When You Wish Upon a Duke by Charis Michaels

The Duke of Northumberland lay on his back on a table in the kitchen galley. At the end of the table, bound loosely but effectively, sat one Donatello Beddloe, pirate and outlaw, snarling in some combination of Italian and Welsh.

Jason had just asked him a question in broken Italian and was waiting for an answer. To entertain himself while he waited, Jason extended his right arm above his chest and balanced an orange on his pointer finger. He’d almost managed it when—

“What in God’s name are you doing?” a familiar voice called from the galley door.

The orange toppled and rolled away. Jason swung upright.

“North?” asked Isobel Tinker, her gaze swinging back and forth between the pirate and him.

“What am I doing?” he repeated. “What are you doing?”

“I came for my traveling case,” she said. “Mr. Shaw rowed me from shore. The Vagns invited me to take a room in the living quarters above their warehouse while we are in port. But . . . is this a pirate?”

She was examining Mr. Beddloe from the distance of the door.

Jason shot the man a warning look and stepped into the passageway. Isobel scuttled back. He’d stripped from his coat and waistcoat and wore only his shirt, open at the throat, sleeves pushed to his forearms, and buckskins. She openly eyed his bare arms and chest; she’d have to be blind not to notice.

He raised a muscled arm over his head and propped it on the doorjamb. “It is, in fact, a pirate,” he said.

“But I cannot believe you actually managed to locate a pirate,” she whispered, craning around him to study Mr. Beddloe.

“Wasn’t that the plan?” he asked. “Pirate interrogation?”

“Well, yes—I never dreamed you’d run one to ground so quickly. It was meant to take days. I thought you might—”

She paused and craned around him, trying to see through the crack in the door.

Jason reached behind him and closed the door.

She exhaled in frustration and shot him an exasperated look. He cocked a brow. The stale air of the passageway stirred. A bright energy sparked whenever they were alone. It hummed between them.

“I would like to observe the interrogation,” she said.

“Isobel,” he began.

“It’s so terrible, is it?”

“I can certainly think of better ways to pass an afternoon. Roughing up unsuspecting criminals to pick through his profanity for truth is not my favorite activity.”

“Is it working?” she asked.

“I would not trust him to lead me to a chest of buried treasure, but he has revealed one or two truths, given sufficient motivation.”

“Good Lord, you’re not beating him, I hope?”

Jason bit back a smile. His reputation at the Foreign Office had been built on strategy and intrigue, not brawn. He lowered his arm and leaned against the door with his arms over his chest. Perhaps he wouldn’t correct her.

“Would you like to know what I’ve learned?” he asked.

“Yes. If I cannot observe.”

Jason swallowed another smile. It felt so very good to collaborate with her. Her mind was quick and inventive and she showed uncommon courage. He’d loved almost every second of his career, but he was discovering how much more fun it was to play out the last act with a skilled accomplice.

He told her Beddloe confirmed what they’d suspected. An international band of pirates had abducted seven Englishmen here in the port village of Stokkseyri. They now held the Englishmen as captives.

Pirate captain Phillipe Doucette had sent the ransom letter to Jason’s uncle. Doucette would hold the captives until he had some answer to that letter—or until he grew weary of keeping the captives alive. His spies were awaiting some answer in Reykjavík.

“At least that is what I think he’s told me,” Jason added. “Our chat has been complicated by his outrage and my inability to speak Welsh or Italian, his two languages of choice. He speaks a small amount of English and I speak a bit of Italian. Our relationship is . . . evolving.”

“A Welsh-Italian pirate,” she marveled.

Jason nodded. “But what of your reunion with this family, the Vagns?”

A success, she told him. She’d been warmly welcomed and learned that her friends had encountered the Lincolnshire merchants before they disappeared. The Vagns even considered joining their offer of smuggled goods—but then, with no warning, the Englishmen had disappeared.

“One day they were in Stokkseyri,” she told him, “and the next they were gone.”

“Taken by the pirates,” provided Jason.

“The Vagns had the same suspicion.”

“But did they venture a guess as to why they absconded with the hapless Englishmen?” Jason asked.

Isobel nodded. “The Vagns believe another family, the Skallagrímurs, were angry because the Englishmen had not approached them, and them alone, about the smuggling. The Skallagrímurs are allied to the pirates. They used that alliance to have the Englishmen removed from the island.”

“Useful resource—pirates. If someone doesn’t get their way.”

Jason’s brain was ticking through all they’d learned. He’d require far more details to mount any sort of a rescue, and the interrogation with Beddloe was progressing painfully slow.

He glanced at Isobel.

