When You Wish Upon a Duke by Charis Michaels

How foolish she’d been to believe she would never tell him.

She was always going to tell him.

And not even because he truly needed to know.

She could make up a lie that served the mission and protected her privacy, but no.

She would tell him because she wanted to.

Ifthe duke followed her to the misty haze of this rain-drenched deck, she would tell him.

Isobel moved blindly in the fog, navigating crates and coils of rope, making her way to the railing. She was invigorated by the gusty chill. Her nerves were stretched taut, strained like the rigging; the threat of this conversation was wind to the sails. The raindrops were cold when they kissed her cheeks, but turned hot on her flushed skin. The fog seemed to swallow her up, and she was grateful. She wanted to be swallowed. Perhaps saying it all would be easier from behind a screen of mist.

Almost no one knew what had happened in Iceland. With whom could she share such a great burden? Casual friends or relations would judge her, and those who loved her would feel undue pain on her behalf.

She had told her mother, which, then and now, felt correct. She drew comfort from her mother. And a small part of her blamed Georgiana Tinker for all that happened.

But Samantha? The Starling daughters? She had not elaborated. Why introduce the heartbreak to them?

Northumberland’s heart will not break, she thought.

No, not “Northumberland,” she reminded herself. He wished for her to call him “North.”

Northwas big enough and strong enough and, perhaps most importantly, unrelated to her future (enough) to survive this story. He could absorb the terribleness of it without breaking stride.

She wanted to try. It had been such a great relief to tell her mother. Perhaps every time she said the words, she could believe in her survival a little bit more.

“Isobel?” North called from somewhere behind her.

Shimmers dripped down her insides. He had followed.

“I’m here,” she called back, speaking to the fog. “Starboard.”

He materialized out of the vapor—first a man-sized shadow, then a silhouette, then all of him. Brown eyes and broad shoulders and large hands. His black overcoat swirled about him and his hat was pulled low against the rain.

He held out a navy greatcoat to drape across her shoulders. The coat settled around her in a whoosh, immersing her in the musky, outdoorsy smell of him. Isobel closed her eyes and breathed in.

When she looked up, he was hovering beside her. He looked alternately at the low, seeping sky and her dripping hair. He frowned.

“Will you not come back inside?” he asked. “The rain is not likely to let up. And you can sit.”

“No.” She shook her head. Drops of rain flung from her hair, piercing the fog. “I’m too restless to sit. And I’ve no wish to look you in the eye while I . . . say the words. I am impervious to the rain.”

“My God, Isobel,” he whispered, “what is it?”

“I think you should call me Miss Tin—”

“I will not call you Miss Tinker, so please stop asking. If you can reveal this very great secret history to me, so tragic that you cannot even look me in the eye, I will call you Isobel.”

“The irony is,” she sighed, “my secret, tragic history is not half as harrowing as what you have doubtless seen on a field of battle or in godforsaken parts of the world. But it was devastating for me. I am still recovering. It is difficult for me to relate.”

North stared a long moment. He looked like a man who’d opened a door he wasn’t certain he wanted to walk through. Finally, he nodded. He leaned a hip into the railing beside her and crossed his arms over his chest.

Isobel tried to hold his gaze and failed. She looked out at the fog. It swirled in great, white drifts over the sea. She squeezed the railing and pinned her shoulders back; she soothed her throat with a gulp of cold, damp air.

There should be no preamble, she thought. The preamble had been every evasion since they’d met.

“Very well,” she began. “I’ve said my mother was an actress.”

“Georgiana Tinker,” provided North.

“Right. When your mother is an actress, your playmates are the children of other actors and people in the theater. We—that is to say myself and these other children—grew up in myriad backstage wings, dressing rooms, and theater-district boardinghouses. Even before we left England, this had been my experience, although we had a proper flat in London.

“In Europe, we traveled constantly, lodging mostly in boardinghouses and hotels. The children of the other players, and of the costumers, and of the musicians and dancers—they were like brothers and sisters to me.

“We were tight-knit . . . more than a little wild, largely untended, surrounded by music and dancing. We bore witness to the romantic entanglements of our parents. We slept when we fell over in exhaustion—which was rarely—ate whatever we liked, dressed how we pleased.

“Actors change cities when a show wraps, as do members of the crew, and every production convened a different set of creative luminaries. I might see one family for the length of one production, and then not again for a year. The next time I would see them, we would be in another city or another country.”

