Frances knelt in front of me and slid my boot from my left foot. I winced when she seized my stiff knee, but she started to knead the muscles, her hands warm and strong.
I leaned back and let her have her way with me.
“Do you know where Sarah is?” I asked, a bit breathily.
Frances smiled, showing crooked teeth. “You said you were her friend. Does that mean you fancy her?”
“I said I was a friend of thefamily. Her father is worried about her.”
“I ask, because she didn’t much like men. She told me she hated them.” Frances winked. “Not like me. I like a gentleman just fine.”
“Why did Sarah leave Ma Martin’s? Did she manage to run away?”
Frances continued to rub my knee, my muscles relaxing beneath her skilled touch. “She didn’t need to run away. Someone came in a carriage and took her away. A fine coach, it was. She’s got someone to look after her now.”
I saw my task grow impossible again. “Then you do not know where she is.”
“I never said that. She’s in Clark Street.”
I sat up quickly and sucked in a breath as pain shot through my knee. I put my hands over Frances’s, stilling her distracting massage.
“Do you know who this man was?” I asked. “Did you recognize the carriage? Had he come to Ma Martin’s before?”
“No,” Frances said, and I whispered, “Damn.”
Frances grinned. “Fooled you, didn’t I? It weren’t a man. It were a lady.”
I stared. “A lady?”
“A lady from Clark Street. She came back to fetch Sarah’s things and told Ma Martin to send the rest to Clark Street. I never heard where in Clark Street, though. Must be one of those good works people. The kind I hides from.” Frances winked. “Have I helped?”
“You have. You have helped very much. You’ve given me a place to start.”
“I meant about your leg.”
“That as well.” I flexed my knee. The ache had subsided, and the joint felt loose and warm.
“Good. Want me to rub something else?”
A few years ago, I would have smiled and wiled away the rest of the afternoon with this warm young woman in her cozy little room.
“I have a lady,” I said gently.
“And I have a man. But he knows what I am.”
No doubt he did. I dug into my pockets and emptied it of the coins I’d won from Robert Oswald the night before. I left myself a few shillings to pay hackney drivers and gave the rest to Frances.
Frances’s eyes widened at the money on her palm. “Well, ain’t you the generous one? And all I did was fondle your knee.”
I kissed her forehead. “You have made me ever so much better,” I said and left her.
***
Clark Street, not far from the heart of banking London, held a double row of respectable middleclass houses that curved away from where I stood.
I’d arrived in time to see the married gentlemen of the neighborhood—clerks, bankers, and barristers—return home to wives and children. I made careful note of their house numbers and dismissed these. I doubted any wife, no matter how charitable, would let a street girl into a house with her husband.
That left about fifteen houses on the crescent for me to try. I milled along, passing the time with peddlers and vendors, trying with my questions to narrow the number further still.
