When You Wish Upon a Duke Read online

  One benefit of having an actress for a mother was never having to pretend to be So Very Good. Georgiana Tinker was bored to tears by Very Goodness.

  Instead, Isobel’s mother functioned as a listener, an encourager, and an absolver. For as long as she could remember, Isobel’s mother had helped her reckon with the whipsawed realities of life.

  Dearest Georgiana,

  Brace yourself, Mummy, I’ve been compelled to put off my September visit. I’m sorry. I can anticipate your maddened state of perishing despair. I’m disappointed too. But pause five minutes and take in the reason.

  I’ve been approached by a duke—the Duke of Northumberland (look him up in the papers if you are not familiar)—to assist with rescue efforts on behalf of a lot of stranded English merchants.

  Actually, the duke refers to the undertaking as a “mission,” I believe.

  We are to assist the stranded countrymen and smooth any ruffled feathers with locals.

  The effort should take a little less than a month and will occur mostly in Iceland (yes, you read that correctly).

  The duke, who has served years in the Foreign Office, is a decorated officer of some merit. He applied to Uncle Jeffrey and learned—among God knows what else—that I speak the language and have some knowledge of the culture. Add to this my position as a wholly anonymous Nobody from Nowhere, and apparently I am a dream addition to the duke’s mission.

  I was very resistant, said no a hundred times, and was very difficult to convince. In the end, I was won over by a very fat bribe. (Although some measure of coercion and even seduction did figure into the arrangement. He is very handsome and charming, etc., etc. In fact, the duke embodies so many of your favorite qualities. I include this tidbit just for you; pray do not fantasize beyond this observation and do not gossip about it. We are to be professional colleagues.)

  But I digress. The bribe he offered is a small office and flat in Hammersmith, which, as you may know, is a smart village just west of London. The duke owns (for all practical purposes) the high street, and he allowed me to take my pick of unoccupied properties. The gift of the building means that Samantha and I may abandon Everland Travel and Drummond Hooke forever. I may set up my own agency and run the business exactly as I see fit. I can provide for myself, and you, and pay Samantha a decent wage.

  I cannot guess which part of this note will give you more joy, but I trust you’ll not begrudge my missed visit. I’ll have you to Hammersmith instead, conveyed by private coach, and you may see the shop and my new flat for yourself.

  I’ll remember every moment of my adventure and recount it in colorful detail when we are together again. And I’ll bring back a handful of Norse crystals for your windowsill.

  In the meantime, my letters will become sparse as I rush to set sail. Samantha will be available for anything you may need—do not hesitate to send for her if necessary. I’ve written separate letters to Mrs. Bean; your staff knows I am unreachable for a time. Carry on as usual; do not think of me except in anticipation of the stories with which I’ll return.

  One final thing: the fearlessness required to do this comes only from you, my dear. Please be aware.

  What did you always say? “Be memorable, not respectable”?

  This adage has rung false to me for so long, as well you know. But here I am, giving it another go. I cling to the hope that there is value in a journey that terrifies me.

  What else did you always say? “If a cart blocks the road, and you cannot go around it, or over it, or beneath it, climb into the driver’s seat and take it for a ride.”

  Witness me taking up the reins, God help us.

  Alright. Enough of that. Please wear your gloves and wide-brimmed hat in the sun—and no more stray dogs. Mummy, please. Mrs. Bean writes me weekly and she is at her wit’s end.

  All my love,

  Bell

  Isobel and her mother got on best in small doses, but their correspondence had always been lively, honest, and thorough. Isobel had begun traveling alone at age fifteen—traversing Europe with a merry band of youths, the children of other actors in her mother’s company. Even in those early days, she wrote her mother daily, extolling all she’d seen and done, spilling out feelings she would struggle to confide in person, accounting for her wild, unfettered life.

  When that freedom caught up with her, when she was heartbroken and alone, she wrote to her mother still. Even while Isobel’s aunt and uncle did the difficult work of recovering her and nursing her back to solvency, the correspondence with her mother had been another sort of recovery.

