When You Wish Upon a Duke by Charis Michaels

If Isobel knew nothing else, she knew how to pack in extreme haste for an indeterminate journey. She bundled up the very few essentials that she absolutely could not survive without and raided her stash of money so she might buy the rest.

The essentials included clothing for two days, correspondence from the travel shop, and Samantha.

She hadn’t worked out how, exactly, she would gain access to Syon Hall, but she knew she could not turn up as a young woman alone.

“I am like a bodyguard,” guessed Samantha, sitting beside her in the carriage Isobel hired to drive them the five miles to Syon Hall.

“You are my assistant,” corrected Isobel. “You accompany me and assist me. You are always with me in my work as cultural attaché.”

“I am your maid,” Samantha concluded glumly.

“I have no maid,” corrected Isobel. “It’s not my goal to portray myself as a fine lady or even as a woman. I’m simply . . . a colleague of the duke’s. Which is true. I was the duke’s cultural attaché. You are my assistant. And I do not have a maid.”

“Well, you are a woman,” said Samantha, “so I’d not press the issue on that. Given a choice.”

Isobel had worn a light-green dress that fit her petite figure like a snugly wrapped stocking. She’d concealed the length of her hair with her signature bun. She carried a navy leather satchel to appear businesslike. Her attire had been easy; she’d sold enough holidays to esteemed women to know how to impress.

Her introduction at the door of Syon Hall would be far more complicated and nuanced. Even as the carriage made the last turn, she had no idea what she would say.

“Your mother felt a little left behind, I fear,” said Samantha, sounding not at all sorry.

“The only thing to make this situation more fraught would be Georgiana,” said Isobel, gazing at the autumnal woodlands outside the carriage window. “She’ll manage in Hammersmith alone for a night or two. Or for the afternoon. Or two hours. We could be sent away the moment we arrive, mind you. I’ve no idea what to expect. Whatever happens, I’m afraid there will be very little for you to say; you are simply there so that I’m not calling on the duke alone. I’m sorry. Simply follow my lead. And whatever you do, do not mention weapons or fighting or show any kind of . . . aggressiveness toward them.”

“Do not worry, Isobel,” assured Samantha, “you can rely on me. And of course the topic of weaponry will not come up, not at the stately home of a duke.”

“Thank you,” said Isobel, barely listening. What if they turned her away? What if he answered the door? What if—?

“Even so,” continued Samantha, “you mustn’t be so afraid of learning to defend yourself, Isobel. If you would but explore the training as I have—”

“Oh my God,” said Isobel, turning from the window. She pressed a gloved hand to her mouth.

The view unfolding outside was unlike anything she’d seen in all of her travels. An ancient stone gate marked the end of a long, crushed-gravel drive. Sprawling parkland unfurled, foggy and dotted with red and gold trees, on either side. At the end of the drive stood a Palladian-style manor house so grand it looked like a small city. The yellow stone glowed in the sunlight like a wall of gold.

As the carriage drew closer, the parkland gave way to smoothly manicured estate grounds: rounded hedgerows, sandstone walkways, immaculately weeded flower beds of autumnal vegetation. Swans paddled a slow circle in a fountain.

Syon Hall was nothing short of a palace. Versailles had been no grander.

“Just to the front door, miss?” the driver called.

“Ah—yes, thank you,” said Isobel.

To Samantha, she said, “Pay him. When we alight, pay him with the money I gave you and send him on.”

“Just as I predicted,” sang Samantha, “I am the maid.”

“Samantha!” hissed Isobel. “Please cooperate.”

“I am cooperating,” insisted Samantha defensively. “It’s simply not clear to me what we are doing.”

Isobel turned away from the grandeur outside and blinked at the dusty black interior of the carriage. She sucked in air with short, shallow gasps.

“I’m sorry,” breathed Isobel.

