Page 6 of Rules for Ruin (The Crinoline Academy #1)

4

Sun streamed through the gold silk–curtained windows of Lady Belwood’s well-appointed guest room. It was a beautiful morning in London, neither damp nor excessively chilly. The perfect day for an excursion.

Effie buttoned her black velvet mantelet over her plain black silk walking dress, preparing to go out. There had been no opportunity for her errand yesterday. The day after a ball was always a busy one, especially if a young lady had made as great an impression as Effie had.

Large bouquets of flowers had arrived throughout the morning, sent by the gentlemen she’d danced with. The generous tributes had been followed by afternoon calls—more gentlemen, and some ladies, too, paying their respects, issuing invitations, and assuaging their curiosity.

Lady Belwood hadn’t been best pleased. Indeed, from the moment Effie had appeared in Brook Street ten days ago, with Franc and her trunks in tow, her ladyship had exhibited a pronounced anxiety. Whatever connection she had to Miss Corvus, it clearly wasn’t one based on friendship. Lady Belwood had made it plain from the first that Effie was less of a guest and more of an unwanted charge on her dwindling good humor.

She had nevertheless sat beside Effie for every call, spine rigid and lips pinched, an unwilling participant in Effie’s deception.

Meanwhile, Effie had done her duty. She’d transformed herself according to her company, one moment smiling and conversing, the next blushing and demurely batting her lashes, and all the while desperately impatient to get back to the Academy to inform Miss Corvus that there was a decided complication to their plan.

A very large and very sinister complication. Effie could still feel the brush of his fingers over her throat.

At the ball, Mr.Royce had come closer to her than any other gentlemen in attendance. Yet, he’d sent no bouquet the following morning. And he hadn’t appeared in Brook Street later that afternoon to pay his respects along with the rest of Effie’s callers.

Doubtless it was for the best. Lady Belwood was apprehensive enough without the likes of Mr.Royce darkening her doorstep. She’d spent the whole of last evening at dinner with Effie, pale and silent at the opposite end of the long mahogany table, drinking glass after glass of Burgundy wine.

Sir Walter had been absent from the table as usual. Older than his wife by some twenty years, he suffered from various ailments that often kept him confined to his rooms. Effie had met the man only a handful of times since she’d come to stay. When first introduced to him, she’d been both surprised and relieved by his lack of interest in her.

He was, it transpired, working on a lengthy tome cataloguing the rich history of the Belwood line, which he claimed could be traced back, undiluted, to the reign of some antiquated king or other. The social affairs of women held little fascination in comparison.

Would that Lady Belwood were as indifferent to Effie’s presence as her husband.

“She’ll be happier with us today, won’t she, Franc?” Effie remarked as she retrieved her veiled black bonnet from the foot of the cherrywood four-poster bed. “We shall likely be gone until supper.”

Franc frisked about Effie’s wide skirts in anticipation of their departure. He’d found the house’s small back garden a dull respite from the confinement of the guest room. Like Effie, he was eager to venture further.

She was just fetching his lead when a soft tap sounded at the door. “Yes?” Effie called out.

Lady Belwood entered, shutting the white-paneled bedroom door behind her. She was a handsome blond lady of passing middle age, attractively plump, and smartly dressed in a ruffled muslin morning gown. “Miss Flite, I must tell you—” She stopped, registering Effie’s bonnet and gloves. “Are you going out?”

Effie pasted on a smile. “Indeed.”

“Dressed like that ?”

“As you see.” Widows rarely inspired attention. Clothed all in black, with a net veil shielding her face, Effie could go where she pleased and no one would question her. That is, if they noticed her at all.

She held Franc’s lead, preparing to fasten it to his collar. He trotted out of her reach to sniff the blue-and-yellow floral carpet and the pooling hem of the draperies. Effie prayed he wouldn’t be indiscreet. Despite his continental origins, Franc couldn’t always be trusted to behave in a civilized manner.

Lady Belwood followed his progress with uneasy eyes. “I don’t care for dogs.”

It was the same sentence she’d uttered when Effie had first arrived, and one she’d repeated at least a dozen times since.

Effie answered just as she had on each previous occasion. “Franc isn’t a dog. He’s a poodle.”

“You are taking him with you on your outing? My servants can’t always be watching him, you know.”

“I am.” Effie caught up with Franc by the washstand. Sweeping him into her arms, she fixed his lead to his collar.