  If her mother could not give prudent advice—which, God help her, she absolutely could not—at least she was a loving, adoring sounding board.

  Now, watching a docker haul her trunk up the gangplank, she told Samantha again, “I want to go.” Her voice had risen. It was a proclamation.

  “Useful—that,” said Samantha. “Because that’s exactly what you’re doing.”

  The docker tipped the trunk at an angle, endeavoring to fit it over the lip of the plank. Samantha gasped and shouted at the man. “No, no, no. Not like that. Stop, stop.”

  The younger woman huffed in exasperation and stomped up the gangplank, demonstrating a more careful way.

  Isobel was smiling to herself, watching the exchange, when she heard a male voice behind her.

  “I didn’t know if you would actually come,” he said, “until I saw you with my own eyes.”

  The rumble of his voice set off a shimmer in Isobel’s stomach. She gripped the umbrella tightly. She closed her eyes and then opened them. She turned.

  The Duke of Northumberland, dressed for sailing in a long coat and wide-brimmed hat, stood behind her, staring up at the brigantine.

  And now she could add “gentleman at sea” to all the inciting ways the duke could look. As if the cravat and trousers or the black buckskins and greatcoat had not been enough. She would not stare. A mantra, perhaps, for this journey.

  No staring at the handsome duke. No banter with the handsome duke. Nothing to do with the handsome duke but translate Icelandic and give advice and not become affected.

  Isobel had devoted seven years to rising above the emotional fray of affectation by handsome men. Prudence and restraint had earned her that lofty perch, and she clung to it. It had not come natural to her, but it felt very safe and very stable. She would not concede it now.

  The journey to Iceland would not be a return to reckless behavior.

  No matter how lovely and compelling the duke was.

  Even if she survived Iceland itself, she would not survive another broken heart. Not from him.

  “I trust you have everything you need for the journey?” the duke asked. “I sent a note offering to provision you with whatever you may require.”

  “Yes, you were very kind, thank you,” she said.

  “When you didn’t respond, I assumed you could manage on your own. Or that you weren’t coming.”

  “Two things you should understand about me, Your Grace,” Isobel told him. “First, I can manage on my own. Second, if I say I’ll do something, I will do it. Trust will not be an issue with me.”

  “Dare I anticipate what will be an issue?”

  Take your pick, Isobel thought. Impatience. Panic. Seasickness.

  Resisting you.

  “There will be no issues,” she said. “I will be the model . . .” The word for her precise role in the mission escaped her.

  “Attaché?” the duke suggested. “Adviser?”

  “Translator?” she countered.

  “Well, it’s more than that obviously,” he said, thinking. “But I’d not bother with a title if I were you. None of the men I recruited for this mission have formal roles beyond helping to recover these merchants and slinking away without anyone being the wiser. I’ve embarked on missions with looser order and protocols, but I’m not sure when. I apologize in advance. This brig, in particular, is rather crude.” He stared up at the boat.

  “I am wi
dely traveled, Your Grace, in every manner of vessel. The accommodations do not alarm me.”

  “Lucky thing,” he sighed. “The Feather is fast and safe, with a trusted captain I’ve known for years. He was bound for America but agreed to divert long enough to ferry us to Stokkseyri and back.”

  She glanced at him, an eyebrow raised. “Stokkseyri?” she asked. “Not Reykjavík?”

  Northumberland shook his head. “You were correct about the ice caves and making landfall farther east. You were correct about everything.”

  Well, thought Isobel, that was gratifying. She was rarely considered an expert, even among her clients. Until she proved otherwise, fathers and uncles and brothers assumed some man had planned her travel itineraries.

  “Regardless,” the duke went on, “we’re not sailing ’round the Isle of Wight on a pleasure cruise. It will take nearly a fortnight to make Iceland. There will be precious few amenities for a lady.”

  Isobel blinked. She wasn’t accustomed to being referred to as a lady. Was he teasing? She raised the umbrella.

