Free Written on Your Skin by Meredith Duran Page A

without. The plebs are no doubt ripping apart my coach.” He exited, the smell of liquor trailing after him.
    As the door closed, Fretgoose spoke. “Sir.” He was standing at the foot of the bed, his hands abnormally empty of sartorial suggestions. “Another letter has come from Mr. Ridland.”
    Phin was halfway to rising. He sat down again, exhaling through his nose.
    “I would n-not have informed you of it, but his man emphasized the absolute urgency of the correspondence.”
    Ridland lived close by. Down the street, catty-corner across Hyde Park, ten minutes by foot at most. Those times when Phin entered a room and found him in it, Ridland left directly. Last month, the man had walked out of a tea held for the prime minister. He was a right bastard, but he knew how fragile his neck looked at close quarters.
    If he was writing so insistently, there was a reason for it.
    “I-I do hope I have not offended.” Fretgoose’s bulbous nose had begun to redden. “Shall I burn it also?”
    Perhaps Ridland had heard tell of his meetings with the secretaries of the Colonial and India Offices. He might be writing to plead his case. What sweet irony that would be. The possibility should tantalize him, Phin thought. He could frame such a letter and raise a toast to it nightly.
    He held out his hand. The note was carefully sealed. Expensive paper. He merited the best stuff now, soft as a baby’s cheek, not that scrap Ridland used to send him in the field. Directives scrawled on brown wrapping paper, the sort one might use to carry fish home from the market. So cheaply your life tallies: that had been the other, implied meaning of those messages.
    He’d had no choice but to read them. Initially, his own oath of service had bound him to obey. Gradually, with his unfortunate peers as examples, he’d learned the more urgent, unstated cause for compliance: Ridland had no scruples in disciplining defectors. Had Phin chosen to disappear, a price would have been extracted from others: casual acquaintances, old comrades, perhaps even an elderly man who fancied himself Ridland’s friend and Phin’s mentor.
    It had occurred to Phin that a single well-aimed bullet would solve these worries. But the vast web that Ridland spun ultimately supported a great many lives, some more innocent than others. If the bastard died, a great many people would suffer for it.
    For a decade, then, Phin had known no choice. Ridland’s notes must be opened. They must be heeded.
    No longer, though. The title nullified all of Ridland’s advantages. A common foot soldier was easily ignored, but each time an earl murmured words of concern into governmental ears, another strand broke in Ridland’s web. And Phin had been murmuring a great deal recently.
    Yes, he thought, and felt his lips turn in a smile. If Ridland was writing, there must be a grave reason for it.
    His wrist snapped. The letter spun away, smacking into the mantel and landing conveniently by the fire basket. “Burn it,” he said calmly. He came to his feet and started for the newspaper.
    The valet darted forward, reaching for the paper. “Allow me, my lord!”
    “No.”
    Fretgoose ducked his head and crept away.
    For God’s sake. “But thank you,” Phin added, then regretted that, too, for in the man’s hurry to turn back and bow, he managed to slam his shoulder into the half-open door of the wardrobe.
    Fretgoose pretended not to feel the pain. Phin pretended not to notice the collision, scanning the headlines as the valet picked out his clothes. Not much happening in the world. More arrests made in the bomb plot foiled at Birkenhead. There was certainly a more interesting story behind that, but as a member of the public, he would never know it, nor did he want to. Still, the official version made him snort; it was bland as toast.
    He turned to the next page, dominated by a very splashy advertisement for hair tonic. Special American Formula: New Technology. Five Shillings for Spectacular