He barreled straight for her before she could finish, knocking the breath out of her lungs. His arms came around her midsection in a crushing bear hug, lifting her straight off the ground. “Demented doxy,” he growled. “I’ll carry you back if I have to.”

Effie struggled against him, pummeling him with her fists and kicking him in the legs with her booted feet. She couldn’t get to his eyes. His head was bent against her shoulder, protecting his face, and he had no hair she could pull to force him to raise it again.

She attempted to knee him in the nether regions, but her skirts were in the way, and he was holding her too close for her to do any appreciable damage. She vaguely registered that the book was still attached to the inside of her crinoline. Perhaps he could even feel it there, pressed as they were front to front. If he could, he gave no sign of it. He was too focused on subduing her and returning her to Grosvenor Square.

Scrunching his face against her repeated blows, he conveyed her down the alleyway. It would be the work of a moment to carry her back to Compton’s house. Once inside, Effie would be a prisoner, left at the mercy of the constable or of Lord Compton himself. There would be no escape.

She must free herself now or never.

With leverage no longer in her favor, she had but one option left. Reaching back, she tore one of her dragonfly pins from her plaited coiffure. She hesitated but an instant. She didn’t like to be brutal, but…

She had given the man multiple chances to desist.

Raising the hairpin, she stabbed it straight into his ear.

Parker emitted an animallike howl of pain. He immediately released her. Effie fell to the ground in a bruising heap as the butler staggered past. His cries were interspersed with foul words, calling her every vile name under the sun, as his hand reached uselessly for the protruding pin.

She scrambled up, breathless. The full import of what she’d just done struck her with a sickening clarity. Catching her skirts in her hands, Effie ran.

30

Effie held Franc tightly in her arms, her face buried in the soft black curls of his coat. She hadn’t stopped trembling since she’d returned to Brook Street ten minutes ago, hatless and disheveled, missing one of her dragonfly hairpins.

It hadn’t prevented her from doing what must be done.

Before withdrawing to her room, she’d first taken pains to hide the book. She’d put it in the Belwoods’ library, wedged behind a high shelf of leather-bound tomes on the history of the Roman Empire. It would have to be wrapped in brown paper and posted to the Academy. Effie must do it herself. She couldn’t trust the errand to one of the Belwoods’ footmen.