When You Wish Upon a Duke by Charis Michaels

Isobel led him to the end of the street, and then another, and then civilization seemed to drop off and the wilderness opened up to a vast plain of rough green, cut here and there by jagged rock. In the far distance, thick mountains loomed like the shoulders of giants.

The sky was a color of blue Jason had never seen. The air smelled loamy and verdant, undercut by an acrid wind. When the grass swayed, it made a light hissing noise. He no longer heard the sea.

A trail wound through the tall grass, and Isobel set out, her heavy cloak bending the blades as it dragged behind her.

“I would have paid for these provisions,” he called, following. His boots made a crunching noise on the black silt of the trail, and he looked around, making certain they were alone. “I’d never hold you responsible for supplies.”

“The man didn’t accept money,” she called back.

“There is a sum he would’ve accepted, I assure you, given the correct placement of the decimal.”

“Why challenge him? It’s part of the character of the shop.”

“Yes, and that character just robbed you of a necklace that might’ve had sentimental value. Likely it held some tangible value. It looked to be real gold.”

“The compass had no value to me,” she said.

“You wanted to be rid of it, is that it?”

“Yes,” she said, “I wanted to be rid of it.”

“What did it mean?” he prodded. “The inscription?”

“It meant nothing,” she said. “Meaningless poetic drivel.”

Jason exhaled in frustration. She didn’t want to tell him. Fine. It was his nature to be curious about people—it made him an excellent spy—but it wasn’t his nature to pry family secrets from women who didn’t want to explain. Or at least this hadn’t been his nature before he’d met her.

Not that it mattered; she was impervious to prying. She did as she pleased obviously.

They trudged on another five yards. Jason paused, shrugging from his coat and fashioning it into a crude sack to carry her myriad purchases.

But was it prying, he thought, to sense pain or injustice and to want to know?

Was it prying to strive for greater understanding of her?

Isobel Tinker was like a very bright, very warm thing that he—

That he wanted.

There were no other words. He wanted every part.

Alarmingly, and perhaps for the first time ever, he had no idea how to attract or sustain her. Learning her history seemed as useful as anything else. If he meant to travel to the moon, he would need a map.

He glanced around him, acknowledging the beauty of the landscape. Iceland was spectacular, he’d give it that. Untamed and dramatic. They’d progressed through a field of tall grass, but the vegetation had given way to rocks. Lichen edged out the grass, glazing every stone with green.

“What did it say?” he asked, trying again. “The inscription on the compass?” If she could not tell him, perhaps she could tell the landscape. The vast wildness would swallow it up.

“I don’t remember,” she said.

“You do remember.”

“What could it matter?” she sighed.

“If it didn’t matter, you would say it freely.”

“Fine,” she said, stopping to lean against a craggy outcropping. They were climbing steadily higher. Pillars of rock had formed a stone forest around them.

She caught her breath. “It said, ‘Second star to the right.’ And before you ask, I’ll tell you what it meant. The earl meant, ‘Seek direction in your own imagination. Or in your dreams. Or your heart.’ As I said, useless babbling.”

She shoved off and climbed on. Over her shoulder, she said, “What he meant was, ‘You are not important enough for me to make an effort . . . you’ll have no one to guide you or to protect you . . . unfortunately your mother is bollocks at anything approaching guidance . . . so good luck sorting out life’s challenges, large and small.’ ”

She turned to face him, walking backward. “That’s what the engraver should have stamped on the compass.”

“Perhaps there wasn’t room?” he joked.

She laughed. His heart tapped against his chest. He could protect her. He wanted to protect her. She turned back to the trail.

They came to a dropping-off place where the ground formed a low cliff over a wide ravine. At the bottom, some ten yards beneath, a shallow river snaked right and left, the water obscured by a rising mist.

“How do we descend?” he asked.

“The rocks form steps just . . . here.”

She led him around an outcropping of stone and then to a natural ramp.

The canyon was enchanting, an open-air cathedral. Rock statues loomed, jagged and gnarled, veiled by vapor from the stream.

When they reached the water, Isobel removed her heavy cloak and rolled up her sleeves. She bade him unfurl her purchases on a high rock, and she collected the striped fabric, the linen, and the vest from inside his coat. Kneeling beside the water, she lowered the pieces into the river, weighing them down with stones. The water was shallow, no deeper than her hand, and they were easily pinned. Water rushed over and under, soaking the fibers until they fluttered against the riverbed.

Next she located a paddle-shaped rock and scooped up a slug of sediment. Bending over the striped fabric, she scraped the mud here and there, streaking it with black.

