Written on Your Skin by Meredith Duran Page A

They might have been junk-bottle glass, for all it mattered. So long as the windows would not open and the door locked from the outside, she could not breathe easily.
    Mr. Ridland was apologetic. He did not like to inconvenience her. The first night, he reminded her that the British authorities were making every effort to find her mother. The second night, he assured her that the American ambassador had been made aware of her detainment, and considered it an unfortunate, temporary necessity. “And lest you have forgotten,” he reminded her on the third, “I am not a stranger to you. We met in Hong Kong once, four or five years ago.”
    He spoke as though that should reassure her. But for the first time since Mama had disappeared, panic threatened to break her composure. If Ridland had been in Hong Kong, she couldn’t trust him to shine her shoes, much less find her mother. The effort to charm him suddenly seemed futile.
    After he left, she realized she’d been clutching the locket at her throat. Mama’s locket. Mama had taken it off on the morning of her disappearance; it had clashed, she’d announced, with her new pewter gown.
    Irritated to be so transparent, Mina stalked over to the window, snapping apart the curtains. On the eave opposite, a gray cat lay across the gutter. She tapped at the glass, but he showed no interest in her. After a minute, he bounded out of sight.
    She stared out at the huddled rooftops. The clouds pressed so close atop the buildings that it seemed even the air lacked room to wander. Only a week ago, dancing through mirrored ballrooms and flirting with handsome men, she’d professed herself enamored of London, and Mama had laughed in happy astonishment. Why, Mina! I never thought I would see the day when you had a kind word for anything English.
    In fact, it was her mother’s joy that made Mina feel so generous toward the city. After Hong Kong, it had taken Mama two years to find the courage to reenter New York society. Months more to recover her old confidence. Thus to watch her move so boldly through her oldest Waterloo, as fearless and self-assured as though Collins had never existed, seemed like a miracle. You are completely healed now, Mina had thought. For the triumphant thrill that revelation had afforded her, she would have endured those last days in Hong Kong a hundred times—much less agreed to love London.
    Now, though, the sight of the city seemed to smother her. So many people in this dark sprawl, but only two who would care if she never emerged from these rooms. And if Mama was no longer in the city—well, then, that left only Tarbury. And Mina paid for his devotion; she would not delude herself.
    She sighed. Really, from one perspective, it didn’t matter where in the world she was—apart from Jane, Mama was all she had. Such were the consequences of her independence; they had never troubled her before.
    But then, she had never viewed them from this particular window.
    She shut the curtains and turned back to the writing desk. Ridland’s admission left her no choice. Her hopes now came down to trickery, and a very slim chance that a stranger remembered his debt to her. Whether he would be better than Ridland, she could not know. But it seemed likelier than not, and so her pen began to move.
    Dear Jane,
    I did receive your letter. Forgive the tardiness of my reply, and the shock I must deliver to you. I pray you, sit before continuing to read.
    I will not be returning to New York as planned. In short, Mama has gone missing, and it seems probable that the artist of her disappearance is Gerard Collins.
    I can only give you a brief account, for much remains unclear to me. Suffice it to say that on the eve of our planned return to New York, I came back from a meeting with the gentlemen at Whyllson’s to find our rooms in disarray, Mama gone without a trace. You can imagine my panic. The concierge summoned the police. Along with them arrived Mr. Joseph Ridland, a