Page 11 of Rules for Ruin

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.”

2

Effie took her time coming out from behind the desk, all the while aware of Mr. Royce’s unholy gaze fixed upon her. He sat across the library in the glow of his burning cigarette, as dark and dangerous as Hades himself, lounging on his underworld throne.

He wasn’t a traditionally handsome man, by any accepted measure. But he was attractive by her reckoning. Clean-shaven, with dark hair cropped close at the neck; a tall, leanly muscled frame; and a face etched with experience. Rather too much experience for a man at his stage of life. He couldn’t be much above thirty years of age.

She supposed she should be afraid of him. He was, after all, a male, and one who had cornered her in a darkened room. The prospect of ruination loomed large for any young lady in a situation such as this. Reputations had been lost for far less.

But Effie wasn’t frightened. She was too angry with herself to allow room for any other emotion.

Know your surroundings. Know your opponent. Know yourself. They had been the three most important rules Effie had learned at Miss Corvus’s Academy. Rules to keep a young lady safe. To assure she was prepared for anything. That she was never out of her element, overmatched, or taken by surprise, left incapable of defending herself.

How could Effie have been so stupid to have fallen at the first hurdle? To have assumed the room was empty instead of conducting an adequate search? She should have checked and double-checked. She should have made certain.

But honestly, she reflected with a private huff of indignation, what kind of gentleman sat alone in a darkened room?

Apparently, the same sort of gentleman who implied she had come here to meet him.