“Square closes at sunset, sir,” ventured the watchman. He took a step closer. Isobel burrowed deeper.
“Right, right, sunset,” Jason said, imbuing his voice with posh authority. “I’ll—My friend and I’ll move on. Sorry to be a nuisance. Just a bit of fun . . . summer moon, et cetera.”
The watchman took another step and Jason had the momentary fear that he would not be put off. Jason raised his chin, allowing the lantern to illuminate his face. The watchman would not know him—they’d not be so lucky in that—but he would recognize the expensive coat and boots; he’d see the cut of Jason’s hair, his aristocratic nose, the lazy expression. Everything about him said, I do as I please.
“Very good, sir,” the watchman finally said, falling back. “See that you do. The neighbors don’t take kindly to cavorting in the park after-hours.”
“Good for them,” said Jason on a cough. “We’ll need a moment to, ah, set ourselves to rights. If you’ll indulge us.”
“Yes, sir,” said the watchman, but he seemed disinclined to go. Jason wondered how long Isobel could remain motionless on his lap. Could she breathe? Had he crushed her? She was lodged so very tightly against his erection that Jason’s own mobility would be in question.
“Here’s something for the disturbance,” Jason said, releasing Isobel long enough to fish a coin from his pocket. He tossed it to the watchman with a good-natured flip. As the watchman struggled to catch the coin, Jason ducked his head against Isobel’s neck and breathed deeply. A silent dismissal.
Jason intended to hold that pose, but Isobel shivered. The pulse in her throat raced beneath his lips. She squirmed on top of him, a slow, small, grinding motion. She squeezed her fingers on his biceps.
And just like that, Jason forgot about the watchman and the lantern and even bloody Iceland and he found her mouth again. One more kiss, a final peck, to make it look rea—
Isobel pounced. Her lips opened immediately; her tongue flicked against his bottom lip. He slanted his head and answered. Their tongues met, and he was levitated into another hallelujah moment.
She canted her head to the right, following the ebb of the kiss. Jason redirected, curling them left, keeping her face averted.
He glanced up, checking the clearing, the path, the bushes. The watchman was gone.
Gone, he thought, but he couldn’t say the words. He might never speak again. He might only—
Isobel Tinker kissed him like a drowning woman in search of breath, and he returned the kiss as if he wanted to save her life. While she feasted with her lips, her hands roamed his body. Gloved fingers dug deep, moving from his shoulders, down his chest, beneath the lapels of his greatcoat. His only thought was, Oh God, yes, that, that, that.
His mind homed to the sensation of her small hands, boldly kneading his pectorals, walking down his ribs, twining beneath his arms. She locked him to her in a desperate embrace. Her thighs squeezed his flanks, squirming her urgently closer.
Jason palmed her hips and lifted her, ever so slightly, resettling her closer still. She moaned against his mouth.
He wondered how long it would take the watchman to make another circuit. Thinking was difficult. Remaining upright was difficult. Kissing her was the easiest thing he’d ever done.
How could he end this kiss? Would it be ungentlemanly to pull away? Or was it ungentlemanly to carry on?
The faint sound of whistling on the opposite side of the park pierced the haze. The watchman doing as requested, giving them time.
“Miss Tinker,” Jason panted softly, pulling back. He rested his forehead against her temple. “Isobel.”
She ducked her head, breathing hard. She nodded. She knew.
For a long, charged moment, they sat on the bench, bodies throbbing, hearts racing. They sucked air in small pants.
Jason tried to listen for the watchman’s tune, but he heard only her. She swallowed hard. Her gown rustled and her hood fell back. He saw her face in the moonlight, flushed skin and bright eyes. She would not look at him.
“Here,” he said, reaching for her waist, “let me steady you. Can you stand?”
She nodded and slid from his lap. She turned away, pulling from his fingers.
“Keep to the shadows,” he whispered, adjusting his coat and pushing from the bench. He was painfully aroused.