“The answer is yes,” she said.

He’d never meant to put her in the path of living, breathing pirates. When it came time for the actual recovery, only himself and the men he’d hired were meant to approach Doucette. But they were bounding over the discovery and thundering toward the rescue. To be fully effective and efficient, he could use her help.

And she knew it.

“Isobel,” he began cautiously.

“Stop playing nanny,” she said, already moving around him and reaching for the door.

“Wait,” he warned, blocking her way. She collided with him. An Isobel-shaped imprint sizzled on his chest. “You don’t know what I was going to ask.”

“Yes, I speak Italian, and yes, I will translate.”

“I worry I’m taking advantage of you by asking this.”

“You’re not. I am not afraid of pirates.” She reached around him again.

Again he blocked her.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, a challenge. She tipped her face up.

He put his hand on her waist. She was too close not to touch. The motion was familiar, grounding. He’d not touched her since the rainy night on the deck. It felt so very natural. The unnatural thing would have been not touching her.

He lowered his voice. “Dealing with this man is not essential. I can manage if you don’t want the bother. This is hardly what we discussed.”

“’Tis no bother, I assure you,” she said. “And the ship has long sailed on my doing only ‘things we discussed.’ ”

Her tone was convincing, boastful almost, and he gave her a little jostle, pulling her close enough to fall against his chest. She stopped the motion with a palm to his pectoral.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispered. Three words, already too much. He should have left it. Any sane, reasonable, respectful man would have left it.

She didn’t break his gaze.

He added, “I want whatever you will give me.”

Perhaps he’d not thought about what he wanted in as many words, but it was true. He wanted whatever she would give him.

“I will translate, Your Grace,” she whispered. “Please do not ask for more.”

“I’m perishing,” he whispered, surprised at his own poetry. It was not untrue.

“You’re not getting exactly what you want,” she corrected. “It is not the same thing as perishing. Believe me.”

A loud bang from the other side of the door shattered the moment, and Jason released her. He reached for the door and she drew a shaky breath and patted the bun on top of her head.

“He’s not happy about this . . . interview,” he told her, trying to refocus. “But he’s bound to a chair. And I will be beside you. You are safe. Do not be alarmed.”

“Very little alarms me,” she said. “Although I do wonder who will protect me from you.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. It felt like the correct thing to say. He did not want to irritate her. He did not even want to wear her down. He couldn’t say what, exactly, he wanted beyond simply . . . her.

“Yes, we’re all very sorry,” she said. “Open the door.”

Inside, they discovered that Mr. Beddloe had overturned a stack of orange crates with his boot. Splintered wood lay in heaps and oranges rolled to the far reaches of the galley.

Upon seeing them, Beddloe let fly a long string of invectives in Italian.

“Mr. Beddloe,” announced Jason, “I see you’ve been busy. If you want an orange, all you need do is ask. This is my associate, Miss Isobel Tinker. How lucky for you that she’s come along; now we may come to terms in earnest. She speaks fluent Italian.”

Jason glanced at Isobel to confirm this and she rolled her eyes. To Beddloe, she rattled off some version of his introduction in slickly accented Italian.

“See? Better already,” said Jason. “Now, with a lady in our midst, it’s never been more important that you put forth your most gentlemanly behavior. She will translate, but she will not tolerate rudeness or disrespect. I will tolerate even less.”

Isobel translated with far less flourish—four or five words—and crossed to the snarling pirate, studying him. In more rapid Italian, she made some sort of invective followed by a handful of questions.

Beddloe answered with another round of surly profanity. Isobel made a face, shook her head in exasperation, and took a step back.

Jason moved around her and dropped down on one knee. “I’ll say this only once more, Beddloe. You will address the lady with respect.”

He reached behind the chair and gave the ropes a firm yank, tightening the binding at his wrists. The pirate snarled and exclaimed something in Italian.

Jason returned to Isobel’s side. “I hate interrogations,” he mumbled.

“He’s saying,” translated Isobel, “that he wants his money now.” She looked at Jason. “What money?”

Jason shrugged.

“He’s saying,” she said, “that you are payinghim for any information he may reveal.”

She looked back and forth between Jason and the bound pirate. “So you haven’t beaten him?”

“Beaten may be a relative sort of term for what I’ve done. Perhaps a little? Although I allowed Shaw to do most of the work. Pirates must be convinced to leave perfectly warm taverns and perfectly potent rum to be rowed offshore and tied up for questioning.”

Before she could respond, the pirate let forth another stream of angry Italian.

“What is he saying?” Jason asked.

