Page 3 of Rules for Ruin (The Crinoline Academy #1)
1
May 1864
Gabriel Royce leaned back in the oxblood leather wing chair behind Viscount Compton’s carved walnut desk as though the desk, the library, and the stately Grosvenor Square mansion itself belonged to him. The jacket of his immaculate black-and-white evening suit was open, exposing the white tie and black silk waistcoat beneath. “Seems easy enough to me,” he said.
His casual posture was belied by the menace of a Birmingham drawl edging his words. Over the past decade, he’d taken great pains to cultivate an upper-class accent—a necessary skill when dealing with the narrow-minded aristocrats with whom he regularly did business—but whenever his temper threatened, the truth of his origins always managed to seep out.
In those moments, there was no hiding where he came from. Though Gabriel had made a kingdom of St. Giles, it was the Black Country where he’d been born and bred, and where he’d spent the first years of his life. He’d only come to London as a scrappy orphan lad of twelve, eking out a place for himself in the Rookery with his wits—and with his fists.
Lord Compton paced the library carpet in front of Gabriel, his brows pulled into a furious scowl. He was a well-favored man in his middle fifties, with graying brown hair, a full graying beard, and a slightly thickened, but still athletic, figure that spoke of good wine, aristocratic sport, and a life of unutterable privilege. Like Gabriel, Compton was clad in elegant evening wear, though his suit of clothes had likely been made in Savile Row rather than by a struggling back-slum tailor.
“Easy, you call it?” Compton echoed in dismay. “To welcome you into my home? To permit you to associate with my friends? My family ?”
Gabriel was mildly entertained by the viscount’s distress. The man was usually unflappable—a model politician, with a thoughtful tone and a somber manner. “Come now, your lordship. It isn’t as though I’m asking to marry your daughter.”
Compton turned on Gabriel in the circle of light cast from the oil lamp on the desk. His face was transformed by fatherly outrage. “You go too far, Royce.”
“Not far enough, it appears, if you think you have the choice of refusing me.”
Compton snorted. “And have you unleash your band of ruffians on me?”
The distant strings of an orchestra drifted from the ballroom above. It was mingled with the muted murmur of voices, and the thump of footsteps as late-coming guests continued to arrive. A polonaise had been playing when Gabriel had first entered the library, followed by a country dance. Another dance was starting now. A spirited galop, which (by the sound of the stomping upstairs) had been joined by a crushing number of couples.
Compton’s ball was the first truly tonish party of the social season. The grandest people in London were reputed to be in attendance—illustrious lords, wealthy ladies, and powerful politicians. Compton and his wife had already welcomed most of them when Gabriel had turned up, unannounced and uninvited.
For a few coins, an obliging footman had shown him to Compton’s library. The viscount had marched in moments later to find Gabriel seated behind his desk, dressed for the evening’s entertainment, and possessing all the deceptive patience of a hungry wolf waiting to strike.
Watching the viscount now, Gabriel’s mouth curved in a lazy smile. “If you don’t do as I ask, my ruffians will be the least of your troubles.”
Compton’s expression turned stony. He was no coward. It took guts to walk the reputational tightrope he’d been traversing these many years. But, audacious as he was, he knew his limits. He would do as Gabriel wished in the end. The result was inevitable. It was only the speed at getting to that result that appeared at issue.
Unfortunately for Compton, Gabriel’s patience was wearing thin.
“Is it not enough that I keep the law away from your dealings in the Rookery?” Compton asked in a last attempt at reason. “That I protect your interests from those who would drive you out of St. Giles?” He set his hands on the edge of the desk. “You and I had an agreement .”
Gabriel stood to his full and not inconsiderable height. “Yet still you insult me.”
Compton straightened. He took a step backward. It was less out of fear than it was a refusal to submit to Gabriel’s physical dominance. The viscount would let no man loom over him, least of all one he considered so far beneath him.
“It’s not an insult to insist you and I keep to our proper spheres,” he said. “My guests this evening are a different breed from what you’re accustomed to. They’re gentlemen of influence—”
“Just as I am.” Gabriel strolled out from behind the desk. “Which is why you’re going to introduce me to them.” He smiled again. “I have a sick fancy to become respectable.”
Compton’s lips flattened. He shot a glance at the closed doors of the library. The music filtered through, an audible reminder of his duties to his guests, and to his position in society. “Your jests are ill-timed, sir.”
“It’s no jest. I’m formulating a plan for changes in the Rookery. When the time comes, I’ll need the freehanded support of wealthy benefactors.”
