Page 24 of Rules for Ruin (The Crinoline Academy #1)

22

Effie stood beside Lord Compton as he extracted the first volume of his medieval collection from its shelf near the fireplace. The library was empty at this time of day, sun filtering in through the half-closed draperies, capturing dancing dust motes in its rays.

This was but the third time Effie had entered the vast book-lined room. On her first visit, she’d encountered Gabriel in the darkness (a memory that still made her heart quicken). On the second, she’d been in company with Miss Compton. And now, here she was again, this time with the man she’d been pursuing from the beginning.

Gabriel would assuredly not approve.

He’d warned her away from the viscount countless times since they’d met. “Gentlemen of Compton’s rank aren’t to be trifled with,” he’d said. “Powerful men will do anything to protect their secrets.”

But Effie had power, too. Hers lay in the fact that she was a woman, and in this world, by this man, women had always been underestimated. Whoever Miss Corvus had been when Compton had robbed her and betrayed her, she hadn’t been the fierce and formidable female she would later become. It was that woman who had brought Effie up. Who had, as Nell claimed, raised Effie in her image.

Let Compton underestimate her at his peril.

“My daughter tells me you read Latin,” he said, passing her the book.

Effie managed a small, self-effacing smile. “Only a very little, my lord.”

He studied her face. “I wasn’t aware French finishing schools were in the habit of teaching Latin to their students. Not even a very little of it.”

“I have always been precocious when it comes to learning. Some of my teachers were disposed to encourage me.”

“And your parents approved?” His expression transformed into a sly mockery of paternal concern. “But you are without parents, I recall.”

Effie cradled the book in her hands. She was navigating a treacherous path. If she took a step wrong, the ground would give way beneath her feet. There would be no way of recovering it. She would be lost.

This was why, from the beginning, it had been important not to tell outright lies. A successful fabrication was always daringly close to the truth.

“They have been gone since I was a small child,” she said. “I was raised by my guardian.”

“A relation?”

“No, but she knew my mother, and was disposed to act in my interests.”

“She?” His brows lifted. He had presumed her guardian to be a man.

“Quite,” Effie said. “She saw I was brought up in accordance with my prospects.”

His smile thinned to hear his own words quoted back at him. “What female can ask for better?” He pulled out a chair at an inlaid drum table nearby. “Miss Flite?”

Effie sat down, permitting him to push in her chair. He stood at her back for a moment, uncomfortably close. She felt his hot breath, and smelled his sandalwood cologne. Her pulse skittered with anxiety as he took the chair beside her.

She focused on the book. Opening the cover, she found the first illumination—a man, a snake, a raven, and a lion. It was the same illumination that had graced the first page of the volume she’d perused the night of the musicale, only this one was far more vivid. The snake had been tinted in green, the lion in saffron yellow, and the raven was solid black.

She traced them with her fingertip. “Miss Compton said these books had been in your family for generations. They must be very precious to you.”

“They are.” Lord Compton brought his fingers to rest on the image of the snake, mere inches from her own. “I prize the rare and beautiful. When the two meet, you will not find a more diligent and appreciative custodian than I.”

Effie moistened her lips. Her mouth was suddenly dry. “What of the content of the book itself?” she inquired with a creditable degree of composure. “Do you not care what lies within the pages?”

“The substance of it is negligible. One might read a translation of Aristotle’s text on zoology anywhere these days.” His finger drew closer to hers on the page. “No, my dear. The value of this collection lies in its rarity. Its price cannot be measured.”

She gave him a frowning look. “But…you have read it?”

His lips flattened. “For the most part.”

Effie began to understand. She thought of his house, and all the vast extravagances within it, from the Japanese drawing room and the Italian marble floors, to the imported crystal chandeliers, the towering oil paintings, and the quality of the wine served at his table. She had long recognized that Compton enjoyed luxury, but she realized something else now.

