“We were tight-knit . . . more than a little wild, largely untended, surrounded by music and dancing. We bore witness to the romantic entanglements of our parents. We slept when we fell over in exhaustion—which was rarely—ate whatever we liked, dressed how we pleased.
“Actors change cities when a show wraps, as do members of the crew, and every production convened a different set of creative luminaries. I might see one family for the length of one production, and then not again for a year. The next time I would see them, we would be in another city or another country.”
“I’ve never considered,” said North, “the childhood of someone raised in the shadow of the stage. Fascinating. But you are clearly . . . educated. Did your mother arrange for tutors?”
“My mother did not,” Isobel said. “She taught me to read and do sums. Beyond that, she subscribed to the theory of ‘life is your schoolroom.’ I was a curious girl, a voracious reader. I was a repeat visitor to every museum in every city. I prowled ancient churches; I picked up languages quickly.”
“You’ve been classically educated in the most unclassical of ways,” he observed. “Extraordinary.”
Isobel gave a half nod, keeping her head down. “When I reached the age of fourteen or so, my friends and I began to travel on our own, independent of our parents or their commitments to the stage.”
“A girl of fourteen traveling alone?” marveled North.
“I know it sounds shocking, and it was, but it happened so gradually. My mother would close a show in Rome and pack up for Salzburg to undertake a new role. I wouldn’t want to leave Italy, or I would have a holiday planned with another actor’s family on the coast. I would remain in Rome and join her in a fortnight, traveling with someone’s older sister or a maid.
“Or she would take a role in a city I hated, such as St. Petersburg, and I would beg to travel with a group of other youths to Budapest, at first only for a fortnight.”
“And she allowed it,” observed North.
Isobel took a deep breath. “It was not as if she did not care,” she ventured, even though Isobel had wondered, at times, about her mother’s ability to see beyond her own goals and preferences. “It was more like she did not have the patience to argue. I understood this about her and became an expert at simply wearing her down. If I wished to go ahead, or stay behind, or ramble, I need only try her patience. And I always wished to go or stay behind or ramble.”
“As much as you now like to stay put?” he asked.
“Exactly the same amount,” she said.
“But did you have . . . resources?” he asked gently.
“Oh, we traveled in lavish style. My mother was highly sought-after and well compensated. Until my father died, he actually sent money as well. Mama would have nothing to do with his contributions, and she gave all of that money to me. I was too foolish to save it, and my wardrobe was a work of art. I employed a Paris-trained maid; I dined in the best restaurants and drank the best wine. Mama and I hired a beautiful carriage and driver as soon as we arrived in any city. It was,” she said, “either the perfect combination of money and freedom, or the most dangerous combination of these. I suppose it depends on how you view it.”
“Perfect,” said North wistfully.
Dangerous, Isobel countered in her head. “This from the man who is running from a dukedom.”
“Perhaps I should endeavor to be adopted by a traveling actor,” he said.
Isobel chuckled and touched her hair. Her bun was soaked and dripping rainwater down her neck. She’d begun to shiver. The cold felt less exhilarating now, more punishing.
North removed his hat and plopped it on her head. It wabbled on her saturated bun, far too large, and she was swamped again with the smell of him.
Without warning, tears shot to her eyes. Her throat clamped down. For a long moment, she struggled for composure. She tipped her head so he could not see her beneath the brim of the hat.
How far she’d come in seven years, she thought. She had a home—a new home, if she survived this mission—a schedule where days were day and nights were night and she earned a living wage doing work that she enjoyed. A friend in Samantha. A family in the Starlings and her mother.
If her encounters with the Duke of Northumberland felt like a regression—a very wonderful, deceptively harmless regression—well, this story would put an end to all of that. He could mumble, “Extraordinary” and “Fascinating,” and be perfectly lovely about it but the reality of her indiscretions meant there would be a wedge between them now.
Before, the wedge was small and vague. Now it would be as tall and sharp as the spire of a church. Now she would cease her silly, middle-of-the-night fantasies about him. And the future. And her.
She flashed him a resigned smile and forced herself to continue. “By the time I was fifteen, I’d become part of a cluster of youths—all the grown children of theater people—who traveled Europe on a sort of . . . whim. That is, we would convene for opening night of our parents’ productions, and then we would set out. Gone was the suggestion that I might join my mother in a week or so. I traveled with these friends for months at a time, embarking on some adventure.”
“Like the sort of adventure where you explored the streets of Paris?” guessed North.
She chuckled. “Like climbing a mountain in Switzerland. Like swimming in the Aegean Sea in Greece. Like learning how they train bull fighters in Spain.”
“But . . .” began North, now struggling to comprehend, “how did you not run out of money? Your mother could be the most successful actress in history and not support the life you describe. And how did a lot of untended youths gain access to—forgive me—decent establishments? What of your safety? Europe was at war. Was there no adult to mind you?”
“Excellent questions,” Isobel conceded. Defensiveness had begun to creep in, although she had no idea why. This time in her life felt without defense. She’d been dangerously reckless; many nights, she’d been downright stupid. She’d been out of control.