Compton exhaled a contemptuous gust of breath. “Is that what this is about?” Stalking past Gabriel, he jerked open a drawer in his desk and withdrew his checkbook. “If it’s money for the poor you’re after, your request need go no further than me.” He picked up his steel-nibbed pen, poised to dash off an order on his bank. “I’m not opposed to investing in a new workhouse.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened on a reflexive surge of anger. Workhouses were the last thing the poor of St. Giles needed. Workhouses that separated mothers from children. That broke up families. Workhouses were where good, decent folk went to sicken and die. As sure a sentence as the hangman’s noose, but lacking the dignity of the rope. Unlike a walk to the scaffold, admittance to a workhouse required no judge or jury. It recognized no defense.
After all, what defense was there to the crime of being poor?
No. Gabriel’s plans didn’t involve workhouses. He had other ideas. A vision for honest, aboveboard reforms to benefit the people of the Rookery and, ultimately, himself.
“I’m not interested in charity,” he said.
“Call it a business contract, then,” Compton responded.
“A business contract with you?” Gabriel’s tone was silky with disdain. “I’d sooner crawl into bed with a scorpion.”
Compton’s face went rigid. He set down his pen.
“Put away your money,” Gabriel told him. “All I require from you this evening are introductions to my betters.” He gestured for Compton to precede him to the door. “If you would be so obliging.”
Compton thrust his checkbook back into the desk drawer. He slammed the drawer shut. “Haven’t the good people of this city already done enough to clean up St. Giles? And succeeded, too. The slum is all but eradicated.”
It was a common misconception among the well-to-do. St. Giles was located in the heart of fashionable London, surrounded on all sides by the wealthiest communities. Many years prior, part of the slum had been cleared away to make room for the construction of New Oxford Street. But the wretches who had formerly occupied those long-removed lodging houses, gin shops, and prostitutes’ hovels hadn’t miraculously vanished into thin air. They had merely been pressed back into an even smaller area, the squalor of their living conditions now hidden from greater public view.
“Just because you can’t see us anymore, doesn’t mean we ceased existing,” Gabriel said. “The people of the Rookery are still there—only now they’re crowded one hundred to a cellar.”
Disgust crossed Compton’s face. “Such filth and depravity. I curse the day Tobias Wingard ever found his way there.”
“But he did find his way there,” Gabriel said. “And straight into my betting shop. Quite an impressive stack of papers he had with him, too.”
Compton flinched at the reminder. “Very well,” he said, coming forward. “I shall do what I can for you.” He stopped in front of Gabriel. “But I warn you, Royce. If you at any time expose me to even a hint of impropriety—”
“You’re warning me ?” Gabriel took a step toward the viscount, bringing them face-to-face.
This time Compton held his ground. “Let it be mutual destruction, then.”
Gabriel met the viscount’s threat with a fleeting smile. “Don’t flatter yourself. You might destroy my business, but you could never destroy me. Street rats always survive, one way or another. While fine lords like you—” He gave a humorless chuckle. “There won’t be much welcome for Lord Solomon in Whitehall, will there, not once proven accusations of fraud are hung round his neck.”
The color drained from Compton’s face. “How dare you mention such despicable slander in my home, where my wife, or one of my servants might—”
“Rest easy, my lord.” Gabriel slapped him hard on the back. “I’ve no intention of speaking a word of it.” Again, he gestured for Compton to precede him. “Not so long as you behave.”
Compton glared at him with a flicker of unvarnished hatred before, at last, grudgingly opening the library door. Gabriel had him by the throat and Compton knew it.
Gabriel had no intention of letting him go, not now, nor at any point in future. The viscount’s support was too valuable. More valuable yet than Gabriel was willing to admit to the man. A politician in one’s pocket was a precious thing. It was in Gabriel’s interest that Compton’s reputation remained unblemished and intact. The survival of the Rookery depended on it, and Gabriel’s survival with it. There was no separating the two.
Together, he and Compton passed from the library to the house’s opulent marble-tiled entry hall. A sweeping Italianate staircase led to the first-floor ballroom above. Gabriel climbed the steps alongside his reluctant host.
Two young ladies in full-skirted pastel silk dresses passed them on the ascent. Seeing Gabriel, they blushed and giggled behind their fans, quickening their pace down the stairs. A balding manservant in a plain black suit followed not far behind them. The butler, Gabriel surmised. He was a brawny chap, and one who (judging by the crooked lump masquerading as his nose) wasn’t opposed to physical violence.