“Wherever can you be headed?” her ladyship asked. “Not Bond Street or Hyde Park, I trust. Not in those garments. And not without a maid to accompany you.”

“I’ve no need for a maid where I’m going.”

A pained expression puckered Lady Belwood’s brow. “A lady must have a maid. I should be lost without mine.”

Effie didn’t doubt it. Most fashionable females in Lady Belwood’s position felt the same. But poor women must shift for themselves. So, too, the girls of Miss Corvus’s Benevolent Academy.

The gowns Effie had commissioned in Paris had all been made with front fastenings, the same as the dresses she’d worn at the Academy. Miss Corvus believed in self-sufficiency. The strongest lady was an independent lady, and that independence began with her toilette.

Effie had long grown accustomed to dressing herself and tending to her own coiffure. She was nimble fingered with curling tongs and pins, and she counted herself quite skillful when it came to sponging and pressing her gowns. No one who saw her would ever find her wanting.

“You may rest easy, ma’am,” Effie said. “I shall do nothing on my outing that will cause remark.”

“Your very presence is causing remark!” Lady Belwood walked to the window. She twitched the curtain, as though someone might be peeping up at them from the street. It was all of a piece with her strange behavior since Effie had arrived. She’d been nervous as a cat, jumping when servants entered the room, and whispering when it wasn’t strictly necessary.

Was it fear? Effie suspected it might be.

“I expect you’re bound for that…that place at the edge of the Epping Forest,” Lady Belwood said.

Effie wondered that the woman couldn’t bring herself to say the Academy’s name. “I wouldn’t be surprised if my travels took me in that direction.”

Lady Belwood let the curtain fall. “But this is all very distressing!” She paced to the bedroom’s small fireplace, and from there to the double wardrobe. “I was assured, if I did as she wished, if I introduced you into polite society, there would be nothing connecting me to that…that place . And now, here you are, darting off there at the first opportunity!”

“No one will notice me,” Effie said.

“ Everyone has noticed you, Miss Flite, from Lord Mannering and Sir Newton to Lord Compton himself. I’d no notion attending his ball would lead to an invitation to dine at his home. He’s such a good and decent gentleman. I shrink at deceiving him.”

Effie gave her hostess an interested look as she returned Franc to the ground. Lady Belwood was ignorant of Effie’s true purpose in attending Compton’s ball. Her ladyship thought it merely an introduction to society. She had no idea that Compton himself was Effie’s goal, not a successful London season.

“Is he likely to interrogate you on the subject?” Effie asked.

Lady Belwood batted the suggestion away with a wave of her hand. “Lord Compton is far too important to trouble himself with the pedigree of every young lady who crosses his path. He will doubtless take me at my word. But that’s beside the point.” She returned to the window. “It’s been lie upon lie for decades. If only I hadn’t—” She broke off, folding her arms as though she had a chill. “That woman contacted me three weeks ago with her request. I knew the day would come. I daren’t refuse her. Giving you a season is an easy enough task, after all. But if you should bring my name into disrepute—”

Effie indicated her sober countenance and unassuming black clothing. “Do I look like the sort of young lady who would bring someone’s name into disrepute?”

Lady Belwood frowned. “No, I-I don’t suppose you do.”

“Well, then.” Effie walked to the door, Franc dutifully at her side. “If there’s nothing else, ma’am, I had best be off.”

Bidding a brisk farewell to her hand-wringing hostess, Effie departed the house in Brook Street with a purposeful stride. Franc pranced alongside her at the end of his lead, his small black nose to the wind. They walked for several blocks until they reached Claridge’s Hotel. From there, Effie hailed a hackney to take them to the railway station. An omnibus ride to the station would have been cheaper, but this wasn’t the time for economy. Miss Corvus’s Academy was some seventeen miles away. The faster Effie got there, the more swiftly she could return and resume her work.

One rail journey, and another hired hackney cab ride later, Effie and Franc arrived at the Academy’s imposing black iron gates. They were admitted by an older student in a plain stuff dress. The girl goggled at Effie unrepentantly as she showed her to one of the anterooms off the Academy’s central hall.

Effie wasn’t there above five minutes before Nell came to join her.

“Miss Corvus can’t see you today,” Nell informed Effie. “Will I do?”

Effie gave her friend a brief but heartfelt hug. “On any other occasion, yes. But today’s errand is rather delicate. I must meet with Miss Corvus privately. She wouldn’t appreciate me speaking out of turn.”

Nell drew back to look at Effie. Her mouth tilted with sympathetic understanding. “Is it about Lord Compton?”

