He had the athletic body of a manual worker, lean, yet muscled. He certainly didn’t need the padding, sawdust, or male corsets used by many gentlemen to improve his figure. Instead of a cravat, he’d knotted a neckerchief casually around his strong throat, and Georgie tried not to notice the way the thin linen of his shirt clung to his chest.

She fidgeted in her seat as they rattled along the Strand and past Somerset House, the venue for the Royal Academy of Arts annual exhibition, then indicated the cardboard tube he’d placed on the seat. “The plans, I take it?”

“Yes. This Harrison of yours will need to take a look.”

They bowled down Fleet Street, then past Doctors’ Commons and along Thames Street, with the river on their right. As soon as they passed London Bridge, Georgie leaned forward to see one of her favorite sights on the whole trip: the vast open-air fish market of Billingsgate.

Even with the window closed, the overpowering odor of the place—a vile combination of roach and plaice, flounders and eels—permeated the carriage, and she wrinkled her nose.

The lively scene always fascinated her. She caught a glimpse of an auctioneer standing on a barrel next to the stalls that had been set out around the dock, reducing the sum he requested until one of the rowdy fishwives thrust up a hand to bid for a parcel of fish. A grey-haired old crone sat on a basket smoking a clay pipe, while another took a swig from a dark green bottle. A couple of cats wound hopefully around their legs.

The reassuringly solid walls of the Tower of London appeared next. The route was familiar to Georgie; she and Pieter took it at least once every month, but the sheer variety of sights it offered never failed to entertain.

The houses became more crushed together as they headed east. Many had upper stories that were wider than the ones below. They leaned so close, they almost touched, blocking out the light to the narrow alleys they created below. Churches squeezed in cheek by jowl with shops and taverns, and the streets teemed with sailors and merchants’ wives, coaches and horses, clergymen and whores. Georgie smiled as they passed a ragtag child driving a cart pulled by a rangy dog. The pair narrowly missed a liveried footman on an errand and a laundress with a basket of clothes balanced precariously on her head.

As they skirted the rough edges of Limehouse and Cheapside, she breathed a thankful prayer that she’d been born to a life of comfort instead of misery in such a squalid place.