She glanced at North. He watched her expectantly, his expression not so much judgmental as concerned. She turned back to the sea.
She reminded herself that she did not have to tell him every detail. She didn’t have to do anything but traipse through the tundra of Iceland and translate the language and return home to claim her lovely new building.
“How did we not run out of money?” she repeated, determined, in fact, to tell him every detail. “Our lodging and food came mostly as the guests of people we met along the way. Some nights we dined lavishly in the chalets of local bourgeoisie; others we ate bread and cheese and drank wine from the bottle. Some nights we slept in canopied beds inside a castle; others we made camp on the side of the road. We traveled very light; we were prepared for whatever the journey might bring.
“What can I say but . . .” She sighed. “We were young and beautiful and resourceful. We were from different countries and we spoke various languages, but all of us were interesting and attractive and could, if necessary, demonstrate lovely manners. We could also pick pockets and fight. All of us had traveled since we were children. We were shrewd and savvy, daring and unafraid. We invented new identities based on our needs in any given city. One town saw us as brothers and sisters in a missionary family; in the next we styled ourselves as obscure Baltic royalty.”
She took a deep breath, thinking back. How clearly she could see each of their faces, some fondly, others she barely tolerated. Even then, it mattered less that she enjoyed the group, more that she’d been included in it, that she could keep up, that she was fearless enough.
She shook her head, clearing it. “What else did you ask? How were we safe? We were not safe. More than once we fell in with unsavory characters and escaped only by our luck and our wits.
“Have I, you might wonder, done serious injury to a man who climbed on top of me in the middle of the night? Yes, I have done, more than once.
“Have I leapt from a speeding carriage? Also mor
e than once.
“Have I been picked up by the local magistrate only to talk my way out of jail? Yes.”
She snatched off her hat, gave it a shake, scattering rainwater. She glanced at him, reseating the hat.
He was staring at her as if she was a shiny curiosity found in the attic. He looked as if he wanted to hold her up to the light and examine her from every angle.
“And you thought you were the only one to escape from prison,” she teased.
“I had not thought,” he said. “Obviously. But what did your mother know of this? Was she not . . . concerned?”
“Wait, allow me to finish the last bit.” She held up a finger. “You ask if there was no one minding us. Ultimately, no. However, there was a leader to our merry band. It was a boy—older, but hardly an adult—called Peter Boyd.”
“Peter Boyd?” he repeated. “He was English?”
“Yes, from Manchester of all places. He was the oldest among us, about nineteen at the time. His family was the wealthiest of the theater crowd; his father produced many of my mother’s productions. He was . . .” she paused, staring into the fog, trying to find words to describe Peter Boyd, “. . . Peter was a dangerous combination of handsomeness, confidence, cleverness, charm, boldness, and . . . an inability to stay still.”
“Is that all?” asked North, laughing a little.
“No, in fact,” she admitted, “but you get the idea. Think of the most charming, most enticing person you know, give him the face of an angel, and then allow him to take your breath away on a daily basis. That was Peter Boyd. We followed him blindly and he led us on the journey of our lives.
“If Peter wanted to break inside the Vatican in Rome,” she listed, “we did it. If he wished to herd goats in the Alps, we did it. If he wanted to harvest pearls, or dance with a royal princess, or learn to hold his breath for four minutes—we found a way to do it.”
“You belonged to him,” North guessed solemnly. “You were lovers.”
Isobel watched him, trying to read criticism or disappointment in his tone. His expression was enigmatic. He appeared only attentive.
Isobel shrugged. “Peter Boyd had one very favorite among our group, and I was not her. He loved AnaClara, a Portuguese girl, the daughter of a renowned set designer. She was tall and serene and darkly beautiful where I was small and pale and . . . not serene. I was an amusement to him and a resource. I spoke more languages than any of the other Lost Boys.”
“The Lost Boys?”
“That is the name Peter gave us, the Lost Boys.”
“But you are not a boy.”
“It didn’t matter. When the group first began these far-reaching rambles, they counted only boys among their number. Then he began to invite AnaClara and me and another few girls. The name had already been established.”
“But did you ever . . . challenge this Peter Boyd? His choices or his whims?”
“At the time?” she mused, thinking back. “I did not. You asked if he was my lover—he was not, er, always. But I did love him. Every girl did. I’ve never known a single female of any age that did not fall a little in love with Peter Boyd. It pains me to say it, but I would have followed him anywhere. I did follow him anywhere. I followed him to Iceland.”
She clasped the railing of the brig and dropped back, allowing her weight to hang at an angle. “So now you know.”
“On the contrary,” he said gruffly, “I feel as if I have only scratched the surface.”
“Are you shocked?” she asked, standing straight again.
“Yes, a little,” he said. “If I’m being honest. But not the kind of shocked that is also appalled. More like the kind of shocked that means I’m in awe of the life you’ve led.”
She laughed, a bitter, humorless sound.
“You don’t believe me?” he asked.
“I think ‘awe’ is a bit of a stretch.”
“You forget the one thing I cannot tolerate,” he said.
She thought for a moment. “Becoming duke?”
“Being bored,” he said.
