When You Wish Upon a Duke by Charis Michaels

Five days later, Isobel stood on the planks of the West India Company docks, staring up at a towering brigantine crawling with activity. Sailors scaled masts, swabbed decks, and maneuvered rigging while dockworkers heaved provisions up gangplanks.

The mild August weather had turned wet and windy just in time for her to embark on her first sea voyage in seven years. An omen, perhaps; her stomach would pitch into misery as soon as they made open water.

For the moment, she stood on solid ground; beside her, Samantha wrestled with an umbrella.

“You packed the fan with the sharp spines?” Samantha confirmed. “The one that leaves a mark if you . . .” She made a slapping motion.

“Yes,” confirmed Isobel.

“And the cloak that keeps out the water?”

“Yes.”

“And what about the—?”

“You’ve kitted me out with everything I could possibly need, Samantha. Please do not worry.”

“I only wish I could join you,” Samantha said wistfully, staring up at the tall masts, now disappearing into a foggy mist.

“I know, but we’ve discussed it . . .”

She let the sentence trail off, glancing at her friend. Abandoning Samantha alone in London was one of a hundred reasons to resent this journey.

And yet . . .

And yet a strange bubble of excitement had begun to swell in the pit of Isobel’s stomach. Seasickness would drown it out soon enough, but at the moment, she could not deny her anticipation.

When she tried to regret or dread the journey, she was met with an exhilarating swell of eagerness instead. It had been so very long since she’d felt anything beyond the steady, stable balance of a life rebuilt. And stable and steady were very nice indeed. But oh, to look out and feel swooshing, bouncy anticipation. Was it wrong to crave an event that was unknown? Where anything could happen?

“So . . .” Samantha was saying, showing herself to be a very good sport indeed. “Ten days to sail to Iceland, a handful of days to work with the duke on his secret mission,whatever it is . . .” she raised an eyebrow, “. . . and ten days to sail home.”

“Yes. Gone the month of September—no more.”

“And your mother knows,” confirmed Samantha.

“My mother knows.”

Isobel took a leave of absence every September to visit her mother in Cornwall. The holidays Isobel sold at Everland Travel were planned with a six-month lead time, and no one traveled in the bitter cold of winter. This allowed the month of September to be devoted to family and housekeeping and interviewing new chaperones, porters, and stewards.

But not this year. This year, September meant the Iceland “mission.” Meanwhile, Samantha would stay back at Everland Travel, carefully evading Drummond Hooke and quietly transcribing five years of Isobel’s work.

When Isobel returned, she would call on each client personally and explain the launch of her new agency. They could transfer their patronage to the new shop or remain with Drummond Hooke.

“You’ll make certain Hooke won’t learn I’ve left the country,” Isobel confirmed, perhaps Samantha’s most important task while she was away.

“Do not think of it again,” Samantha assured. “He will not know unless he travels to Cornwall and calls on your mother. And God help him if he does that.”

Isobel nodded and squeezed her arm. Yes, God help him.

It had been Samantha’s idea to give Drummond Hooke no clue about their future. Isobel had constructed a complicated excuse and a threatening but vague hint of “significant changes to come.” Samantha ripped up the note, insisting that their only obligation was a reminder that Isobel took leave most of September.

“You shouldn’t call to the new building in Hammersmith during the workday,” said Isobel. “Go after you close the Lumley Street shop. If Hooke calls and you are gone?” She made a face. “Or you could visit Hammersmith on Sundays; your father will be appalled.”

“My father adores you and everything you do, as you know,” said Samantha. “I intend to pop in on the construction at odd times actually. Keep the workmen on their toes.”

After Isobel had finally consented, the duke had sealed her cooperation by giving her a tour of all potential buildings. He’d been clever and charming—if alarmingly clueless about the buildings in his possession—and she’d chosen a spacious redbrick building on the corner of Queen Street, with a large front window and a flat upstairs.

