Lady Harriet gushed her gratitude for the remote meeting, complimented Isobel’s green dress, and thankfully forwent all the usual comments about her youth and gender. She invited Isobel to sit and began to pour tea, maintaining a steady stream of pleasant chatter. Isobel liked her immediately.
After they’d praised the tearoom (the dowager’s family owned the entire block, she said), the distance from London (Isobel would surely be home in time for supper), and the condition of her ladyship’s ankle (only a concern when it rained), Isobel pulled the watercolor prints from her satchel and began to spin a tale of Italian adventure, casting Lady Harriet as the protagonist.
The spry, open-minded dowager was transfixed, poring over the watercolors, making breathless sounds of excitement and clapping her hands in delight. In only a half hour’s time, Isobel had sold the woman on a six-week holiday from Rome to Venice, invoking every luxury. She was just jotting down the woman’s details, preferred dates of travel, and scheduling their next meeting when Lady Harriett dropped her teacup in the saucer with a clatter.
“Oh, but I’d nearly forgotten,” exclaimed the lady. “It was my excitement over the journey. But I do have a second purpose here today. He’s the very reason I sought you out. My dear nephew. He knew of my desire to travel and wrote to me at Meadowlane to insist I contact you straightaway. But you must speak to him—my nephew, Jason . . . Ah, yes, here he is . . .”
Isobel’s hand froze over the parchment.
She’d been only half listening, but her ears went red at the mention of the name “Jason.”
She knew of only one Jason.
Of course she did not think of him as “Jason.” Her many misguided speculations and remembrances styled him simply as “Northumberland,” but she knew his given name. She knew most things about him, considering the wasted hours she spent poring over all available accounts.
Isobel blinked at the notes, seeing only a blur. She bit down on the end of her pen. Finally, she looked up, trying to school her face into passive curiosity.
“I beg your pardon, my lady?”
“My nephew urged me to seek you out. My own son would force me to holiday in Scotland every summer and be done with it. Such a tyrant, my son. The world is so very small to him, and he’s so protective. But my nephew respects my adventurer’s spirit—ah, but here he is. Jason, darling!”
Isobel watched in disbelief as the dowager beamed at an unseen figure behind her, beckoning him with the happy twirl of a bracelet-tinkling wrist. The dowager’s footman straightened to attention and the drowsing lady’s maid scrambled to her feet.
Not him, Isobel chanted in her head. Not him. Not him.
It is not Jason Beckett, the Duke of Northumberland.
It is Jason Anybody Else, someone I’ve never met or kissed with wild abandon.
“Hello, my lady,” rumbled a friendly male voice from behind her—an achingly familiar voice. Unmistakable. The voice she heard in her dreams.
Isobel slowly closed her eyes. She counted the racing beats of her heart. She drew a shaky breath.
When I open my eyes, she thought, this will not be—
“Oh, but Miss Tinker is everything you promised,” sang the dowager. “Ah, just look at her, so very deep in thought. Planning my journey already.”
Isobel was given no choice but to open her eyes. “Forgive me, my lady,” she said, locking eyes with the dowager.
She would not look at him. She would not look at him.
She would not look.
“I was trying to recall—”
“How do you do, Miss Tinker?” said Nephew Jason, now a large, looming blur in Isobel’s periphery. He was solid and opaque and unmoving. She could feel the warmth of his body. She could smell him.
With very great effort, Isobel tore her eyes from the dowager’s and glanced up at him. “How do you do?” she rasped, a reflex.
It was him, of course, and her reaction to the sight of him was like the crack of a rifle, loud and reverberating. A shattering of the calm. His beautiful face was relaxed and curious and a little amused. His masculine body towered above the dainty tea service. Isobel felt shot—not taking the bullet, but propelled from the barrel of the gun.
Him.
“I trust you’re taking good care of my aunt,” he said. “You’ll not find a traveler more eager to see the world, I daresay. This journey has been many years in the making.”