It was a good thing it had been a pliable young footman who had opened the door when Gabriel had come calling this evening and not this sinister-looking fellow. The outcome might have been very different.
“Do you require assistance, my lord?” the butler asked Compton.
“It’s no matter, Parker,” Compton said without breaking his stride. “A late-coming guest. I shall introduce him to the others myself.”
Parker fixed Gabriel with a suspicious frown as he passed.
Gabriel offered the man a sardonic wink in reply.
Like recognized like. It was a tenet Gabriel had never failed to see proven true, and one that had helped him tremendously in his rise from the slums. He’d learned to recognize a fellow wolf in lamb’s clothing.
The butler was one of them.
So was Compton.
Yes, despite the pomp and the pageantry, and the milk-faced young misses giggling behind their fans, Gabriel had every reason to feel at home here.
Upstairs, the ballroom’s entrance was marked by two towering marble columns. Footmen flanked the opened doors. They bowed to Gabriel and Compton as they entered.
There were too many couples dancing to count. They moved over the polished wood floor to the strains of the music in a twirl of tailcoats and impossibly wide ruffled skirts, the ladies’ jewels shining in the blaze of light produced from the gas wall sconces and the twin crystal gasoliers.
Compton guided Gabriel along the edge of the room, where spectators lined the walls, both sitting and standing. “That’s Lord Trefusis,” he said, jerking his chin in the direction of an elderly man seated by the bank of green velvet–draped windows. “A charitable gentleman by all accounts. His estates are in Northumberland. And that gentleman, there by the fern, is Sir Newton Cobble, a man of property from Cornwall.”
Gabriel registered the two men with immediate skepticism. Aged country gentlemen were something less than the rich London progressives he’d envisioned rallying to his cause.
Compton pointed out another fellow, even older than the first two. “That gentleman with the ear trumpet is Lord Upton-Frye, a Yorkshire baron of good family. If it’s alms for the poor you’re after, he’s the one to speak with.” He glanced back at Gabriel with barely veiled contempt. “Well, sir? Which of them shall I introduce you to? I presume they are all of them strangers.”
Gabriel coolly returned the viscount’s gaze. After their confrontation in the library, he had assumed Compton would fall into line. Instead, the viscount believed he could take Gabriel for a fool. Why else would he be attempting to fob him off on doddering men of little influence, rather than introducing him to those gentlemen with actual power?
The offense couldn’t be overlooked. To pardon one affront was to invite a host of others.
Gabriel fully intended to address the issue. To forcibly remind Compton of the very real harm he could do to him. But not here. Not tonight. This evening was for finding benefactors for the people of St. Giles. Not just men of property, but men who understood how to get things done in London, and who had the coin, and the political capital, to do so.
Turning away from his insolent host, Gabriel searched the room for himself.
It was unforgivable ignorance to assume the paths of the poor and the well-bred wealthy never crossed. Indeed, Gabriel himself had placed former denizens of the Rookery in many of the great houses in Mayfair. They worked as scullery maids, stable hands, and footmen, washing pots, mucking out loose boxes, and stoking the fires.
And the flow of cross-class commerce didn’t only move in one direction.
The sons of the aristocracy regularly made their way to Gabriel’s betting shop in St. Giles. They visited the gin merchants, the flesh peddlers, and the public houses, indulging in all of the worst vices and inventing a few new ones along the way. Often, it had been up to Gabriel to deal with them at the end of their revels, administering his particular brand of Rookery justice.
He recognized some of their faces among the fashionable guests this evening. Upright citizens all, by the looks of them. One would never know that handsome, young Baron Mannering had once wagered the clothes he stood up in on a losing bet, only to find himself spending the night in a Rookery alleyway in nothing but his underdrawers. Or that Lord Powell, heir to the Earl of Ingram, was so deeply in debt to a backstreet moneylender that he’d twice come to Gabriel’s betting shop, stinking of cheap wine and sobbing like a baby, begging for Gabriel to intervene.
Which Gabriel had, of course.
Better the young lords were indebted to him than to a poxy wine merchant or moneylender. Influence was currency to Gabriel. He knew how to wield it. To weaponize it. It was invaluable to him, especially now, when the square footage of the Rookery was shrinking by the year. If it shrank any further, the slum threatened to disappear completely. Gabriel had no intention of finding himself displaced and powerless. Not so long as there was something he could do about it.
The orchestra closed the galop with a flourish of strings and horns. Another swirl or two, and a few lively chassés across the room, and the dance was over. Several couples departed the floor and several more came to take their places before the next dance began.