Northumberland had then charged lawyers to transfer ownership of the new building. They had descended in a flurry of parchment and Latin addendums and moved everything along at a breakneck pace. An architect sent his card the very next day. Isobel met him in the afternoon to discuss her hopes for renovating the property.

Tradesmen came next: carpenters, draftsmen, masons, plumbers, woodworkers. When she returned from Iceland, the office and flat should be ready.

“It’s a moment in time,” Isobel told Samantha now. They locked arms beneath the umbrella, shrinking from the rain. “There are very big things in store for us. If I can manage Iceland. And you can manage Hooke. If Hammersmith evolves. If our customers will follow us. If, if, if . . .”

“Indeed,” agreed Samantha. “I do hate it that you have to manage Iceland to achieve it. You don’t even want to go.”

Oh, I want to go, Isobel thought.

She said the words out loud, testing them. “I want to go.”

“You want to go,” repeated Samantha slowly.

Isobel paused, listening to the steady chant inside her head, her own voice repeating it again and again: Go. Go. Go.

“Yes. I want to go.”

After Isobel had finally agreed to the building, the duke had claimed pressing business in London and gone. He’d galloped off, leaving Isobel, heart pounding, cheeks flushed, standing beside the Turnip and Tea, pretending not to memorize his retreating form.

When he was out of sight, when she could no longer feel the warm, firm press of his hand on the small of her back, or smell the woodsy scent of him, she had drifted inside the tearoom and dropped into an empty booth. Even before a fresh pot of tea arrived, she’d taken out her parchment and pen and scrawled out a letter to her mother.

One benefit of having an actress for a mother was never having to pretend to be So Very Good. Georgiana Tinker was bored to tears by Very Goodness.

Instead, Isobel’s mother functioned as a listener, an encourager, and an absolver. For as long as she could remember, Isobel’s mother had helped her reckon with the whipsawed realities of life.

Dearest Georgiana,

Brace yourself, Mummy, I’ve been compelled to put off my September visit. I’m sorry. I can anticipate your maddened state of perishing despair. I’m disappointed too. But pause five minutes and take in the reason.

I’ve been approached by a duke—the Duke of Northumberland (look him up in the papers if you are not familiar)—to assist with rescue efforts on behalf of a lot of stranded English merchants.

Actually, the duke refers to the undertaking as a “mission,” I believe.

We are to assist the stranded countrymen and smooth any ruffled feathers with locals.

The effort should take a little less than a month and will occur mostly in Iceland (yes, you read that correctly).

The duke, who has served years in the Foreign Office, is a decorated officer of some merit. He applied to Uncle Jeffrey and learned—among God knows what else—that I speak the language and have some knowledge of the culture. Add to this my position as a wholly anonymous Nobody from Nowhere, and apparently I am a dream addition to the duke’s mission.

I was very resistant, said no a hundred times, and was very difficult to convince. In the end, I was won over by a very fat bribe. (Although some measure of coercion and even seduction did figure into the arrangement. He is very handsome and charming, etc., etc. In fact, the duke embodies so many of your favorite qualities. I include this tidbit just for you; pray do not fantasize beyond this observation and do not gossip about it. We are to be professional colleagues.)

But I digress. The bribe he offered is a small office and flat in Hammersmith, which, as you may know, is a smart village just west of London. The duke owns (for all practical purposes) the high street, and he allowed me to take my pick of unoccupied properties. The gift of the building means that Samantha and I may abandon Everland Travel and Drummond Hooke forever. I may set up my own agency and run the business exactly as I see fit. I can provide for myself, and you, and pay Samantha a decent wage.

I cannot guess which part of this note will give you more joy, but I trust you’ll not begrudge my missed visit. I’ll have you to Hammersmith instead, conveyed by private coach, and you may see the shop and my new flat for yourself.

I’ll remember every moment of my adventure and recount it in colorful detail when we are together again. And I’ll bring back a handful of Norse crystals for your windowsill.

