Chapter Three
Once their volunteers departed, Franny stood back and admired the repaired wall.
Many of their members had worked around the clock these past few days, so now The Silk Knuckles Saloon was almost ready to reopen.
Unfortunately, if Franny inhaled deeply, she still caught a whiff of smoke.
But, if they kept the windows open the fresh air, if one could call the London air fresh, filtered into the gymnasium.
The hard work over the past few days seemed to invigorate Josie.
The woman was a machine that never quit, and her resolve did not falter.
Meanwhile, Franny had wallowed in an ugly rage.
How could someone hurt Harry? And who would want to destroy their dream?
Whoever had done it could have killed everyone inside the building.
What kind of person did such a thing? Surprisingly, it was Josie, the belligerent orphan Papa had brought home thirteen years ago, who had remained optimistic while Franny stomped about grumbling blasphemies.
Franny recalled the first time she met Josie in vivid detail. Smiling and with an upturned palm, Papa had presented a scrawny child dressed in rags as if he were offering Franny a puppy.
“Franny, this is Josephine Martin. I found her in an alley, beating the hell out of a bully twice her size. She doesn’t have a family, food, or a place to live, so I thought she could live with us. What do you think?”
“I think that is a boy.” Franny had wrinkled her nose in disgust. “And he stinks.”
Josie had growled, bent low, and charged Franny, knocking her on her arse. The second Franny regained her wind, she’d jabbed the filthy urchin in the nose. Then the two of them had rolled around on the floor, wrestling, punching, and calling each other unseemly names children shouldn’t know.
After taking a few elbows to his breadbasket, Papa managed to pull Franny off Josie.
Thereupon, he’d sent his own flesh and blood to her room without dinner.
Later that night, a pretty girl who smelled like Franny’s soap and wore one of her old night dresses snuck into her room and held out a biscuit.
“I saved this for ye,” the girl said.
Since Franny’s belly gurgled, she took the offered food and shoved it in her mouth.
“I favor your Papa, I do,” Josie said. “I’d like to live with him and have biscuits every night. I ain’t had noffin to eat in forever. And yer house is so pretty and fancy.”
No wonder their visitor was gaunt. Although their house was far from fancy, it was cozy and almost clean, and it probably did appear pretty to a girl who’d spent her life sleeping next to rubbish bins.
“You haven’t eaten in forever, and you are giving me your biscuit?” Franny asked. She wasn’t sure she’d give someone one of her biscuits, especially if she were hungry.
Josie had plopped onto the floor, sat cross-legged, and rested her chin on her knuckles. “Ye are lucky. I don’t have parents.”
A lump had formed in Franny’s throat as she dropped to sit beside Josie. “I don’t have a mother. She died last year. She used to be a governess before she married Papa. She taught me to read and write, and she had pretty red hair.”
“Ye have pretty red hair, too.” Josie frowned. “I guess ye loved your mum. If she was as nice as yer da, no wonder yer sad.”
Franny’s tears flowed as Josie, a girl who had no home, wore dirty boy’s clothing, and had no one to love, patted her back and soothed her heartbreak.
From that second forward, they had been like inseparable sisters, reading, writing, dancing around the kitchen, boxing, terrorizing Papa’s male students, and generally being pains in the arse.
Last year, when Franny had injured Lucy and retired from prize fighting, it was Josie who had comforted her.
It was also Josie who had supported her when Franny announced that she wanted to open a new gymnasium in a safer part of the city so that women could exercise and learn to defend themselves.
Franny’s dream had become Josie’s dream, and together with Papa, they’d made it come true.
Even when Josie won the ultimate female prizefighting championship and married a handsome aristocrat, she remained Franny’s loyal friend.
Josie wrapped her arm around Franny’s waist, bringing her back to the here and now. “Franny, since our building is whole again, why don’t you get some sleep before tonight’s meeting? And Coach…” Josie grasped his hand. “You need rest, too.”
“Jojo you are probably correct,” Papa said. “I am exhausted. I think I’ll lie down in my office for a bit.” Thank goodness he acquiesced since dark half-moons underlined his eyes.
“I am going to hire a hackney to take me to the newspaper office,” Josie said. “I’d like to visit with Nicolas. That is, if the two of you don’t mind?”
Franny had never found it in her heart to dislike Nicolas Wentworth.
Not even when he took Josie from her. The man was the heir to an earldom, and still, he had taken a humble job as a journalist for The Daily Dispatch of London.
He even wrote informative articles about women’s sports.
And his very best quality was that somehow, he had managed to turn Josie into a proper lady, without snuffing the passion or spirit that made her larger than life, all while making her happy.
“Enjoy your afternoon, Jojo,” Papa said. “And, Franny, you get some rest too.”
“I’ll be back in time for our meeting,” Josie called as she scurried to the exit.
Papa kissed Franny on the cheek, then left her alone. As exhausted as she was, she craved a blood-pumping, mind-clearing training session. Although she loved having the gymnasium full of people, sometimes it was nice to have the space to herself.
She tugged the bodice of her gown down, then tied the sleeves around her waist. She started her session with Papa’s prescribed calisthenic routine, which included one hundred deep knee bends, fifty lunges, and fifty squats.
Dropping onto her belly, she performed fifty push-ups.
Since nervous energy still coursed through her, she performed another twenty-five before leaping to her feet, hopping about, and shaking out her arms and fingers.
She skipped to the far wall to retrieve one of the long ropes. Once upon a time, she’d jumped over it one hundred fifty-seven times without making a mistake. Today was the perfect day to try to beat her record. She’d aim for one-hundred seventy-five.
She sifted through the ropes, looking for the one with the orange dot on the end because it was the perfect length. “Ah, ha, there you are,” she said as she tugged it from the hook.
“Hello,” someone said.
She startled, then faced the main entrance as the rope slithered to the ground.
A man who carried the staff of a lawman had entered while her back was turned.
A different Bow Street Runner, with lecherous eyes and a dismissive attitude, had visited yesterday.
He’d asked a few questions about the fire but hadn’t bothered to listen to the answers.
Papa, Josie, and Franny agreed; they’d been assigned a useless investigator.
Franny experienced a moment of déjà vu as a five-year-old memory of a handsome, arrogant man barging into their old gymnasium hit with a thud. She froze in place as her visitor swaggered toward her.
This couldn’t be him. Could it? That man had been as pretty as a prince and lean-muscled.
This man was formed from warrior sinew and had a rugged, masculine jawline.
His crooked nose looked as if someone had punched him.
Hard. But he had the same dark hair, and just like the man in her memory, his eyebrows and lashes were thick and dark.
“Frances Valentine,” he said.
Heavens above. He also had that same cocky grin that had addled her those many years ago. It was as if he was about to say something outrageously witty that only he could understand. Franny did not like feeling confused. Not one single bit. And this man befuddled her.
Her heart skittered, flipped, and then flopped. “If it isn’t bloody Edward Robinson,” she said with a horrified snort. “What in the bloomin’ hell are you doing here? Didn’t I punch you hard enough the first time?”