“I’ve never considered,” said North, “the childhood of someone raised in the shadow of the stage. Fascinating. But you are clearly . . . educated. Did your mother arrange for tutors?”

“My mother did not,” Isobel said. “She taught me to read and do sums. Beyond that, she subscribed to the theory of ‘life is your schoolroom.’ I was a curious girl, a voracious reader. I was a repeat visitor to every museum in every city. I prowled ancient churches; I picked up languages quickly.”

“You’ve been classically educated in the most unclassical of ways,” he observed. “Extraordinary.”

Isobel gave a half nod, keeping her head down. “When I reached the age of fourteen or so, my friends and I began to travel on our own, independent of our parents or their commitments to the stage.”

“A girl of fourteen traveling alone?” marveled North.

“I know it sounds shocking, and it was, but it happened so gradually. My mother would close a show in Rome and pack up for Salzburg to undertake a new role. I wouldn’t want to leave Italy, or I would have a holiday planned with another actor’s family on the coast. I would remain in Rome and join her in a fortnight, traveling with someone’s older sister or a maid.

“Or she would take a role in a city I hated, such as St. Petersburg, and I would beg to travel with a group of other youths to Budapest, at first only for a fortnight.”

“And she allowed it,” observed North.

Isobel took a deep breath. “It was not as if she did not care,” she ventured, even though Isobel had wondered, at times, about her mother’s ability to see beyond her own goals and preferences. “It was more like she did not have the patience to argue. I understood this about her and became an expert at simply wearing her down. If I wished to go ahead, or stay behind, or ramble, I need only try her patience. And I always wished to go or stay behind or ramble.”

“As much as you now like to stay put?” he asked.

“Exactly the same amount,” she said.

“But did you have . . . resources?” he asked gently.

“Oh, we traveled in lavish style. My mother was highly sought-after and well compensated. Until my father died, he actually sent money as well. Mama would have nothing to do with his contributions, and she gave all of that money to me. I was too foolish to save it, and my wardrobe was a work of art. I employed a Paris-trained maid; I dined in the best restaurants and drank the best wine. Mama and I hired a beautiful carriage and driver as soon as we arrived in any city. It was,” she said, “either the perfect combination of money and freedom, or the most dangerous combination of these. I suppose it depends on how you view it.”

“Perfect,” said North wistfully.

Dangerous, Isobel countered in her head. “This from the man who is running from a dukedom.”

“Perhaps I should endeavor to be adopted by a traveling actor,” he said.

Isobel chuckled and touched her hair. Her bun was soaked and dripping rainwater down her neck. She’d begun to shiver. The cold felt less exhilarating now, more punishing.

North removed his hat and plopped it on her head. It wabbled on her saturated bun, far too large, and she was swamped again with the smell of him.

Without warning, tears shot to her eyes. Her throat clamped down. For a long moment, she struggled for composure. She tipped her head so he could not see her beneath the brim of the hat.

How far she’d come in seven years, she thought. She had a home—a new home, if she survived this mission—a schedule where days were day and nights were night and she earned a living wage doing work that she enjoyed. A friend in Samantha. A family in the Starlings and her mother.

If her encounters with the Duke of Northumberland felt like a regression—a very wonderful, deceptively harmless regression—well, this story would put an end to all of that. He could mumble, “Extraordinary” and “Fascinating,”and be perfectly lovely about it but the reality of her indiscretions meant there would be a wedge between them now.

Before, the wedge was small and vague. Now it would be as tall and sharp as the spire of a church. Now she would cease her silly, middle-of-the-night fantasies about him. And the future. And her.

She flashed him a resigned smile and forced herself to continue. “By the time I was fifteen, I’d become part of a cluster of youths—all the grown children of theater people—who traveled Europe on a sort of . . . whim. That is, we would convene for opening night of our parents’ productions, and then we would set out. Gone was the suggestion that I might join my mother in a week or so. I traveled with these friends for months at a time, embarking on some adventure.”

“Like the sort of adventure where you explored the streets of Paris?” guessed North.

She chuckled. “Like climbing a mountain in Switzerland. Like swimming in the Aegean Sea in Greece. Like learning how they train bull fighters in Spain.”

“But . . .” began North, now struggling to comprehend, “how did you not run out of money? Your mother could be the most successful actress in history and not support the life you describe. And how did a lot of untended youths gain access to—forgive me—decent establishments? What of your safety? Europe was at war. Was there no adult to mind you?”

