existed on another planet. It didn’t matter that she had the heart of an adventuress. That he’d seen in her eyes, that night in Compton’s library, a spirit as fierce and formidable as his own. He could still never hope to reach her. To touch her. Not if he made another fortune for himself and bought half a dozen properties in Mayfair.

That didn’t mean he relished the idea of her enjoying the remainder of the musicale with a witless arse like Lord Mannering or a self-righteous hypocrite like Lord Powell.

Better it should be Gabriel sitting beside her.

With that in mind, he finished his cigarette and headed back. The enormous white stucco house loomed ahead, towering over the neatly trimmed rosebushes and perfectly manicured grass of the formal gardens. A massive wisteria climbed up the walls, thick, woody, and drooping with heavy clusters of pale lilac flowers. Its branches stretched up to the high windows above where shadows moved and lights glimmered.

He avoided the main path, opting instead for a secluded track that ran alongside the house. There was a door there that led to the hall by the billiard room. It was the way he’d come out. As he approached, he paused to put out his cigarette, tipping his head back to take one last look at the waning moon.

It was then he saw it.

Or rather, her .

The distinct flash of violet silk was unmistakable. It shone briefly in the moonlight, a fleeting glimpse of color through the stone railing of a small terrace three floors above.

Gabriel’s body went still.

For the barest moment, he wondered if he’d imagined it. It couldn’t be her. That wasn’t the ballroom terrace. It was the balcony of someone’s private quarters. And she wasn’t standing there, as any sane person would do. She appeared to be seated on the ground, her skirts billowing about her in a heap. What the devil was she—

There was a faint shudder of a tremulous breath.

His heart lurched. He took a sharp step forward. “Miss Flite?”

There was no response, only the same soft, unsteady gasping. It sent a jolt of apprehension through him. “Euphemia?” he said, raising his voice. “Is that you ?”

A slim, ungloved hand slipped out of the terrace railing, gripping the stone pillar in reply. “Gabriel?” Her voice was a mere thread of sound. “I can’t…”

“You can’t what?”

“Move.” The bewildering statement was followed by a pitiful breath of unsteady laughter.

The sound squeezed Gabriel’s already quaking heart in a viselike grip. “Good God. Are you hurt?”

She uttered another short laugh. It had more in common with a whimper. “Scared,” she breathed. “S-Stupid of me.”

He didn’t require any other explanation. What would be the point? She couldn’t move. She could barely talk. And she’d just admitted to being frightened. Her situation must be alarming indeed.

His reaction to her distress was no less alarming.

Shedding the close-fitting constraints of his evening jacket, Gabriel strode to the wall of the house. He gripped the thick branches of the aged wisteria. Whether it could hold his weight on its own was debatable. He didn’t pause to test it. Impelled by the sound of her whimpering breaths, he hoisted himself up.

He had some experience in climbing. In his youth, he and the other street children had often broken into houses searching for food and coin. Back then, Gabriel had become adept at shimmying up vines and running along rooftops.

Granted, it was decades since he’d last attempted it. He was much bigger now, and far broader of shoulder. Maneuvering his weight took some doing. The branches made ominous creaking noises beneath him, and he muttered more than one curse before he reached the terrace. But reach it he did. Gripping the edge, he hoisted himself over the railing like some demented Romeo.

He found Euphemia hunched in the corner in a cloud of violet silk. Her face was waxen in the moonlight, her lips bloodless and her forehead damp with perspiration. Her bosom rose and fell with every rapid, shuddering breath.

The vise on Gabriel’s heart squeezed tighter still, making it difficult for him to think or to breathe. He could only react. Sinking down next to her, he took her face in his hands, forcing her to look at him. She met his burning stare with wide, panicked eyes. “Scared,” he repeated. “Of heights?”

Tears started in her gaze. They shimmered there, unfallen, turning the dark blue of her eyes to the same deep shade of plummy violet as her gown.

“It’s all right,” he murmured gruffly. “You’re all right.” His thumbs moved over her cheeks in an achingly gentle caress. “I’ve found you.”

She nodded mutely as her teeth began to chatter. Her neck and arms were bare, but he doubted the reaction was from the cold. She appeared to be in some kind of terror-induced shock.

He continued stroking her, staring into her eyes, compelling her to focus on him—only him—until he felt her breath coming easier. The full skirts of her dress bunched between them. “Daft woman,” he said softly. “Why didn’t you just go back inside?”

“Locked out,” she managed in a whisper.

His thumbs stilled on her cheeks. He shot a narrow look at the glass doors. “Whose room is this?”

“C-Compton’s.”

Gabriel suppressed a swell of masculine outrage. What in the hell could she possibly be doing in Compton’s bedchamber? And how had she found herself locked outside of it?

“What was your plan?” he demanded in a low growl. “To remain here all night?”

“B-Break the window.”

“Which you would have explained exactly how?”

“Past explaining. Too…too frightened.”

A disconcerting wave of tenderness washed over him. It sank into his soul, overwhelming his defenses— and his better judgment. “All right,” he muttered, half to himself and half to her. His fingers gently cradled her jaw, his thumbs sliding over her cheeks. “This is what’s going to happen, sweetheart. I’m going to rescue you.”

Her gaze turned toward the railing. A quaver of fear went through her. She huffed another whimpering laugh. “Impossible.”

“Come.” He brought her face back to his. “I’d never have taken you for a defeatist.” The rough edge of his Birmingham accent emerged, turning his a’s into ai’s. This time, it wasn’t anger that summoned it, but another, more powerful, emotion. He didn’t stop to examine it.

“A realist,” she replied, just as she’d said at dinner. “There’s only one way down.” She trembled. “Down.”

“Quite. We’ll use those branches. It’s what—three floors? That’s nothing. All you have to do is calm yourself sufficiently enough to hold on to me.”

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

He stroked her face. They didn’t have time to linger. At any moment, a servant might enter Compton’s room or one of the guests might wander out into the garden. “What? Don’t you trust my climbing ability? I’ve got nine lives, me.”

“One of us will fall.”

“Neither of us is going to fall.” He bent his head to hers, still holding her face in his hands. “Do you want to know the secret to it? Don’t think of how high up you are.”

She gave him a pained look. A tear spilled from her brimming eyes to slide down her cheek. “I can concentrate on nothing else.”

Gabriel brushed the hot tear away with the pad of his thumb. His face was inches from hers. He felt her sweet breath puffing softly against his lips. She smelled of honey and black currants. Of everything he’d ever wanted in life but never received. Never deserved. He bent his head closer, his voice deepening to a husky scrape. “Concentrate on this,” he said.

And his mouth captured hers.