Jason sat down on a nearby rock, relishing the view of her bending over the steamy water, skirts hiked over an elbow, deft hands ministering to the clothes. She’d worn lavender today, a departure. He couldn’t remember her in anything but some shade of green. The pale purple fabric seemed to glow in contrast to the landscape. Here and there, small purple flowers dotted the riverbank, their blossoms almost the same color as her dress. The combination of purple against green grass was as beautiful on Isobel as it was on the flower. The mist from the water set her creamy skin glowing; blond hair dropped from her bun in damp tendrils and curled against her neck.

The urge to go to her, to take her by the waist and pull her to him, to kiss her, to really kiss her, was almost too much to bear. He bit off his gloves and dug his hands into the serrated rock. He forced his brain to return to their conversation. More than he wanted to hold her, he wanted to know her.

“Would it have been better to have no relationship whatsoever with the earl,” he asked, “than to know him only a little?”

She sat back on her haunches on a smooth flat stone. She extended her palm, hand up, like a footman with a tray. The gesture of Who knows?

Jason waited, allowing the question to float between them. He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his waistcoat. The air was cool but there was no shade from the sun. He unbuttoned two more.

After a moment, she told him, “You should feel the water.”

He paused, the waistcoat halfway down his arms. He looked to her.

She had begun to remove her boots. “You’ve traveled all this way,” she said. “You might as well experience the heated waters.”

Jason shucked the waistcoat with due speed and pulled at his boots. He hiked his buckskins to his knees, and picked his way to her.

She was sitting with her knees drawn up, her discarded boots and a pile of her stockings beside her. Small feet poked from beneath her skirt. She wiggled her toes.

“Sit here and put your feet in,” she instructed, not looking at him. “Careful, it’s rather hot. Hotter than you expect.”

She extended her feet and held them over the rushing surface of the clear water. He watched her dip her toes in the stream and stir them in a small circle. He’d stopped breathing or he was panting, he didn’t know. He didn’t care.

“If you move about,” she said, “you’ll hit upon a streak of cold to temper the very hot. The cold is runoff from the mountain snow. The hot is water heated by the volcanoes. You’ll want to find the place where they mingle.” When, finally, she sank her feet in, she let out a little sigh.

Jason swallowed hard and tried to tamp down his body’s response. Every newly revealed part of her—trim ankles and shapely legs, delicate toes and high arches—was beautiful. His heart thudded. His loins tightened.

“Go on,” she said, glancing up. She was smiling, but she must have seen the look of longing on his face, because her smile faded. She blinked slowly, sensually, once, twice.

Jason forced himself to move, dropping beside her on the rock and extending his feet. The heat was so hot at first touch, it registered as cold. He jerked back, and she laughed. “I warned you,” she said.

He stood up—it seemed like the manly thing to do—and waded into the boiling water, his hands on his hips. She laughed, and he looked back, winking at her.

“It’s glorious,” he said. Goose bumps rose on his skin. The water, when he found the right spot, was deliciously warm.

“You’re glorious,” she whispered, and he missed a step. He went very, very still. He turned.

“Isobel?” he asked softly.

She stared back through a veil of mist. Her bun had slid to her neck; damp ringlets framed her face. Her throat was wet. Her cheeks were pink. Her blue eyes had narrowed to lazy slits.

Jason’s body felt languid and heavy but his need for her was very hard and utterly relentless.

“What could it possibly matter?” she asked softly. He studied the dewy beauty of her face.

“S’bell?” he asked, wading to her.

He came to a stop before her, looking down. She stared at the swirling water. After a long, charged moment, she reached out and placed a small, flat hand on his leg, just above the knee. Pleasure radiated from the imprint of her hand. Every cell in his body strained to her.

Spreading her fingers, she kneaded his quadricep.

Slowly, almost dreamily, she slid the hand higher.

Jason let out a hiss.

“We are alone,” she remarked softly to his leg.

She extended the other hand and clasped it around the back of his knee. He staggered a little. His body was as hard as the riverbed.

“Why aren’t you terrible?” she asked, looking up.

“Well,” he began. His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “I am prepared to trade a young woman to pirates. Does this count for nothing?”

“I want you to kiss me,” she whispered. “I cannot bear it if you do not.”

It was what he’d been waiting for. In an instant, he dropped to one knee in the water. She grabbed his shirtsleeves in handfuls.

“Say it again,” he clipped, “so that I am certain.”

“I want it.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. Her blue eyes, as bright as the sky, bored into him.

Still, he hesitated. This was not what she’d said before. Before, she’d said the opposite.

