When You Wish Upon a Duke by Charis Michaels

Isobel’s evening with Drummond Hooke ended with a single thought: If this man touches me one . . . more . . . time . . .

She squeezed the ties of her reticule and gave it a perfunctory swing. She’d sewn a fishing weight into the lining for the purpose of uninvited touching, and wouldn’t Samantha be proud. If swung at the knuckle between wrist and thumb . . .

She mustn’t, of course. Just as she hadn’t driven the heel of her boot into his instep nor jabbed him with her umbrella.

If she couldn’t contradict Drummond Hooke, how on earth could she injure him?

Her only hope was to escape, and thankfully they were half a block from her door.

“What a lovely way to review this quarter’s earnings, Mr. Hooke,” she said lightly, stepping around a puddle and out of his reach. “It’s never necessary to squire me about, but I do thank you. The meal was very generous.”

The meal had been tepid stew and hard bread in a tavern some two miles from Lumley Street. He’d ordered one tankard of ale and suggested they share it. No pudding. They walked because he’d refused to hire a hackney.

“When can we expect you back in London?” Isobel asked, fishing for her key. Months and months,she wished silently. Please say, “Months and months.”

She was just about to unlock the door when something across the street caught her eye. A thick, hulking presence where there should have been only potted geraniums.

She squinted. Yes, there. A tall smudge that sharpened into a man-shaped density in the dark. She could just make out a wide-brimmed hat, long greatcoat, and heavy boots.

Northumberland.

She sucked in a breath and looked away, fumbling again with the key. If Drummond saw the duke, his jealousy and suspicion would set her back for months. He would restrict her autonomy and question the propriety of her running the shop. The ramifications could be devastating.

But why had the duke come so early? She had an hour, at least, before their rendezvous. She’d rushed through dinner because she’d wanted time between her employer and her—

And him.

Drummond hovered over her now like a damp fog. Isobel turned to the door, desperate to keep his attention away from the street.

She let out a little cough. “Forgive me. The pollen in August has always plagued me. You were saying? About your next visit to the city?”

“Nights like this?” mused Drummond. “I can see never going back to Shropshire.”

“Oh, you would miss the countryside surely,” she said to the door. “The city has a way of crowding in, especially for an outdoorsman like yourself.”

“You think me a bumpkin.”

You are an insult to bumpkins, she thought. “Nonsense. I think of you as a gentleman with a fine home in the country. You may choose when to subject yourself to the London crush. What a privilege. The best of both worlds, whenever you like.”

She shoved the key into the lock. Hooke was so close behind that his breath fluttered the ribbons on her hat.

“What is the progress of your renovations to Crane Lodge?” she asked, pivoting beside the door. She smiled up. It was hardly prudent to back herself against a wall, but she needed Hooke’s eyes away from the street.

“I could be convinced to show you the new Crane Lodge in person,” Drummond said, “if ever you made the journey to Shropshire . . .”

“How can I run the agency,” Isobel asked, “if I am in Shropshire? My duty to you and to your late parents, may God rest them, is to be at my desk. Crane Lodge has been remarkably restored, of this I have no doubt.”

Certainly she had no doubt of the bills that crossed her desk. Materials, craftsmen, cherry trees imported from the Far East. But she dared not challenge Drummond’s renovations. The lodge kept him out of London, and the bills kept her in it.

“Surely the shop could spare you for a fortnight,” he cajoled, stepping up.

He put a hand on the wall beside her head and leaned in. Isobel blinked, surprised by his boldness. Over Hooke’s shoulder, she saw the duke step from the shadows.

No, no, no, she thought frantically. She made a shooing gesture, low and urgent, with her right hand.

In a calm voice, she said, “The shop cannot spare me. You know this, Mr. Hooke.” It was a lie. Autumn was their slowest time of year. She’d had plans to leave Samantha in charge and visit her mother in Cornwall next month.

“Isobel?” Drummond said lowly, his tone suddenly conspiratorial.

“Yes?” She searched the opposite sidewalk. Northumberland had disappeared, thank God.

“Isobel?” Drummond repeated.

“Yes?”

“I’ve thought all day about the Duke of Northumberland.”

Isobel’s gaze shot to his face.

“I know,” Hooke soothed, “we were both surprised to serve a duke. Very esteemed patronage indeed. However, seeing him there . . . alone . . . asking to speak only to you? It rekindled my worry.”

“Worry?” croaked Isobel, scanning the street behind him.

“Hmm, extreme worry,” said Hooke. “About an unattached single woman managing the shop alone.”

Not this again.Isobel closed her eyes.

“Is that distress I detect?” he said. “Oh yes, I can see you are so very troubled.”

“I am not troubled,” she assured him. She forced a smile.

He gazed at her with a piteous expression of Come now.