She was going to clap back with some retort, to disprove what he’d claimed, but she came up short. Her girlhood had been anything but boring. She glanced at him. He watched her now with rapt attention. From the beginning, he’d always looked at her as if he was afraid he’d miss something if he looked away. The shimmers in her belly swirled to life.
“But why did this person bring you to Iceland?” he prompted.
“Peter wanted to see the volcanoes and experience the thermal pools and the strange northern lights in the sky,” she said. “We arrived in early spring and stayed through the summer. He made friends with this family I hope to visit, the Vagns.”
“This family simply . . . welcomed you into their home?”
She shrugged. “He had an aunt who was married to one of their relations. That was all it took with him—some small connection, real or imagined. He met people, and they wanted to be a part of his world. He told them some lie about his father being a wealthy investor who was scouting scenic locations around the world to build hotels.”
“And they believed him?”
“People believed whatever Peter Boyd told them,” she said sadly. “I believed him, even though I’d seen him lie to at least one person every day of our lives.”
“Believed him about what?”
“Well—” she said, and then her voice broke. She stopped, blinked, and raised her fingertips to her mouth.
“Isobel,” he said softly.
She dropped her hand. The first tear fell and she wiped it away. “Each of us was hurt by the pace at which we burned through life, or by Peter Boyd, or by both. It was only a matter of time. Before it was my turn.”
“Your turn for . . . ?”
“My turn to catch fire, I suppose?” Another tear rolled down her cheek, and she swiped it away.
“What did this man do to you?” His voice was harder now. He sounded upset. “Isobel?”
She studied his face. Was he angry with her?
No, she didn’t think so.
Was it Peter that he resented? No one ever resented Peter Boyd.
She continued carefully, watching him. “Well, Peter’s favorite, AnaClara, did not enjoy Iceland. It was too cold, the sky was too white, and she did not get on with the Vagns, our hosts. And so she left. After just a month. Sometimes she did this—she left us. She was the only one brave enough to walk away without the fear of not being invited back in. Naturally, that is why Peter loved her the most. She was not held entirely in his thrall.
“And when she left, Peter finally, at long last, after two years of traveling together, turned his attention . . . on me.”
“Oh,” said North, his voice filled with dread.
“I’d waited so long to have him, only him, just for myself,” she said through a lump. “And for a time, I was the chosen one. Also for a time, it was everything I thought it would be. He was charming and affectionate and attentive. I worked doubly hard to please him. Like most revered leaders, he was conveniently helpless. I served as everything from his valet, oiling his boots, to his minstrel, singing him to sleep. I set about learning the Icelandic language at an eye-burning pace.”
“And you were in love,” said North quietly.
“I was so in love.” The tears fell freely now.
“Do you love him still?” asked North, his voice less than a whisper.
She shook her head. “No. I have no regard for him. Hate is too strong a feeling for what I have for him. When I think of him, I feel nothing but an empty road, going to nowhere.”
“But you are crying,” he said.
She swiped at the tears, smearing them with the raindrops on her face. “I cry for the girl I was. The stupid choices, the stupid hope, for how I believed I was a part of this wonderful, special thing, when I was really all alone.”
“What happened?” A whisper.
“What do you think happened? By July, AnaClara had returned, saying she misse
d us, that life was dull with her parents. She began a campaign to lure us to the French seaside.”
“And you . . . quarreled?” North asked.
“With whom? AnaClara? No. She and I rarely spoke, and now we had even less to say than before. Peter and I? Also no. I became an observer. I held my breath, and waited, and watched to see who he would choose.” She laughed a bitter laugh. “To think I actually thought it might be me. He’d seemed so contented in Iceland. The volcanoes captivated him. He’d made the acquaintance of these pirates who captured your cousin—this is how I know of them—and he spent days playing high-seas adventurer in the water off the coast of Reykjavík. He longed to see the phenomenon of the lights in the sky in late September.”
She laughed again. “If I required the scenic highlights of the country to sway him in my favor, I knew the answer.”
“How did he settle it?” North asked.
“He came to me the evening that AnaClara returned—he cornered me alone—and said something like, ‘I’ve moved your case from my bedchamber to the room with the other girls. We would not want to confuse or distress AnaClara now that she’s finally returned to us.’ ”
“No,” North said, exhaling, drawing out the word like a hiss. He reached out and grabbed Isobel at the biceps, holding her at arm’s length.
She allowed this, sagging a little, soaking in the strength of his large hands through the bulk of the coat.
“There is more,” she said, her voice as quiet as the fog.
He shook his head, ducking a little to see her face beneath the brim of the hat.
“I was with child by then.”
The silence that followed this was as wide and as lonely as the sea.
“Oh, Isobel,” North finally whispered.
She nodded. Her ability to form words had gone. It was always like this when she talked about the pregnancy.
She sucked in a breath, trying to work loose the knot in her throat.
She said, “I hadn’t yet told Peter about . . . my condition. I was terrified to tell him.”
North made a groaning noise and closed his eyes. Isobel searched his features for disgust but his face was creased only with pain.
When You Wish Upon a Duke Page 16
