Page 9 of Rules for Ruin (The Crinoline Academy #1)

7

The following Monday evening, as Effie dressed in a dinner gown of violet foulard to attend the Comptons’ musicale, she kept her mission firmly in mind. Nothing else signified, not her long-lost mother, not Gabriel Royce, and certainly not the people of the Rookery. Only the Academy mattered, and only the destruction of Compton.

She strategically placed her three glass dragonfly hairpins in the base of her rolled coiffure. Then, lifting her skirts, she used the ball of twine to secure the few small items she’d purchased to the wire and tape cage of her crinoline.

During her days at the Academy, Effie had often employed the frame of her crinoline to disguise various odds and ends. Miss Corvus had initially disapproved of the practice, bristling as she’d always done at Effie’s tendency to break the rules. But Miss Corvus’s disapproval hadn’t lasted long. In time, she’d come to support Effie’s methods, and had even encouraged the other special girls to follow her example.

Crinolines, it had transpired, were more than armor—more than a means of protecting a lady from encroachment or of asserting one’s right to take up space. They were yet another method of concealment.

Lowering her petticoats and skirts back into place, Effie gave her hips an experimental shake. Her violet silk skirts swung about her in a voluminous swell of fabric. The items tied to the inside of her crinoline didn’t budge.

Excellent.

Gathering her cloak and her gloves, she joined Lady Belwood in the drawing room for a preprandial drink while they awaited the carriage.

Decorated in shades of apple-green silk and antique gold brocade, the room was notable for its heavy gilt-framed portraits of grand-looking ladies and gentlemen in powdered wigs and lace. Belwood ancestors, presumably. They peered down at the present occupant of the room with expressions of well-bred disdain.

Lady Belwood’s fair cheeks were already quite red. She appeared to be on her second glass of wine. “Sir Walter regrets he is unable to join us,” she said from her seat on the tufted velvet settee. “His gout is paining him worse today.”

Effie was unsurprised by his absence. “Was Lady Compton expecting him?”

“I should think not. Sir Walter rarely troubles himself attending society gatherings. He prizes the purity of his bloodline to such a degree, it pains him to fraternize with those of less dignified pedigree.” Lady Belwood drained her glass. “Yet another reason you must refrain from inspiring talk. To learn of my connection to that place would likely send my husband to an early grave.”

Effie withheld comment as she finished her own small glass of sherry. She could think of only one possible connection between a titled lady of esteemed pedigree and a remote orphanage for girls.

Was it possible Lady Belwood had, at some time, given up an illegitimate child to Miss Corvus’s care? It would certainly explain the power Miss Corvus held over her ladyship, and her ladyship’s uncommon anxiety in relation to it.

Effie’s suspicions were only enhanced a few moments later when she and Lady Belwood were comfortably ensconced in the Belwoods’ sumptuous coach-and-four, making the short journey to the Comptons’ house in Grosvenor Square.

“Were you, ah, very young when you found your way to that place?” her ladyship asked as the carriage rolled away from Brook Street.

Effie drew her thin black velvet cloak more firmly about her. Outside the window, the cold night sky was illuminated by the silver-light glow of a waning gibbous moon. “Quite young, yes.”

“And may I ask—” Lady Belwood bit her lip. “Were you orphaned by tragedy? Or were your parents—”

“My mother was very poor,” Effie said. “She surrendered me to Miss Corvus.”

For a sum, Effie might have added.

Or, possibly, for a bottle of gin.

That’s what a girl at the Academy had said once (seconds before Effie had slapped her in response, earning yet another punishment for herself). Though how the girl would have known anything about her mother, Effie hadn’t the slightest idea.

It ultimately made no difference. Whether Effie’s mother had sold her for coin or for drink, the result had been the same.

“How distressing,” Lady Belwood said.

“Not at all,” Effie replied. “I hardly remember it.” That much was true at least, unless one counted the nagging murky memories that still plagued her heart and, occasionally, her dreams.

Lady Belwood regarded Effie from her seat across the carriage. “That place has been your life, I gather. I expect you have many friends there.”