She shuffled to the darkest corner of the alcove, facing the bushes. Jason recovered his hat and stood in the path to block her from view. She patted and smoothed and tucked. She was silent except for her breathing.
If she’d been a green girl, if the kiss had taken her by surprise and shocked her, he would have said something, taken care to assure her.
If she’d been appalled and offended, he would’ve apologized.
But she’d been neither, and he didn’t know what the hell to do.
“I—ah,” he began, peeking through the dense bush for the location of the watchman.
“No discussion is necessary,” she said briskly. Her tone was enigmatic.
“Right,” he said, plunking his hat on his head.
“How will I get home without being seen?” she asked.
“Do you know the watchman’s route?”
She was silent, thinking. Finally, she said, “When I see him, he’s usually walking up Lumley Street from Oxford.”
“Then we’ll take the same route and be careful to stay well ahead of him. Here in the park, we’ll pick our way through the vegetation and keep under the cover of trees.”
“Yes. Good,” she said. “I will follow you.” But she’d already identified the thickest, leafiest way, and was drifting in that direction.
Jason cleared his throat. “Miss Tinker?”
“Please,” she said. “Don’t say anything. Please.”
“I—”
“I cannot bear to examine it. I cannot.”
“Right.”
He stepped around her, inching into a thicket of flowering bushes. He tried again. “Thank you for everything you’ve divulged tonight. About the pirates.”
He held out his hand and she took it. He pulled her along. He whispered, “I might require another conversation, to follow up—”
“Do not approach me again,” she said with finality. “Please. If you have any respect for me—which I would understand how you might not—but if you have any gratitude for the information I’ve given you, do not seek me out again.”
“My respect for you is—”
“Do not. Your Grace. Please.” Her voice cracked.
Was she crying? He glanced back. Her face was buried in the hood and their path took them through a tunnel of darkness. He saw nothing but the outline of her small body.
He squeezed her hand, an unplanned, instinctive gesture, and said nothing more.
She held more tightly but remained silent, allowing him to pull her along.
Chapter Six
“I don’t understand,” Samantha said to Isobel two days later. “Why cultivate new clients if we’re being forced to leave Everland Travel?”
The two women were assembling a folio with pamphlets and maps for a morning meeting with a dowager countess.
Isobel, employing equal parts don’t-think-about-it and pretend-it-won’t-happen, was carrying out her duties at Everland Travel as if she was not on the brink of expulsion. It had been two days, and she hadn’t yet been sacked.
Yes, Drummond Hooke held the ax of termination over her head, and yes, she’d allowed a very wild, very overwhelming fragment of her old self to streak through her current life, but otherwise, nothing had changed. Yet.
“Life goes on,” Isobel told Samantha now, mimicking the sage wisdom of someone who was not wild or overwhelmed. “We do not have the luxury of burning bridges. What if we find work in another travel agency? If this is a possibility, we’ll want well-served clients to migrate with us.”
“But this woman is not even a client.” Samantha gestured to the crisp folio of itineraries and watercolor images of Italy.
“Yes, but she will be,” said Isobel, tucking the folio into her satchel. Isobel excelled at winning new clients, especially old women.
This particular old woman, a dowager countess called Lady Harriet Braselton, had sent a card by messenger to request a private audience. The dowager had passed the spring and summer nursing a fractured ankle and wished to celebrate her restored health with an Italian holiday. She had questions about destinations and restricted mobility. She would be accompanied by her goddaughter and travel with a small staff. Her wish list was long and expensive, a talisman of Isobel’s most lucrative type of client.
“Things should be slow while I’m out,” Isobel told Samantha, tucking the folio in a satchel. “Sir Jamison must deliver payment today or his wife’s holiday will be canceled with no refunds on the money already paid. And there are the Austria bookings to post . . .”
“I’ll do it,” sighed Samantha, slumping behind the counter, “but I won’t understand why I’m doing it.”