Effie’s brows lifted in surprise. “You know?”

“Some of it, yes. Miss Corvus occasionally lets me into her confidence.”

“Then you comprehend why I must see her.”

“Indeed. But she’s in no condition to receive you. The doctor’s just been, and she’s had a double dose of morphine. She’ll sleep until dinner. I’ve been deputized to act in her stead.” Nell gently slipped her hand under Effie’s arm. “Come with me.”

Effie could do nothing but obey. Collecting Franc under one arm, she numbly trailed after her limping friend, visions of a gravely ill Miss Corvus plaguing her footsteps. Whatever her history with the woman, Effie couldn’t accept the idea of her dying. A world without Artemisia Corvus was a world that didn’t make sense.

“It’s all in hand,” Nell promised her. “You needn’t fret.”

“I’m not fretting,” Effie lied. “Not with you in charge.”

“Hardly that. To be in charge would be to know all of Miss Corvus’s secrets. I haven’t yet reached that exalted stage.”

Ahead of them, girls in coarsely woven gray dresses with full skirts worn over wire crinolines hurried through the corridors on the way to their classes. They cast Effie startled glances as they passed her in the hall. Their young faces lit with excitement.

“That’s her !” one declared. “Euphemia Flite!”

“I thought she would be older,” another whispered.

“I thought she would be taller,” her friend replied archly.

The girls burst into giggles as they strode away.

Franc curled his lip at their retreating figures. He didn’t like being laughed at, even if that laughter was kindly meant. Effie soothed his offended dignity with an absent scratch.

“Your exploits are legendary among the girls,” Nell said.

“I daresay,” Effie replied dryly. It was those very exploits that had earned her a reputation for chaos.

“Do you remember the time you stole all the sugar from the pantry and replaced it with salt?”

“How could I forget?” Effie had eaten most of the sugar, making herself sick in the process. She’d had to spend two nights in the infirmary.

“Or when you smuggled that aged dog into the dormitories and persuaded the rest of us to help you hide it and care for it?”

“Dear old Max,” Effie murmured. He had ultimately found a good home with Miss Sengupta, one of the Academy’s visiting instructors.

“And what about the duel you fought in the forest with that vile farm boy from the village? Foils at dawn, or some scandalous thing.” Nell chuckled. “You were always creating disorder for poor Miss Corvus to put right. No one else has ever vexed her so.”

“I’m not particularly proud of my behavior then. I’d prefer the girls didn’t know of me at all rather than know me for my worst conduct.”

“They know you as the best and brightest among us.”

Effie found the prospect of that no more reassuring.

She’d spent thirteen years at the Academy. More than a decade, marked by rebellion and catastrophe. Her triumphs at languages, fencing, and self-defense paled in comparison to the cloying sense of alienation that had daily eaten away at her soul. In the end, not even Nell’s friendship had managed to blunt the pain of it. Effie had never felt she belonged here. She’d never felt she belonged anywhere.

“I was neither the best, nor the brightest,” she said. “I was only the first.”

“Yes, but you went to Paris. Your life has been something for them to aspire to.” Nell guided Effie up the stairs, past the student dormitories and onward to the staff rooms.

The third door at the end of the hall had a painted placard hanging on it that proclaimed its occupant: Miss P. Trewlove .

“You have a private room,” Effie said rather unnecessarily.

Nell unlocked the door. She ushered Effie into the dark, quiet chamber. “So might you have had if you’d remained.”

“ Have you decided to remain?” Effie asked. “Your five years are nearly up. You might go anywhere.”

Nell shut the door behind them. She lit a glass lamp. The small room was illuminated in a rosy glow, revealing a neat little bed with a quilted coverlet, a dainty writing desk, and a high-legged wardrobe painted a beguiling shade of pink. A round needlepoint cushion was propped in a spoon-back chair in the corner. It was embroidered with the Academy’s unofficial symbol—a black raven with a white-tipped wing.

“Not all of us desire to go away from this place,” she said. “Some of us are committed to the mission of the Academy.”

Effie didn’t believe it for a moment. If Nell had truly decided to stay on permanently, it wasn’t because of any philosophical leanings. It was because of her injuries. As a girl, she’d been self-conscious of them. Fearful of how the world might perceive her outside the safety of the school’s gates.

“How can you know what you desire if you’ve never been anywhere?” Effie asked her. “If you’ve never had any experience of society?”