“Not as many as you might imagine,” Effie said.

She was in no mood to be questioned about her past. Not after her visit to St. Giles last week. And not by this fine lady who looked as though she’d never known a day of want or desperation in her life.

For as long as Effie could remember, she’d felt the ache of having been given up by her mother. It was more than a feeling of abandonment. It was a keen sense of betrayal. If Lady Belwood did have a child at the Academy, she didn’t deserve to know anything about her. Not if her ladyship had chosen a life of luxury over the life of her own helpless daughter.

A pitiless reaction, perhaps, but there it was.

“You are certainly making friends here,” Lady Belwood went on. “The gentlemen especially seem to admire you. If it’s an offer of marriage you’re seeking—”

“I am not,” Effie assured her.

Marriage was the last thing she wanted. Only a fool would aspire to it. To marry was to give up one’s power.

Granted, if it ever passed into law (a very big if in Effie’s estimation), a married women’s property bill would provide some protection. But it still wouldn’t give a woman the same freedom she’d have if she remained unwed. Without a husband to encumber her, Effie could go where she wished and live as she chose. She envisioned a snug little flat for her and Franc when all this was over. A place entirely their own.

Lady Belwood looked at her, perplexed. “Why else would a girl of your age take part in the season?”

“To enlarge my acquaintance,” Effie said vaguely.

“I see. And do the other girls…” The bouncing lights from the carriage lamps danced over Lady Belwood’s unusually tense face. “Do any of them go into society as you have been doing?”

A rogue glimmer of compassion stirred in Effie’s breast. “No, my lady. None.”

Lady Belwood’s countenance softened with something like relief. “Yes, well, I had thought—” She broke off. “That is, I should never have expected—”

The carriage slowed.

Her ladyship looked gratefully to the window, leaving her sentence unfinished. “Ah. I perceive we have arrived.”

Effie followed her gaze as the carriage came to a halt. The Comptons’ stately white-stuccoed house was lit with torches. A liveried footman awaited them on the front step. No other carriages were lined up ahead of them. It appeared Effie and Lady Belwood were the first to arrive.

“You’re a little early, my dear,” Lady Compton said, greeting them in the hall. “My husband and daughter aren’t yet down.”

“Oh, are we? How embarrassing.” Lady Belwood tittered nervously as she received a kiss on both cheeks from her hostess.

“Not at all,” Lady Compton said. “This will give Miss Flite an opportunity to become acquainted with my daughter. Parker?” She caught the eye of her butler. “Show Miss Flite to Carena’s room.” She turned to Effie. “My daughter’s maid is putting the finishing touches on her toilette. Her friends are with her—Lady Lavinia and Miss Whitbread. I’m sure they would be glad for you to join them.”

“It would be my pleasure, ma’am,” Effie said.

“And don’t let them tarry overlong,” Lady Compton added. “I can already hear the other carriages arriving.”

“This way, miss,” the butler said to Effie. He was a large, balding man with hard eyes and a crooked nose that appeared to have been broken several times. He motioned to the central staircase.

Effie allowed one of the footmen to take her cloak before obediently following the butler up the marble steps. She’d hoped to have a moment before the evening’s activities commenced to revisit Compton’s library. Then again, a connection with the man’s daughter might prove useful. Either way, the acquaintance was unavoidable.

The family’s apartments were on the second floor of the house. Effie followed the butler up another staircase, and down a wide, carpeted hall illuminated by wall sconces. She subtly scanned the layout of the floors as they went, taking mental note of the entrances, alcoves, and exits.

Every inch of Compton’s home was a testament to his wealth and position. Rich surfaces, shimmering crystal, gilt-framed oil paintings, and sumptuous Aubusson. The house even had indoor privies, one on each floor, as Effie had learned at the ball. A single indoor privy was a luxury. But several? It was an unmeasured extravagance, the likes of which Effie had never seen, not even in Paris.

How much of Miss Corvus’s fortune had gone to fund such well-bred excess? And just how had Compton managed to steal it from her? Miss Corvus was no fool to be tricked by a man, no matter how handsome he was, or how skilled at flattery.