“I can barely remember the reasons it would be so very wrong,” she said. “My survival depends on my ability to resist touching you or any man, and yet—”

“Ah, must we invoke ‘any man’?”

She laughed and ducked her head.

His heart slammed against his chest. His mouth watered. Rocks dug into his knee and searing water soaked his buckskins and he didn’t care. His body registered only his raging desire to kiss her.

“You’ve been the perfect gentleman,” she whispered, leaning in.

“Have I?”

“You’re clever and agreeable, so handsome. You listen and understand and pretend to care—”

“I do care,” he said, staring at her mouth. A scoundrel’s favorite lie, but it was true.

“I’m just a woman,” she sighed. “I can only resist so much. You know my terrible history and all the reasons for it. And you know my narrow future and all the reasons this can happen only once.”

“This?” he asked.

He was going about this all wrong, and he knew it. His oh-so-proficient powers of seduction had been swept away; only a windy cavern remained.

“Unless you don’t care to . . .” she ventured, squeezing her eyes shut. She seemed to waffle.

Jason’s reflexes took over.

“I care to,” he assured her, leaning closer. He flattened one hand on the rock beside her hip and cupped the back of her head with the other. She opened her eyes and gave a little whimper. She wrapped an arm around his neck.

He descended in the next breath, locking his mouth on hers.

He was instantly submerged, like every other time. The first contact with her lips sucked him under. He was swept from the river, and the wilderness, and the island, and the Atlantic Ocean. He existed only to taste her, to breathe her.

They could have been anywhere in the world; he lived inside the kiss.

After a torrent of lips and tongue and breath, he collapsed on the rock beside her, panting. He reached for her, pulling her into his lap.

“I’m sorry you had to tell me you needed this.”

“I prefer it,” she assured him, breathless. She hiked her knee and straddled him, tugging her skirts to her hips.

He gathered her by the bottom, molding her to him, and dug his heels into the riverbed, leveraging them.

“I typically pay closer attention to the bit when the kissing comes in,” he said.

“I like to manage things.” She dropped her mouth on his.

“I can live with that,” he said, his last words before he could no longer speak.

He couldn’t shatter her heart, she thought, if her heart was held together by spackling and patches. It would not break so much as . . . distort?

And also they would do this only once—well, once more.

And “this” would be so very fast and fleeting. Just enough to tide them over.

And anyway, how could she feel more heartsick than she already did?

The only true Worse Thing, she reasoned, would be not having this. Not having some small part of him, here and now, teetering on the top of the world, alone together.

Her justifications didn’t really matter. Every thought was dissolving; he was so very good at kissing, the best she’d ever known. She didn’t want to miss a lick or a nip or a swipe or a—

He sucked in her bottom lip, and she flicked her tongue against him. He pressed her against his erection, and she pressed back, reveling in the explosion of sensation.

He was taller and broader than any man she’d known, and the logistics were delicious. If she wanted to kiss his eyelids, or press her ear to his mouth, or scrape her throat across the roughness of his whiskers, she had to climb him.

He helped her, kneading large hands up the backs of her thighs, cupping her bottom, lifting her.

They did not speak.

They kissed as if they would never again experience human touch.

They kissed as if he were a duke and she was a Lost Boy and they’d fallen in love, but neither had the good sense to stay away.

Good sense had no part of their embrace, the very best kind.

When he fell back on the rock, she followed him down, pausing only to claw at his shirt, popping buttons until she reached bare skin. He dug his hands into her hair, flicking pins into the rocks. Her hair fell down around them like sunshine.

“So long,” he said between kisses, panting against her cheek. “I had no idea.”

“Unfashionably long,” she said. “My mother has made me swear never to cut it.”

“Beautiful.”

“You are beautiful,” she said, rising up to gaze at his chest. She spread her hands on his pectorals, fanning her fingers over the muscle. He shouldn’t be so hard and strong—he was a duke, after all; he should be soft and fragile. But he was also a spy, and although he claimed to waft about, tricking people into revealing secrets, she saw how he moved, how he stood. He was a man of action, and his body was a testament to his work. She dropped her mouth to the warm skin of his clavicle and kissed her way to his nipple.

He let out a groan and clasped her waist with both hands, squeezing, and then slid his hands up her rib cage. When he reached the hollow beneath her arm, she trembled, feeling the tickle. His fingers danced there a delicious moment before sliding around to cup her breasts.

Isobel sucked in a breath and rocked against him. He found the neckline of her dress and tucked two fingertips beneath the ribbon, sweeping downward. She rocked again and returned to his mouth.

“I want you,” he said. “I want all of you.”

