Page 43 of Rules for Ruin

“On no account,” Miss Pascal had shot back sternly. “Never talk about other people. It is the mark of a small and common mind. And never discuss religion or the politics of the nation. Your opinions on such weighty subjects are your own concern. Don’t inflict them on strangers through the vehicle of speech. Your power lies in your ability to conceal.”

By that reckoning, Effie had just spent the first half of her meal giving away her power to Gabriel Royce. She’d been so thoroughly engaged in speaking with him, she hadn’t thought to conceal her feelings at all. Not on the subject of women’s welfare. She’d spoken to him candidly, honestly, and with a distinct lack of self-restraint.

If not for Miss Pascal’s dratted rules for dining etiquette, Effie would be speaking to Gabriel still. Indeed, their conversation had just started to get interesting.

He was, it transpired, exactly what she’d suspected him of being: a dangerous man. Worse, even. A merciless man, as he’d confessed himself.

And yet, nothing so straightforward as that. A true villain wouldn’t be attempting to reform the Rookery. He wouldn’t be here at all, subjecting himself to the snubs and slights of his supposed betters, all so he might gain influential patrons to affect his ideas for reform.

“A betting shop,” Lord Mannering confirmed in a low voice in Effie’s ear. “What does Compton mean by inviting him here? He may as well have invited my tailor and bootmaker as well.”

“You object to keeping company with working men?” Effie asked as she finished her small portion of curried lobster.

“I’m no relic,” Lord Mannering said. “I’m as open-minded as the next fellow. But I say…one doesn’t expect to meet a villain of that sort across the table. It puts a man off his feed.”

Effie hadn’t noticed any lack of appetite on his lordship’s part. He’d eaten everything placed in front of him with remarkable gusto. Effie herself had taken only a light sustenance. She didn’t want rich sauces and heavy starches weighing her down as she embarked on her mission this evening.

A gentleman’s study could be located anywhere in a house—downstairs, upstairs, or even in the attic. Time would be of the essence. Though Miss Compton had claimed her father would remain in the drawing room for the entire musicale, the viscount was only guaranteed to be fully occupied for as long as his daughter took to perform her aria. Any additional minutes after that would be a gift.

Effie would have to work quickly.

It was some relief Gabriel would be engaged in the library with Lord Haverford once the music started. Effie didn’t much fancy a repeat of what had happened when she was searching Compton’s desk during the ball. As it was, her path would be almost entirely clear. She’d only have to manage the servants, and that should be easy enough. Providing one of those servants wasn’t the Compton’s butler, Parker.

“Good thing m’sister didn’t come tonight,” Lord Mannering went on. “Shouldn’t have liked her to be exposed to the lower orders. Not that she’d object, mind. Always going to lectures and radical whatnot, she is.”

“Was she otherwise engaged this evening?” Effie asked.

“Some committee meeting or other. Claimed it couldn’t be missed. Not as if she’d be performing in any case. Ruth don’t like singing to people. She prefers talking at them.”

“I’m sorry not to see her again.” Effie meant it. It would be nice to have a like-minded acquaintance or two in town. Someone to talk to with something like candor. Thus far, she’d only revealed her views to Gabriel. A bluestocking, he’d called her. The name was surely tame in comparison to Effie’s and the other Academy girls’ true predilections.

“Will you be performing this evening, Miss Flite?” Lord Mannering asked.

“Indeed not,” Effie replied. “I rarely perform for strangers.”

As she spoke, she felt the weight of Gabriel’s gaze. He’d looked at her more than once since she’d turned her attention to Lord Mannering. Doubtless he was bored. The lady on his left was Miss Whitbread. What they could have to converse about was anyone’s guess.

“But you do play and sing?” Lord Mannering asked.

“A very little,” she said. “I prefer needlework.”

It was lately the truth. On the rare nights when she and Lady Belwood weren’t engaged elsewhere, Effie had been spending her evenings working on a series of samplers. They contained the alphabet in neat lines at the bottom, various scenes from town at the top, and the requisite raven with its white-tipped wing.

Effie didn’t enjoy the exercise as much as Nell surely did, but the samplers were ready should Effie require them. All that remained was to add in the necessary code. It could be numbers stitched outright, or numbers displayed in the form of a flock of birds, depending on the length of the message. To make it less easy for strangers to solve should the sampler fall into the wrong hands, the special girls at the Academy knew to transpose threes and sixes, nines and twelves, and the letters E and W.

With luck, Effie would be sending off a sampler to Nell within a day. It all hinged on what she might find in Compton’s study.

After the final course had been served, and the guests had partaken of even more wine, Lady Compton rose from her place at the top of the table and signaled for the ladies to join her in retiring to the salon for coffee. The gentleman stood, remaining on their feet until the ladies had withdrawn from the room. As Effie passed Gabriel, their eyes met. There was no sign of warmth or familiarity in his gaze. To be sure, he looked at her rather as he had on the first occasion they’d met. There was a certain coldness and distance about him, which she hoped was more for the other guests’ benefit than it was for her alone.

Either way, it was the least of Effie’s concerns. She had her visit to the library with Miss Compton to get through, and then a short period spent with the other ladies in the salon, before she could set her plan in motion.

Miss Compton dutifully—and rather impatiently—collected Effie on the way out of the dining room. “We don’t have long,” she said.

True to her word, her tour of the library was both brief and perfunctory. Effie had expected nothing less. She wandered obediently behind her young hostess, taking private note of the room’s cabinets, corners, and groupings of overstuffed leather sofas and chairs. Among them was the same chair Gabriel had been seated in last week, watching her from across the room, his face lit by the infernal smolder of his cigarette. A prickle of awareness lifted the fine hairs on the back of Effie’s neck to recall it.

But the library wasn’t dark this time, and there was no ravening wolf lurking in the shadows. The gaslights were turned up, revealing a room that was, in essentials, no different from the libraries in dozens of other fine houses.

“These are the books you were asking about,” Miss Compton said boredly. She indicated a single row of ten large, flat-spined leather volumes lining a shelf near the fireplace. “Dry old things, and all in Latin. Heaven knows what they’re about. Some long-dead flora or fauna, I’m told.”