“Excellent questions,” Isobel conceded. Defensiveness had begun to creep in, although she had no idea why. This time in her life felt without defense. She’d been dangerously reckless; many nights, she’d been downright stupid. She’d been out of control.

She glanced at North. He watched her expectantly, his expression not so much judgmental as concerned. She turned back to the sea.

She reminded herself that she did not have to tell him every detail. She didn’t have to do anything but traipse through the tundra of Iceland and translate the language and return home to claim her lovely new building.

“How did we not run out of money?” she repeated, determined, in fact, to tell him every detail. “Our lodging and food came mostly as the guests of people we met along the way. Some nights we dined lavishly in the chalets of local bourgeoisie; others we ate bread and cheese and drank wine from the bottle. Some nights we slept in canopied beds inside a castle; others we made camp on the side of the road. We traveled very light; we were prepared for whatever the journey might bring.

“What can I say but . . .” She sighed. “We were young and beautiful and resourceful. We were from different countries and we spoke various languages, but all of us were interesting and attractive and could, if necessary, demonstrate lovely manners. We could also pick pockets and fight. All of us had traveled since we were children. We were shrewd and savvy, daring and unafraid. We invented new identities based on our needs in any given city. One town saw us as brothers and sisters in a missionary family; in the next we styled ourselves as obscure Baltic royalty.”

She took a deep breath, thinking back. How clearly she could see each of their faces, some fondly, others she barely tolerated. Even then, it mattered less that she enjoyed the group, more that she’d been included in it, that she could keep up, that she was fearless enough.

She shook her head, clearing it. “What else did you ask? How were we safe? We were not safe. More than once we fell in with unsavory characters and escaped only by our luck and our wits.

“Have I, you might wonder, done serious injury to a man who climbed on top of me in the middle of the night? Yes, I have done, more than once.

“Have I leapt from a speeding carriage? Also more than once.

“Have I been picked up by the local magistrate only to talk my way out of jail? Yes.”

She snatched off her hat, gave it a shake, scattering rainwater. She glanced at him, reseating the hat.

He was staring at her as if she was a shiny curiosity found in the attic. He looked as if he wanted to hold her up to the light and examine her from every angle.

“And you thought you were the only one to escape from prison,” she teased.

“I had not thought,” he said. “Obviously. But what did your mother know of this? Was she not . . . concerned?”

“Wait, allow me to finish the last bit.” She held up a finger. “You ask if there was no one minding us. Ultimately, no. However, there was a leader to our merry band. It was a boy—older, but hardly an adult—called Peter Boyd.”

“Peter Boyd?” he repeated. “He was English?”

“Yes, from Manchester of all places. He was the oldest among us, about nineteen at the time. His family was the wealthiest of the theater crowd; his father produced many of my mother’s productions. He was . . .” she paused, staring into the fog, trying to find words to describe Peter Boyd, “. . . Peter was a dangerous combination of handsomeness, confidence, cleverness, charm, boldness, and . . . an inability to stay still.”

“Is that all?” asked North, laughing a little.

“No, in fact,” she admitted, “but you get the idea. Think of the most charming, most enticing person you know, give him the face of an angel, and then allow him to take your breath away on a daily basis. That was Peter Boyd. We followed him blindly and he led us on the journey of our lives.

“If Peter wanted to break inside the Vatican in Rome,” she listed, “we did it. If he wished to herd goats in the Alps, we did it. If he wanted to harvest pearls, or dance with a royal princess, or learn to hold his breath for four minutes—we found a way to do it.”

“You belonged to him,” North guessed solemnly. “You were lovers.”

Isobel watched him, trying to read criticism or disappointment in his tone. His expression was enigmatic. He appeared only attentive.

Isobel shrugged. “Peter Boyd had one very favorite among our group, and I was not her. He loved AnaClara, a Portuguese girl, the daughter of a renowned set designer. She was tall and serene and darkly beautiful where I was small and pale and . . . not serene. I was an amusement to him and a resource. I spoke more languages than any of the other Lost Boys.”

“The Lost Boys?”

“That is the name Peter gave us, the Lost Boys.”

“But you are not a boy.”

“It didn’t matter. When the group first began these far-reaching rambles, they counted only boys among their number. Then he began to invite AnaClara and me and another few girls. The name had already been established.”

“But did you ever . . . challenge this Peter Boyd? His choices or his whims?”

