Free Unlaced Corset by Michael Meadows

didn't make it any easier to ignore.
    His flat wasn't far, and then he could give her the tour and be off.
    He pushed the door open and gestured that she should go in first. She stepped in and set her bag down.
    It was a shabby room. He'd liked it for his purposes, but now he was acutely aware of the cheapness of it. He felt as if Mary was slowly cataloging every thing that she could find wrong, and marking it off as a criticism of him. He could feel it burning hot in his throat.
    "It's not much, but it's home," he said in a vague defense that Mary waved away.
    "Nonsense," she said. "For a single gentleman, it's perfectly nice."
    "Well," he said, reluctant to argue with her, "the bedroom is through there. The sheets should be in the closet, I'll make the bed before night, don't you worry."
    He closed the bedroom door and walked back out into the front room. "Through there's the kitchen, the water closet's right there…"
    He hooked his thumbs in his pockets and tried not to feel too bad about the place, but it was a struggle to maintain his mood. The place felt odd, and he wanted little more than to get out. When she didn't dismiss him, he cleared his throat.
    "I'll, ah…let you get comfortable, and I'll be back around time for supper to tell you what I could find, if that's alright with you, Miss—"
    "Call me Mary, I said." She sounded annoyed, and he swallowed his response.
    "Of course, I'm sorry. Mary."
    He pushed his door open and stepped out into the open air. He'd never wanted to be gone so badly. The air in the room felt heavy. Like he'd never been there before in his life. He looked up at the sky.
    London generally had poor weather, and today was no exception, but today was particularly oppressive. But he had work to do.
    The Law Office of Roy Stump was in Soho, and it had always struck James as odd that a Baron would have gone there. He dismissed it right away, and repeatedly. As long as the job would pay, there wasn't any reason to question anyone's motives, but it had rankled at his mind badly. What on earth could have been the motive?
    He stopped just down the street and dusted his pants off, straightened his jacket. He was tired from all the walking, but it had done his mind a world of good to have an excuse to be away from his flat. Away from Mary, and the curvy hips that swayed when she walked.
    He almost knocked on the door before he saw the sign:
    Closed. Mr. Stump is on vacation in Europe and cannot be reached.
    It struck him as odd, immediately. What struck him as more odd was that he'd been here less than a week ago, going over last-minute details of his work in Dover, and he'd made no mention of any plans to leave the country. It wasn't as big a deal as going to, say, America, but a lengthy trip wasn't something to be undertaken lightly.
    He frowned. That meant that he'd had to have left within the last week, at the very outside.
    He shaded his eyes and looked in through the window. There were the desks in the office that he remembered. They had papers on them, seemingly thrown at random when whoever had sat at the desk had decided they weren't worth keeping.
    Whatever had happened here, James thought, they had left in a hurry afterward. There was an eerie feeling of stillness and calm in the sight. It was obvious that whatever the case, there had been a great deal of movement here, of energy. They hadn't bothered to straighten up; in fact, the mess inside was worse than he'd seen it in several visits to the office.
    But all of it was gone, now, and all he saw were shades and fragments of memories long-since passed.
    James nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a voice near his ear. "Can I help you?"
    He gasped and turned on his heel. A pleasant-looking man past middle age was standing behind him on the sidewalk, smiling faintly.
    "Yes, I suppose so…My name is Poole, I was contracted by Mr. Stump, and now I can't seem to get in touch with him, can you shed some light on the situation?" He pulled