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She stood on the sidewalk, facing the window, motioning
to Sophy to join her outside.
     
     

CHAPTER 4
     
     
    Hammersmith was a village of old
clergymen and drunkards, churches and taverns, and sometimes it was
difficult to tell one from the other. Situated near the river to
the west of London, the dark lanes of the sleepy village had been
gradually swallowed up by the expanding reaches of city. What had
once been a quiet country village was now a dank and sullen huddle
of ramshackle dwellings, warehouses, and brothels.
    Edward was told the Broken Oar Tavern
was a decrepit place, sitting on the navigable stream that opened
directly onto the broad Thames. The ancient inn attached to it had,
for a decade at least, been used by sailors drinking up their pay
between voyages. The girl who came to his Berkeley Square house
late in the afternoon had mentioned that she’d heard talk of a
young midshipman who’d taken a room there with his woman for almost
two months. Though the sailor came and went regularly, after the
first day no one ever saw his girl. There were rumors of her being
“quality.”
    It was well after dark when Edward
arrived at the tavern. Taking a quick glance, he thought the
descriptions he’d heard earlier were far too generous. There
appeared to be not a straight line or a sound piece of timber in
the structure.
    Edward ducked his head and entered a
taproom thick with smoke. The smell of stale urine and old ale vied
with tobacco for dominance. A lamp hung on a post by a bar and a
small fire flickered on a large hearth, but the dark corners hid
the faces and the transgressions of those wiling away their hours.
Between him and the bar, two dozen faces turned and measured his
worth, including several painted women of indeterminate age who sat
on laps or hung on the arms of other customers.
    A short man peering from the casks and
bottles lining the wooden surface of the bar nodded to him. “First
time ’ere, sir, I reckon. So what can I be gettin’ for
ye?”
    “I’m told you let out rooms,” Edward
said over a shriek of drunken laughter.
    The barman grinned knowingly and
jerked his head toward the end of the bar. There, the proprietor
was waiting and opened a half-door into a small, stale-smelling
parlor beyond. No one occupied it, but the noise of the tavern
filled the room.
    “Your office,” Edward commented,
looking at the empty fireplace on the far wall and the table and
two chairs in the center of the room.
    The proprietor touched his nose with a
crooked forefinger and moved around the table.
    “Indeed, sir.” He settled into a chair
and motioned Edward into the other.
    As Edward sat, he turned his chair
slightly. He had no desire to sit with his back to the door,
knowing that more than one man had gone into a tavern like this,
only to wake up on some outbound Indiaman with a lump on his head
the size of Gibraltar.
    “Now,” the proprietor continued. “What
would ye be wishing for as far as the room . . . time wise . . .
and what kind of trinket ye like to be having delivered to ye fer
yer pleasure?”
    “Trinket?”
    “Indeed, sir.”
    “Do you let rooms without a
trinket?”
    “I would be doing that, sir, if ’twas
to be made worthwhile fer me.” The man’s face took on a pained
expression. “And if I had any of ’em sitting empty. But I am a poor
citizen, trying to keep the wolves from the door, as ’twere,
sir.”
    “Of course.”
    “But a . . . well, trinketless room
brings me two pence a night, if I can let it out. Deliver a woman
to the door, though, and I’d be making five shillings.”
    “Five shillings?”
    “Well, four shillings for ye, sir . .
. depending.”
    “Depending?”
    “Aye, depending on the value of the
trinket ye’d be wanting.”
    Edward stared across the table,
calculating that there was no way Amelia would have had the money
to stay here for all this time.
    “And what kind of girl is worth the
five shillings?”
    “Glad ye ask, sir. Indeed, I