Jonathan Percival had a broken heart.

He didn't think anything would make that right ever again, and certainly it needed a stiffer drink than cheap French wine to dull the pain. He was on his second bottle, and the pain seemed only to have swelled and warmly softened within him. The sight of a dark-haired beauty cuddled in the lap of a brawny sailor by the bar threatened to bring him to tears. There was love. There was happiness. The dark-haired beauty kissed her lover and caressed his cheek. Soft words were spoken, too low for Johnathan to overhear. His heart ached to imagine what they might be. The sailor nodded his head towards the door that led to the rooms above. The dark-haired beauty drew back and shook her head with an adorable pout. The sailor said something, then the dark-haired beauty gave a snort of disgust, swung her legs to the floor, and flounced off, showing a great deal of round white calf beneath her cropped skirts. Percival had just enough time to feel heartbroken on the gentleman's behalf before the woman passed his table and said contemptuously no one:

"Frogs! Skinflints, the lot of 'em."

Her accent was distinctly cockney, and Percival, who had been in Paris two weeks and was homesick and heart-broken besides, did not think before speaking to her.

"I say, Madame," he said. "Are you English?"

The woman whirled, her skirts flying up several inches north of plump white knees. She flashed him a smile. "I am. Where 'bouts you from, m'lord?"

She sat down without invitation on the bench next to Percival, right about the moment that Percival realized, somewhat tardily, that she was no sailor's lover but a lady of the night. By then, of course, it was too late for Percival to ask her to leave. That would be rude. He swallowed.

"Manchester," he said, in barely more than a whisper.

"Oh, I never been there." The woman fixed her smutty blue eyes thoughtfully on his bottle of wine. "That's nearly empty."

Percival had not observed this fact. In fact, he would have argued that the bottle was yet half-full, if he had the spirit for arguing. But he didn't, so he made no protest as the woman called the garcon for another bottle and another glass with it.

"That's better," the woman said, taking a deep draught. "Warm in 'ere, isn't it?"

She fanned her chest — a task made much easier by the very low cut of her gown. Percival shifted uncomfortably on the bench and tried to think of Laura, only that started tears pricking in his eyes.

"What's wrong?" the woman asked in concern.

"I'm in love," Percival said.

"Ain't we all." The woman sighed heavily. "Well then, tell your aunty Nancy all about."

She was not much of an aunt, being several years younger than Percival, but she was a good listener. And after another bottle of wine, Percival forgot that he was talking to a fallen woman and began to feel quite comfortable with her. She was a clumsy little thing; it was a wonder how often her foot — bare, she wore no shoes — would run into his under the table, or how the slightest commotion at the rowdy bar would make her shriek and duck against Percival for cover. By the time they were on their third bottle of wine, she was beginning to sway, and it seemed wisest for Percival to keep his arm around his waist to steady her.

"But it's the saddest story I ever 'eard," she said sleepily, tracing her finger over his chin. "And you'll never see 'er again now. It's a right tragedy."

Looking into the woman's misty blue eyes, it was beginning to seem less of a tragedy. Perhaps the wine had managed to dull the pain after all.

And then, without quite knowing how it happened, Percival found himself kissing the woman. When he drew back, she had a strange, almost pained look in her eyes. Then it disappeared as she smiled.

"I know a place we can go. Private-like."

"Take me there," he whispered, and forgot about Laura all together.

The place wasn't far from the inn Percival was staying at, but Percival lost his way, because she led him down crooked little side-streets and because he had his eyes on her, not his surroundings. Then before he knew it, they were in a brightly lit hotel room and Nancy was lying down on the bed in front of him, her breasts bared, her skirts pulled up past her waist.

The next morning when he woke alone in the room, Percival couldn't remember quite what had happened, but he discovered that Nancy had thoughtfully turned the pockets of his coat in again and hung it over a chair, and he considered the robbery a fair price for the task of mending a broken heart. To the end of his days, he could never think of that night without a perverse guilty pride. And he never again thought often of Laura at all, except in a faint, distantly surprised way, to remember that once upon a time he had thought himself in love with such a person.

He never even remembered that, along with his wallet and watch, he had been keeping love-letters to Laura in his coat

* * *

In fact what had happened that night at the hotel was that Percival had fallen asleep on top of Nancy before he could even finish the task he'd started. She wriggled out from under him and then shook him to make sure he was properly out. He groaned and then snored.