“Mr. Hooke, no,” she said. “You mustn’t devote another second of worry to so-called troubling male clients. The success enjoyed by Everland Travel has been earned, as well you know, by service to the female traveler. Men may accompany women to the shop—they pay the bills—but Samantha and I accommodate the ladies. Truly. It’s what sets us apart.”

“So you say,” mused Hooke, “but imagine the earnings if we cultivate gentlemen clientele as well? What then? You cannot discuss hotel suites and Grecian bathhouses with men. A single woman alone is ill-suited to discuss most things with men—I don’t care if they are dukes.” His faced dipped closer. “I am thinking of propriety for the shop as well as your own safety.”

“My safety,” she scoffed. “I assure you I am perfectly safe.” This was the truth. Even now, as her heart pounded and she scanned the darkening street, she felt no danger. She felt like a juggler spinning two towers of fragile plates.

“Perhaps,” Hooke said, “but it cannot be said enough: it’s very strange for an unmarried woman to conduct business without a male superior in the shop. Highly irr—”

“Please remember,” Isobel cut in, trying to sound reminiscent, “this was never an issue for your dear parents—”

“But I can think of a solution,” he pressed.

Isobel wanted to squeeze her eyes shut. She wanted to dive behind the door and slam it in his face. Don’t say it, don’t say it. Please do not say it.

“If we married,” he went on, absolutely saying it, “then you would not be single or unattached. You would be a respectable matron and a member of the Hooke family. If you must invoke my parents, you might as well know that this is what they wanted.”

“They expressed no such desire to me,” she said, inching sideways.

He stepped sideways too, flanking her. She could smell the herring on his breath and see the barley stuck in his teeth.

“It is what they wanted,” he repeated slowly. “And it is what I want too.”

Jason hovered in the shadows, weighing his options. He could insert himself into the uncomfortable conversation across the street, or he could leave Miss Tinker be.

In favor: her face was pure misery, Hooke’s tone had gone from wheedling to threatening, and he was crowding her like a hungry wolf with a sheep.

Against: she’d waved him off twice already, and she didn’t seem like the type of woman who welcomed intervention.

Ultimately, he elected to keep back. For now. Hooke was more insect than wolf and Miss Tinker was no sheep. She’d evaded Hooke three times in the last ten minutes—slick spins and sidesteps—she could handle herself. Her faux smile was matched tonight with a faux laugh, and all the while she was flashing Jason angry hand signals on the sly. He reached into his pocket for a coin, working it back and forth through his fingers.

“Mr. Hooke,” Isobel said now, “I’ve made no secret of my wish never to marry. You know this about me. Marrying a woman against her will is a recipe for misery.”

No wish to marry . . . Jason had spent the afternoon wondering a great deal about Isobel Tinker. He’d returned to Whitehall and combed through her file, realizing that the facts had not been wrong so much as absent. He’d not gotten bad information; he’d made up details in his head. He’d thought she’d be older because—why wouldn’t she be? What young woman would have already spent years in Iceland, still more years in other countries on the Continent, and made her way back to England to set herself up in a travel shop?

Jason had returned to Mayfair with far more questions than answers and taken up a spot in the shadows to cease the assumptions and start paying attention.

“If you would but allow me to demonstrate how I might make you happy . . .” Hooke was saying. He dropped a clawlike hand on her waist, and Miss Tinker jumped. Jason shoved off the wall.

“I can persuade you to rethink what you wish,” Hooke insisted. “Your stubbornness stands in the way—”

“I am not stubborn, Mr. Hooke,” Isobel bit out, all trace of cordiality gone. “I am telling you what I want.Please do not contradict me.”

She ducked left, slipping from his grasp. The door was steps away. In half a beat, she had her hand on the knob, pushing it open. “Good night to you, Mr. Hooke.”

“You insult me with your . . . your rudeness, Isobel,” called Hooke. “Of all the ungrateful—”

“Mind yourself, sir,” Isobel warned, spinning around. She stood in her open doorway, stance wide, her reticule swinging from her clenched fist. “If it is rude or ungrateful to make choices about my own future, then—”

“It is the very heart of rudeness. Considering who you are and from whence you’ve come.”

“And what exactly do you mean by that?”

“You may speak prettily and serve fine ladies in the shop,” he snarled, “but pretty speech can be learned and you are no lady.”

If Hooke expected her to flinch, he was disappointed. She was as steady as the sun. Her eyes flashed hot, blue rage.

Like an idiot, Hooke continued. “I’d hoped it would not come to this, but you force my hand. I’ll say it.” A deep breath. “A girl like you is fortunate to receive an offer of marriage from the likes of me. Very fortunate indeed. Your age alone puts you at a disadvantage. Most men want a bride closer to twenty, not thirty. Furthermore, think of the many pressing questions about your past—questions that have never been answered. Your well-placed uncle may have impressed my parents, but . . .”

