When You Wish Upon a Duke Page 3

  She rushed to appease him, signaling to the clerk. “Samantha, perhaps if you bundled up the guidebooks for—”

  Enough.

  Jason flicked the coin once more and caught it. He shoved up and crossed to the younger man.

  “Northumberland,” he said, giving a slight bow. “The Duke of Northumberland. How do you do?”

  Twice in his life now, he’d proclaimed the title with the intent of impressing everyone in the room.

  “Northumberland?” gasped Hooke, clearly impressed. “But, Your Grace!” Hooke swept his hat from his head and bowed with exaggeration. “Isobel?” scolded Hooke. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I—ah . . .” began Miss Tinker.

  “What an honor to have you in my shop, sir,” continued Hooke. “But how similar you look to your portrait in the papers. Wait! I’ve today’s edition here.”

  While the room stared, Hooke pulled a broadsheet from his greatcoat and unfurled it.

  “Aha, there ’tis!” Hooke shoved The Times at Jason, but only Miss Tinker and Samantha leaned in to see.

  The headline “Northumberland Departs Foreign Office to Assume Dukedom” shouted from the page, accompanied by a rather constipated-looking etching of Jason’s face.

  The sight of the headline invoked a now-familiar burn in the lining of his stomach, and Jason looked away.

  “Let me guess,” boasted Hooke, “you intend to pack away your mother and sisters on holiday so you may enjoy peace and quiet as you settle into Syon Hall?”

  “Mr. Hooke,” said Isobel Tinker in quiet shock, “the Duchess of Northumberland and His Grace’s sisters have suffered a great loss.”

  Hooke ignored her. “You could not have chosen a more reliable, respectable, and, dare I say, esteemed travel agent for the ladies! And what luck, you’ve called on a day when the owner—that would be me, sir—is in the office to manage every detail. Samantha?” he barked to the clerk. “Bring chairs so His Grace and I might sit.”

  Jason held up a hand. “If it would be agreeable to you, Mr. Hooke—it is Mr. Hooke, isn’t it?”

  “Drummond Hooke, at your service,” said Hooke, bowing again.

  “Right,” said Jason. “If it would be agreeable, I’d hoped to finish quickly and be out of your way. I’ve already given my details to your Miss Tinker here. I understand that you’re in town on important business and I’m loathe to intrude on your meeting.”

  “’Tis no intrusion,” tried Hooke.

  Jason gritted his teeth. “Miss Tinker and I were nearly finished, and I’ve my own demanding schedule.”

  Hooke looked uncertain.

  Jason finished it. “Honestly, these are the sort of secretarial notes that are surely below the notice of the owner.” He gave the younger man a knowing look. “The girl will do for this.”

  Hooke nodded, mimicking Jason.

  Miss Tinker cleared her throat. “Perhaps I can see the duke on his way while you review the ledgers with Samantha, Mr. Hooke?”

  The younger man glanced first to Samantha, then to the open ledger on the counter, then to Miss Tinker. It occurred to Jason that Drummond Hooke had been looking forward to crowding over that ledger book with Isobel.

  “It’s all settled, then,” Jason said quickly. “I’ll not take more than five minutes of Miss Tinker’s time.”

  He scooped up a second chair and plunked it at the desk. Meanwhile Samantha darted behind the counter, flipping pages in a ledger.

  “Here you are, Mr. Hooke,” the clerk called. “In fact, we have a question on the profits for this quarter. Higher again, you’ll see.”

  “So you say,” said Hooke slowly, watching Jason flick his coin again.

  Isobel Tinker slid into the chair. “You have three minutes,” she whispered.

  “I said five.” Jason sat across from her.

  She closed her eyes and drew a deep, calming breath. When she opened them, she said, “Why didn’t you tell me you were a duke?”

  “I did.”

  “Dukes do not lurk about in alleys. They do not book holidays at small travel agencies for women travelers.”