“At the time?” she mused, thinking back. “I did not. You asked if he was my lover—he was not, er, always. But I did love him. Every girl did. I’ve never known a single female of any age that did not fall a little in love with Peter Boyd. It pains me to say it, but I would have followed him anywhere. I did follow him anywhere. I followed him to Iceland.”

She clasped the railing of the brig and dropped back, allowing her weight to hang at an angle. “So now you know.”

“On the contrary,” he said gruffly, “I feel as if I have only scratched the surface.”

“Are you shocked?” she asked, standing straight again.

“Yes, a little,” he said. “If I’m being honest. But not the kind of shocked that is also appalled. More like the kind of shocked that means I’m in awe of the life you’ve led.”

She laughed, a bitter, humorless sound.

“You don’t believe me?” he asked.

“I think ‘awe’ is a bit of a stretch.”

“You forget the one thing I cannot tolerate,” he said.

She thought for a moment. “Becoming duke?”

“Being bored,” he said.

She was going to clap back with some retort, to disprove what he’d claimed, but she came up short. Her girlhood had been anything but boring. She glanced at him. He watched her now with rapt attention. From the beginning, he’d always looked at her as if he was afraid he’d miss something if he looked away. The shimmers in her belly swirled to life.

“But why did this person bring you to Iceland?” he prompted.

“Peter wanted to see the volcanoes and experience the thermal pools and the strange northern lights in the sky,” she said. “We arrived in early spring and stayed through the summer. He made friends with this family I hope to visit, the Vagns.”

“This family simply . . . welcomed you into their home?”

She shrugged. “He had an aunt who was married to one of their relations. That was all it took with him—some small connection, real or imagined. He met people, and they wanted to be a part of his world. He told them some lie about his father being a wealthy investor who was scouting scenic locations around the world to build hotels.”

“And they believed him?”

“People believed whatever Peter Boyd told them,” she said sadly. “I believed him, even though I’d seen him lie to at least one person every day of our lives.”

“Believed him about what?”

“Well—” she said, and then her voice broke. She stopped, blinked, and raised her fingertips to her mouth.

“Isobel,” he said softly.

She dropped her hand. The first tear fell and she wiped it away. “Each of us was hurt by the pace at which we burned through life, or by Peter Boyd, or by both. It was only a matter of time. Before it was my turn.”

“Your turn for . . . ?”

“My turn to catch fire, I suppose?” Another tear rolled down her cheek, and she swiped it away.

“What did this man do to you?” His voice was harder now. He sounded upset. “Isobel?”

She studied his face. Was he angry with her?

No, she didn’t think so.

Was it Peter that he resented? No one ever resented Peter Boyd.

She continued carefully, watching him. “Well, Peter’s favorite, AnaClara, did not enjoy Iceland. It was too cold, the sky was too white, and she did not get on with the Vagns, our hosts. And so she left. After just a month. Sometimes she did this—she left us. She was the only one brave enough to walk away without the fear of not being invited back in. Naturally, that is why Peter loved her the most. She was not held entirely in his thrall.

“And when she left, Peter finally, at long last, after two years of traveling together, turned his attention . . . on me.”

“Oh,” said North, his voice filled with dread.

“I’d waited so long to have him, only him, just for myself,” she said through a lump. “And for a time, I was the chosen one. Also for a time, it was everything I thought it would be. He was charming and affectionate and attentive. I worked doubly hard to please him. Like most revered leaders, he was conveniently helpless. I served as everything from his valet, oiling his boots, to his minstrel, singing him to sleep. I set about learning the Icelandic language at an eye-burning pace.”

“And you were in love,” said North quietly.

“I was so in love.” The tears fell freely now.

“Do you love him still?” asked North, his voice less than a whisper.

She shook her head. “No. I have no regard for him. Hate is too strong a feeling for what I have for him. When I think of him, I feel nothing but an empty road, going to nowhere.”

“But you are crying,” he said.

She swiped at the tears, smearing them with the raindrops on her face. “I cry for the girl I was. The stupid choices, the stupid hope, for how I believed I was a part of this wonderful, special thing, when I was really all alone.”

“What happened?” A whisper.

“What do you think happened? By July, AnaClara had returned, saying she missed us, that life was dull with her parents. She began a campaign to lure us to the French seaside.”

“And you . . . quarreled?” North asked.

