Unraveled by Courtney Milan Read Free Book Online Page A

she could make the landing instead of breaking her back.
    “Very well, then,” she said. Her voice didn’t quiver. She refused to show the fear that welled up inside of her. “Tell me what I must do.”

Chapter Four
    “W HAT IN BLAZES IS this thing?” The voice, haughty and arrogant, came out of the records room.
    Smite paused in the hall of the Council House. Beside him, Ghost skittered to a halt.
    He should just walk on. He didn’t need to intervene; in fact, the men who worked here were quite adept at explaining the necessary procedures to difficult fellows.
    But he recognized that voice—that spoiled drawl, from a man who’d never worked a day in his life. A regular plague, he was.
    Paper rustled in the room beyond the open doors, and the voice of the harried clerk sounded. “My good man, I—”
    “My good man?” the voice demanded. “Are visitors to this city always addressed in so cavalier a fashion?”
    Some things never changed. The man Smite heard was still as annoyingly determined on receiving his due as ever, no matter that the last years had changed his fortune entirely.
    A pause. “Sir,” he heard the clerk continue in a more placating tone of voice, “I should think the summons was perfectly clear. You are to appear on Tuesday next, at one of the clock, before—”
    “Yes, but I don’t wish to make a public appearance. What must I do to avoid that?”
    Smite sighed, and stepped through the door. The clerk saw him and let out a deep breath in relief. The visitor towered over the other man, and brandished a familiar paper: a printed form, the blank spaces filled in with handwriting. Smite had seen a hundred like it in the course of his work.
    “It goes away like most legal paperwork,” Smite heard himself say. “By proper attention to the rule of law. You weren’t trying to browbeat the clerk to escape a summons, were you?”
    The man drew himself up and turned. Even knowing beforehand who the fellow was, it still felt like a punch to the gut when Smite looked him in the eyes. Smite knew Richard Dalrymple all too well, although he wished he could forget him.
    The feeling, obviously, was mutual. Dalrymple froze. His mouth opened once, and then shut. He drew himself up very carefully.
    “Turner,” he said. “I—uh—this was not how I intended us to meet. You see, I just arrived last night, and I’ve been having the most dreadful difficulties.”
    “I know you used to have problems with Latin,” Smite said with feigned carelessness, “but this is written in English.” He reached out and took the paper from Dalrymple’s fingers.
    “I understand perfectly what it says.” Dalrymple pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “I don’t understand why I received it.”
    “Let me explain.” Smite scanned the paper. “You, the said Richard Dalrymple, et cetera et cetera, did leave a team and carriage stationed in the street for two hours—two hours, Dalrymple, really?”
    “I told you I’ve been having difficulties,” the man replied. “The solicitor I used before seems to have disappeared entirely. Besides, I had no idea the team was in the street, my tiger having abandoned them to, um, other entertainments the instant he arrived in the city.”
    “You admit it was in the street.”
    “Yes, but I’m telling you, it wasn’t my fault.”
    “You left your carriage blocking the way, contrary to the statute passed in the third year of the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, entitled—”
    Dalrymple snatched the paper from Smite’s hand. “I can read, damn it.” He scrubbed his hand through his hair. “Must you always be so condescending? I didn’t come here to argue with you.”
    “Well.” Smite snorted. “That’s new.”
    Dalrymple grimaced, but ignored that gibe. “We’ll get to that in just a bit. It says I’m supposed to appear before Her Majesty’s Justices of the Peace.”
    “Yes.”
    “You’re one of them. You know how the public has been