She turned to her friend and clutched her hand. “When I was in Iceland with the duke, I fell in love with him—or perhaps I was in love before we left, it doesn’t matter—and he claimed to have fallen in love with me. He proposed marriage while we were there, but I bade him return and settle into . . . into—”

She stole another look out the window. “To settle at thispalace before we made the betrothal public. The agreement was, he would send for me afterward. If he still believed in our—well, in a future. Together. With me. As you may have noticed, he has not turned up. However, I learned this morning from Baron Peyton’s daughters that the duke is rumored to be somehow . . . incapacitated, or consumed with ennui or—or something has gone wrong. I don’t know exactly what the problem may be. I . . . I probably shouldn’t have come. I had no call to come. His family doesn’t know me; he doesn’t want me. But I love him too much to think of him struggling alone.” A deep breath. “I love him more than my pride and more than my own self-preservation. And that is why we are here. Unmarried women cannot turn up alone on the doorstep of bachelor men. I took advantage of you, I know, by dragging you along, and I’m sorry to use you this way, but I am frantic with worry.”

Isobel looked at her with an expression that was half smile, half cringe. “You are too good to me,” she finished.

Samantha’s eyes grew large, understanding dawning on her face. She craned to study the manor house rising before them, now just yards away.

She turned back to Isobel. “This is a very important errand indeed,” she said. “I am happy to help. Do not worry, Isobel. You were right to come. I liked the duke from the beginning, and you know how I feel about tall men.”

Isobel let out a breath that was half laugh, half sob. She squeezed her friend’s hand, closed her eyes, and braced for the carriage to lurch to a stop. Before he opened the door, she took three quick breaths.

When the driver opened the door, she bounded out, propelled by her desire simply to see the duke. The gravel of the circle drive crunched beneath her boots, a deafening sound. A chirping bird in the distance sounded as if it perched on her shoulder. Every sense was heightened; fear hounded every step.

Isobel mounted the cascade of steps, certain that servants or guards would stop her and demand their business. Clipping up, she waited to be called out. Surely hired carriages couldn’t simply drive up to this imposing home and expel strange women to knock on the door.

No one came, and Isobel knocked. Four firm raps on the giant oak planks of a door strong enough to resist a battering ram. The sound barely registered, swallowed by the sheer magnitude of the structure. Calmness, Isobel ordered herself. Hold the satchel rather than squeeze it in a death grip. Breathe as if you are on dry land.

After an eternity, the giant door swung slowly open. Isobel’s heart stopped thudding and ran away inside her chest.

A stout butler, his expression as inscrutable as a sandstone pillar, stared down at them.

“May I help you?”

Isobel swallowed. “How do you do? My name is Miss Isobel Tinker. I am a colleague of His Grace, the duke . . .” she spit out the next bit, “. . . having served as his cultural attaché on his most recent mission. To Iceland. I have business with the duke, if you please.”

The butler stared at her, saying nothing. Behind him Isobel could see a flurry of activity. Servants rushing to and fro. Someone pushed a potted fern on a cart. A man with a length of rope chased after a dog.

Oh Lord, Isobel thought, there is some palace-related crisis. I’ve come in the exact moment of Bedlam.

She said, “If this is an inconvenient time, I can—”

“And who else may I say is calling?” intoned the butler. He stared at Samantha.

“Oh,” said Isobel, “I am accompanied by my assistant. Miss Samantha Smee.”

The butler narrowed his eyes, considering this. He said nothing more and made no move to admit them. Time stretched in excruciating silence. Isobel wondered if, in her extreme anxiety, she’d actually said the words rather than simply thinking them. Had she spoken English? Had her request so shocked the man he’d entered a trancelike state?

Isobel was just about to turn and tiptoe down the steps and search for perhaps a servants’ entrance when a young woman strode past the door. She paused, squinted out at the steps, and then joined the butler at the door.

“What is it, Norris?” asked the young woman. She was eating a stalk of celery.

The butler leaned in to whisper in her ear.

The girl’s eyebrows rose, she cocked her head, and extended the stalk of celery, tapping the air accusingly. “But you’re the girl who rescued Reggie! On the boat, with Jason. Thank God! Perhaps you can reason with him—and just in time. Come in, come in. Norris, don’t just stand there, fetch Mama!”