“With whom? AnaClara? No. She and I rarely spoke, and now we had even less to say than before. Peter and I? Also no. I became an observer. I held my breath, and waited, and watched to see who he would choose.” She laughed a bitter laugh. “To think I actually thought it might be me. He’d seemed so contented in Iceland. The volcanoes captivated him. He’d made the acquaintance of these pirates who captured your cousin—this is how I know of them—and he spent days playing high-seas adventurer in the water off the coast of Reykjavík. He longed to see the phenomenon of the lights in the sky in late September.”

She laughed again. “If I required the scenic highlights of the country to sway him in my favor, I knew the answer.”

“How did he settle it?” North asked.

“He came to me the evening that AnaClara returned—he cornered me alone—and said something like, ‘I’ve moved your case from my bedchamber to the room with the other girls. We would not want to confuse or distress AnaClara now that she’s finally returned to us.’ ”

“No,” North said, exhaling, drawing out the word like a hiss. He reached out and grabbed Isobel at the biceps, holding her at arm’s length.

She allowed this, sagging a little, soaking in the strength of his large hands through the bulk of the coat.

“There is more,” she said, her voice as quiet as the fog.

He shook his head, ducking a little to see her face beneath the brim of the hat.

“I was with child by then.”

The silence that followed this was as wide and as lonely as the sea.

“Oh, Isobel,” North finally whispered.

She nodded. Her ability to form words had gone. It was always like this when she talked about the pregnancy.

She sucked in a breath, trying to work loose the knot in her throat.

She said, “I hadn’t yet told Peter about . . . my condition. I was terrified to tell him.”

North made a groaning noise and closed his eyes. Isobel searched his features for disgust but his face was creased only with pain.

Yes, Isobel wanted to say. Yes! It was unbearably painful.

That is why I have not wanted to return to Iceland.

That is why I cannot trust you or any charming, handsome man.

That is why I cannot trust myself when I am near you.

I want too much from the wrong men.

While she studied him, his eyes opened. She forced herself to hold his gaze. She wanted to say all of this too, but she’d already said so much. And none of this was North’s fault.

He said, “What happened, Isobel?”

“Well,” she said, “my mother was halfway across Europe doing a long run of Tartuffe, her favorite play.” She simply let the words spill out, flowing like her tears.

“The other Lost Boys—the girls, perhaps—might seem like natural confidantes, but they were all waiting hopefully for their chance to have a go at Peter. They idolized AnaClara. I was alone.”

She dragged in a deep breath, but what she really wanted to do was scream. To scream for the lonely, terrified girl she had been.

She finished with, “Before Peter reunited with AnaClara, I was going to tell him. But then she returned and he threw me over. When it was clear I was an afterthought to him, second best, then I sort of . . . stopped. In all things that pertained to him. I stopped watching, stopped scheming, stopped hoping. I simply . . . was.

“I held myself very still for the first time in as long as I could remember. I thought of me and me alone—well, and the baby. I considered my situation. When I fully grasped what had happened, when I allowed myself to conceive everyone’s role in it—mine, Peter’s, AnaClara’s, my mother’s, even these Icelandic people in whose home we were living—I experienced a sort of . . . awakening.

“Peter’s selfishness had finally pierced the fog of my hero worship. Something like . . . good sense, and independence, and self-preservation began, ever so slowly, to stack up, brick by brick, inside me. I had the strength to choose my own interests ahead of the group’s. I had the strength to see beyond Peter, to not look at him at all actually. I could determine some way to survive for myself and for this new life. Alone. I had to . . . grow up.”

“But where is—?”

“I lost the baby,” Isobel said quickly.

There was no way to say it except to force the words out. They cut her every time she said them. She was cut in two to say it.

“Isobel,” he breathed. His hands went gentle on her arms but he did not let her go.

She nodded, responding to the softness in his voice. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“I’d already written to my uncle by then. The letter honestly and frankly described my situation so that the Starlings could decide what manner of help, if any, they were willing to lend. They had a houseful of impressionable daughters. My uncle was running for parliament. And I was alone and unmarried and expecting a child. Sir Jeffrey, God bless him, arranged for me to sail to London as soon as a ship could reach Iceland. By the time that ship made landfall in Reykjavík, I’d lost the baby. I was only about eight weeks along. My body simply . . .”

She couldn’t finish.

“Were your friends with you when . . . ?” he asked softly.

She shook her head. “I was alone. The Lost Boys had gone, but this family, the Vagns, had allowed me to stay behind. I told them I wanted to continue to learn the language and implored them to host me for a while longer. They sensed some distress, I believe, and allowed it. They never knew about the pregnancy.”