But perhaps she hadn’t been as shrewd then as she was now. Rejection and betrayal changed a person. Effie knew that firsthand.

Parker knocked on a gold-and-cream-painted door halfway down the hall. It was cracked open by a black-aproned lady’s maid of indeterminate years.

“Lady Compton has sent Miss Flite to join the young ladies,” Parker said to her.

The maid opened the door wider. She dropped a curtsy. “Do come in, miss.”

“Thank you,” Effie said.

The lady’s maid admitted Effie into a luxurious sitting room decorated in shades of pink and rose. “Right this way,” she said. “Miss Carena and the other young ladies are in her dressing room.”

She escorted Effie through another door. It opened to a candlelit room as spacious as a dressmaker’s shop. There, two young ladies in pastel silk gowns lounged on velvet-upholstered couches arrayed around a dais, sipping champagne from crystal flutes. A third young lady stood on the small platform, also drinking champagne, while two kneeling housemaids hastily mended the hem of her enormous ruffled pink skirts.

This lofty creature was surely Carena Compton.

She turned to the door as she took another drink of her champagne, ignoring the poor maids at her feet who were obliged to crawl hastily about her, reconfiguring their positions at her swirling hem. Her white-blond hair and milky pale skin were luminous in the candlelight.

“Who is this, Meacham?” she demanded imperiously.

Effie knew better than to make impromptu judgments about people. Categorization led to sloppiness. It prevented one from seeing the facts. From observing the truth. All the same…

Here was a young lady Effie recognized at once for exactly what she was. A girl for whom wealth and privilege were more than a birthright. They were an identity. An unpleasant kind of girl.

Truth be told, Effie was rather relieved to discover it. She wouldn’t have enjoyed ruining the father of a girl she actually liked.

“Lady Compton has sent Miss Flite to join you, miss,” Meacham said.

“Miss Flite,” Miss Compton repeated with a ring of disdain. “The French girl? Yes, Mama did mention something about you. As did Lord Mannering and Lord Powell. You’ve been entertaining them all in our absence, I hear.”

“She’s not French,” one of the lounging ladies said with a hiccup and a giggle.

“No indeed,” Effie said. “Though I have been in Paris for a long while.”

“A finishing school, isn’t that right?” the other lounging lady asked. “My brother heard it from one of his friends at his club.”

“That is Miss Whitbread,” Miss Compton said, briskly introducing the giggler. “And that is Lady Lavinia Bulstrode.”

Miss Whitbread was a short, pale girl, with light brown hair and sharp, pinched features softened only slightly by the effects of her champagne. Lady Lavinia, by contrast, was tall and slim. Her profile was decidedly Grecian—an effect aided by her ribboned coiffure. Like Miss Compton, the two girls wore rich silk dresses weighted with tassels and trimmings, the cost of which would have beggared the average female.

Effie acknowledged them in turn. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“Lady Lavinia and Miss Whitbread have been with me at Rawdon Court since Easter,” Miss Compton said. “I never come to town for my parents’ opening ball. A stuffy event. No one of importance ever attends.”

Effie smiled. “I found it a fine enough affair.”

“Compared to all the balls you attended in Paris?” Lady Lavinia asked.

“Nothing compares with Paris,” Effie said. “Have the three of you been?”

“Steamer travel is death on one’s complexion,” Miss Whitbread replied. “I shouldn’t like to become sallow.”

“You’re very tan, Miss Flite.” Lady Lavinia examined Effie down the length of her aquiline nose. “Do they not use Gowland’s in Paris?”

Effie’s smile remained undimmed. She wondered how many young ladies their tactics had served to oppress and intimidate? To be sure, in the secret heart of her—that small, vulnerable part that beckoned back to her childhood—it was impossible for Effie not to feel a bit daunted herself. In her early years, she had often been made to feel wanting. To feel other .

But that was a very long time ago. Since then, she’d learned the true weakness of bullies. They were frightened creatures, really, emboldened in a group, but not undefeatable. It was rather satisfying to see them scatter.