“Questions?” A dare.

“Fine,” said Hooke. “I’ll say it. What of your father or mother? Who are your people, Miss Tinker? Would you be alone in the world without Everland Travel and the Hookes? Taken as a whole, your life’s story is a very great mystery.”

“What mattered to your parents,” Isobel bit out, “was my work.”

“Perhaps,” Hooke said, “but my parents are dead. And the notion of a person’s breeding matters very much to the rest of the world. Especially when it comes to a young woman who serves fine ladies in a shop, who advises them and arranges for their well-being. However, I would be willing to overlook all of it. If you were married to me, you’d not have to think of your advanced age or your parentage or misspent youth ever again.”

“I don’t think of my—”

He cut her off. “But if you refuse to marry me, well . . . I cannot predict the future or your place at Everland Travel.”

Isobel was silent for a long moment. Jason was reminded again of a fuse, burning to its explosive fringe. Her anger looked incandescent. Hooke took a small step back.

“Pray, find the words, Mr. Hooke,” said Miss Tinker quietly.

He retreated another step. “I should have known you would force me to phrase it so very frankly. Like a transaction.”

“Any union between us has always been, and will always be, a transaction, Mr. Hooke. Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean,” he hissed, “I cannot allow my travel agency to be run by a lot of single women. If you wish to continue in this job, you will forsake your misplaced pride and consider my offer.”

“But what of our collaboration?” she ground out. “The profits? Think of all the money I’ve made you. If we married, none of that would be the same.”

“I’ve no wish to ‘collaborate’ with you, Isobel,” he said. “I wish to—”

“I do believe I’ve heard enough,” she cut in, holding out a hand. “How long do I have?”

“How long until . . . ?” His strident voice faltered. He sounded as if he’d not rehearsed this bit.

“How long to consider this threat of expulsion?”

“Well, I’d hoped you’d not consider it a threat,” he whinged.

“That is exactly how I consider it. How long?”

“Well, of course, I’ll not name anything so vulgar as a date. When you’ve had time to think . . . when you can comprehend my point of view, I will call upon your uncle and ask for your hand properly. I wish to do this properly,” he insisted. “If only you would see my intent.”

“You’ve made your intent very clear,” she said. “When you decide upon a deadline for my sacking, do let me know. In the meantime, good night.”

Slam.

The door closed so suddenly Jason jumped.

Hooke threw up his hands, the reaction of someone who couldn’t catch a ball flying at his face. He stared at the closed door. There was no sign of life from inside—not a curtain flutter, not a puff from the chimney.

Finally, Hooke made an exaggerated hissing noise, muttered angrily, and slunk away.

Jason checked his timepiece—they still had nearly an hour—and looked again to the door.

Well.

Drummond Hooke was controlling and took advantage of Miss Tinker’s talent, but this was entrapment. He wasn’t simply insecure and entitled, he was desperate. And cruel.

Even so, she’d not minced words about his chances. Good for her. She could have feathered him with vague denials or flirted just enough to put him off; instead, she’d called his bluff, bold and unafraid. And so proud. Jason had been transfixed.

Again: good for her.

And good for Jason. Because if she hadn’t needed incentive to help him before, she surely needed it now.

He wondered if she would demonstrate that same boldness and lack of fear with him.

Could she view his work as noble and patriotic? Could she view their collaboration as (dare he say) amicable?

Was there any chance that she would . . . enjoy it? Enjoy him?

Likely—no. Restlessness overtook him, and Jason flicked his coin into the air. It landed in his gloved hand with a heavy pat. He flicked it again.

Typically, women did enjoy Jason Beckett, and the feeling was so very mutual. His job in the Foreign Office occasioned him to encounter beautiful women around the world; it was one of his favorite parts of the job. It was one of the many reasons he hated to leave his post; Syon Hall meant isolation and stagnation.

Jason loved all women generally and quite a few women personally, and it had been a very long time since he’d encountered a woman who was not a . . . a . . . certainty. Flick.

So far, Jason knew far more about what Isobel Tinker didn’t want than what she did. The list was long. And he was at the top. Well, perhaps Drummond Hooke was at the top. But likely he was a close second.

Meanwhile, he felt confounded by her. He was drawn in by her resistance and prickliness and guarded history. It needled him. It should have increased his restlessness and impatience. Flick. Instead, he was intrigued.

Dropping deeper into the shadows, he checked her shop again. If she was peeking out of windows, he couldn’t see it.

Fine. Flick.

He would wait.

He would be needled and restless. He would be twitchy and speculate about Miss Isobel Tinker. There were worse things.

And anyway, the point of their collaboration was not his regard for Miss Isobel Tinker, nor her regard for him. It was about Reggie, and the mission, and putting off Syon Hall as long as possible.