Page 30 of Rules for Ruin

She frowned down at him. “Don’t say you like the man.”

Franc’s pom-pom tail quivered faintly in answer.

“If that’s the case,” Effie said, “you’re in trouble, my friend.”

And so am I, she added silently.

• • •

There was much to be done in the lead-up to the dinner at Lord Compton’s house next week. Effie couldn’t afford to be idle. The following day, she embarked on another series of errands, this time appropriately garbed in a morning dress of lavender-sprigged white grenadine and properly chaperoned by one of the Belwoods’ housemaids. Their first stop: a chemist’s shop in Bond Street.

Effie settled Franc more firmly under her arm as she entered. She’d had no choice but to bring him. The only servant in Brook Street she trusted to look after him was the upstairs maid, Mary—a sensible girl, and the very one Lady Belwood had commanded to accompany Effie this morning.

Mary dutifully followed as Effie examined the displays of glass bottles, potions, and plasters. “What are you looking for, miss?” she asked. “P’raps I can help.”

“Vesta matches,” Effie said. “And a case.”

The young maid was too well trained of a servant to question the purpose of either item. She assisted Effie in locating them, and then waited while Effie made her purchase from the linen-smocked proprietor.

An oil and candle shop was next, followed by a stationer’s, and then a draper’s shop where Effie bought a ball of sturdy twine.

Having satisfied herself that she had all she required for the next stage of her mission, Effie’s thoughts turned from practical preparation to intellectual necessity. “Hatchards Booksellers in Piccadilly,” she told the coachman as she and Mary climbed back into the Belwoods’ carriage.

Hatchards had the reputation for being one of the best stocked bookshops in the city. Effie had often read about the place, but she’d never been herself. So much of London was still a mystery to her. She was uncovering it by degrees, with the aid of a good map and the guidebook she’d purchased on her arrival, both eager and wary, lest the city’s much-vaunted attractions should prove to disappoint.

The coachman set them down in front of the famous shop not ten minutes later, amid the teeming traffic of the busy street. Its entrance was flanked by two large mullioned windows featuring colorful arrangements of the latest works of poetry and prose.

Effie passed through the shop’s dark painted door, with Franc in her arms and Mary close behind her. Inside, several ladies and gentlemen were perusing the expansive shelves and examining the offerings on the strategically placed table displays. A few people glanced up, but most paid Effie no heed.

“You may look about at your leisure,” Effie told Mary. “Or remain here if you prefer.”

A row of wooden chairs was arrayed by the door. Another female servant was seated there, awaiting her mistress. Mary bobbed a curtsy before joining her.

Effie approached the shop counter, her ruffle-trimmed grenadine skirts rustling softly over her petticoats and crinoline.

A mustachioed shop assistant in a plain cloth suit came to assist her. Spying Franc, his mouth formed a moue of distaste. “May I help you, miss?”

“I hope you can,” Effie said. “I require this quarter’s edition of the Westminster Review.”

The shop assistant promptly retrieved it, passing it to her across the counter. “Is that all?”

Effie flipped through the journal, distracted for a moment by the articles it contained. It was a publication known for its radicalism. Among other beliefs, it endorsed the principle of universal suffrage. “No indeed,” she said, at length, recalling herself to the present. “Will you point me to your philosophical section?”

“Greek philosophies or Roman?”

“Women’s philosophies,” Effie replied matter-of-factly.

The shop assistant directed her toward a single shelf at the very back of the shop. Effie was thankful he didn’t escort her to it himself. She required no guidance on her reading material. She knew exactly what it was she was looking for.

Her tastes had been cultivated at the Academy. The library there was filled with volumes of every sort. Miss Corvus had urged the girls to read widely and often, everything from Aristophanes and Herodotus to Machiavelli, Astell, and Wollstonecraft.

“Knowledge is your greatest weapon,” she’d told them. “And books are knowledge made manifest.”

Effie had found it to be true. Books enlarged one’s mind. They encouraged one to think. To feel. To understand. They could be more than that, too, when the occasion called for it. In the absence of community, books could be companions. They could be friends.

And Effie would need friends on the lonely road she must travel to bring down Compton. Particularly now, after being barred from returning to visit Nell.

It hadn’t mattered so much in Paris. There, at least, Madame Dalhousie had permitted Effie to attend women’s talks on equality and education. Here in London, however, Effie had no such diversions. She was too busy keeping up an appearance of fashionable sameness to risk exposing herself as a budding revolutionary.