“So true,” bemoaned the dowager, reaching again for Isobel’s watercolor illustrations. “You know me too well, darling, and that is why you are my favorite nephew.”
“Indeed,” Jason agreed. He was staring at Isobel’s face. Isobel knew she should look away—she should attend the dowager, she should take a sip of tea, she should look anywhere else—but she gaped up at the duke as if she’d never before seen a human male.
He went on, not looking away. “Would you mind, my lady, if I spoke to Miss Tinker alone for just a moment? You’ll remember I said her office sometimes arranges travel for my work.”
“Such dangerous derring-do,” tsked the dowager, waving them away. “Of course my son will have no qualms about a holiday planned by the same office that looks after your important missions, darling . . .”
“Leave the earl to me,” assured the duke lightly, stepping behind Isobel’s chair and pulling it from the table. Isobel was given no choice but to rise. “I’ll make certain that you get your Roman holiday.” He gestured to the staff.
To Isobel he said, “Can I impose on you to join me outside, Miss Tinker? There is something of grave importance I should like to discuss.”
Chapter Seven
“You’re cross,” Jason guessed, holding open the door of the Turnip and Tea.
In truth, Isobel Tinker looked so much more than cross. She looked outraged, or perhaps simply enraged, but the open door gave her no choice but to step into the street.
Midday sunlight painted Hammersmith in eye-squinting brightness, and she walked only so far as a window box. She stopped next to a cascade of flowers and shaded her eyes. The high street was thinly trafficked at the moment; only a boy on a pony clomped past.
She glared at the boy and his mount. She checked a watch in her pocket. She studied the petunias in the window box. She would not look at him. Meanwhile, Jason saw only her. He’d spent the last hour watching her charm his aunt from across the dim tearoom and he’d passed the week anticipating this moment.
She’d worn a dress of apple green with a tidy straw hat several shades paler. Her gloves were a faint apricot color, and she’d pinned a small silk poppy to her lapel.
He’d told himself that she would be plainer than he remembered, less sparkling. He’d told himself that the unexpectedness of Isobel Tinker had painted his memories of her far better than she actually had been.
He’d been wrong. There was nothing less about her. She was exactly as compact and bright as he remembered.
He looked his fill, taking time to reseat his hat and propping against the windowsill. In his mind, he played a game he called “Things Not Done by an Effective Foreign Agent.”
For example, an effective foreign agent did not feel guilty about using his aunt to trick an informant into meeting in Hammersmith.
An effective foreign agent was not distracted or entranced by said informant, no matter how fetching she looked in her snug green dress.
An effective foreign agent did not waver from the goal of recruiting the informant for urgent missions, no matter how she resisted.
And finally, an effective foreign agent did not use the rescue of hapless cousins as a means to become close—in mind or body—to the informant.
He must not touch her again, no matter how much his hands itched, in this very moment, to run a finger down the slim line of her arm. As a rule, he did not touch women uninvited—in his experience, no one of any gender welcomed random groping by another person—but his impulses seemed to be hung up on a continuous loop. Stay. Lean. Touch.
Jason did not
touch her. He gave his head a shake and cleared his throat. He realized that if he stood just so, he could block the sunshine from her face with his shoulder. He propped a gloved hand on the building and leaned beside her. If he could not touch her, he would shield her.
“So,” he ventured, “you’re surprised to see me?”
This elicited a look. Finally. Blue eyes stared at him as if he’d just invited her to step off a high cliff.
“You thought our business was finished?” Another guess.
Guessing her mood seemed more prudent than asking her how she really felt. Validate her anger without inviting a vivid account.
When he’d left her that night in Grosvenor Square, she’d dismissed him with a three-sentence entreaty:
Do not approach me again. Please. If you have any respect for me . . .
At the time, she hadn’t seemed cross so much as hurried and emphatic and distressed. He’d agreed because he’d wanted to put her at ease. And also, she’d darted up the steps and disappeared inside before he could speak.