“Until Mr. Hooke evicts us, it is business as usual,” Isobel repeated for the hundredth time. “There is always the chance he’ll forget his misguided proposal and allow us to carry on.”
“He won’t,” called Samantha as Isobel hurried out the door.
Samantha was correct, of course. He would not forget. After Isobel’s rejection of him, Drummond Hooke announced he would remain in London for the foreseeable future. He did not mention their row or his proposal. He dropped in and out of the office instead, interjecting his disruptive presence into the business of the day and lavishing Isobel with what she assumed were meant to be the trappings of courtship. He bore droopy flowers, soft chocolates, and invitations to dine. Worst of all, he made awkward attempts at playful affection, pats and nudges and bumps and grazes that made her jump.
As long as Hooke kept quiet on the topic of marriage versus termination, Isobel would too. She accepted the flowers as an office-wide gift; she offered the chocolates to boys in the street. She refused all invitations and skittered away from his bony fingers. Until he actually sacked her, she would abide him. They would ooze along: Hooke believing that he was somehow winning her favor and Isobel planning for the day he would give up and send her packing.
Which he would do. He was not accustomed to being told no, especially by someone he believed to be beneath him. Entitled men did not expend effort on lesser women for long.
Until that time, she would not sabotage her work of the last five years just because he couldn’t see beyond the end of his prick, and that meant cultivating new clients like Lady Braselton.
Her meeting with the dowager was set for a tearoom in Hammersmith, and she hailed a hackney cab for the journey west. Isobel routinely met in the homes of her clients to go over holiday itineraries or to introduce a travel porter to the family. First interviews, however, were sometimes convened in public establishments such as tearooms or the dining rooms of coaching inns. It was a very good sign, Isobel thought, when a lady requested an introduction in a public place instead of the security of her own parlor. It demonstrated an intrepidness and a versatility that would serve her well on her holiday. And also the dowager’s estate was too deep in Middlesex for Isobel to travel in a day. Hammersmith was mid-distance for them both. Best of all, the remote meeting meant several blessed hours out of the office and away from Mr. Hooke.
Worst of all? The journey meant time to ruminate over her newest, most ruinous distraction.
The Duke of Northumberland.
And the kiss.
And why it happened.
And what it meant.
Although how foolish to speculate on what it meant. She knew what it meant.
To him, it meant nothing—one of a million kisses.
To Isobel, it meant that she’d not actually become the staid and respectable lady she’d worked so very hard to become. She’d merely been acting the part these last seven years.
Isobel Tinker was as wild and provocative and hopeless as she’d been the day she left Iceland.
The cab lurched into the crush of vehicles in Oxford Street. Shops and offices blurred outside her window and she replayed the Grosvenor Square encounter in her mind. Perhaps her favorite moment was him scooping her up: his strong arms lifting her as if she’d weighed nothing. His body had been so very large where hers was small, so hard where hers was soft.
And his fervor, of course. He kissed with an urgency that matched her own. She’d kissed him passionately, and he’d not backed down.
She’d reviewed every second of the kiss countless times and could not find fault with any of it—save her own brazen indulgence. But that went without saying. The kiss had been near perfect.
Now the cab trundled past Hyde Park. Isobel studied the fine ladies in open carriages, enjoying the summer sun from beneath frothy parasols. Men in top hats were mounted on docile horses, trotting beside the ladies or cantering between the vehicles.
Isobel had promenaded in parks, once upon a time—not in London, of course, but in the grand parks of Paris and the piazzas of Rome. She had taken care with her dresses and carefully chosen her seats in open carriages. She had laughed and schemed and bade the driver to circle back with the hope of catching someone’s eye.
No longer, she thought. I’m all grown up now, and I work. Real, actual work.
With luck, I will continue to work.
Her work this week, however, had been diluted with the entirely useless and futile task of snooping.
She’d searched old newspapers for articles about the Duke of Northumberland.