“Through books,” Nell said. “Through scholarly journals, and the daily papers. I keep abreast of what’s going on in the world. I don’t need to see it for myself to know which way my conscience tends.”

It was a logical enough answer. Inherently plausible. Fundamentally Nell.

Looking at her beautiful friend—so clever and compassionate—a surge of guilt seized Effie by the throat. “This is my doing,” she said. “My weakness has robbed you of your free will.”

Nell flinched. “Don’t be absurd.”

“If I hadn’t been so determined to master my fear, you’d never have been obliged to come after me that day. You’d never have fallen from the roof and—”

“It was my choice,” Nell said. “ That’s free will, Effie. Being young. Making reckless decisions. Risking it all for your friends—your family.” She smiled softly. “You’re my sister, you know that. I’d have done anything for you. I still would.”

“And I for you,” Effie said. “Always.”

“There you see? Free will. Though we neither of us fully contemplated the risks, did we? We thought ourselves invincible. Too much Aristophanes, I daresay.”

“?‘There is no animal more invincible than a woman,’?” Effie quoted. “?‘Nor fire either, nor any wildcat so ruthless.’?”

“Exactly,” Nell said. “I wish it had been otherwise. Of course I do. My leg aches in poor weather, and I’m not as nimble as I once was. But this is who I am now. I wouldn’t change it.”

Effie set Franc on the ground, leaving his lead attached. With the door shut, he couldn’t wander, but it was always better to err on the side of safety. He dragged the light length of velvet behind him as he explored the room.

“You needn’t change,” she said. “You’re perfect. I only ask that you venture outside the bounds of the school before you commit yourself to remaining here forever. Go to the theater or the symphony. Visit the dressmaker. Kiss a handsome fellow.”

Nell’s cheeks went pink. “Really—”

“ That you can’t get from books.”

“Nonsense,” Nell replied, still blushing. “Novels hold plenty of kisses. And more if I wish. A girl need only know the right titles, and romance is hers for the taking.”

“Is that enough for you?” Effie asked, taking a seat on the edge of Nell’s bed.

“For now,” Nell replied. Her smiled dimmed. “You could always come back.”

“To be a teacher like you? I don’t know what I could teach that would be of value.”

“English and art. Globes and grammar. Dining etiquette, deportment, defense.”

“Do they all study defense now?” Effie asked. In her day, such classes had been limited to Miss Corvus’s special girls. The ones who had shown themselves to be cleverer than the others, astute with their lessons and skilled at sport, with valiant hearts and independent spirits.

“Miss Corvus determined it essential not long after you left for Paris,” Nell replied. “I confess, I encouraged her in that regard. Every girl should know how to defend herself from encroachments.”

“I thought that’s what our crinolines were for,” Effie said, only partially in jest.

Nell sank down beside Effie on the bed. “Fashion is fleeting, but a well-timed right cross is forever.” She added wryly, “To paraphrase The Oracle of the Ring .”

Effie’s lips tipped in a reluctant smile, recalling the dry text on the history of pugilism that she and Nell had been assigned as girls. “Is it still required reading when one is learning the rudiments of boxing?”

“I should say not. Miss Sparrow prefers application over theory, and it’s she who has taken over teaching defense since Miss Corvus retired from teaching it herself.”

“Gemma Sparrow? Good gracious.”

“I know. She is rather fierce. Miss Corvus thought it best for her to channel her fury.”

“On the younger girls?”

“Don’t be silly. We have a sandbag.”

Effie refrained from comment. She’d been friendly with wild, impetuous Gemma as a girl, but Gemma was too many years younger than Effie for them to be true friends. Effie had preferred keeping her own counsel. For those moments when she’d needed someone to lean on, there had always been Nell.

“Dining etiquette is the only class I remember with any degree of fondness,” Effie said. “And that’s simply because Miss Pascal permitted us to eat the cakes afterward.”

Like Miss Sengupta, Miss Pascal had been one of their many visiting instructors. Strong, eccentric ladies hailing from all corners of the globe. They came for a term or two, but never lingered. Most were women Miss Corvus had known during her time abroad. A bold contingent of females, with singular looks and decided views.

“Macarons, if I recall,” Nell said. “You always did have a partiality for elegance. Delicate sweets, beautiful clothing, adorable little dogs.” She leaned down to give Franc a gentle scratch of acknowledgment. “You’re far better suited to go after Compton than I would have been.”