She stopped talking then and wept in earnest. Her face crumpled; her throat cinched painfully tight. Despite her sobs, she heard North make a mournful noise—a sort of moaned oath—and the next thing she knew, he was pulling her against him. She felt hard chest and warm arms, but her brain was consumed with the old pain and guilty relief of that night. She cried until she was wrung out, until there were no tears left to cry. He held her and she lacked the energy to move away; she didn’t want to move away. Her breath came in slow, raspy gasps. She sounded like a dying thing. Without thinking, her hands found the lapels of his coat and she squeezed, holding on.

She should say something, she thought. This was her terrible history and she’d revealed it of her own volition; no one expected such vivid detail, least of all her.

She looked up to his face.

He looked down, his brown eyes gentle and also . . . bright. Wet. With tears. He cried too.

The realization hit Isobel like a roiling wave from the North Sea. When the force subsided, the shimmers in her belly, as resilient and reliable as the tide, bubbled up.

She was doomed.

She took a deep, shuddered breath. “There,” she whispered. “So now you know. That is why I was in Iceland and that is why I did not wish to come back. And that is how I am in the acquaintance of the Vagns, God love them.”

“I was wrong to compel you,” he confessed. The look on his face was pure misery.

“I would never have agreed without the offer of the building—you did not compel me, you made it worth my while. The building is worth it,” she assured him. “The building will change my life. And, ultimately, this return to Iceland will have no impact on me, except perhaps to allow me some . . . reckoning.”

“Does ‘reckoning’ with pain really ever make a difference?” he asked, his voice a scoff.

“I think, perhaps, it does. On the very rare occasions that I have related this story, I have felt better. Perhaps I feel better already.”

“You do?”

“No,” she said, laughing sadly, “but I can see where I might.”

“You are too generous.” His words were angry. “I have wronged you on behalf of . . . of Reggie.” He made a face. “It’s exactly the sort of thing he, and only he, would cause me to do.”

“It’s your cousin’s fault, is it?” She released the handfuls of his coat and laid her palms flat against his chest. She could just feel his heartbeat through her gloves.

“Of course not. Even when it is Reggie’s fault, it is never really his fault. I did this, and cannot think of what I’ve done to deserve anything but resentment from you. But I am grateful. And I understand your . . . trepidation.”

“If I’d told you from the beginning, I feel sure you would have left me alone. And perhaps that is why I did not tell you. I didn’t want to be left alone—not yet—by you.”

His face took on a sharper expression. He ran a hand through his hair, slicking it back and sluicing rainwater onto the yoke of his coat.

“Do not,” she said. “We’re both ‘adults of the world,’ so I needn’t feign obviousness or pretend there is not a considerable . . . attraction between us. But as an adult, I can make responsible choices. And I will. I chose to assist you on this mission but also to do nothing else with you. So flatter yourself if you must, but don’t indulge in delusions of grandeur.” She forced herself to drop her hands and shrugged out of his hold. It was the adult thing to do.

She added, “And do not feel guilty about dragging me to Iceland. I am many things, but a coward is not one of them.”

“No,” he said softly, “I would say that you are not.”

They stood a moment longer, staring at each other through the mist, rain soaking every garment, the brigantine gently rocking beneath their feet.

“So, what do we do now?” she asked softly. Her brain hadn’t allowed her to think beyond telling him.

“I suppose we plan for how to quickly and peacefully extract my cousin and his lot.”

“I may put on dry clothes first,” she said, shrugging out of his coat.

He watched her peel the wet garment from her shoulders. If she’d asked him to accompany her to her cabin to assist with the dry clothes, he would have done it. If she’d asked him to take her to his cabin, to see her dry and comfortable and comforted, he would have done it.

Her pulse leapt at the thought, and desire began to beat back the cold.

She would not, of course. And he would not. And his expression, although hungry and proprietary, was also assessing. He was looking at her with new eyes. He looked at her like a stranger who’d just revealed that they hailed from the same hometown. They’d hit upon this sort of shorthanded intimacy. A new kinship. They knew some of the same people and places. They understood the culture of this shared thing.

Did he consider her less for having traveled and cavorted and leapt from carriages? For having loved and lost so much? Or more like him? Or both?

Again, she dared not ask.

“Meet again in an hour?” she asked quietly, extending his wet coat.

“Alright,” he said. “An hour.”

“Do us both a favor?” she said, turning away. “Bring your friend. I learned too late in life the value of a chaperone.”