Isobel looked back to the pirate, asked two questions in Italian, and listened to the spittle-punctuated reply.

To Jason, she said, “He says your cousin and his friends are surrounded by heavily armed guards on a barrier island off the southeast coast of Iceland. The island is a mile from the glacier caves, very remote, and difficult to navigate. Icebergs abound. He says rescuing them is out of the question, so make no attempt. He says the ransom demanded by his boss is the only way you’ll see the Englishmen safely returned.”

Jason let out a noise of frustration. Jokingly, he asked, “Should we ask him if Doucette accepts bank notes?”

Before she could answer, the pirate spoke again. His tone had changed, although still heavily laced with contempt. Beddloe sounded as if he had made some realization.

Isobel looked at the pirate. When she answered him, her Italian was slow enough for Jason to follow.

“Perhaps I am,” she told the pirate. “So?”

Now the pirate was off again, exclaiming in rapid-fire Italian. Jason was lost, but Isobel listened, stepping closer to look the man in the eye. Twice she held up a gloved hand and asked for clarification.

When their conversation was over, she turned to Jason. “This man has recognized me.”

“A former patron to Everland Travel, is he?” Jason teased.

“Very clever. No, a former, er, friend of Peter Boyd’s. Peter has been back to Iceland—the Vagns said this too. As late as last year.”

“Alright—so?” Of all the things Jason did not care to discuss, at the top of the list was Peter Bloody Boyd.

“Peter returned to ramble about the volcanoes and soak in the thermal pools. But the Vagns said he also spent time with the pirates, which Mr. Beddloe has just confirmed. He’s asking me where Peter can be found.”

The pirate and Isobel exchanged a few more lines in Italian.

“Apparently,” she reported, “Peter’s last visit to Iceland resulted in a deteriorated rapport between Peter and the pirate band. Not only did Peter beat Phillipe Doucette at cards, which cost the pirates a large sum of money, but also Peter stole something from them. Doucette is outraged.”

“Stole? Stole what?” Jason didn’t care, not really, but she seemed to think it was important. Jealousy singed, just beneath his skin. They didn’t have time for this.

Isobel spoke again to the pirate. Looking back to Jason, she said, “He stole a watch—a diamond-encrusted golden watch that was precious to Doucette. Of this, I have no doubt. Peter collected timepieces. If he encountered an example of a rare or precious pocket watch, he would beg, barter, or steal to have it.”

“Alright,” said Jason slowly. “And this means . . . ?”

Isobel turned back to Beddloe and fired off more questions.

“He says the pirates captured your cousin and his colleagues because their Icelandic allies ordered it, but the pirates retained the Englishmen and sent the ransom because Doucette has a significant grudge against anyone who is English. Because Peter is English. He is very focused on recovering his watch.”

“Poor Reggie,” sighed Jason, “always stumbling into someone else’s quarrel.”

Isobel wasn’t listening; she spoke again to the pirate—or rather, the pirate was speaking to her, his dander renewed, his voice loud and angry.

“Careful,” Jason warned. “Watch your tone, Beddloe.”

Isobel paused, staring at Jason.

“Tell him,” urged Jason. “Tell him he must be cordial or he may swim back to his barrier island, dodging icebergs as he goes.”

“North,” she said softly.

Jason paused at the sound of his name. He looked to her.

“North,” she repeated.

It wasn’t like her to speak to him with such personal emphasis. His heart contracted. He crossed to her. “What? What is it?”

She put a hand on his arm. “Do you realize what this means?”

“Ah?” he began, staring at her hand. “What what means? I told you I barely speak Italian.”

“Peter’s return. The angry pirates. The stolen diamond watch.”

Jason sighed. “Look, Isobel, I’d hoped not to say this, but I actually couldn’t care less about Peter Boyd. I would venture to say that my sole interest in him is calling the blaggard out—if ever I have the fortune of stumbling upon him. Stolen watches? Cheating at cards? I don’t ca—”

“Listen to me,” she said, squeezing his forearm. “I raise it because the pirates’ anger at Peter may predispose them to a trade with us.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, they may hand over your cousin and his colleagues without having to pay the ransom. They might do it in exchange for—” She paused, allowing her words to hover in the air like a net. Jason had the acute feeling he was about to be caught up.

“In exchange for,” he prompted, his stomach tightening in dread.

“Trade your cousin in exchange for someone with a connection to Peter Boyd. Trade for me. I am Peter’s known associate. His former lover. They will want me.”

“What?” The word came out like a rasp. Jason wondered for a moment if she had reverted to Italian. He didn’t understand.