  No. He wasn’t. He wasn’t even looking at her. With a cringing expression, he watched a crew member lean over the side and issue a prodigious stream of spit into the Thames.

  “You’re certain you won’t have a maid to attend you?” he said, wincing. “I can provide one if you—”

  “I haven’t employed a maid in years, Your Grace. It cannot be overstated: I can manage on my own. You’d do well to think less of my comfort and more of my inconsistent skill as a translator and my potential enemies among the locals.”

  Northumberland raised an eyebrow. “Enemies?”

  “In Stokkseyri? Possibly—yes.” He might as well know.

  “Pity we’ve not met before this very hour, or I could have learned more about your rapport with the locals.”

  “Pity,” she repeated. “But please remember, I am not collaborating with you; I am cooperating. I’ll only do what is strictly necessary to gain my new shop.”

  “One marvels at the distinction.”

  “You did not stipulate meeting before now, so . . .” She hunkered beneath the umbrella like a turtle retracting into her shell.

  Isobel had hired her own lawyer to review the duke’s legal papers and to assure her new situation in Hammersmith. If her cooperation amounted to work-in-trade, she would know exactly what work was expected.

  The duke had sent requests, asking to meet with her, to hear her opinion on provisions and course and strategy, but no such meetings had been stipulated, and she had refused.

  “I’ve been very busy, you see,” she said, speaking from within the umbrella. “It is no small thing to leave the country while planning a secret defection from your place of business. In five days.”

  “Well, you’ve promised me an appraisal once we’re on board. Enemies and allies, sympathetic bystanders, double-crossers, safe and unsafe havens, known traps, dead ends.” He leaned to peek at her beneath the cover of the umbrella.

  Rain was sluicing off his hat and the yoke of his coat, but he didn’t seem to care. He looked so very rugged and impervious and handsome.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she said, tipping the umbrella to shield herself. “I suffer from seasickness and will succumb within an hour of losing sight of land. I warned you of this. The first few days will be spent confined to my cabin. After that, I may creep to the deck at sunset to take fresh air. We can talk then, but more than that I cannot promise.”

  “You’re always ill at sea?” he asked.

  “Every time.”

  “How can I help?”

  “I’ve already provided meal instructions to the steward. Just leave me be, if you will. I can manage. As I’ve said.”

  “Right,” he said, his voice growing fainter. He was walking away. “You can manage.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Waiting for someone, Your Grace?”

  Former mercenary Declan Shaw stood on the deck of the Feather smoking with the duke. Shaw watched the pale sun arc into the black waters of the North Sea, while Jason stared at a closed hatch on the brig’s foredeck.

  “What?” Jason asked.

  “I said,” repeated Shaw, “are you waiting for—?”

  “Waiting for you to finish that sodding cheroot,” said Jason testily. “You’re like a calf on a teat. If I’d only known I could pay you in tobacco.”

  The duke had assembled a small crew of trusted comrades in arms, retired soldiers, and off-duty agents to travel to Iceland as tactical support. Leading the crew was his old friend Declan Shaw.

  Shaw was a retired mercenary who now lived in Somerset with his new wife and infant son. Before his unexpected foray into family life, Shaw had been a cunning warrior, the type of man for whom fighting pirates would be all in a day’s work. Jason could think of no one more qualified for this mission, and he’d paid Shaw triple to convince him to leave his young family, even for a month.

  “My wife detests smoking,” Shaw said, exhaling a ribbon of smoke. “I am happy to oblige her. You? I couldn’t care less. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a cheroot.” He took another puff.

  Jason checked the deck hatch again. “Precious few cheroots in prison, I presume,” the duke said.

  “Precious few visitors to this deck,” Shaw replied.

  Jason shot him a look but said nothing.

  Declan Shaw had served time in Newgate Prison after being wrongly accused of kidnapping. Jason had been on assignment in India at the time, and his friend had been spared prison by the woman who was now his wife.

