Georgie scanned the rest of the dock and saw Alex and Jem huddled together a safe distance away, on the street near the coffee tavern. With a breathy prayer of thanks, she turned away from the confusion and grabbed the tiller. They still had work to do.

She steered them through the water gate—the wooden boards were slimy and green with algae as they slid past—and the river caught them in its flow.

Chapter 41.

Georgie bit her lip in concentration and maneuvered them into the center of the river, grateful there were so few other vessels around at this hour of the night. The muddy, earthy smell of the Thames surrounded them and she shuddered as rank, rotting things probably best left unidentified swirled past in the eddying current.

It was choppier out here. The hull rocked with the slap of waves on the side, and strange clanking, slurping noises echoed from belowdecks. The wind raised goose bumps on her arms, and she found she was shivering both from the chill and delayed reaction.

Benedict thrust his head down into the hull and came up frowning. “Looks like we’re taking on a lot of water. How far to Woolwich?”

“About six miles.”

“It’s going to be a close-run thing.”

They gained speed with the current. The warehouse fire was soon just a distant glow as they followed the curve of the river past the huge hulking shapes of warehouses and wharves. The moon provided just enough light to see.

As they slid around the sharpest bend, where the Thames doubled back on itself, the banks became more sparsely populated. Soon, they reached the near-uninhabited, marshy, windswept spit of land known as Blackwall Point, on the Isle of Dogs. Georgie shuddered as she caught sight of the gibbet—and the iron cage swinging eerily from its wooden gallows-like frame. The dark shape of a body slumped within the bars.

She’d seen this sight before, one summer when Father had taken her down the Thames all the way to Dartford and the sea. Any sailor entering London would pass this point, which made it the ideal spot to display a deterrent to any would-be pirates. For over four centuries, convicts had been hanged at Execution Dock in Wapping, their bodies coated in tar and then displayed on these gallows for the length of three tides before being cut down. Her eight-year-old self had shivered in delight at the gruesome story. Father had said it was a warning to always be honest in her business dealings.

Georgie gazed over the brackish pools, and her chest contracted painfully. The gibbet was a stark reminder of how close she’d come to losing the man she loved. He’d been shot, hadn’t he? He’d said it wasn’t serious, but what if the wound became infected? Men had died from less. Oh, God.

She should tell him how she felt.