In the meantime, my letters will become sparse as I rush to set sail. Samantha will be available for anything you may need—do not hesitate to send for her if necessary. I’ve written separate letters to Mrs. Bean; your staff knows I am unreachable for a time. Carry on as usual; do not think of me except in anticipation of the stories with which I’ll return.

One final thing: the fearlessness required to do this comes only from you, my dear. Please be aware.

What did you always say? “Be memorable, not respectable”?

This adage has rung false to me for so long, as well you know. But here I am, giving it another go. I cling to the hope that there is value in a journey that terrifies me.

What else did you always say? “If a cart blocks the road, and you cannot go around it, or over it, or beneath it, climb into the driver’s seat and take it for a ride.”

Witness me taking up the reins, God help us.

Alright. Enough of that. Please wear your gloves and wide-brimmed hat in the sun—and no more stray dogs. Mummy, please. Mrs. Bean writes me weekly and she is at her wit’s end.

All my love,

Bell

Isobel and her mother got on best in small doses, but their correspondence had always been lively, honest, and thorough. Isobel had begun traveling alone at age fifteen—traversing Europe with a merry band of youths, the children of other actors in her mother’s company. Even in those early days, she wrote her mother daily, extolling all she’d seen and done, spilling out feelings she would struggle to confide in person, accounting for her wild, unfettered life.

When that freedom caught up with her, when she was heartbroken and alone, she wrote to her mother still. Even while Isobel’s aunt and uncle did the difficult work of recovering her and nursing her back to solvency, the correspondence with her mother had been another sort of recovery.

If her mother could not give prudent advice—which, God help her, she absolutely could not—at least she was a loving, adoring sounding board.

Now, watching a docker haul her trunk up the gangplank, she told Samantha again, “I want to go.” Her voice had risen. It was a proclamation.

“Useful—that,” said Samantha. “Because that’s exactly what you’re doing.”

The docker tipped the trunk at an angle, endeavoring to fit it over the lip of the plank. Samantha gasped and shouted at the man. “No, no, no. Not like that. Stop, stop.”

The younger woman huffed in exasperation and stomped up the gangplank, demonstrating a more careful way.

Isobel was smiling to herself, watching the exchange, when she heard a male voice behind her.

“I didn’t know if you would actually come,” he said, “until I saw you with my own eyes.”

The rumble of his voice set off a shimmer in Isobel’s stomach. She gripped the umbrella tightly. She closed her eyes and then opened them. She turned.

The Duke of Northumberland, dressed for sailing in a long coat and wide-brimmed hat, stood behind her, staring up at the brigantine.

And now she could add “gentleman at sea” to all the inciting ways the duke could look. As if the cravat and trousers or the black buckskins and greatcoat had not been enough. She would not stare. A mantra, perhaps, for this journey.

No staring at the handsome duke. No banter with the handsome duke. Nothing to do with the handsome duke but translate Icelandic and give advice and not become affected.

Isobel had devoted seven years to rising above the emotional fray of affectation by handsome men. Prudence and restraint had earned her that lofty perch, and she clung to it. It had not come natural to her, but it felt very safe and very stable. She would not concede it now.

The journey to Iceland would not be a return to reckless behavior.

No matter how lovely and compelling the duke was.

Even if she survived Iceland itself, she would not survive another broken heart. Not from him.

“I trust you have everything you need for the journey?” the duke asked. “I sent a note offering to provision you with whatever you may require.”

“Yes, you were very kind, thank you,” she said.

“When you didn’t respond, I assumed you could manage on your own. Or that you weren’t coming.”

“Two things you should understand about me, Your Grace,” Isobel told him. “First, I can manage on my own. Second, if I say I’ll do something, I will do it. Trust will not be an issue with me.”

“Dare I anticipate what will be an issue?”

Take your pick, Isobel thought. Impatience. Panic. Seasickness.