  “Pity too,” rhapsodized the mercenary. “You. Alone at sunset. The icy waves, the frigid wind, the crusty film of algae and fish guts. So romantic.”

  “Spare me your fantasies,” Jason said, lighting his own cheroot.

  “Not my fantasy, mate. You’re the man who’s ferrying a female translator to bloody Iceland so she can have a go at pirates. Or so says the gossip. Interesting choice, if it’s true.”

  “Interesting, why?” Jason bit out.

  “That depends,” said Shaw, tossing the butt of his cheroot into the sea. “If the female translator is a sweaty, sour-faced woman who you intend to roll around Iceland in an ox cart. Or if she’s young and beguiling and will see Iceland riding on your lap.”

  Jason was just about to tell Shaw to bugger off when the hatch behind them creaked open and a blond head popped out.

  Jason’s cheroot froze halfway to his mouth. He stared at the face he hadn’t seen in three days.

  Shaw snickered. “Well, there’s our answer, isn’t it? Pleasant chat, North.”

  “Sod off, Shaw.” Jason pitched his cheroot overboard. “Miss Tinker?” Jason called, carefully approaching the opened hatch. “Are you—?”

  “Do not, if you please,” said Isobel Tinker. Her voice was weak. She would not look at him. Her gloved hands grasped the top rung of the ladder with a death grip, and she laid her forehead on her wrist. “I need a moment.”

  “Should I—?” Jason was at a loss for what to offer. The skin of her face was dull and grayish. She’d plaited her hair against her head in two short, spiky braids. Her body was smothered by a bulky teal cloak.

  “A moment,” she repeated, turning her head sideways. She sucked in a gulp of air.

  “Let me hand you up,” he suggested, looking around, cursing the crudeness of the brigantine. “Here, take my hand.”

  “I will not.” She clung to the ladder.

  “Perhaps the deck is not—”

  “Resist the temptation to see some solution here, Your Grace. I need only fresh air.” She lifted her head. “And dry land.”

  “Do you mean to . . .” he searched for the correct phrase, “. . . crawl out? Entirely unaided?”

  “When I require assistance, you will know it. Otherwise . . .” and now she clamped her mouth shut and closed her eyes, presumably fighting a wave of discomfort, “. . . keep back.”

  Jason employed considerable self-constraint and w
atched her ascend slowly, shakily, to the deck. She had nearly hatched herself and was reaching a trembling hand for a railing when he said, “Oh for God’s sake,” and lifted her.

  He swept one hand around her waist and another on her outstretched arm and pulled her up. She reached for the railing that bordered the passage, and he draped her there, like a sheet on a line.

  He stepped back.

  “Thank you,” she said, speaking to the deck.

  He made a dismissive sound. “Miss Tinker, but this cannot be—”

  She held up a hand, silencing him.

  Jason complied. He’d been unprepared for how miserable she would be. The woolen cape concealed an Isobel-shaped body that, already diminutive, appeared to be shrinking. Her head was uncovered, and the wind plucked at her braids, whipping blond tendrils across her cheeks. She looked wretched.

  “You look wretched,” he said.

  “I am wretched.”

  “I’m so sorry you’re afflicted by ocean travel in this way,” he said. “If I’d known—”

  “If you’d known,” she said, raising her head, “you would have bribed me, just the same. And I would have consented, also the same. You want . . .” a tired pause, “. . . whatever it is you want, and I want the new building.”

  With no warning, they were lashed with a cold wind, an icy spray of seawater pricking their skin. She raised her face into the gale and blinked, opening her eyes. She stood straighter.

  “It’s less than a fortnight. I will survive.” She made a limp, dismissive motion.

  “Are you always this stoic?”

  “I am, in fact,” she said. “Lucky you.”

  “I supposed I recognized this from the first. I would never have recruited you if you’d seemed . . . fragile.”

  “Lucky me,” she mumbled, and he laughed.

  But now she was on the move, her sights apparently set on the stern railing. Holding her hands out for balance, moving slowly, she began to shuffle around masts and coiled rigging to the quarter deck.