It was then, through a break in the crowd, Gabriel observed two late arrivals enter the ballroom. One was a society matron—blond, buxom, and bejeweled. The other was a younger lady of exceptional poise. Clad in a ball gown of deep blue silk, she stood straight and proud beside her older companion, her chin lifted slightly as she surveyed the room with a dispassionate gaze that spoke more of jaded royalty than of a girl in her middle twenties. So might Cleopatra have regarded a crowd of unruly Romans.
The similarity was only enhanced by the young lady’s striking good looks. She had gleaming raven hair, bound in an elaborate roll at her nape, and a flawless expanse of warm, golden ivory skin revealed by the short sleeves and low neckline of her bodice.
Gabriel marked her presence with the same ingrained detachment with which he marked anything out of the ordinary in his environment. He noted her beauty. Her uncommon self-assurance. But he wasn’t moved by them. He’d seen countless attractive females in his lifetime. They may differ in their allurements, but one was ultimately interchangeable with the next.
A fair-haired lady in amber silk swept over to greet the late arrivals. It was Compton’s wife. Gabriel had never met her formally, but he recognized her pallid face by sight. She’d been an heiress when she and Compton had married, one with a sizable fortune and a notoriously dim intellect. Easy prey for a man like the viscount, on the hunt for money and power.
After an exchange of curtsies, and a short dialogue with the older blond lady, Lady Compton turned to the crowd in search of her husband. She easily found him.
“It seems I’m not the only latecomer,” Gabriel said as the three ladies made their way toward them.
Compton followed his gaze. “That is my lady wife,” he said tightly, having no idea Gabriel already knew exactly who she was. “And that is Lady Belwood, wife of Sir Walter Belwood. As for the younger lady…” This time Compton stared. “I’ve not yet had the pleasure.” He stepped forward. “Doubtless her ladyship wishes to provide an introduction.”
Gabriel’s expression hardened. He had as little interest in being introduced to society ladies as he had in meeting aged Northumberland squires. But it was too late to avoid the tiresome obligation. Lady Compton was already bearing down upon them, her two guests in tow.
“My lord!” she said to her husband. “Thank goodness you’ve returned. I trust this means your business in the library is completed for the evening? You’ve already missed the arrival of Lord and Lady Martindale, and the Marquess of Whitby. And here is Lady Belwood, just come. She has brought her protégé, Miss Flite, to grace our party.”
“My apologies, madam.” Lord Compton bowed to the two late arrivals. “Lady Belwood. Miss Flite.” His eyes lingered on the younger lady’s face for a moment before he grudgingly acknowledged the necessity of introducing Gabriel. “Allow me to present Mr.Royce, an acquaintance of mine. We’ve been discussing a charitable endeavor, but all is settled now. I’ve invited him to join us. Mr.Royce? My wife, Lady Compton. And this is our near neighbor, Lady Belwood, and her companion, Miss Flite.”
Masking his growing impatience, Gabriel bowed to the three ladies as civilly as if he were a gentleman himself. “Lady Compton. Lady Belwood. Miss Flite.”
As he straightened, he held Miss Flite’s gaze a fraction longer than was proper. Her eyes were the deepest blue he’d ever seen. More akin to a deep midnight purple in the gaslight.
“Miss Flite has just returned from finishing school in Paris,” Lady Belwood said, with a flutter of her ostrich feather fan. “She’s staying with me in Brook Street for the season.”
“A relation of yours?” Compton asked. “I seem to remember one of your second cousins married an Italian. Or was it a Spaniard?”
Lady Belwood wafted her fan with increased vigor. “Miss Flite is not a blood relation. I was, ah, acquainted with her guardian when I was a girl. I promised, when the time came, I would introduce Miss Flite into society. It is the least I can do for her.”
“I’m amazed I’ve not encountered you before, Miss Flite,” Lady Compton said. “Is this your first visit to London?”
“It is, my lady,” Miss Flite replied. A faceted glass hairpin in the shape of a dragonfly was nestled in her hair. It sparkled as she moved.
Lady Compton flicked a dubious glance over Miss Flite’s elegant face and figure. “You don’t strike me as a country girl. But if you’ve been finished in Paris—”
“Finishing schools accomplish marvelous things these days,” Lady Belwood interjected. “The girls they turn out have remarkable polish. One can take them anywhere.”
