The lad touched his forelock. “Done.” He scampered out into the street, and Georgie held her breath as he raced across the road and only narrowly avoided being trampled by a horse pulling a cart full of barrels. He rapped at the warehouse door and waited. When there was no response, he shrugged and jogged back across the road.

Wylde flipped a coin into his outstretched hand, and Georgie shot him a pleading look. “There’s obviously nobody there. Can’t we take a little look? Just a peek?”

He sighed. “Oh, all right.” He turned to the boy again. “What’s your name?”

“Mouse, guv.”

“All right, Mouse. Another shilling if you’ll stand watch and whistle if anyone comes.”

“Done.” The boy nodded eagerly. “I can whistle good.”

Wylde bypassed the front door of the warehouse and instead tugged her into the narrow alleyway that separated it from its grimy neighbor. A short flight of steps led down to the river at the far end, and Georgie put her hand over her nose to mask the fetid stench coming from the piles of refuse heaped amid the rusty shipbuilding materials that had been abandoned on either side. Thank goodness she’d worn an ugly dress. She’d burn it after this.

Wylde dragged a wooden crate under one of the warehouse’s dirty windows and climbed up. She was about to tell him he had little hope of seeing anything through such filthy glass when he produced a pocketknife and flicked open the casement with a practiced turn of the wrist. With a grin, he turned and offered her his hand.

“Ladies first.”

She sent him a scornful, doubtful glance. “You want me to climb through the window?”

“This was your idea, remember? If you want to get back in the carriage—”

That did it. Georgie grasped his wrist and let him haul her up. She gasped when he caught her around the waist and lifted her effortlessly onto the sill, then gathered her skirts, swiveled around, and dropped into the empty building. Wylde followed close behind.

She brushed the cobwebs off her skirt as her eyes became accustomed to the gloom. Dim light filtered down from a series of grimy skylights in the roof, enough to see the iron rails that ran along the floor to help launch a ship through the double doors at the far end, and the workbenches laden with woodworking tools. In the center of the space stood the unmistakable shape of the vessel she’d seen on paper.

Georgie let out an awed breath. “That’s it! Fulton’s ship. Look.”

She ran her hand along the rough planks of the ship’s side. Externally, at least, it looked like any other boat, with a wooden mast and spar, rudder, and anchor dangling from a chain. The familiar smell of fresh-cut wood and tar—used to waterproof the planks—filled her lungs.