When You Wish Upon a Duke by Charis Michaels

Jason was confused.

Jason was confused, and irritated, and extremely pressed for time, and no one in the hallowed halls of Everland Travel seemed to care.

Miss Isobel Tinker had gone from dismissing him and dodging him and moved to simply ignoring him.

She ignored him.

Even before he’d become the Duke of Northumberland, Jason “North” Beckett was not accustomed to being ignored. Or dismissed. And certainly not dodged, not by a woman.

“If you’ll excuse me, sir,” she’d said, evading him smoothly when the little bell on her door jingled. “My meeting. It’s happening. Now. I’m afraid we’ll need to postpone your . . .”

She’d stopped talking, seemingly at a loss about what she might do for him.

At a loss, after he’d clearly said, “Please sell me passage to Iceland,” at least five times. It was almost as if she knew what he really wanted was not a holiday package at all. It was almost as if she knew what he really needed was a guide inside Iceland.

Jason looked again at the man who’d breezed through the door. He stood in the center of the agency’s small lobby and turned a slow, deliberate circle, assessing the room. He was of medium height, thin, with a patchy beard. Small eyes, like a subterranean creature prone to burrow. A mole? He wore the ostentatious greatcoat and voluminous cravat of someone far older, a country squire on his first trip to London. He carried a gold-tipped walking stick and teetered on high-heeled boots. And he looked at Miss Tinker like a puppeteer looks at his favorite marionette.

Miss Tinker, in turn, greeted the man with the bracing smile one reserved for pushy vicars.

Jason tried to remember if she’d flashed that smile at him. He’d tailed her for three days. She’d demonstrated polite cordiality to neighbors and crisp helpfulness to strangers, but she did not waft about with a freewheeling grin. In the alley, her pervading expressions had ranged from irritation to impatience. There had been no smiling.

The alley had been a turning point. Jason had realized that his file was all wrong; the profile of Isobel Tinker bore little resemblance to the Isobel Tinker of life.

Generally speaking, diminutive women did not interest him, but Isobel Tinker was very pretty. Although not sweet-pretty or fancy-pretty; more unpredictable-pretty, exciting-pretty. Like a baby snake. Or a lit fuse.

There was something about her that reminded him of a demonstration he’d seen in a chemist’s lab at Oxford: a luminous burst of electrical current flickering inside a tiny glass orb. She strummed. Her bearing suggested coiled energy. He was afraid to look away for fear of missing the explosion.

Ducking into the alley had been, quite literally, the act of “looking away.” He’d hoped to learn more about the shop; instead, she’d materialized behind him. She’d been direct and articulate, calling him out for the dark-alley marauder he’d been.

And she was so bright.Big blue eyes, swinging umbrella, pale hair in a bobbing bun on the top of her head.

He’d spent fifteen years in the Foreign Service and seen mortal combat, but in the alley, he’d had to work to keep up.

He was working still.

“Samantha?” called Miss Tinker now. “Can I trouble you to provide this gentleman with literature about our Scandinavian destinations? And to set an appointment for another day?”

She meant him, of course. He was the gentleman. He would receive literature about Scandinavia and be sent off until another day.

Surely not.He looked at Isobel Tinker.

Surely yes, Miss Tinker said with her eyes.

The clerk called Samantha bit out the words, “Right this way, sir.” She pointed a sharp finger to a desk near a window.

Given no other choice, Jason went.

At the desk, Samantha thunked down a stack of travel guides and slid them to him. “You,”she whispered, “must go.”

“Who’s the bloke?” Jason whispered back, flipping open the topmost book.

“Who are you?” the clerk countered.

“I’m the Duke of Northumberland,” he said, enunciating the words with tight poshness, perhaps his first time ever to emphasize the title.

“Why have you been stalking Miss Tinker for a week?”

“I—”

Jason stopped. Wasn’t the title enough? For his father and brother, the title had always been enough.

He tried again, speaking like the foreign agent he’d been long before he was a duke.