  “Well, I haven’t been a duke for long,” he said offhandedly. “Now, about Iceland—”

  “Stop.” She raised a small hand. “I’m at a loss to make myself clearer: no one travels to Iceland. It’s simply not done. If it’s your intention to waste both of our time on a lark, you’ve come on a terrible day. Dealing with my employer is both delicate and taxing. My livelihood depends on accommodating him in a hundred different ways. Mitigating your odd requests is not one of them. I cannot tell you again that there are no holidays to Iceland. Iceland is many glorious things, but it is not a holiday destination.”

  “It’s no lark, Miss Tinker,” he said.

  “Then what’s the meaning of—?”

  “Pirates,” he said plainly. “Nordic pirates. It’s why I came, and it’s why I cannot leave until we speak.”

  Her blue eyes widened. “What of Nordic pirates?”

  He exhaled deeply and glanced toward the duo at the counter. He looked back at Isobel. “A band of Nordic pirates has taken capture of a contingent of English merchants.”

  “Oh,” she said, a hollow sound. “How? Why?”

  “We cannot say for sure. The merchants were trying to establish some unofficial arrangement for trade between the east coast of England and Iceland. They set out to speak to civic leaders in Reykjavík about importing goods, but they were taken captive by pirates instead.”

  “But the merchants should have sailed to Denmark, not Iceland,” Isobel said. “Denmark controls trade in Iceland.” She reached for a pamphlet entitled Tour Majestic Denmark.

  “They should have,” Jason acknowledged, “but they did not. The merchants sought to circumvent the Danes and trade directly with Iceland.”

  “To escape the Danish tariffs,” she guessed.

  “Yes,” Jason said, his heartbeat kicking up. This young woman knew far more about Scandinavia than he’d been led to expect. But perhaps she could be of significant help to him.

  “The merchants were, in essence, setting up a smuggling route,” he said. He’d never intended to reveal this much. But he’d also not expected her to know this much.

  “They would not be the first English smugglers to Iceland,” said Miss Tinker. “England and Iceland are neighbors that have been either fighting or trading—or both—for centuries.”

  “Indeed. And our government might allow the merchants to simply languish in captivity—pirates are, after all, a consequence of smuggling—but one of the captured merchants just happens to be a . . . relation of mine.” Another deep breath. “A cousin. His father, my uncle, has appealed to me for help. In doing so, I should not rattle the Minister of Trade in Denmark. In fact, none of the leadership in Iceland should be invoked. It’s a colossal cock-up and has the potential to be a diplomatic nightmare.”

  “Oh,” she said again, barely blinking.

  Jason continued. “The recovery of my hapless cousin and his townspeople is to be my last assignment before I retire to Syon Hall in Middlesex and assume my duties as duke.”

  Jason heard himself say the words, his voice remarkably steady, his body relaxed. He was getting better at concealing the gut-rolling dread.

  He forced himself to finish. “My brother’s been dead almost a year. I’ve put off my family responsibilities long enough. My resignation has already been announced, but I should like to restore my cousin before I go. He is not the . . . shiniest marble in the pouch, but we were close in boyhood and I’m fond of him. And anything I can do to keep England on the up-and-up with Denmark is advantageous. The relationship between our two countries is tremulous at the moment.”

  Miss Tinker nodded. “They sided with France in the war.”

  “Indeed they did.” Denmark’s alliances were hardly obscure, but he couldn’t name another young woman who could readily spout off the contents of Napoleon’s dance card. She surprised him nearly ever
y time she opened her mouth. He waited to hear what she might say next.

  “I . . .” began Miss Tinker, and then she paused and closed her eyes. She looked so anguished Jason thought it could’ve been her cousin taken by pirates.

  He offered, “Not to heap you with reasons, Miss Tinker, but also there is some urgency on the part of the captured merchants. They hail, primarily, from the coastal town of Grimsby, in Lincolnshire. The lot is made up of unknowing townspeople who were, in a manner, convinced of the endeavor by an ambitious town council that misled and bullied them—my cousin included. The captured merchants, by and large, are innocent of the aspiration of smuggling and likely terrified.”

  She opened her eyes, shot him a look of something like desperation, and then stared at the ceiling.

