Page 89 of Rules for Ruin

Let Compton underestimate her at his peril.

“My daughter tells me you read Latin,” he said, passing her the book.

Effie managed a small, self-effacing smile. “Only a very little, my lord.”

He studied her face. “I wasn’t aware French finishing schools were in the habit of teaching Latin to their students. Not even a very little of it.”

“I have always been precocious when it comes to learning. Some of my teachers were disposed to encourage me.”

“And your parents approved?” His expression transformed into a sly mockery of paternal concern. “But you are without parents, I recall.”

Effie cradled the book in her hands. She was navigating a treacherous path. If she took a step wrong, the ground would give way beneath her feet. There would be no way of recovering it. She would be lost.

This was why, from the beginning, it had been important not to tell outright lies. A successful fabrication was always daringly close to the truth.

“They have been gone since I was a small child,” she said. “I was raised by my guardian.”

“A relation?”

“No, but she knew my mother, and was disposed to act in my interests.”

“She?” His brows lifted. He had presumed her guardian to be a man.

“Quite,” Effie said. “She saw I was brought up in accordance with my prospects.”

His smile thinned to hear his own words quoted back at him. “What female can ask for better?” He pulled out a chair at an inlaid drum table nearby. “Miss Flite?”

Effie sat down, permitting him to push in her chair. He stood at her back for a moment, uncomfortably close. She felt his hot breath, and smelled his sandalwood cologne. Her pulse skittered with anxiety as he took the chair beside her.

She focused on the book. Opening the cover, she found the first illumination—a man, a snake, a raven, and a lion. It was the same illumination that had graced the first page of the volume she’d perused the night of the musicale, only this one was far more vivid. The snake had been tinted in green, the lion in saffron yellow, and the raven was solid black.

She traced them with her fingertip. “Miss Compton said these books had been in your family for generations. They must be very precious to you.”

“They are.” Lord Compton brought his fingers to rest on the image of the snake, mere inches from her own. “I prize the rare and beautiful. When the two meet, you will not find a more diligent and appreciative custodian than I.”

Effie moistened her lips. Her mouth was suddenly dry. “What of the content of the book itself?” she inquired with a creditable degree of composure. “Do you not care what lies within the pages?”

“The substance of it is negligible. One might read a translation of Aristotle’s text on zoology anywhere these days.” His finger drew closer to hers on the page. “No, my dear. The value of this collection lies in its rarity. Its price cannot be measured.”

She gave him a frowning look. “But…you have read it?”

His lips flattened. “For the most part.”

Effie began to understand. She thought of his house, and all the vast extravagances within it, from the Japanese drawing room and the Italian marble floors, to the imported crystal chandeliers, the towering oil paintings, and the quality of the wine served at his table. She had long recognized that Compton enjoyed luxury, but she realized something else now.

For all his lofty reputation as a gentleman of wisdom, Compton was only a dilettante. A man who dabbled at refinement, unwilling to put in the actual work of reading a book or learning a language. A man who, when given the choice between the difficult path or the easy one, would always choose the latter. It was why he hadn’t set out to make his own fortune, preferring instead to steal one from Miss Corvus.

Effie hadn’t thought she could like him any less. But to have books such as these, and to never read them? It was practically criminal.

She slowly turned the next page, and then another. The same faint fragrance stirred from within the leaves that she’d caught when she’d looked at the previous volume. Ash, smoke, and leather, coupled with flowery sweetness and decay. The oddly familiar scent tickled at the back of her mind. She knew this smell. Not the decay, but something else…

The more pages she turned, the deeper it lured her into its flowery complexity.

“Are you searching for a particular passage, Miss Flite?”

Effie started. She hadn’t intended to let the silence stretch so long between them. And all the while he’d been watching her, weighing her expression and measuring her responses. “I only read a little Latin, as I said,” she answered with a rueful smile. “I have just realized this volume is the one about human animals.”

“You don’t care for human biology?”