Gabriel directed a cold glare at Compton. It was bad enough to have his time wasted by old country squires and frivolous, fan-fluttering ladies, but now he must affect an interest in finishing schools? Until Gabriel had intervened, the children of the Rookery had had no school at all. Boys and girls of five had already been working. The alternative was starvation.
Compton pretended not to notice Gabriel’s ire. He kept his attention fixed on his wife—and on Miss Flite.
“You must bring her with you to the musicale next week,” Lady Compton said. “My daughter, Carena, will be back from Hampshire. She’s to perform an aria for us from Lucrezia Borgia . There will be a dinner to start.” She touched Lady Belwood’s arm. “You are still planning to attend?”
Miss Flite exchanged a wordless glance with Lady Belwood.
Lady Belwood appeared distinctly uncomfortable. “Er, yes. That is, I had thought—”
“Oh, but you must,” Lady Compton insisted. “We see too little of you. And Miss Flite will certainly wish to make the acquaintance of other young people.”
Lady Belwood smiled thinly. “If you insist, then naturally, I shall bring her.”
The two older ladies lapsed into a short discussion about the dinner, and about the many events to come before the season’s end. Compton was included by virtue of his wife, who sought his opinion on every subject.
Miss Flite and Gabriel were temporarily left outside the conversation. They stood silent across from each other—Miss Flite attending to what the others were saying, and Gabriel poised to make his exit.
He hadn’t come here to engage in polite small talk about dinner parties and musicales. His time would be better spent in conversation with one of those aged country squires. At least then there would be a hope in hell of gaining influence for the people of the Rookery. Here there was nothing.
A civil word or two to Miss Flite and then he would take his leave.
Their eyes met briefly.
“A finishing school in Paris, was it?” Gabriel inquired.
“That’s correct.” Miss Flite returned her attention to the others.
“And were you?” he asked.
She glanced back at him again, distracted. “Was I what, sir?”
“Finished?”
Her mouth curved into a slow, feline smile. “On the contrary,” she said. “I’m just getting started.”
Gabriel smiled in return, mildly amused by what he perceived as ladylike flirtation. He was about to reply, when he realized Miss Flite hadn’t been looking at him when she’d spoken.
She’d been looking at Compton.
· · ·
Effie made her way down the gaslit, richly carpeted corridor on the house’s ground floor, her steps unhurried but purposeful. Lord Compton had said the library was where he conducted his business. A fortuitous admission, and one Effie’s mind had latched on to like a vise the instant he’d made it.
She’d waited most of the evening to extricate herself. Until now, her dance card had been too full to allow for any moments of freedom, except for a short visit to the ladies’ retiring room. A marked success, considering the circumstances. It had been Nell, not Effie, who had been destined to ensnare men with her loveliness. A destiny that had been snuffed out that fateful day on the Academy’s roof. If not for Effie’s weakness, it would be Nell standing here, preparing to bring about Lord Compton’s downfall, not Effie herself.
But so long as Effie was here, she was determined to do her best.
She may not be sweet or gentle or possessed of perfect porcelain skin, but five years in Paris had taught her to respect her strengths. What she lacked in classical beauty, she more than made up for with confidence, and with the gift of originality.
The moment the supper dance had ended, and the guests had departed for the dining room, Effie had slipped away to pursue her own agenda.
The enormous skirts of her Parisian ball gown rustled silently over her wire crinoline as she approached the library’s double doors. She’d bought the gown at a salon in the Rue de la Paix. It was a beautiful garment, made of Prussian blue silk, with a bodice cut low at the neck and shoulders, and an unforgivingly narrow waist that made a bounty of Effie’s modest curves. Along with the distinctiveness of her looks, and the resoluteness of her manner, it had helped her achieve her goal this evening. She’d made herself memorable, a young lady whom Lady Compton, and every other society hostess, would feel bound to invite to all their future events during the season.
It had also ensured she’d caught the attention of the gentlemen in attendance. According to Miss Corvus, Lord Compton was an admirer of beautiful women. It had behooved Effie to at least attempt to appeal to his masculine senses.
A failed attempt, as it happened. The gray-haired viscount hadn’t betrayed the least interest in Effie. Neither had he revealed himself to be a particular villain. He’d been excessively civil, addressing her with a fatherly air rather than that of a male admirer. He hadn’t asked her to dance. Indeed, aside from a single heated look (which Effie was beginning to wonder if she’d misinterpreted), he’d steered well clear of her.
Unlike the younger gentlemen.
If Effie’s aching feet were to judge, she must have danced with every male in attendance between the ages of eighteen and forty.
