Written on Your Skin (8 page)

Sanburne lifted a brow and glanced past him. Abruptly he became aware of other, more familiar sounds, only now resuming: the faint scrape of the fire iron, the rustle of paper. His valet and a chambermaid were bearing witness to this idiocy. More proof, if they needed it, that the new earl was a madman.

He dropped his hand and stepped back. The embarrassment felt reflexive, not even sharp enough to shorten his breath. Five months since his return, and he was growing near to resigned. Drugs did not dull this reflex. His logic could not rule it. He had no enemies in this city, save Ridland. But old habits did not die, and the slightest unfamiliar noise continued to wake him.

Sanburne was studying him with a frown. “Coffee? And some light.” With a flourish of his gloved hand, he yanked open the drapes.

The weak light of a murky London morning pricked Phin’s eyes as he sat down on the edge of the bed. Chimneys smoked in the early chill, and a stray bird wheeled against the gray clouds. He’d slept through the night. That was something, at least. “What time is it?”

Sanburne cocked his head. “Too late? Or too early, maybe.” His tawny hair was bare, disheveled in a manner evoking scuffles in which hats got knocked away. From the smell of him, he’d breakfasted on alcohol, although the rumpled look of his jacket suggested he’d never gone to bed. “Eight o’clock,” he decided. “Somewhere thereabouts. How long does that make for you?”

“Five hours.” Almost.

Sanburne made a mocking tsk. He could not appreciate the magnitude of this achievement; he found the project itself misguided. Sleep as little or long as you like, he’d advised last week. The world will bend to suit you now. And to be fair, he was right; letter after letter proved as much. The solicitor would visit at whichever hour suited Phin best, dawn till midnight or shortly thereafter. The estate managers, the complaining tenants, the ambitious young men in search of a mentor, God help them—to a man, they assured him it would be a privilege to be answered at his leisure.

At first, after so many years of taking orders, Phin had found these reassurances startling. He had saved the letters simply to reread them, to wonder if this could be true. He’d never tested it, though. He replied immediately, and held his meetings during the daylight; that was when normal men did business, and if there was some obscure point to delaying, or to demanding special accommodations, he’d missed it.

It seemed possible he was missing a great deal. Sanburne seemed to think so; his regard, more and more of late, suggested that Phin was an object of deep concern. It grew irritating. “Why are you here?” he asked curtly.

“You need a holiday.”

The rest of his life was a bloody holiday now. “You have an idea, I take it.”

Sanburne laughed. “The whole city has an idea. What, don’t you remember? Much ado at Epsom Downs, old fellow! Couldn’t let you sleep through it. Carriage is waiting at the curb. Look lively,” he added, with a jerk of his chin in the direction over Phin’s shoulder.

Fretgoose, the absurdly named valet—his valet now (“If you wish it, sir”), a rotund, graying inheritance from his cousin, and his uncle before him—crept forward to proffer a robe. Phin stood and stuck out his arms, feeling, as always, faintly ridiculous to be dressed like a child’s doll. “Who’s aboard?”

Sanburne reached into his jacket, producing a flask. “The usuals. Dalton, Tilney, Muir. Elizabeth threatens to join, no doubt with Nello in tow, so we’re working on a plan of concealment. I said your counsel would come in handy.”

This was Sanburne’s new tactic: to allude, regularly, to whatever he imagined Phin’s expertise to be, no doubt by way of inviting a conversation on the matter. It would be a simple thing to put his curiosity to rest. I stole things. I killed people. And I drew a few maps. But it had occurred to Phin that the viscount was too bored to receive these tidings with the proper revulsion. He might see them as novel options for keeping himself occupied. “I thank you for your faith,” Phin said.

Sanburne smiled back, all cheerful transparency. “You’ll come, then.”

He shrugged. “I had a meeting scheduled with someone at Stanfords. Great batch of maps coming up for sale in Rome.”

“Good God, don’t you own enough of them already? It’s the Derby, Phin! If the whole city does not exit to Epsom Downs by noon, a calamity befalls the town. I believe Nostradamus wrote of it once.”

Phin sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. He’d finally gotten a handle on the business of holding a title—of managing estates and finances, and of occupying a chair in a thoroughly useless section of Parliament, where fat-cheeked men debated the occupation of countries they would never visit and proposed wars so readily it seemed the blood of strangers flowed more cheaply than water.

