Page 37 of Rules for Ruin

“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.

8

Gabriel had told himself he’d come to Grosvenor Square this evening purely to make the acquaintance of Lord Haverford. But the instant he set eyes on Euphemia Flite, he knew it to be a lie.

The care he’d taken when he’d dressed this evening, the onyx cuff links, the perfectly pressed suit, and even the new variety of expensive pomade in his hair, hadn’t been for Haverford’s benefit. They had been for her.

It was a bitter realization. One that prompted a sardonic smile to twist his mouth at the sight of her. Like it or not, he’d been moved to present himself as a gentleman for her sake. To show her he wasn’t the brawling, bare-necked brute she’d encountered in the Rookery.

She arched a mocking brow at him in return. No longer clad in unrelieved black, she wore a short-sleeved evening gown of deep violet silk, her raven hair twisted into a roll at her nape and secured with two sparkling pins in the shape of dragonflies. It wasn’t as luxurious an ensemble as those worn by the three young ladies she’d entered the room with, but there was an elegant subtlety to Euphemia’s appearance that put her friends in the shade.

It took an effort not to stare.

Lord Compton’s face darkened with displeasure. “My daughter, Carena,” he said, wrongly presuming it was she who had caught Gabriel’s attention. “If you will excuse me?”

Lord Haverford murmured his assent as their host headed away.