Well. Perhaps not all the males in attendance.
The enigmatic Mr.Royce had stood out among the assembled company as starkly as a feral dog amid a pack of lap spaniels. It wasn’t only because he’d failed to beg a dance from her. And it wasn’t on account of any deficiencies in his dress. It was something in his posture, and in his pale blue eyes, so cold, hard, and remote.
Effie recalled the way he’d looked at her when they’d been introduced in the ballroom. There had been a certain distance in his gaze. Coupled with the brooding set to his jaw and the skepticism evident across his brow, it had made him appear far removed from the wealth and excess of the glittering lords and ladies surrounding them.
Like Compton, Mr.Royce hadn’t shown any marked interest in Effie. He hadn’t even bothered to linger in her company. After an introduction, and a fleeting exchange about her time in Paris, he’d disappeared into the crowd. Effie had seen him only once after that, engaged in solemn conversation with a much older gentleman by the ballroom windows.
Pity, he might have made the evening interesting.
As it was, Effie felt tonight’s challenge was all too simple. She couldn’t believe she’d indulged in any anxiety over it. Those first nights in Lady Belwood’s guest room in Brook Street, Effie had fretted for hours in her bed, hugging Franc close and worrying herself to ribbons.
She hadn’t been lying when she’d told Nell she hadn’t picked a lock in five years. She hadn’t crept into any forbidden rooms, either, or stolen anything from anyone. What if…?
But her worries had all been for naught.
Opening one of the wood-paneled doors, Effie passed into the library. Any anxiety she’d had about encountering Lord Compton, or anyone else there, was promptly put to rest. The room stood dark and silent. The gaslights had been turned off, and there was no fire lit in the hearth. The sole source of light came from the tall windows beside Lord Compton’s heavy walnut desk. A full moon shimmered through the curtains, shining softly over the inkpots, blotter, and stack of unread correspondence littering the desk’s surface.
The rest of the large room was sunk completely into shadow. At one time, that mightn’t have been an issue. As a girl, Effie had been accustomed to finding her way without a lamp. It had been one of Miss Corvus’s earliest lessons, to master the darkness. An Academy student was never to be dependent on anything, not even a candle. She must find her way, stealthily, fearlessly, with complete self-sufficiency.
But Effie had been too long in the City of Light. Though she didn’t fear the darkness, she’d long lost the habit of peering into it like a cat. She exhaled a soft breath of relief to find Compton’s desk illuminated.
It was a big piece of furniture, heavily carved, with plenty of drawers, small doors, and other nooks and crannies. She trailed her bare fingertip in a languorous line across the edge of the desk until she reached the stack of letters. Sweeping them up in her hand, she riffled through the envelopes in the moonlight. They were waiting to be posted, addressed to various gentlemen. Not a one of them looked nefarious, but how could Effie tell without breaking their seals?
She quietly returned them to the desk. She was a long way from exposing herself by opening and reading Compton’s outgoing post. First, she would search his desk. If Miss Corvus was to be believed, the viscount’s crimes were in the past. It seemed more likely Effie would find evidence of them hidden away somewhere rather than willingly written down in a letter to another person.
Perching on the edge of the leather chair behind the desk, skirts billowing out all around her, Effie’s attention was entirely focused on the drawers. The first one she tried was locked. So was the second. She rattled it quietly, privately cursing her luck. Drat Nell! She of the lockpicks and coded samplers. It figured she would be proven right.
Effie reached for her glittering dragonfly hairpin. One of a set of three, it was comprised of faceted glass affixed to a sturdy black wire. Like her dress, it had been made for her in Paris.
She was just inserting it into the lock of the first drawer when the silence in the library was broken by the unmistakable strike of a friction match.
A flame blazed forth from the darkness, illuminating a gentleman’s face as he lit his cigarette. He was seated in one of the leather armchairs across the library, his jacket and gloves discarded and his cravat loose at his neck.
Effie went still. It was Mr.Royce. She didn’t need a lantern to make out his face. His harshly hewn countenance, with its high cheekbones, sunken cheeks, hard jaw, and coldly piercing blue eyes, was readily identifiable even in the fleeting glow of phosphorus and sulfur.
“Are you lost, Miss Flite?” he asked.
She slowly stood from behind the desk, tucking her dragonfly pin back into her hair. Her composure didn’t slip an inch. “Not at all, sir. I was looking for someone.”
His gaze held hers. Wafting out his match, he cast it into the crystal ashtray on the table beside him. “Perchance you’ve found him.”