  Jason went on. “One man is old and frail; still another has a sick child at home. They were only meant to be gone for a month, and now it’s been nearly three. I must go after them, but Iceland happens to be a gray void in my realm of experience. I’ve been a lot of places, Miss Tinker, but never there. However, I understand that you have. And I need your help.”

  Now she nodded and glanced at her employer behind the counter. When she spoke, her voice was unsteady. “Look, you appear to be everything you’ve said. I’ll grant you that. And the situation you describe sounds both believable and . . . pressing. But why me? You claim to have information on my experience in Iceland but you don’t know me—not really. Meanwhile, there are Norse scholars and North Sea adventurers and even Icelandic immigrants in England to whom you could appeal for information. I am . . . I am nobody. I’m also distracted and reluctant. Why me?”

  “Ah, yes,” he said. “That. I need your help in particular for precisely those reasons. You happen to be the very best source of information because you are obscure in identity and, by all accounts, discreet by nature. You are a young woman who lives a quiet life in Mayfair and wants nothing to do with international diplomacy.”

  “Meaning, I won’t tell anyone, and if I did, no one would listen?”

  “Yes,” he said. He thought, And very, very clever.

  Isobel Tinker nodded, more to herself than him, and looked away. This afforded him a prolonged view of her profile. Delicate nose, a swoosh of lashes, a fringe of soft blond wisps against her forehead. She was lovely. A bit unexpected. Different. Fiery and tightly wound. He found himself wondering what it would take to unwind her.

  He wondered why she was unmarried. Why spend her days toiling away in a travel agency, enduring the scrutiny of its petty owner? Most bright and pretty women of seven and twenty were married and had begun a family by now.

  “What if I tell you I cannot help you?” she asked softly. “What if I said that I know nothing about Iceland or pirates.”

  “Then I’d say you were lying.” He watched her carefully. Her heart-shaped face tightened but she didn’t deny it. Something about the tenseness and the dread gave him pause. Her expression said, Anyone but me.

  “Lives are at stake, Miss Tinker,” he said lowly, speaking to the coin in his hand. He wasn’t immune to silent pleading but he truly needed help. And she was proving herself to be a very promising resource.

  He looked up, hoping his face conveyed the same plea. “Will you not help us?”

  She said something under her breath. A curse? A prayer? He couldn’t be sure. She glanced over her shoulder at Hooke.

  “Likely my contributions will be of no help at all,” she said, turning back, “but I’ll share what very little I . . . I remember.” She shot another look at the counter. “Only, not now. And not here.”

  “Fine. Meet me tonight?”

  “Mr. Hooke will wish for me to accompany him to dinner and some diversion.”

  Jason felt a twitch by his left eye. “Diversion?”

  She shook her head and held up a hand. “It’s nothing . . . amorous. Let me be clear.”

  “You said you would accommodate him a hundred ways.”

  She gave one, curt shake of her head. “Not that type of accommodation. It will be dinner and a concert in the park or similar.”

  “I believe you,” he said. He hadn’t meant to embarrass her, but he’d wanted to know. It felt very important, for some reason, that he know how she accommodated Drummond Bloody Hooke.

  “My job depends on indulging him in this,” she said. “But I cannot say when I will be home.”

  “You live here?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Upstairs.”

  “Alone?” he confirmed. This also seemed important.

  A nod.

  Jason felt himself breathe. “Fine. I’ll wait for you. Check the alley when you return.”

  “I am not in the business of creeping around in alleys, Your Grace. This afternoon notwithstanding.”

  “Don’t disparage alley creeping,” he said. “It’s one of the many things I’ll miss about this job when it’s gone.”

  Miss Tinker stared at him with an inscrutable expression. As a rule, Jason had no time for inscrutable women, not when there were so many demonstrative women. But he’d not sought her out because he had time for her. He’d sought her out because he needed her help.

  “Fine,” she began, “meet me in the street—not the alley—at ten o’clock. Surely I will be home by then. I’ll give you half an hour on a park bench in Grosvenor Square. But no more.”