Resisting you.

“There will be no issues,” she said. “I will be the model . . .” The word for her precise role in the mission escaped her.

“Attaché?” the duke suggested. “Adviser?”

“Translator?” she countered.

“Well, it’s more than that obviously,” he said, thinking. “But I’d not bother with a title if I were you. None of the men I recruited for this mission have formal roles beyond helping to recover these merchants and slinking away without anyone being the wiser. I’ve embarked on missions with looser order and protocols, but I’m not sure when. I apologize in advance. This brig, in particular, is rather crude.” He stared up at the boat.

“I am widely traveled, Your Grace, in every manner of vessel. The accommodations do not alarm me.”

“Lucky thing,” he sighed. “The Feather is fast and safe, with a trusted captain I’ve known for years. He was bound for America but agreed to divert long enough to ferry us to Stokkseyri and back.”

She glanced at him, an eyebrow raised. “Stokkseyri?” she asked. “Not Reykjavík?”

Northumberland shook his head. “You were correct about the ice caves and making landfall farther east. You were correct about everything.”

Well, thought Isobel, that was gratifying. She was rarely considered an expert, even among her clients. Until she proved otherwise, fathers and uncles and brothers assumed some man had planned her travel itineraries.

“Regardless,” the duke went on, “we’re not sailing ’round the Isle of Wight on a pleasure cruise. It will take nearly a fortnight to make Iceland. There will be precious few amenities for a lady.”

Isobel blinked. She wasn’t accustomed to being referred to as a lady. Was he teasing? She raised the umbrella.

No. He wasn’t. He wasn’t even looking at her. With a cringing expression, he watched a crew member lean over the side and issue a prodigious stream of spit into the Thames.

“You’re certain you won’t have a maid to attend you?” he said, wincing. “I can provide one if you—”

“I haven’t employed a maid in years, Your Grace. It cannot be overstated: I can manage on my own. You’d do well to think less of my comfort and more of my inconsistent skill as a translator and my potential enemies among the locals.”

Northumberland raised an eyebrow. “Enemies?”

“In Stokkseyri? Possibly—yes.” He might as well know.

“Pity we’ve not met before this very hour, or I could have learned more about your rapport with the locals.”

“Pity,” she repeated. “But please remember, I am not collaborating with you; I am cooperating. I’ll only do what is strictly necessary to gain my new shop.”

“One marvels at the distinction.”

“You did not stipulate meeting before now, so . . .” She hunkered beneath the umbrella like a turtle retracting into her shell.

Isobel had hired her own lawyer to review the duke’s legal papers and to assure her new situation in Hammersmith. If her cooperation amounted to work-in-trade, she would know exactly what work was expected.

The duke had sent requests, asking to meet with her, to hear her opinion on provisions and course and strategy, but no such meetings had been stipulated, and she had refused.

“I’ve been very busy, you see,” she said, speaking from within the umbrella. “It is no small thing to leave the country while planning a secret defection from your place of business. In five days.”

“Well, you’ve promised me an appraisal once we’re on board. Enemies and allies, sympathetic bystanders, double-crossers, safe and unsafe havens, known traps, dead ends.” He leaned to peek at her beneath the cover of the umbrella.

Rain was sluicing off his hat and the yoke of his coat, but he didn’t seem to care. He looked so very rugged and impervious and handsome.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, tipping the umbrella to shield herself. “I suffer from seasickness and will succumb within an hour of losing sight of land. I warned you of this. The first few days will be spent confined to my cabin. After that, I may creep to the deck at sunset to take fresh air. We can talk then, but more than that I cannot promise.”

“You’re always ill at sea?” he asked.

“Every time.”

“How can I help?”

“I’ve already provided meal instructions to the steward. Just leave me be, if you will. I can manage. As I’ve said.”

“Right,” he said, his voice growing fainter. He was walking away. “You can manage.”