“What Mr. Beddloe is telling me,” she explained, her voice a whisper, “is that his boss, the pirate captain Phillipe Doucette, has been nearly driven mad by Peter Boyd. Peter shamed him and deceived him and robbed him of this rare and precious timepiece. Doucette would be thrilled to acquire one of Peter’s known associates as a way to entrap him. This means, you could actually trade me for your cousin.”

“Forgive me,” said Jason, “I don’t mean to be difficult, but I’m struggling to understand what you mean by a trade.”

Isobel glanced at the pirate and then marched from the room, gesturing for Jason to follow.

He trailed her like he was stepping off a cliff.

“Look,” she said, whirling on him in the passageway. “I’ve never seen this pirate before in my life. I knew Doucette very little. I knew his Icelandic wife—also a little. But this person?” She pointed in the direction of the bound pirate. “I don’t know him. I barely distinguished one pirate from the next when I was here. And yet clearly he knows me. From this, let us assume that all the pirates will remember me.”

He wanted to tell her that she was unforgettable. He wanted to tell her that he, himself, would never forget her. That one of the reasons he would never forget her was that he meant to never trade her to pirates.

“They will believe I’ve remained one of Peter’s Lost Boys,” Isobel was saying, starting to pace. “If they are searching for Peter and this missing diamond watch, they would take me in a heartbeat. To use me as bait. For Peter.”

“What?” The more she explained it, the worse it became.

“Stop saying ‘what’!” she ordered, shoving at his chest with her palms. “I know you understand what I’m proposing.”

“I do not understand what you are proposing. I would never hand a woman over to pirates, especially not you. My God, Isobel, what do you take me for? What good is gaining my cousin if I have lost you? To pirates, for God’s sake!”

He watched her blue eyes expand as she contemplated what this statement revealed. Jason seemed to have stopped caring what he revealed; she might as well know.

“Please stop,” she said, a scold, although there was a new sort of lilt to her voice. “Of course I will not be lost. You think I cannot evade Phillipe Doucette? You insult me.”

“But you didn’t even want to come here!” he said. “Not even to translate. And now you’re offering yourself up to pirates?!”

“I’m here now,” she said, “and I will do whatever is necessary to finish the job and return home. Did you hear what Beddloe said about a recovery mission on this glacier-strewn barrier island? Impossible, he said.”

“Do not underestimate me or my men,” he said.

“I’m not saying it cannot be done, but I know it will take time. And resources. It will extend our stay in Iceland. Let us not forget that winter draws ever nearer. Autumn is here. The longer we remain, the more arduous our journey home.”

“Fine,” he said, “I’ll pay the ransom.”

“The ransom money is in bank notes,” she countered. “You said so yourself. You don’t have gold.”

“Where would the desperate families of Lincolnshire acquire gold?” he said, making excuses that didn’t matter. “They could barely scrape together credit from the bank.”

“Trust me when I say that bank notes will be poorly received by pirates. They will reject them and wish to renegotiate. I cannot dicker around Iceland, changing over bank notes with pirates! I must return home as soon as possible. I’ve a new life to begin. Samantha needs me. My mother needs me.”

“But, Isobel,” he said lowly, breathlessly, trying to level with her, “pirates?”

“I mean to escape almost immediately,” she explained, the words slow and deliberate, as if she was denouncing imaginary monsters for a child. “It would take almost no effort. The trouble with escapes, as we both know, is managing agroup, shepherding a group, into the clear. Think of your Spanish dungeon story. You had fifty men to secret from the cell. Imagine if it had been only you. How much easier?

“Now imagine,” she continued, “you are a small woman, widely underestimated—if you’re noticed at all. Yet with all the necessary skills.”

“I will not imagine it,” he vowed, “if the escapee is you.”

“You may even aid and abet me,” she assured. “With me on the bargaining table, you can manage the terms. Set the transfer somewhere close and safe. Then you may facilitate the rescue, if it heartens you. How much easier to rescue me alone, on dry land, than seven Englishmen in varying degrees of wretchedness from a barrier island surrounded by ice?”

Jason could not speak.

“I promise,” she said, “you will scarcely have left the bargaining table with the merchants before I’ll have escaped. We’ll establish a rendezvous point. I will meet you.”

“I thought I was rescuing you.” He was grasping at straws.

She wasn’t listening. “Did you not hear me describe the life I led before Mayfair? I have not always been a girl in a travel shop. I can do this.”

“Please,” Jason said, holding up a hand. His mind spun.

“Please—what?” she demanded.