And now here he was, seeking her out again, just as he’d promised not to do. He’d also spoken of her to others. Not many others, but a few. His chat with her uncle, Sir Jeffrey Starling, would be among the more difficult interviews to reveal.
But authenticating her information was allowed—nay, necessary. Everything he did was necessary for the recovery of Reggie and the avoidance of an international incident with the Danes.
He was in the right. He’d never had to remind himself of this, and the mental exercise was growing tiresome.
He tried one more time. “You enjoyed meeting my aunt?” he ventured. This she could not deny.
At last, she opened her mouth. She sucked in a little breath. Jason stared at the small, pink perfection of her lips and was immediately distracted. He’d revisited their kiss as often as he’d revisited every other fact and figure from the night in Grosvenor Square. He’d devoted his week to confirming and researching and building on the details. The kiss should have been irrelevant to all of it; instead, it felt like a beginning.
Finally, she spoke. “Is the dowager’s holiday part of the ruse?” Her voice was soft and a little weary.
“What? No, of course not. There is no ruse, Isobel—”
“I prefer ‘Miss Tinker,’ if you please,” she said lowly, glancing about them.
“Forgive me, Miss Tinker.” He exhaled and started again, whispering, “My aunt has dreamt of a sojourn to Italy for an age. It was my pleasure to introduce you. Her patronage will keep you busy for the better part of a year.”
She stared at him like he was trying to sell her a house with no door.
“I merely meant to join two purposes,” he explained. “My aunt was in need of a travel agent, and I needed, urgently, to speak with you. I was mindful of not bursting in on your office again, and a simple request for another meeting seemed . . . ambitious.”
“There will be no future meetings,” she stated.
“Which is why I cultivated this errand. To bring us all together.”
“You and I have already been together,” she bit out in a whisper. She paused and a pink blush bloomed on the cream of her cheeks. He watched it spread down her throat and across her collarbone. Jason’s memories engaged, replaying the warm pleasure of their kiss.
Miss Tinker cleared her throat. She repeated, “I’ve provided all the information that I am able. I bade you, as a gentleman—”
“Yes, yes,” he cut in. “I’m a gentleman and you’ve bade me to the devil. But at the moment, I’m here on earth and working on behalf of the common good. Look, Miss Tinker, the information you provided in Grosvenor Square was, to put it mildly, a treasure trove. I was able to confirm, corroborate, or build upon nearly every nugget. When I first sought you out, my only intent was to gain a general sense of the Icelandic geographic and cultural landscape. Instead, you handed me the key players in my cousin’s capture and quite possibly their purpose. It’s been a very fruitful week, to say the least. I cannot say when I’ve had a more helpful informant.” He paused, waiting for some reaction. Flattery never hurt, and in this case, it was also true.
“I’m happy to hear it,” she said, not at all flattered. “But now you’ll repay my usefulness by—”
“I need more,” Jason said, emphasizing every word. He’d not lured her to Hammersmith to beat around the bush.
“More what?”
“I need you to join me on my voyage to Iceland to recover my cousin and the other captured Englishmen.”
There was a long, airless pause. From somewhere nearby, a chirping bird began a cheerful trill. The birdsong, so normal and abiding, served only to mock the highly irregular and improbable thing he was asking her to do.
“No,” she said, a statement more than a denial.
Jason celebrated inside his head but kept his face very calm. He doubled down.
“You couldn’t know this about me, Miss Tinker, but I’m known in my work for seeking unconventional solutions from unlikely sources.”
“No,” she said. Again, the word was floated more than tossed down.
“Protocol and procedure?” he went on. “These have always been afterthoughts. As a strategist, my plans are known as ‘unorthodox.’ ”
“No,” she repeated.
“And then the success we all enjoy is as far-reaching as it was inevitable. A great surprise to everyone but my closest allies.”
“No, no, no.”
“Which is why,” he rushed to finish, “you may be surprised at the very outrageousness of this plan.”
