“Breeches will be fine. And a jacket. Something rough and inconspicuous. Oh, and a cap, to disguise my hair. I need to look like a powder monkey or a chimney sweep.”

“And what exactly will you be doing, dressed up like that?”

“Helping deliver an important cargo to the navy shipyards in Woolwich.”

Pieter grunted, but went to do her bidding and returned a few minutes later with a bundle of clothes. “Here you go. What time do you need to be at Ore Street?”

Georgie turned her mind to the task at hand. “Since Woolwich is downstream from Limehouse, we’ll need an outgoing tide to draw the vessel along. Tonight’s high tide is just after midnight, so we’ll have to wait until then. I’ve arranged to meet Benedict at eleven.”

“I’ll have the carriage ready at ten thirty, then. What have you told your mother?”

“She and Juliet are attending the opera. I’ve said I hate Don Giovanni and I’ll see them in the morning.”

Pieter nodded. “So, you’ll be sailing a boat, eh? Remember what I taught you. The Thames is a completely different kettle of fish to that pond you have back home. Stay away from the mud banks and watch out for the currents. At low tide, the water’s only around three to four feet deep, but high tide is twenty-two feet or so.”

“I’ll be careful, I promise.”

Along with his note, Benedict had sent her the tube of rolled plans, and she’d studied them again just in case she needed to know how to operate the strange vessel. She eventually decided there would be no need to submerge it fully; they only needed to sail down the river, after all, which could be achieved by steering with the rudder and using the conventional sail and the power of the outgoing tide to propel them.

As darkness fell, excitement coiled in her belly. The breeches fitted snugly over her hips—clearly meant for someone without feminine curves. She donned the clean shirt and shapeless jacket Pieter had provided, then tied her hair in a pigtail like a sailor and stuffed it under the squashy cap. She tied a red spotted handkerchief around her neck as a jaunty final flourish. A glance in the mirror confirmed she looked a perfect urchin, and she practiced hunching her shoulders forward to hide the telltale lumps of her breasts.

Pieter smiled when she met him in the stables and cuffed her playfully on the shoulder. She’d seen him do the same thing to the cabin boys and younger crew members onboard ship; it was the highest form of masculine affection.

“All right, Georgie Porgie,” he said, referencing the nursery rhyme he’d often hummed to her as a child. “Let’s go. And no kissing the boys to make them cry, you hear me?”