Though she couldn’t enjoy that satisfaction today. She wasn’t here to score points. She was here to ingratiate herself.

“The French concept of beauty is very different from the English one,” she said. “It’s little surprise we Britons ape our Gallic sisters. They’re years ahead of us. May I?” Effie helped herself to a flute of champagne from the tray. “I understand you will be honoring us with an aria this evening, Miss Compton.”

Miss Compton pursed her lips. Swishing her skirts, she resumed her original position. The seamstresses crawled quickly to keep up. “Do you sing, Miss Flite?”

“I don’t possess that gift, no.” Effie sat down on a tufted pink velvet chair beside Miss Whitbread’s sofa. “I prefer athletic endeavors.”

“Riding?” Miss Whitbread asked.

“Target practice,” Effie said, taking a sip of her drink.

She was only half in jest. The Academy had focused little effort on equestrienne activities. Horses were exceedingly expensive. Whereas archery, knife-throwing, and fencing required only the use of non-sentient implements that could be shared by all.

“The gentlemen sometimes enjoy target-shooting at Rawdon Court,” Miss Compton said. “We ladies never participate. It is unbecoming to be always competing.”

Effie refrained from pointing out that they were surely competing now. “How do you occupy your time instead?”

“With music and flower arranging,” Miss Compton replied. “Rawdon is at its most beautiful in the spring.”

“This house is quite lovely, too,” Effie said. “I’m given to understand it has an extensive library.”

“Does it?” Miss Whitbread asked with a dubious expression. “I never noticed.”

“My father has a complete set of thirteenth-century books.” Miss Compton adjusted the fluttering lace trimming on her neckline. “He collects old texts. It is his prevailing passion.”

“I should like to see them, given the opportunity. Perhaps after dinner?” Effie raised her glass to her lips with studied casualness. “Unless it would disturb Lord Compton’s work.”

“Why should it?” Miss Compton asked.

“I recall he was conducting charitable business there during the ball last week,” Effie said. It had been something to do with Gabriel. Lord Compton had mentioned it when Effie had been introduced to him. “I daresay there are many such demands on his time.”

Miss Compton brushed the concern aside. “Papa never conducts important business in his library. That’s only where he receives the begging public. Clergymen, social reformers, and the like, who come to plead for his aid. It’s his study where he deals with affairs of true consequence.”

Effie gave her an alert look.

“But not tonight,” Miss Compton went on. “Mama has absolutely forbidden him from slipping away from the party since I will be singing.”

Effie mentally abandoned her plans to investigate the desk in the library. The monstrous piece of furniture could wait for another day. Tonight, she would search Lord Compton’s study instead. Wherever that was.

“If you wish to see the library, I will show it to you when the ladies retire after dinner,” Miss Compton offered with the grandiosity of a medieval princess bestowing her largesse on a ragged serf. “But we cannot linger. I must have time to prepare for my solo.”

“Thank you,” Effie said. “I shall look forward to it.”

Rising from her sofa on unsteady feet, Miss Whitbread teetered to the silk-draped window. She peered down at the street. “I knew I’d heard carriages. Lord, but it’s a crush out there.”

“Shall we go downstairs?” Lady Lavinia asked.

“Not yet,” Miss Compton said. “Let my parents welcome the guests. I shall see them in the salon.”

Lady Lavinia leaned back on her sofa with a sigh as she finished her drink. “Your father and mother have a marriage to aspire to. She is one of the most acclaimed hostesses in town, and he is so handsome and commanding.”

“Handsome?” Miss Whitbread giggled from the window.

“He was,” Miss Compton snapped, provoked. “Only look at his portrait in the gallery at Rawdon. He could have had anyone.”

“So could your mother have had,” Miss Whitbread said. “The fortune her father left her was nearly as great as mine. And don’t tell me it doesn’t weigh with a gentleman.”

“Do you agree, Miss Flite?” Lady Lavinia asked. “Is a fortune enough of an inducement for a gentleman seeking a wife?”

“It may not be sufficient for marriage,” Miss Compton pronounced, “but it’s obviously necessary. No man of our acquaintance would wed a church mouse.”