For all his lofty reputation as a gentleman of wisdom, Compton was only a dilettante. A man who dabbled at refinement, unwilling to put in the actual work of reading a book or learning a language. A man who, when given the choice between the difficult path or the easy one, would always choose the latter. It was why he hadn’t set out to make his own fortune, preferring instead to steal one from Miss Corvus.

Effie hadn’t thought she could like him any less. But to have books such as these, and to never read them? It was practically criminal.

She slowly turned the next page, and then another. The same faint fragrance stirred from within the leaves that she’d caught when she’d looked at the previous volume. Ash, smoke, and leather, coupled with flowery sweetness and decay. The oddly familiar scent tickled at the back of her mind. She knew this smell. Not the decay, but something else…

The more pages she turned, the deeper it lured her into its flowery complexity.

“Are you searching for a particular passage, Miss Flite?”

Effie started. She hadn’t intended to let the silence stretch so long between them. And all the while he’d been watching her, weighing her expression and measuring her responses. “I only read a little Latin, as I said,” she answered with a rueful smile. “I have just realized this volume is the one about human animals.”

“You don’t care for human biology?”

“I’d prefer to read about wild creatures. Their behavior is far more interesting.”

“As a student of human behavior, I must disagree.”

“Yes, but you boast a vast and varied acquaintance, my lord. While I…” She glanced at him through her lashes. “I have only the experience of young people like myself.”

“Young men,” Lord Compton said derisively. “Immature bucks like Lord Mannering will doubtless bore a lady of your discernment. I beg you would not judge the rest of my sex by his example.”

“You don’t care for Lord Mannering? That is unfortunate, given Miss Compton’s feelings.”

“My daughter will soon get over this ill-advised infatuation. She is destined for greater things.” His lips curled into another patronizing smile. “You, on the other hand, appear to be meant for greater still.” He turned the next page of the book, his finger brushing slowly over hers. “I have been making inquiries about you, Miss Flite.”

Effie stilled. “Oh?”

“Contrary to what is believed, Lady Belwood has confided that you are in no expectation of an inheritance from her and her husband.”

Effie met his eyes. “I was unaware that anyone thought I was.”

“Many have presumed it to be the case. As it transpires, you are wholly reliant on the generosity of your sponsor.” Again, his fingers brushed hers. “Do you plan to marry?”

Her skin crawled at his touch. “I have no firm plans.”

“How, then, do you propose to support yourself when the season comes to a close?”

“I have not thought that far ahead, my lord.”

“You will naturally be in want of someone to look after you once you have left Lady Belwood’s care. For a young woman with no family or connections, the world can be a dangerous place.”

“Yes, quite dangerous,” she said solemnly. “People should really take care, shouldn’t they?”

His expression glinted with dry amusement. “You aren’t afraid of the future?”

“I have no reason to fear it. I’ve done no wrong, and I’ve made no enemies.”

“Show me a man with no enemies, and I shall show you a man who hasn’t truly lived,” his lordship quipped.

“Yes,” Effie agreed. “But I am not a man, my lord.”

He chuckled. “No, you most certainly are not, are you?” He touched her hand again. “If you find yourself in need of a protector, you must allow me to advise you.”

Effie’s stomach clenched. She had known the viscount capable of veiled flirtation, but she hadn’t anticipated an implied offer of his protection. It was an insult disguised as an honor. One she would never have been subjected to if she were truly a lady of wealth and breeding.

But she wasn’t.

Lord Compton believed she was unprotected. Entirely without resource.

He leaned closer, his breath a hot puff against her cheek. “A man like Mr.Royce may appear exciting on first acquaintance, but you would be wise to keep your distance from him.”

A flare of alarm took Effie unaware.

Good lord. How much did Compton know about what she’d been up to these past weeks?

“I have no interest in Mr.Royce,” she said evenly.

“You were observed leaving my library on the night of the ball,” Lord Compton replied. “He came out after you.”

Observed by whom ? Parker, Effie presumed. How much else had the butler seen?