  Chapter Three

  Isobel’s evening with Drummond Hooke ended with a single thought: If this man touches me one . . . more . . . time . . .

  She squeezed the ties of her reticule and gave it a perfunctory swing. She’d sewn a fishing weight into the lining for the purpose of uninvited touching, and wouldn’t Samantha be proud. If swung at the knuckle between wrist and thumb . . .

  She mustn’t, of course. Just as she hadn’t driven the heel of her boot into his instep nor jabbed him with her umbrella.

  If she couldn’t contradict Drummond Hooke, how on earth could she injure him?

  Her only hope was to escape, and thankfully they were half a block from her door.

  “What a lovely way to review this quarter’s earnings, Mr. Hooke,” she said lightly, stepping around a puddle and out of his reach. “It’s never necessary to squire me about, but I do thank you. The meal was very generous.”

  The meal had been tepid stew and hard bread in a tavern some two miles from Lumley Street. He’d ordered one tankard of ale and suggested they share it. No pudding. They walked because he’d refused to hire a hackney.

  “When can we expect you back in London?” Isobel asked, fishing for her key. Months and months, she wished silently. Please say, “Months and months.”

  She was just about to unlock the door when something across the street caught her eye. A thick, hulking presence where there should have been only potted geraniums.

  She squinted. Yes, there. A tall smudge that sharpened into a man-shaped density in the dark. She could just make out a wide-brimmed hat, long greatcoat, and heavy boots.

  Northumberland.

  She sucked in a breath and looked away, fumbling again with the key. If Drummond saw the duke, his jealousy and suspicion would set her back for months. He would restrict her autonomy and question the propriety of her running the shop. The ramifications could be devastating.

  But why had the duke come so early? She had an hour, at least, before their rendezvous. She’d rushed through dinner because she’d wanted time between her employer and her—

  And him.

  Drummond hovered over her now like a damp fog. Isobel turned to the door, desperate to keep his attention away from the street.

  She let out a little cough. “Forgive me. The pollen in August has always plagued me. You were saying? About your next visit to the city?”

  “Nights like this?” mused Drummond. “I can see never going back to Shropshire.”

  “Oh, you would miss the countryside surely,” she said to the door. “The city has a way of crowding in, especially for an outdoorsman like yourself.�
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  “You think me a bumpkin.”

  You are an insult to bumpkins, she thought. “Nonsense. I think of you as a gentleman with a fine home in the country. You may choose when to subject yourself to the London crush. What a privilege. The best of both worlds, whenever you like.”

  She shoved the key into the lock. Hooke was so close behind that his breath fluttered the ribbons on her hat.

  “What is the progress of your renovations to Crane Lodge?” she asked, pivoting beside the door. She smiled up. It was hardly prudent to back herself against a wall, but she needed Hooke’s eyes away from the street.

  “I could be convinced to show you the new Crane Lodge in person,” Drummond said, “if ever you made the journey to Shropshire . . .”

  “How can I run the agency,” Isobel asked, “if I am in Shropshire? My duty to you and to your late parents, may God rest them, is to be at my desk. Crane Lodge has been remarkably restored, of this I have no doubt.”

  Certainly she had no doubt of the bills that crossed her desk. Materials, craftsmen, cherry trees imported from the Far East. But she dared not challenge Drummond’s renovations. The lodge kept him out of London, and the bills kept her in it.

  “Surely the shop could spare you for a fortnight,” he cajoled, stepping up.

  He put a hand on the wall beside her head and leaned in. Isobel blinked, surprised by his boldness. Over Hooke’s shoulder, she saw the duke step from the shadows.

  No, no, no, she thought frantically. She made a shooing gesture, low and urgent, with her right hand.

  In a calm voice, she said, “The shop cannot spare me. You know this, Mr. Hooke.” It was a lie. Autumn was their slowest time of year. She’d had plans to leave Samantha in charge and visit her mother in Cornwall next month.

  “Isobel?” Drummond said lowly, his tone suddenly conspiratorial.

  “Yes?” She searched the opposite sidewalk. Northumberland had disappeared, thank God.

  “Isobel?” Drummond repeated.