Page 45 of Rules for Ruin

He stood across the room, the gracious host, poised next to his fashionable wife as she smiled and fluttered her fan. They remained on their feet until all their guests were seated. Only then did Lord Compton sit down in the first row.

Effie breathed an inward sigh of relief. There would be no missing him there. So long as he remained as he’d promised his daughter, Effie would count it safe for her to leave.

Lady Compton mounted the stage, her crystal-beaded silk dinner dress glimmering in the candlelight. She introduced the first performer—an insipid-looking child barely out of the schoolroom. Her accompanists joined her on the stage, one on the piano and one playing the violin. Her stilted performance was followed by another young lady and then another, possessed of varying degrees of talent.

Effie bided her time. Only when Carena Compton was standing atop the stage, and her three accompanists along with her, did Effie prepare to make her move.

The first notes of the aria from Lucrezia Borgia sounded, and Miss Compton’s mouth opened in impeccably trained harmony. She had a fine soprano voice. Rather more than fine, if Effie was being generous. The guests sat up straight in their seats, some leaning forward, listening to the hypnotic notes of the aria with rapt attention.

Effie chose that very moment to touch a hand to her hair. “Oh no,” she breathed.

Lady Belwood gave her a distracted glance. “Is something wrong?”

“I’ve lost one of my hairpins,” Effie said.

Lady Belwood flashed a dubious look at the cut glass dragonflies in Effie’s hair. “Have you?”

“I had three of them and now there are only two.” Effie lowered her voice to an urgent whisper. “I believe I know where I left it. If you will excuse me?”

“Must you go looking for it now?”

“I won’t be five minutes.” Clutching her skirts in her hand, Effie stood and, as Miss Compton hit a high note, slipped silently out the doors of the drawing room.

A small crowd of servants had gathered in the hall to listen to the music. At the sight of Effie emerging, they scattered like a herd of frightened deer. Parker wasn’t among their number. Effie’s heartbeat quickened. If he wasn’t here, where was he?

There wasn’t time to discover it.

She walked purposefully toward the stairs. As she moved to ascend them, she was nearly bowled over by a harried housemaid racing down the steps with her sewing box.

“Beg pardon, miss!” the servant gasped, coming to an unsteady halt.

Effie recognized her. It was the younger of the two maids who had been attending to Miss Compton’s torn hem earlier. “Not at all,” she said. “Where are you off to in such a rush?”

“The ladies’ retiring room,” the maid replied. “Lady Fiona is performing after Miss Compton, and she’s just discovered that the trimming on her sleeve has come loose.”

“An emergency to be sure.” Effie mounted the stairs. “Don’t let me keep you.”

The maid flashed a desperate look toward the ladies’ retiring room as she followed in Effie’s wake. “Do you need help with something?”

“Nothing to trouble you.” Effie glanced back with a smile of explanation. “I believe I may have left my jeweled hairpin in Miss Compton’s room.”

“Shall I send Miss Meacham to assist you? She’s in the retiring room, but—”

“No, indeed. I can retrieve it easily enough myself.” Effie paused. “Providing you remind me which door it is?”

The maid’s brow puckered. “Fourth from the right, miss.”

“Thank you.” Effie affected a look of relief as she entered the upstairs hall. “I thought I’d recognize it myself, but you know how it is in a house of this size. All the doors look alike.” She again smiled back at the maid. “I shouldn’t like to wander into his lordship’s room by mistake.”

The maid gave a weak smile in return. “No danger of that, miss. The master’s room is at the end of the hall.” She hovered at the top of the steps. “Are you certain you don’t need—”

“Never mind me,” Effie said. “Hadn’t you best make haste to Lady Fiona? She’d never forgive either of us if she was obliged to perform with a loose piece of trimming.”

Relief washed over the maid’s worried face. She bobbed a curtsy. “Thank you, miss,” she said gratefully, and turning, she dashed back down the steps with her sewing box clasped in front of her.

Effie waited until the maid was gone from sight before continuing down the hall. If Lord Compton’s private study was adjacent to his bedchamber, the door to that chamber was the obvious point of access. She headed for it with single-minded intent. It was a large door. One that rather put her in mind of the door to Bluebeard’s chamber.

And well it should.