She shook her head. “It isn’t what you—”

“And my daughter mentioned that you and Mr.Royce were both absent again during the musicale. Not to mention his behavior toward you at Cremorne Gardens. He carried you off, my daughter claims.” He patted Effie’s hand. “You wouldn’t like to have your name linked to his, would you, my dear?”

“Rather it should be linked to someone else’s?”

“If you are so inclined,” he said. “You’re a charming girl. Choose your course correctly, and the future will be yours to make.”

“A tempting proposition,” Effie murmured. “I shall certainly think on it.” With that, she deftly slipped her fingers free of his, reaching to turn another page. The same fragrance stirred. But this time it wasn’t the bewilderingly familiar scent that demanded her attention. It was something else. Her eye was caught by a scrap of Latin at the top right corner of the page.

It was no medieval text. It had been added much later. The ink was still dark, the handwriting starkly familiar.

Donum meum tibi

in coniugii nostri vigilia.

—E.W.

Effie’s gaze jerked to Lord Compton’s face. He was staring at the inscription, too, a deep groove forming between his brows. He appeared as confounded by its presence as she was. Indeed, if his expression was to judge, he had never seen it before in his life.

And perhaps he hadn’t, if he’d never read the books in their entirety.

If he had, he would have found Miss Corvus’s message to him years ago. She had obviously expected him to. She’d likely assumed he would treasure this collection, would read it from beginning to end multiple times, just as she had assuredly done. For they were her books, weren’t they?

Effie recognized it in the exact instant she recognized the elusive fragrance. It was the same faint scent that had lingered among the black cloth–draped surfaces and crumbling dried flowers of Miss Corvus’s private quarters at the Academy. The perfume of a long-ago sweetness turned acrid by betrayal.

“My gift to you on the eve of our marriage,” Effie read aloud in a tone of affected bewilderment. “Signed E. W.”

They were the same letters the Academy girls had been taught to transpose in their samplers. Remnants of who Miss Corvus had been before Compton had destroyed her. The W was surely for Wingard. Effie could only guess at what the E might stand for.

“Was this written by one of your distant ancestors, my lord?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said after a tense moment. “Someone long dead, presumably. I shall see about having it expunged.”

“You don’t approve of sentiment?”

“I don’t approve of someone defacing my books,” he said tightly.

But the medieval collection wasn’t his. It had never been his. Miss Corvus had given it to him as an early wedding gift, hadn’t she? And he had kept it, the blackguard, just as he’d kept control of her fortune.

It may not be a compromising letter or a trove of damning documents, but it was proof of their former connection. Proof he’d accepted a costly gift from Miss Corvus in exchange for his promise to marry her. At minimum, that must at least be breach of contract, mustn’t it?

Effie had to send a sampler to the Academy without delay. In the meanwhile…

“Pray don’t attempt to have the writing expunged, my lord,” she said. “It would only ruin the book and decrease the collection’s value.”

Lord Compton’s mouth pursed with displeasure at the prospect. “It would be a risk,” he conceded.

“One far too great to take. Ill-advised as well. That inscription is part of your history now. And one’s history can never truly be erased, can it? No matter how much we might wish it to be.” Carefully closing the book, Effie rose from her seat. There was no more point in remaining, not when she’d found such a seemingly valuable piece of information. “Forgive me, I must return to Brook Street.”

He stood. “So soon?”

“I fear I have already lingered too long.”

“Nonsense. Lady Belwood can surely spare you for a few moments more.” He moved toward her, coming as close as the hem of her crinoline would allow. “There are nine books remaining in my collection, and I am presently at liberty to show them to you. I can’t promise when I will be so again.”

Effie backed away from him. “You are too generous, sir. But it’s not my hostess I’m thinking of. It is my own obligations.” Inclining her head to him in curt farewell, she turned in a swish of violet-sprigged organdy and swiftly exited the library.

She had a great deal of sewing to do.