Chapter One
August 1834
London, England
Four years later
Some eight miles outside London, rising from the banks of the River Thames,Greenwichis a sprawling, leafy antidote to the crush of the city.
This former royal retreat is the first glimpse by which seaborne travelers view London, but landlocked visitors may explore it in person.
The royal palaces, now recommissioned for use by the Royal Navy, are open to the public and home to hundreds of maritime paintings. The so-called “Painted Hall” dazzles visitors with a floor-to-ceiling mural of ocean squalls, sea serpents, and nude sailors in repose.
Admission 1d. Royal Palaces closed Tuesdays and Sundays.
—fromA Noble Guide to Londonby Sabine Noble
Sabine Noble reread her last line and contemplated the prudence of “nude sailors in repose.”
Too provocative?
Potentially, but she’d counted no fewer than thirty-five naked seamen in the overwrought mural, far too many not to mention. Sabine’s travel guides had become best-sellers due in no small part to her plain speaking, not to mention her instinct for attractions that would stand out to rural visitors, in particular. Naked sailors fell well within this category.
Sabine left the phrase in and roughed out the sketch that would become the map that accompanied her description of Greenwich. The descriptions amused Sabine, but her true passion was the maps. Part illustration, part functional guide, Sabine filled eachNoble Guide to Londonwith eye-popping cartography. Not simply maps, but colorful works of art that told a story about each of London’s many boroughs and neighborhoods.
“I think we have it, Bridget,” Sabine said to the dog resting at her feet. “Measure twice, sketch until it leaps from the page.”
The dog, a patchy, one-eared mongrel with a perpetually bared incisor, scrambled to her feet and stabbed her nose to the air, searching for threat. Few things triggered the dog’s vigilance like the wordsI think we have it.
I think we have itmeant the boring, civilized portion of their day was over, and the excitement would, at long last, commence. Little of interest happened while they surveyed serene parks and hushed museums, but what came after could be very exciting, indeed.
Packing away her drafting kit, Sabine turned her back on the stately order of Greenwich and squinted at the River Thames. Downstream, not a quarter mile away, bobbed the hulking, three-deck warship known as theDreadnought. The boat had been decommissioned in 1831 and anchored in Greenwich to serve as England’s floating maritime hospital. The ship took in gravely ill English seamen who had made their way to home to recover (or die) on its bed-lined decks.
Sabine had been mindful not to mention theDreadnoughtin theNoble Guide’sentry on Greenwich. Famous warship or not, a hospital was no draw for holiday seekers. Visitors to theDreadnoughtcame to call on the bedside of sick relations, not tour the sights.
Today, if she was lucky, Sabine and her dog would call on ten or eleven sick relations—or rather, she wouldfeignsome relationship to a dozen sick sailors on board.
“You must pretend to be very excited to see these men,” Sabine told Bridget, striding down the riverbank to the looming, ark-like figure of theDreadnought.“I’ve made an actual script today, loose though it may be. And you are the star.”
Too much advanced planning, Sabine had learned, was a threat to flexibility, and flexibility was what allowed her to drift in and out of places that a lady would ordinarily never drift. She had become a rather accomplished snoop, which fit ever so nicely with her other identity as bestselling travel writer. She could pass a morning mapping a given area, making notes about statues and Norman churches, and then devote the afternoon to infiltrating a nearby dark alley or, in this case, a looming hospital ship. If she was detained or challenged, her alibi was the true story of her own life. She was the author of a popular travel guide, and she was in the area for research.
Sabine’s father, the famous explorer Nevil Bertrand Noble, had enjoyed the dual role of adventurerandcartographer, so travel writerandsnoop felt quite natural to Sabine, if considerably less esteemed. But Sabine couldn’t care less about esteem. She wanted only two things: revenge against her uncle and to finally return home.
She’d arrived in London four years ago from her home in Surrey so very angry, reeling from what had become of her life. Her father had died and her uncle had moved into their family estate and turned on her. Touring the streets of the city had soothed her. She had walked and walked and walked, tears burning her eyes, thoughts racing, railing at the injustice of it all. But also making sketches, each one a little more detailed than the next, of the neighborhoods and boroughs she toured. SoonA Noble Guide to Londonwas born.
Her father’s map engraver agreed to publish the first installment, and they had invoked Nevil’s reputation to promote the book. In no time at all, readers were clamoring for Sabine’s clever writing and beautiful maps. By the second installment, bookshops were doing a booming business. By the third, the engraver was begging her to feature every borough and attraction of London in new installments of herNoble Guide.
Sabine had complied, choosing parts of town that would be of most interest to tourists. For weeks, she had prowled London’s landmarks and hidden treasures, until one day, quite by chance, she crossed paths with one of her father’s former apprentices. The young man had been a favorite of the family, and he and Sabine took tea in a café to commiserate about their lives since the great explorer’s death.
Amid the pleasantries and remembrances, the young man bemoaned the fact that Sabine’s uncle had cut ties with all of her father’s students and turned them out of the student cottage at Park Lodge.
“But for what reason would Dryden dismiss you?” she had asked incredulously. “The engraver was paying your stipend, not Dryden. And when Papa’s final maps are published, the estate will enjoy the profits. Your work would be a windfall for my cursed uncle.”
The apprentice had shrugged. “Cannot say, madam, but he was quite emphatic about it. Between you and me, we students believe he has some alternate plan for the maps. He asked for every sketch, every note, every slip of parchment from our desks. He searched the cottage and our belongings, making sure we stole away with nothing. The same morning that servants carried every folio and map to your father’s old library, new locks were installed. I was in the middle of a measurement when they swept through, and they wouldn’t permit me to finish the line.”
“But it makes no sense to stop work that would eventually bring more money,” Sabine had said. “And Sir Dryden had no real interest in Papa’s work.”
The student had shrugged. “Before we left, I saw that Sir Dryden had guests to the library, a crowd of men in three carriages. He herded them inside and slammed the door.”