“Surprise is only one of several very strong reactions to this plan, Your Grace.”
“It could work,” he said. “It will work. It is brilliant and resourceful and kismet.”
“Absolutely not. Out of the question.” She spun on her heel and stomped up the street in the direction of London.
Jason swore and went after her. “Hear me out,” he said, catching her in two strides.
“Go away, Your Grace,” she said. She would not look at him. “Go away, go away, go away.”
He pressed on. “You would serve as a guide, a translator—a sort of cultural attaché. Based on what I confirmed this week, you know exactly how to get me in and my cousin out as quickly and as quietly as possible.”
She kept walking and he swore again. He was literally chasing her down the street.
He tried again. “Will you hear why I need you? Or what I’m prepared to offer in exchange?”
“No.”
Now he was cross. “You will,” he informed her. “Because lives are at stake and the government of England could benefit from your usefulness. It is decent and honorable to—”
“Do not say it,” she cut him off. She came to a stop before an empty storefront and whirled around.
“Do not suggest I lack decency or honor when I know the War Office or the Home Office or Whitehall could provision you with unlimited resources if you require them. I am merely one woman, alone. I’m fighting to keep my livelihood. I deplore Iceland for reasons too personal to share. And I also suffer from wretched seasickness; as such, I’ve sworn off ocean voyages. So do not expect me to politely ask how I might help. Don’t tell me that I am your only hope—and I have no wish to go—because I don’t believe you.”
“Fair points, one and all,” he said, which was certainly true. “But I’ve an answer.”
“Yes, and the answer is, ‘How right you are, Miss Tinker. I’ll leave off plaguing you.’ ”
He laughed. “Actually—no.” But how adorable you are, he thought.
He could hardly say that. He cleared his throat.
“Look,” he began again, “if I’m being completely honest, my efforts on this mission are not entirely under the, er, jurisdiction of the Foreign Office. That is, it’s not an official undertaking. I won’t be operating under . . . sanctioned authority.”
“What does that mean?” She sounded skeptical.
“I’m suf
ficiently high in rank—or I was before I retired—but even I’m subject to a chain of command. When I explained the pirate capture and the attempted illegal trade to my commanding officer, he was . . . not convinced. I told him these men from Lincolnshire could die and England could face a diplomatic quarrel with Denmark, but he wouldn’t budge.
“He didn’t block me from going so much as reminded me that I’m meant to be retired.” Here Jason made a grimace. “That I’m . . . no longer in play.”
“Stop,” she pleaded. “Not an appeal for sympathy. On top of everything else.”
He laughed, a bitter, ragged sound. “I don’t want your sympathy, Isobel; what I want is to be a foreign agent. That’s been taken from me. Fine. So be it. I also want to recover my cousin. This is in reach. If handled with care and delicacy and the resources at hand.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You plan to strike out on your own?”
He let out a disgusted harrumph. “Was I forbidden to embark on the mission? No, I was not forbidden. Do they know I intend to give it a go? Yes, they do. But will I be working on behalf of the British government when I enact the recovery? Not . . . entirely.
“Of course, if things go badly . . . if the pirates begin to kill the merchants or Denmark learns of their attempt to smuggle with Iceland . . . the Foreign Office would be invoked. They’d send reinforcements, official diplomacy would commence. My goal, with the consent—although not the support—of my former employer is to keep ahead of that.
“My goal,” he finished, “is in and out, and no one knows. My method is to recruit outsiders—which means you—and make as little fuss as possible. The Foreign Office is overburdened with larger concerns. I’m . . . I’m managing this on my own.”
By the time Jason had said all of it, he was sweating. He snatched off his hat and ran a finger through his hair. He raised his eyebrows.
Miss Tinker studied his face, saying neither yes nor no. Also, she did not say, How brave and noble you are, or How very full of rubbish you have been.
But she did begin to slowly shake her head.
When You Wish Upon a Duke Page 8