She’d located a copy of Debrett’s Peerage and looked up his family.
In a particularly low moment, she’d hired a cab and rode past his opulent London townhome.
She was a foolish, foolish girl who’d clearly had learned nothing at all.
But Northumberland had simply been so—
Well, adorable was not the correct word.
Puppies were adorable. Five-year-old boys in tiny, grown-man suits were adorable. There was nothing fluffy or tiny about the duke. He was an adult male, older than her by more than five years. He projected an attitude of certainty about himself and the world and the future. He filtered through the dark London streets with confident stealth, an operator. It was clear why men had followed him in battle—she followed him without question and she prided herself on questioning everything done by any man.
His interview of her had been so intuitive and skilled it felt more like a very important conversation than an interrogation. He’d asked all the correct questions and she’d sung like a little yellow bird. How could she not, when subjected to his easy charm?
He portrayed himself like the friendly older brother of a beloved classmate, his trustworthiness guaranteed by association. The longer they spoke, the more she felt herself trust. But he was no one’s brother, no one that she ever knew, and she had absolutely no reason to trust him.
One striking problem was that he was so very handsome. No matter how he sat or leaned or stalked, no matter how the moonlight struck him, Isobel gobbled up the sight. He was tall enough to see over the shrubs and so broad shouldered he blocked the moon. His hair was sandy brown-blond, mussed but not unkempt. His eyes held a sweetness but also . . . heat. He was dressed finely but without stiff formality. His attractiveness was so very obvious and known and enjoyed, it felt dangerous. She knew about dangerous levels of attractiveness; she’d learned this the hard way. And yet—
And yet she almost clipped the picture of his face from the newspaper. Like a schoolgirl.
She permitted herself all of this silliness only because she knew.
Girls who worked in travel shops served no purpose for a duke except as, well, as travel agents. On the very, very rare occasions, perhaps they served as informants.
She also knew that girls whose mothers were actresses could potentially serve a wholly different purpose for dukes—and she’d very nearly performed this service on the park bench—but Northumberland was a gentleman and h
e would not seek her out for another go. He would not gossip. She would never see him again.
She knew.
Safe in this knowledge, she allowed herself freedom from regret. Oh, she was mortified and shocked at her behavior, but she did not regret the kiss so much as worry over her lingering response to it. Her fixation. Her daydreams—good Lord, her actual dreams.
What bothered her the most was coming to terms with her longing. She’d wanted the charming duke—yes, but what she really wanted was more. More of him, and more of life in general.
Being staid and respectable was a challenge, and she might be terrible at it or she might eventually manage it. What she would not manage was the want.
Dark gardens with handsome men were exhilarating. She’d forgotten how much. And she longed for it.
She’d been deceiving herself all along.
The cab continued west, picking up speed as the London traffic thinned to the occasional wagon and men on horseback. The stacked houses and shops of town gave way to tidy cottages or clusters of outlying shops. Isobel checked her timepiece. It was not far to Hammersmith, but she mustn’t make the dowager wait. Nor should she turn up distracted and flushed by memories of the duke.
She thumbed through her folios, seeing very little, until the cab reached Queen Street in Hammersmith. The driver located the tearoom, a charming stone shop with petunia-burst window boxes and a cheerful awning. Isobel paid the fare and then some, imploring him to return for her in two hours. She smoothed her dress and straightened her hat. She screwed a smile onto her face and hurried inside.
The dowager was easily identified in the dim interior, the only fabulously dressed middle-aged woman. She was flanked by a lady’s maid snoozing at the table behind her and a footman hovering nearby. She presided over a window table laid heavily with a full tea.
“Lady Harriet Braselton?” Isobel asked, bobbing a shallow curtsy.
“Yes, indeed,” enthused the dowager, “and you are Miss Tinker?”
“The very one,” said Isobel, bobbing again and reaching out her hand.
When You Wish Upon a Duke Page 7