She shook her head to deny him but did not break the kiss.

“You want this too,” he said. “Your eagerness has set me on fire. I’ve never wanted anyone more.”

“Kiss me,” she said, and she gave him a sensual, feather-soft kiss. “And feel me.” She found his hands and intertwined their fingers. “Enjoy this moment because I cannot risk more. I cannot risk—” She couldn’t finish. She shook her head.

“But what of—”

She kissed him, hoping for silence. Why would he squander one moment of this stolen . . . stolen heaven to discuss what they mustn’t do or what would not happen?

“I will not misuse you, Isobel,” he said, pulling back.

When she tried to kiss him again, he untangled their hands and flipped them. One moment she was leaning over him, the next he cupped her head and braced her back and rolled left. He settled her gently on the stone, protecting her spine with his hand. Now he hovered above her, staring down.

Her hair spilled across the rock. Her feet hung in the warm, rushing water. He settled on her and the hard weight was a delirious pleasure. She surged up, making a whimpering sound.

He dipped his head. “I will not misuse you,” he repeated, speaking next to her ear.

She closed her eyes to stop the tears. “You misuse me now by talking instead of kissing.”

“I cannot fully enjoy this for wanting more.”

She opened her eyes. “You can’t?”

“Well . . .” he kissed her again, “. . . I can enjoy it, but I’m terrified of making a wrong move. You are . . . uncharted.”

“Oh, I’m charted,” she teased, pulling him to her lips.

“The risk of hurting you is very high, Isobel, and I won’t do it. You must tell me what is possible.”

“I’m better equipped to tell you what is impossible.”

“What does that mean?”

His frustration was mounting; she could hear it in his voice. Instead of caressing her, he held her at the waist. His grip was tight and possessive. She loved it; who had ever held her like this? He held her as if she might, at any moment, be ripped away.

But possession was never meant to be part of this encounter.

“Kiss me again,” she said, “one more time, and I will tell you what is impossible.”

He moved his hands to her face, cupping it. He teased soft circles at her temples with his thumbs. “Why don’t I kiss you again, and then I’ll tell you?”

She snaked her arms around his neck, pulling him down.

North resisted—his expression was bent on challenging her—but she licked her lips. His eyes were drawn to her mouth, and he dipped down, kissing her once, twice, and then lowering himself, muscle by muscle against her.

She could feel him holding himself off, trying to protect her smallness from his great size, but she hiked up her leg, hooking her knee on his hip, pulling him down. She wanted to feel all of him; she wanted his weight to pin her to this rock, to fossilize their embrace.

Their last kiss was hot enough to imprint on stone, a kiss for the ages. It would be forever preserved in her memory. Kissing him was like any of life’s ultimate pleasures; it gave and gave and gave while, at the same time, it was completely without effort.

In the end, he was the one who pulled away. He gave her a final kiss, ground his body against hers, and made a growling noise. He rolled up. He turned his back to her, standing in the water.

Isobel lay on the rock, breathing hard, feeling cool air move over her heated skin. She closed her eyes. She tried to remember every buzz and shimmer before it faded away. The unrequited desire—all the things they hadn’t done—felt almost like pain. He would feel the same. He’d been frustrated before, but now? Now frustration would give way to bitterness, and bitterness would make him resent her. He was too kind for that, so he would pity her instead. Poor Isobel and her pitiful history that had landed them both in misery.

Or perhaps he wouldn’t.

He’d not taxed her with any of the typically male, typically selfish reactions. She’d made near constant refusals to him, and he’d shown only compassion. It was the reason she now found herself on this rock, her body humming.

But even if he was never bitter or resentful or piteous, he would not marry her. This, she knew. And she was no man’s mistress; this she also knew.

If, by some miracle, she ever had a child, the baby would be legitimate and claimed and known. It would not bumble through life with vague advice on the back of a compass.

Isobel sat up and straightened her dress. She quickly braided her hair and tied it in a knot on top of her head. She glanced at North. He was staring at the mountains in the distance.

“Will you walk with me?” she asked. “We can wade to the place the river bends; there is a waterfall. It is worth seeing. After that, we can walk back. The time will allow some of the water to drain from these clothes.”

She began fishing the fabric and linen from the water, wringing them out, and draping them on the stone in the sun.

“Is that what you want?” he said, turning. His look was earnest; there was no bitterness or resentment. He was so handsome it bent her heart.

“Yes,” she said, flattening the boy’s vest against the rock. “It is what I want.” It was one of the many, many things that she wanted, but likely the only thing she would get.

She added one more thing. “And to talk.”