“I’m not,” Effie assured her. “I failed at the first challenge.” She gave Nell an abridged description of what had happened in the library the night of Compton’s ball. She didn’t mince words when it came to Mr.Royce. This wasn’t the time for girlish secrets.

Nell listened in silence, a thoughtful line etching her brow. “He unnerved you,” she concluded when Effie had finished.

“He did, rather.”

“And that’s a problem because…?”

“It’s not a problem in itself. The issue is that he’s set himself up as some manner of guardian at Compton’s gates. The night of the ball, he distinctly warned me off. That’s why I’m here today, to discover what’s to be done. Or, more to the point, what I’m permitted to do. For if I must get through him to bring down Compton, then Mr.Royce will need to be dealt with.”

“Then deal with him,” Nell said. “You’ve never had any difficulty before.”

“He’s not like the men I’ve met before,” Effie said. “He’s…I don’t know what he is.”

“Is he dangerous?” Nell asked.

Effie recalled the strangely detached look in Mr.Royce’s eyes. That cold way he had of surveying the room around him. Of surveying her . “I suspect so.”

“More dangerous than you are?”

Effie huffed. “I’m not so dangerous anymore.”

“Perhaps that’s the problem,” Nell said. “In all your efforts at refinement, you’ve forgotten who you are.”

Effie gave Nell a speaking look. “I’ve never forgotten who I am, or where I came from. It’s why Miss Corvus sent me away in the first place.”

“You’re forgetting it now.” Nell took Effie’s hand. She pressed it firmly. “You’re one of us.”

A rush of unexpected emotion caught Effie off her guard. “An Academy girl? It’s not an identity, Nell.”

“But it is! Far more than the facts of your parentage are. We none of us can be distilled to the circumstances of our birth.” Nell again squeezed Effie’s hand, taking the sting out of her words. “You’re too bitter, that’s the trouble. You persist in blaming Miss Corvus for the conditions that brought you here. And she’s accepted that blame—foolishly, I feel—in the mistaken belief that your anger would fuel you. Instead, all it’s done is cloud your judgment. It’s made you suspicious of everything you’ve learned. Perpetually dissatisfied, imagining there’s something better waiting just around the corner, if only you could be free of this place.”

A knot formed in Effie’s stomach. She hated that Nell could read her so easily.

“If you must be angry,” Nell said, “be angry at men like Lord Compton.”

Effie met Nell’s eyes. It was difficult to reconcile the picture Miss Corvus had painted of the viscount’s misdeeds with the gray-haired fatherly figure Effie had met at the ball. “What do you know about him?”

“I know of his opposition to reforming the women’s property law, and…I know he once callously destroyed the hopes and reputation of a vulnerable young lady.”

“Then it’s true, the things Miss Corvus told me?”

“Yes.” Releasing Effie’s hand, Nell stood from the bed. She limped to her desk. “I can’t be entirely certain, but…I suspect the young lady was Miss Corvus herself.”

Effie stared after her friend, stunned. “What?”

“It must have been decades ago,” Nell said. “Long before she started the school. Indeed, it may well be the reason she started it. Unless I’m mistaken, she went abroad for a time, her reputation in tatters, and came back quite another person. But she hasn’t forgotten what he did to her. And she won’t allow him to do the same to all women—to prevent us having our measure of security and independence in this world. It’s important someone stop him.”

Effie shook her head in reflexive disbelief. “How do you know all of that? Has Miss Corvus told you—”

“No. She keeps that part of herself a mystery. But since her illness has worsened, I’ve had to assume some of her duties. She was constrained to explain the fundamentals of the filing system in her study. I’ve seen things there which I daresay I was never meant to.”

“What things?”

“Old letters she wrote to her half brother, returned to her unread. They paint a damning picture. The rest of the tale I’ve pieced together myself.”

“Is it a very dreadful one?”

“As dreadful as it is commonplace. Men take advantage of women every day. The worst was that Miss Corvus had no one to defend or protect her. Only the same dissolute half brother who, from what I can discern, was all but complicit in Lord Compton’s crime. It was he who took the evidence away before she could use it. She said as much in one of her letters to him.”

“Her own brother betrayed her?” Effie was appalled.

Franc uttered a yip of complaint from across the room, interrupting their conversation. He had unwittingly wrapped his lead around the leg of the wardrobe. A frequent complaint of his. In Paris, he’d often tangled his lead on the cluttered furnishings in Madame Dalhousie’s apartment.

Effie had taught him a command for the purpose. “ Faire le tour , Franc.”

