because I wanted nothing to do with him. Also, if Carlotta had upset Gabriella enough for her to dash off, there was nothing to say that she would not do so a second time.
Auberge gave me a stubborn look. 'She is my daughter. And I suspect, like you, that harm has befallen her. I cannot sit like an old woman and wait for her to be found. You have no second person. I will go with you.'
I opened my mouth to tell him to go away, then I stopped. His eyes mirrored my own anguish. He had known Gabriella all her life, had raised her from babyhood, had held her hand when she walked. I was furious with jealousy because of it, but I had to concede that his fear was as sharp as my own.
'Very well. But do not talk to the people we meet. The Londoners around here are suspicious of foreigners, especially Frenchmen. I do not want to waste time extricating you from a brawl.'
He nodded once, his face set. 'I understand.'
'Let us be off, then.' I snatched up my corner of the map and ushered him out the door.
By the time we reached Russel Street, a hard lump had formed in the pit of my stomach, which would increase to full-blown panic if I let it. But damn it all, Gabriella was not a fool. She should come to her senses and return home. She must know that London was not safe for her, and she'd heard Bartholomew talk about the missing girls. If she found herself lost, she'd seek out a trustworthy person and ask the way to King Street.
Even this logical thought could not comfort me. She was lost, and London was large and dangerous, and we had to find her.
I had chosen the northwest corner of the map, where Broad Street cut through the warren of St. Giles to High Holborn. I had chosen it because it was close to Pomeroy's lodgings, and I still wanted to lay my hands on him. Also, the area was a bit dangerous, and I hadn't wanted to send my friends into the rookeries where they would be ripe for plucking. I had little to pluck, and Auberge, like me, had been a soldier. We could hold our own.
We rode in a hackney to where Broad Street met High Street, and we began the search there. We walked through crooked alleys on dirty cobbles, passing closed shops and houses that had stood in the narrow lanes for hundreds of years. Walls had been shored up and repaired as necessary, and the different colors of bricks and plaster gave them a piebald look. In one lane, the upper stories of the houses leaned to each other over the street, closing out the sky.
Nowhere did we find a sign of a girl in a sensible cotton frock, lost and trying to find her way home.
We walked slowly but purposefully, looking into every passage and every darkened doorway. In one lane, a young woman with a soiled apron held a boy of about five in her arms. He was naked but for a shirt that exposed his backside and spindly legs. She held her hand out for coin, and Major Auberge stopped and dropped some to her palm. She thanked him in a weak voice.
Auberge and I had spoken little since leaving Grimpen Lane, except for me to tell him where we'd begin. Now, we walked in silence, saving our energy for our search.
We angled south from Broad Street to another King Street, my idea being that perhaps Gabriella had confused this King Street with the one that led off Covent Garden. Auberge followed my lead without argument. As I had instructed, he said nothing to the people I questioned, only listened to my conversation, observing without offering comment.
As we continued toward Little Earl Street and Seven Dials, he said to me quietly, 'Gabriella likes so much to explore. When she was a little girl, she would go to the stream below our farm and follow its course as far she could. She said she wanted to learn where it came from. I explained that it started in mountains far away, but she was certain that around the next bend she would find a fountain that spilled the entire stream into the valley. One day she had walked five miles, and a farm hand had to carry her home. She was asleep in his arms, as you say, soundly.'
I imagined my golden-haired daughter trudging sturdily along the bank of the stream, determined to find its source. 'She showed the propensity even at two years old,' I said. 'She always wanted to come with me when I talked to my men, to see what her papa did as a soldier. One day, she crawled under the canvas of the tent to follow me to where I was meeting with one of the generals. I explained to the general when she popped up that she was eager to learn to be an exploring officer. Fortunately, she amused him, and he simply ordered his batman to carry her home. Carlotta, on the other hand, was not amused. She was quite hysterical about the incident, certain the general would throw me out of the army in disgrace.'
'Yes, Carlotta becomes very worried.'
I closed my mouth on my reply, not wanting to grow too comfortable with the fact that I shared a wife and child with this man. Perhaps that was why divorce had been made so difficult to obtain, so we'd be spared these sorts of strange conversations.
We continued the search, slowly moving in a circle through the streets, heading south. When we turned to Long Acre, I stopped at the house in a lane opening from it where Pomeroy had rooms.
This time, I caught Pomeroy readying himself to go to Bow Street.
'Well then, Captain,' he said cheerfully. 'My landlady said you had come to call. Couldn't think why, unless it was to do with the game girls.'
Auberge looked slightly confused, not understanding the expression game girls. 'No, no, we are looking for my daughter. She is seventeen, and lost.'
Pomeroy looked at Auberge in sympathy but resignation. 'Not a good thing to hear, a respectable girl gone missing. Any number of procuresses wander up and down the streets, looking for such an innocent. It's a sad fact, but virgins fetch a nice price in the bawdy houses.'
Auberge's face went white as Pomeroy's flat words made the awful possibility that much more real.
'I want to borrow your patrollers,' I said. 'Put every man you've got to searching the streets.'
He gave me a dubious look. 'Can't spare that many, that's a fact, Captain. There are more crimes all over London than one missing girl.'
I stepped close to him, the fruitless search having raised all my fears. 'The girl's name is Gabriella Lacey.'
Pomeroy's eyes widened. He remembered Gabriella and Carlotta. ''Struth, sir. Your little Gabriella?'
'Yes,' I said tightly. 'She is not so little now. She's about the same age as your Black Bess, I would guess.'
I thought I detected a flicker of uneasiness in his eyes, but with Pomeroy, it was difficult to tell. 'You think the disappearances are connected?'
'I do not know what to think. And I want to have a discussion with you about this Black Bess, including the fact that you did not tell me that you knew her, nor that she was paying you in kind to look the other way.'
He bristled visibly this time. 'Now, as to that, sir, I'd say it was my business.'
'I'd say it might have had something to do with her disappearance, and if you want me to find her, you will be frank with me. But first, go to Bow Street and send out your patrollers. I have people working already, but the more the better.'
'Have to check with the magistrate first,' he began.
'Send them, Sergeant. I do not want to call in James Denis, but I will if necessary. I'd rather use Bow Street, but I might not have a choice.'
'Are you threatening me, sir?'
'I am happy to threaten anyone who does not assist us in finding Gabriella. You said yourself she hadn't much chance. Instead of bleating about a dismal future, do something to ensure it is not dismal.'
He stared at me a long moment. On the Peninsula, Pomeroy had argued with me when he thought my orders daft, and a few times, he'd been right. The times I'd known I was right, however, I'd stared him down until he wilted and did what I wanted. He seemed to remember those days, because his bravado deflated. He saluted. 'As you say, Captain. I'll get on it.' He let his hand drop and gave me a serious look, the usual bonhomie gone from his eyes. 'I won't let you down, sir.'
He trotted off toward Long Acre and turned in the direction of Bow Street.
'Will he do it?' Auberge asked me.
'He will,' I answered, my mouth set. 'Shall we resume?'
After another hour of walking, we had uncovered nothing. If Gabriella had come this way, no one had seen her. We took another hackney back to Grimpen Lane, Auberge generously counting out shillings for the fare. I met Grenville and the foot patroller in my lodgings. Both shook their heads unhappily. They had found nothing.
The others that straggled in as the four of us left again had nothing to report. Black Nancy touched my arm.