Effie felt the scrutiny of the young ladies fixing upon her, equal parts curious and mean-spirited. They were plainly eager to know if she possessed a fortune. Under other circumstances, it would be impolite for them to ask outright, but champagne was involved, and they were in a dressing room, not a drawing room.

Miss Whitbread was the first to summon the courage. “I expect Lord and Lady Belwood have settled a goodly sum on you,” she said. “She and her husband have no children of their own, and childless people must find some person on whom to bestow their fortune. As you’re the only child of Lady Belwood’s closest friend—”

“Oh, do be quiet, Patricia,” Lady Lavinia interrupted. “Must you give voice to every vulgar thought in your head?”

“I meant no offense,” Miss Whitbread said. “I’m only repeating what I’ve heard.”

“Cease repeating it in my hearing,” Miss Compton retorted, glaring at her tipsy friend. “And do turn the subject before I expire from boredom.”

Effie smiled into her champagne, neither confirming nor denying the rumor.

It was all to the good if people thought her an heiress. She needed them to believe she was one of them. And to be one of them, one must have money. Not the kind earned through honest labor, but the kind bestowed on one through the privilege of one’s birth and connections. That was the only variety of money that mattered to people like these.

The conversation resumed in another direction, with the three ladies lapsing into a discussion about their gowns, and about the gentlemen who would be in attendance at the dinner that preceded the musicale.

Soon, the small porcelain clock on the mantel was chiming the hour.

“I must go down,” Miss Compton said. She pulled her skirts away from the maids around her hem. “Enough fussing. If you haven’t finished by now, you’re not worth your positions, and I shall tell my mother so.”

The maids hastened to their feet with their sewing boxes, knees cracking and stays creaking. They were older women, their brows dotted with perspiration, and their eyes shadowed with unease.

Effie regarded them with an intense throb of fellow feeling. Servants relied on the goodwill of their employers. Any one of them was only ever a position or two away from the gutter. An unexpected dismissal or a lack of a good reference could be as damning as a death sentence, especially for female servants without family or connections.

“It’s excellent work as far as I can see,” Effie said to Miss Compton. She turned to the maids, smiling. “How talented with a needle you both are.”

The older of the two servants remained expressionless, but the younger gave Effie a grateful look. “Thank you, miss.”

Miss Compton waved them off. “Go on!” She turned to Effie before the maids departed. “Madame du Champs had her seamstresses working to finish this dress for two days and nights straight. And now to find that one of my own servants has torn the hem as they were pressing it?” She stomped down off the dais. “That I should have to tolerate such incompetence!”

“Yes, it is rather frustrating,” Effie agreed. “Putting up with people one would rather send straight to the guillotine.”

“They don’t still guillotine people in France, do they?” Miss Whitbread asked with a horrified giggle.

“Only the ones who are very bad,” Effie replied.

Miss Compton flounced to the door. Lady Lavinia and Miss Whitbread hurried to accompany her. Their backs were to Effie as they passed.

Setting aside her champagne, Effie took the opportunity to discreetly withdraw one of her dragonfly hairpins from her coiffure. She slipped it into the side of her seat cushion, obscuring it from view. Having done so, she rose to follow the young ladies down to the Comptons’ palatial crimsin-and-blue salon where the guests had gathered before dinner.

The drawing room was being used for this evening’s performance, and was presently off-limits to them. It was there they would congregate after their meal to hear Miss Compton and the others perform. Lady Compton had invited even more guests to enjoy that distinguished spectacle. Dinner itself was to be attended by a far more exclusive group. It was still a large one—some twenty-four people altogether. They gathered around the salon, ladies in shimmering gowns and gentlemen in pristine evening wear, engaged in varying degrees of polite conversation.

Effie’s gaze immediately homed in on Lord Compton.

The gray-haired viscount stood by the enormous baroque fireplace, sober-faced and dignified, in company with two other gentlemen. One was a broad, bespectacled fellow with a crop of blazing red hair. The other—

Effie stared.

It was Gabriel Royce.