Nancy looked guiltily down at him. It was true, she felt sorry for him. But she also felt sorry for herself. It had been alright at first. She'd enjoyed being in Paris, enjoyed being able to walk past all the fancy milliners' and dressmakers' shops and stare at the fine lace and silk in the windows. It had felt like an adventure. Even the work had been an adventure. Then she'd had the first bad client. She later learned that he hadn't even been that bad. It was only a busted lip, after all. Some women got it much worse. But Madame hadn't cared about Nancy's lip. Madame had even apologised to the client for Nancy's pertness and docked her cut.

The second bad client was worse. The bruises faded within a month, but after that, Nancy couldn't face her work with anything approaching enthusiasm.

"I used to think you'd be one of my best girls," Madame snapped after a client complained, and docked her cut again.

"If you don't like it, then get out," Giles Fordham had suggested, when Nancy told him about it. Giles Fordham was one of her good clients. She thought he was soft on her — but she wasn't stupid, not these days, and she knew that his rough pinches and light slaps were signs of worse to come. But his advice was good. She was getting out. She'd go back to England and return to service. Even the workhouse if she had to.

She snatched Percival's coat from the bed and, with a deftness born of practice, ran her fingers over its lining. There, in this pocket, and in that one. She extracted his watch from one, registered its worth with a relieved glance, and then took his wallet and a bundle of folded papers from the other.

The papers she discarded on the rumpled bed covers, and the money she counted with a rapid, beating heart. One hundred... one hundred and seventy pounds nearly. Her heart threatened to burst. Until now, she'd been lucky to find a man with five francs apiece. This was enough to pay her passage back to England and her living expenses for several years.

The door opened behind her, and she turned with a guilty start as Giles Fordham entered. Well, even half of it was more than what she needed.

"Over already?" Giles said.

"He fell asleep." She passed the notes to him. "More than an 'undred and seventy. We're rich."

"Hardly rich." Giles glanced at the notes and his eyes widened. He looked at the man on the bed and then frowned. "What was his name?"

Nancy picked up his coat and began to turn the pockets back in. "Why's that matter?"

"It just does."

"Percival. You know 'im?" She hung Percival coat over a chair and, spying his papers on the bed, picked them up to return them to his pocket.

"Never heard of him before." Giles looked at her again. "What's that you're holding?"

"Dunno. Can't be worth anything though. Just bits of paper with writin' on."

"Let me see them."

Nancy obediently handed them over and Giles flicked through them. A strange, crocodile smile spread across his face. Nancy shuddered to see it.

"They worth money?" she asked.

"They're old love letters. Only..." Giles paused, still smiling. "Sentimental value."

Nancy glanced uneasily at the man on the bed. He hadn't said his lover's name, but now she assumed, from the money in his pocket, that it was someone very rich, someone Giles knew.

"I tell you what," Giles said, holding the bundle of notes back out to Nancy. "You take it all."

"What!?"

"Take it all. His money, his watch. It's all yours. All I want is these. This is worth everything to me."

Nancy stared up at him. Something warned her that this was going to go very, very badly for someone. She didn't want it to be her.

"I used your room," she said quietly. "You wanted 'alf for the room."

"Yeah, well, I like you. Tonight, you can have the room free. Go back to London. Buy something nice for your mother. Brother."

Nancy continued to stare at him. The look in Giles's eyes made her feel afraid.

"Look," he said, slapping her on the bottom with the money. "It's not gonna be long before the gendarme figure out what you've been up to. Not gonna be long before you get the pox. Or get with child. So you take this money and you go back home. Consider it a parting gift, from a lover to a lover."

Still, Nancy didn't quite dare take the money from him.

Giles scowled, grabbed her hair, and dragged her towards the door. "What I'm saying is, go! I don't want you here anymore."

"Fine, I'm goin'." She snatched the money from his hands and flinched, thinking he would hit her for it. "I'm goin'."

She went. A week later, she was back in London, in the awe-inspiring surrounds of a bank, exchanging one twenty pound note, signed by a Mister Neil Armiger, for twenty pounds in coins. She did not know that Mr Armiger was the younger brother of her ex-mistress, the brother of the man Giles hated most in the world, and even she had, it would not matter: she could not read.