“Fine,” he said, “allow me to ask you this. I’m not entertaining your idea, it’s merely a question. Sheer curiosity. Why, exactly, would I claim to be in possession of you? Miss Isobel Tinker, former ‘Lost Boy,’ up for trade to pirates? Why?”

“You would say that I am your prisoner,” she informed him. “Of course.”

“Of course!” Jason blurted. He walked to the galley door and—bam!—gave it a shove. Beddloe could be heard behind the door, shouting in Italian.

He turned back to her, trying to think of some reply other than, Absolutely not.And yet his brain was consumed by those two words.

“You could say,” she rhapsodized, “that you heard I had a bounty on my head and you captured me in order to gain back your cousin. Or you could say you stumbled upon me as a vagabond, picked up in a foreign port. The pirates would buy any number of stories, considering what they knew of the Lost Boys. It would be no surprise to see me washed up and in your possession. We would play it up. Put me in chains, prod me with a stick, that sort of thing. With the correct props and costumes, the pirates would see what they wanted to see.”

“Absolutely not,” Jason declared, falling back on what he really wanted to say.

“But why not?” She threw her hands in the air.

“Because,”he said, “I do not relinquish women to known criminals. Because I do not trade human life for . . . for anything—”

“I’ve said it would not be a real trade.”

“Also because,” he pressed, “I did not recruit you for playacting. I recruited you to translate, serve as our guide, and . . . and because I . . . I value you.” It was a weak word—value—for how he felt about her, but that was a conversation for another day.

He glanced at her. She’d sucked in a breath to counter him but now closed her mouth.

He added, “You’re mad if you think I would ever turn you over to pirates.”

He thought she would say something—he waited for her to say something—but she was silent. She blinked up at him, her blue eyes wide with a mix of confusion and disbelief.

“Isobel,” he said, a plea.

She would not answer. Her expression evolved into an impatient sort of, Yes—and?

She crossed her arms over her chest.

She tapped her tiny, booted foot.

“You told me you wanted to be treated like a lady,” he said. “You wanted to be treated with the same regard I might pay your cousin—who, by the way, I would also not trade to pirates.”

“And you told me,”she countered, “that you’ve infiltrated enemy camps to extract orphans. You told me that you’ve staged jail breaks from Spanish prisons, pretending to be a captured guard. From the start, you’ve insisted that improvisation is your style, that you pull plans together based on the unlikely resources at hand. Which is precisely what I’m endeavoring to do. And yet you refuse? I’m sorry, Your Grace, but I’m beginning to think your wartime tales are a wild exaggeration.”

He laughed. He actually laughed. “If you think you can bait me by wounding my pride, Isobel, you don’t know me at all.”

“Perhaps I know you or perhaps I don’t. But one thing is certain: you don’t know me if you don’t trust me to manage this.” Her eyes flashed.

Jason stared back, his heart pounding. He did trust her. But he also—

He could not risk her safety.

He could not risk losing her.

“If ever you wanted to know me,” she added, fresh challenge in her voice, “you would allow this. So that I might demonstrate.”

Jason leaned his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. “Trading you to pirates is the key to your true self, is it?” he asked. “If I won’t go along, you’ll keep me forever at arm’s length?”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said defensively, and Jason cocked an eyebrow.

“Look,” she went on. “We will do this. We’ll do it because it’s quick and clean and efficient and cheap. And when we’re finished, I’ll return to England in time to book spring holidays in my new shop. And I will celebrate my mother’s birthday. And prevent Drummond Hooke from poaching all of my clients.”

The image of her . . . behind a desk . . . planning holidays for rich women . . . toiling in her old life . . . took shape in his mind, and Jason felt a wave of something like panic.

“I cannot return to port now,” she proclaimed. She took up her case and began backing away. “Going forward, I must look like your prisoner. I’ll send a note to the Vagns asking them to not discuss my visit today with anyone.”

“You’re not commanding this mission, Isobel,” he said, but the words came out like a test. He sounded nothing like a duke or a spy.

He sounded like a man who could not tell her no.

“I want to go home,” she reminded in a singsongy voice. She was still backing away. “This is a bit of luck, North—a wonderful bit of luck. Do not squander it out of some misplaced sense of caution. Unless this is about your avoidance of the dukedom.”

“It’s not,” he called, and he meant it. It was about her.

It is about you, he wanted to call, but she’d turned and was striding down the passageway.

“Make Mr. Beddloe comfortable but don’t release him,” she said over her shoulder. “If he reports what he’s seen and heard to his comrades, the plan will never work.”

The plan, thought Jason, his stomach filling with dread.

Isobel made the corner at the end of the passageway and was gone.