The social program still eluded him, though. He was expected to make appearances, he understood that much. To find a wife, to lend his name to a few charitable committees. It seemed easy enough. All the rules had been laid out plainly; he need only follow them. But he hesitated. Why, he could not say. He wasn’t going to make a mess of it; he was nothing like his father. And if he were, why then, he would only be like Sanburne, whom London society seemed to adore.

The thought struck a nerve. He dropped his hand to consider the man. They had been very close as schoolboys, bound by that peculiar camaraderie only possible between opposites. Sanburne had enjoyed getting into scrapes; Phin found a strange satisfaction in fixing them. Sanburne spent money like water, and watching him waste it on empty pleasures made Phin feel better about not having any to spend. It had been Sanburne’s family with whom he holidayed during university. We are brothers in every way that matters, Sanburne used to say. The rings beneath his eyes spoke of dissipation, but to liken him to Stephen Granville felt…disloyal. Dishonorable.

Sanburne, slouching loose-limbed against the wall, mistook his examination for hesitance. “It’s all in good fun,” he said.

“All right.” He wanted an opportunity, perhaps, to disprove the aptness of the comparison before it could take root in his brain.

“Brilliant.” The viscount pocketed his flask. “I predict a reprise of the Cremorne glory. You made a tidy sum that year.”

On money Sanburne had lent him. He’d been three sheets to the wind, to decide to gamble. But back then he’d fancied himself in training for the army, where real men drank just as hard as his father, yet still managed to wake up at dawn to pursue noble ends. It seemed very distant now. If Sanburne expected a reprise, he was bound for disappointment. “Give me a quarter hour.”

Sanburne sketched a mocking bow. “I’ll wait 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 Shine. Leave it to the Americans to demand a crown for a bit of soap. He glanced to the next sheet.

Everything in him went still.

“…Sir?”

It had only been a matter of time. There was nothing to be surprised about. And in fact, he wasn’t surprised. He simply felt—suspended. Like a figure in a flipbook, halted by a forceful thumb. He forced his attention upward. “Yes,” he said.

Fretgoose held up a jacket. “Will this serve, sir?”

He nodded once, absently, and then, gathering his thoughts, said, “Tell Gorman to cancel my appointments for tomorrow.” He would need to pay his respects to the bereaved.

Phin set out for Eton at nine the next morning. It was a short journey by train, but he chose to travel by carriage. They had improved the roads since last he’d traveled them. It did not take as long as he’d calculated. When the coach pulled up outside the modest cottage, it wasn’t yet noon.

He remained in the vehicle, studying the house. It looked no different from what he remembered. The wooden gate had a fresh coat of white paint, and the rosebushes flanking the path seemed tamer. Otherwise, he might have been seventeen. The red gingham curtains in the front parlor stood open. Deliberately, he called to mind the arguments these curtains had occasioned. Mr. Sheldrake liked a great deal of light—any mapmaker would. Mrs. Sheldrake had protested; the sunshine bleached the upholstery, she complained. The war over the curtains had become an ongoing joke, and he should smile at the memory.

He forced himself to smile.

A maid came trotting by with a basket on her arm. As she passed, she craned to peer into his window. Well. A large, glossy coach bearing a coat of arms did tend to draw attention. He should have taken a brougham. But he was going to pay his respects to Sheldrake. If he had to do it as the man he’d become, then he would present himself in every aspect. Would it have mattered to Sheldrake that he’d come into the title? He doubted it. But it would have been a far more cheering piece of news than all the others Phin might have shared.

He stepped out of the coach and waved off the footman who had been riding on the box seat and now wanted so very desperately to open the gate for him. God forbid a nob should break a fingernail working a latch. There was a trick to unfastening it so as not to make any noise; his fingers remembered it before his mind did, and the gate swung open soundlessly before him. He saw his feet moving along the path. The number of steps to the door, the door itself, the whole house seemed so small. A surreal feeling took hold of him. He’d been at his full height during his last visit, hadn’t he? It made no sense that everything should look so much smaller.

The door opened almost instantly at his knock. Expecting to see the maid, Alys, Phin instead found himself staring into the face of Laura Sheldrake. Gone, the rounded cheeks of girlhood; in the scrappy tomboy’s place stood a pretty woman in her mid-twenties, her auburn hair rosy in the light. He had dreamed, once upon a time, of marrying her.