“I’m not stalking Miss Tinker,” he whispered. “I’m appealing to her. On behalf of the British Foreign Office.”

“Appealing for what?”

“Information. About the island nation of Iceland. And possibly a booking. Although she seems very young to be an expert on foreign destinations. She seems too young to be an expert on anything at all. I was led to believe she was . . . older and, er—Older.”

“She’s seven and twenty,” the clerk said slowly. She glanced at Miss Tinker and back at Jason, the movement of someone who knew she was speaking out of turn.

“Miss Tinker has assured me,” Jason lied, “that she can provide information about Iceland. She said she’s spent a considerable amount of time there. She was an expatriate, I understand, some eight years ago?”

The clerk bit her lip. She glanced again at her employer.

Jason flipped a page and tried again. “But can you tell me how often she returns to Iceland?”

“Miss Tinker will never return to Iceland.”

“Why is that, do you think?”

The clerk gave a slow shake of her head.

“Right.” Jason fell back. “But how long did she live there? Two years? Or was it three?”

“She does not discuss Iceland with me,” said the clerk. “Or anyone.”

Jason nodded and returned to the truth. “Well, she was very shrewd to have spotted me these last few days. I was only surveying the shop to get the lay of the land. I had no idea she was the owner. Or is she simply the manager?” He eyed the girl.

“Miss Tinker is the manager,” informed Samantha. “But she might as well own the shop. She should own it.”

Jason shut the book, filing away this bit of information. “This book is written in Dutch,” he said. “Which I cannot read. How long will she meet with this person?”

“With Mr. Hooke? They will meet for hours. At least.”

“Why?”

“He is the owner of Everland Travel.”

“This man owns the shop?”

A nod. “He inherited it from his parents. Most of the year, he lives in Shropshire and Isobel manages the business. When he travels to London, he must be included. And validated.” Another frown. “He must bask.”

Jason made a grunting noise. “Bask?”

The clerk inclined her head, indicating the ongoing conversation in the center of the room.

“I see you’ve worn the dress I enjoy so very much,” Hooke was telling Miss Tinker, his voice a singsong.

Irritation flared and Jason stifled the urge to join the conversation. His skin buzzed with the familiar, jumpy energy that tormented him whenever he was forced to sit idly by and wait. He reached into his pocket for a coin and flicked it into the air. He caught it, spun it in his palm, and flicked it again.

“Was this a favorite?” Miss Tinker asked her employer.

“But you’ve not worn the pinafores, I see,” said Hooke.

“Oh yes, the pinafores,” hedged Miss Tinker. “I’ll need to call to the seamstress’s. There was some issue with the embroidery, I believe.”

“Oh, the embroidery must be perfect,” said Hooke. “Please remember, the tailor in my village can do up the confections I have in mind—”

“Do not trouble yourself, Mr. Hooke,” soothed Miss Tinker. “We shall have them for next time . . .”

Jason caught the coin and whispered to Samantha, “Pinafores?”

“He wishes for us to wear ruffled yellow aprons with the words ‘Hooke’s Everland Travel Lass’ embroidered on the bib.”

“No.”

The girl nodded. Jason made a coughing noise and flicked the coin again.

“I was surprised,” Hooke was saying, “to see you’ve not closed the shop for our meeting. We’ve so much to discuss. Ideas and directives. Money-saving measures . . .”

Now the man looked pointedly to the desk by the window. Jason stared back, flicking his coin into the air.

Miss Tinker rushed to say, “Oh, this gentleman was just on his way out.” She shot Jason a pleading look.

“A drop-in client, I assume?” Drummond Hooke said, studying Jason.

“Indeed,” said Miss Tinker.

“How often,” Drummond Hooke now asked, “do lone gentlemen come to us without wives or sisters in tow?” He puffed up, inhaling deeply. “I cannot say it’s—”

“Oh, very rarely,” assured Miss Tinker. “In fact, I cannot remember the last time we’ve served a gentleman without his family. The ladies wish to be involved in each step of the planning. Anticipation is part of the holiday.”

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, esteemedtravel 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 every 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.”