Page 35 of Rules for Ruin

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.”