The little poodle immediately obeyed, turning three times around the wardrobe leg in the opposite direction. His lead came free.

“Bon travail,” she praised him.

Franc’s tail quivered in response. He trotted to Effie, his lead trailing behind him.

“That’s a useful trick,” Nell remarked.

“It is,” Effie agreed as she picked Franc up. “And for more than unwinding his lead.” She pressed a distracted kiss to his beribboned head, her thoughts returning to the subject at hand. “I didn’t even know Miss Corvus had a brother. Or any family, come to that.”

“Nor did I,” Nell said. “I’d always imagined she’d sprung fully formed from Zeus’s head, like the goddess Athena.”

Effie smiled slightly. “In battle armor, as well.”

“Quite so,” Nell said. “Speaking of which…” She extracted a folded newspaper from a drawer in her secretary. “There’s a report in this morning’s Courant that troubles me.” She returned to Effie, pointing to the offending lines as she passed her the paper. “Just there, at the bottom of the society column.”

Effie read it, frowning:

Whispers about the affairs of the late Mr.Wingard have lately reached your humble correspondent’s ears. Rumors of a trove of important documents, which, if made public, could cause trouble for more than one of my gentle readers. Old sins, it is said, cast long shadows, and never more so than when those sins have been set down in ink and paper.

“Who is Mr.Wingard?” Effie asked, lowering the newspaper.

“I don’t know who this Mr.Wingard is,” Nell replied. “Only that Miss Corvus’s half brother bore the same name.”

“Perhaps it’s a common one?”

“What I fear it is, my dear, is another complication.” Retrieving the paper, Nell took it back to her desk. “If the need arises, you shall have to deal with it, just as you’ll have to deal with this Mr.Royce fellow. We can let nothing stand in the way of toppling Compton.”

“Given her supposed history with the man, I wonder that Miss Corvus trusts me to do it.”

“Naturally, she does.” Nell remained on the opposite side of the small room, facing Effie. “Who better to represent her than the girl she made in her image?”

Effie glared at her friend in the lamp’s glow. “I’m not surprised you put distance between us if you’re going to spout such nonsense.”

“It isn’t nonsense. You and Miss Corvus are essentially the same. I daresay that’s why you were constantly at odds with each other. She sees herself in you, and you in her—the good and the bad. But she believes in you for all that. She’d have given this task to no one else.”

“We both know that’s not true,” Effie said. “It should have been you.”

“It would never have been me,” Nell retorted with an edge of uncharacteristic sharpness. “Despite what you believe about my falling from the tower roof, or about the part you played in it. You were always meant to be her avenging angel. She’s counting on you. So are we all.”

Effie’s fingers tangled in Franc’s curly black coat. She didn’t have the heart to argue with Nell on the subject. Not when Nell was already showing signs of annoyance. She so rarely exhibited anger or bitterness over the past. To be sure, Effie had rather she would.

“ The Oracle of the Ring says the first blow is half the battle,” she replied instead. “By that measure, I’m halfway to being finished.”

“Then make the second half count,” Nell said. “Remember yourself, Effie. And remember the rules.”

“Know my surroundings. Know my opponent. Know myself.” Effie heaved a sigh. “I used to think Miss Corvus the veriest hypocrite for the first rule, considering she never permitted me to venture further than the bounds of the school.”

“Miss Corvus is too ill at the moment to prevent you doing anything,” Nell said. “Go where you will. Learn what you can. Anything is permissible if it achieves our goal. And, Effie? Whatever happens…don’t come back here again.”

Effie couldn’t conceal the flash of hurt provoked by Nell’s words. She rose, Franc cradled in her arms. “In other words, I’m on my own.”

“Never. You must simply be more careful.” Nell returned to her. “I don’t know everything about Compton’s crime, or how deeply he injured Miss Corvus, but I know he has a great deal to lose. Assume the worst—that he’s having you followed, that he’s intercepting your letters, that he’s peering into keyholes.”

Effie found it hard to imagine any of those things given the viscount’s seeming lack of interest in her. Then again…now she thought of it, she had seen a similar-looking boy more than once during her journey to the Academy this morning. She’d scarcely registered it at the time. It hadn’t occurred to her then that she might have been being followed.

Just as it hadn’t occurred to her that a wolf might be lurking in the darkness of Lord Compton’s library.

“I shall be on my guard in future,” she vowed.

“See that you are,” Nell said. “If you need to reach us again, send a sampler.”

A sampler?

“Joy,” Effie muttered.