Fiona runs naked across London

Fiona ran naked across London.

She had slipped off the side of the ship while Evelyn and the policemen were distracted, dove into the Thames and hauled herself ashore on a muddy beach of the Isle of Dogs. She didn’t know precisely how long it would take her to get to the Reform Club, on Pall Mall, on the other side of the city, but she might only have a couple of hours before her time ran out. Lady Evelyn would be there before her, having the luxury of taking a hansom cab.

There was no time to buy clothes. There was no time to do anything at all but run across London, from the East End to the West End, in broad daylight, for every last startled Cockney greengrocer and City banker and well-mannered society lady to see.

Naked.

Fiona Fairweather, a classic buxom English rose, with eyes as blue as a summer day, hair like golden sunlight, skin as soft as flower petals and nipples like strawberries floating in two big bowls of cream. An entirely respectable, modest, intelligent and capable woman, with many useful skills and well-informed opinions on all the issues of the day, and undeniably the heroine of the story. Running across London. Naked.

Naked across the West India Docks, with their longshoremen and pyramids of sack-stuffed spices. Naked through Limehouse, with its smiling Chinese shopkeepers. Naked through Whitechapel. Naked past the Tower of London, past St. Paul’s Cathedral, down the Strand before shocked tailors and grinning accountants and amused theatre patrons. And, finally, naked down bustling Pall Mall, with its legions of businessmen in bowler hats, every last one of whom turned to watch as a brightly blushing and completely stark naked English rose sprinted up the steps of the Reform Club and in through the great wooden doors.

“Well, well, well,” said Lady Evelyn, sitting in an armchair in the common room on the top floor of the Reform Club. Two dozen other women, the most intelligent and respectable female minds in England, were on hand to bear witness to this important moment, as well as a photographer from the Financial Times. “You made it.”

“I made it,” said Fiona, standing in the precise location where she’d made the fateful bet with Lady Evelyn, all those days before. She covered her breasts and sex with her arms, and shot a **** glare at the photographer, who promptly ducked behind her to get a picture of her bottom. “You said it couldn’t be done. But it can. Around the world in sixty-nine days.”

“Yes,” said Lady Evelyn, smiling like a cat with a mouse. She held up her golden stopwatch. The whole room had seen her shut it off at the exact moment Fiona had made it to the finish line, and not a single moment later. “Excellent work, Fiona. I knew you had it in you. Around the world in sixty-nine days.”

She paused, savouring the moment, watching Fiona sweat. A light rain pattered against the windowsill. The fireplace roared.

“Sixty-nine days,” she said. “And one second. Precisely.”