London

The next morning found the ship steaming up the Thames, towards the Pool of London. (Trans-Atlantic steamers normally docked in Liverpool, of course, but Fiona had paid the captain to take her straight to her destination.)

The blonde English heroine stood on the foredeck like a naked figurehead, knowing she was exposing herself to all the watermen of the Thames’ lower reaches, but unable to tear her eyes away as the smokestacks of her destination hove into view. Would she make it back to the Reform Club on time? Or was she too late? Would she suffer… Hellfire?

The ship docked at the Isle of Dogs. The gangplank was thrown down. The women passengers, still entirely without clothes, cowered behind the gunwales, trying to hide from the vast crowd of grinning Cockneys who loafed around the waterfront, ready to watch the show. Miss Strappe cast an imploring gaze up at the captain, who shrugged unsympathetically.

“Ye lassies took yer own clothes off,” he said. “Nothing to do with me.”

“But… but we’re naked! You can’t make us go down there stark naked!”

“The voyage’s over, and ye have to get off the ship. That be how it usually works.”

And so, one by one, Miss Strappe and Giselle and Bianca and Amelia and all the rest of the Atalanta’s lady passengers were obliged to walk stark naked down the gangplank, eyes downcast and faces burning, fumbling to hide their bodies with their hands as Cockneys beyond counting roared with laughter and made comments far too crude and unspeakable to be repeated in any reputable narrative, such as “Nice tits, luv!” and “Look at that one’s bum!” and “Oo stole your knickers, then?” and “Give us a peek, then, darling,” and “Needs a good spanking, she does,” and “Give her a right seeing-to, I would, and make no mistake.”

And, as soon as their bare feet hit the cobblestones, they were immediately seized upon by blue-uniformed policemen, handcuffed and arrested for the crime of public indecency. While Lady Evelyn stood idly by, tapping her toes and scanning the shamefaced nude crowd for any sign of her nemesis.

“Wait,” she said, at last, as Miss Strappe and twenty furious nude eighteen-year-old British schoolgirls, all titled aristocrats of the best possible breeding, were marched naked off through the streets of the East End with their hands shackled behind their backs towards what was not, in fact, the very closest police station. “Something’s not quite right.”