When You Wish Upon a Duke

by Charis Michaels

  The amount of time Isobel must remain with the pirates depended primarily on the condition of the captives. If they appeared well enough to tolerate a bouncing wagon speeding away at a fast clip, she could begin trying to escape very soon, an hour at most.

  If, however, the captives were in poor health, if the cart was forced to trundle away without jostling or jolting, Isobel would need to occupy the pirates longer.

  Assessing the condition of the captives had actually been her first priority, but so far she’d seen only pirates. She wanted to glance at North, but that would be out of character. Instead, she kept her head bowed and listened.

  “Captain Phillipe Doucette,” North called, speaking in tight, formal English, the English of aristocrats from a generation ago.

  “I am the Duke of Northumberland. I’ve come to recover my cousin Reginald Pelham and merchants from the town of Grimsby in Lincolnshire, England.”

  “So you have,” said Doucette, his English thickly accented. “Show me the girl.”

  “You can see her there, bound inside the cart,” said North touchily. “And there she will remain until I see my cousin.”

  “How did you come into possession of this girl?” asked Doucette.

  “The same way you came to be in possession of these men. I captured her.”

  “Where?”

  “Greece.”

  “But why?”

  “Why capture a group of merchantmen from Lincolnshire?” North shot back.

  “Because I hate the English. Now say your excuse.”

  “I made a study of what you might value instead of the exorbitant five hundred pound ransom, and discovered that she was an answer. I am a negotiator at heart, you might say. I’m sorry I could not deliver one Mr. Peter Boyd, but I ran out of time.”

  “Did you see him? Boyd?” blustered Doucette.

  When Isobel heard this, she knew they had him. His voice burned with vengeance. His open desire for Peter betrayed any useful strategy or bargaining. He would take her. They were very close.

  Swallowing hard, Isobel checked the dagger and the concealed apple seeds with her bound hands. He’d tied her in such a way that she looked constrained but could, in fact, free herself at any moment. That moment had not yet come. Close, but not yet.

  “Bring me the girl,” Jason ordered Declan Shaw. He dismounted from his horse and squared off with the pirate captain.

  Phillipe Doucette was like any pirate Jason had ever met, overconfident and undergroomed. He wasn’t fond of pirates on a good day. As if navigating oceans and skirting hurricanes wasn’t enough, pirates forced honest sailors to dodge cannon fire too. He viewed pirates as petty thieves who stole everything they possessed. Add the abduction of his cousin and their voracious interest in Isobel, and Phillipe Doucette ranked very low on Jason’s list of people he tolerated.

  But now he must pretend not to care—not about piracy or about Isobel. He must pretend to have eyes only for Reggie.

  “Show me the Englishmen,” North said, “or the girl remains in my possession.”

  “Doucette!” called a female voice from behind him.

  North ground his teeth. They’d not rehearsed this bit, line for line, but he knew Isobel intended something like shock and awe.

  “Captain Doucette!” she called again.

  The pirate stepped around to see Shaw lifting Isobel from the cart, her hands bound in front of her.

  “Get off of me, you oaf!” she yelled at Shaw.

  Very slowly, North turned to see. His regard for her was meant to be irritation and disgust. It was the most challenging duplicity of his career.

  Shaw dragged Isobel forward by the wrists. She staggered, blond hair tossing, skirts fanning out. When they reached Jason, he twisted his expression into extreme distaste and fastened his hand around her arm. He held her out from his body, as if her nearness offended him. She raised herself up to her full five-foot-two-inch height.

  In rapid-fire French, the accent so thick Jason struggled to follow, she cried out, “I can give you Peter, Doucette. I know where he is. And when he discovers that this Coward Aristocrat . . .” she sneered and pointed at Jason, “. . . has bound me like chattel and traded me like a mare, Peter will come for me. You know he will. I’ll help you. I’ll do anything if you’ll get me away from these ham-handed Englishmen!”

  Doucette’s hard eyes had gone wide, taking in the sight of her. He stepped up and took Isobel by the chin to examine her face. She glared at him, her eyes flashing, and Jason held his breath. She was safer when Jason appeared not to care.

  “Never mind the ravings of the girl,” North warned, pulling Isobel from the pirate’s hold. “She’s not yours until I have the Englishmen.”

  Doucette glared at North, examined Isobel again, and then shouted something in a language that was neither French nor English. A pirate jerked open the tavern door and seven men in chains were prodded into the sunlight, staggering, squinting, holding on to each other for support.

  Jason almost forgot his panic for Isobel. The men looked wretched, beaten and starving. He searched the bruised, haggard faces for his cousin.

  How many times had he retrieved Reggie from gaming hells, brothels, and gentlemen’s clubs of dubious repute? Reggie was frequently drunk or recovering from a fight or both, and he always needed money. This was so much worse.

  It was Reggie who spotted him first.

  “Jason?” called a stooped man with matted hair. “Jason Beckett? Your Grace?”

  Jason followed the sound and finally distinguished Reggie from the other haggard men. His cousin endeavored to wave but the chains prevented it. He tried to make himself taller but appeared too feeble to stand upright. His yellowish pallor and hollow-eyed expression were corpse-like. He was brittle-thin, unwashed, with a bloody nose and open sores on his face and neck.

  Panic spiked through Jason like a lance. He’d gotten Reggie, or rather he’d gotten some half-alive version of Reggie, only to deliver Isobel to the men responsible for this?

  She must have sensed his hesitation, because she pulled her arm from his grasp and skittered from him.

  Shaw stepped up, but she pointed a finger and said, “Stay back, all of you, or I swear I will fight you to the death.” She looked wild and beautiful and deadly serious.

  Shaw took a step back.

  “Quiet,” Jason said flippantly, dismissing her.

  To the pirate Jason said, “These men have been starved and beaten, Doucette. Is there no honor among thieves?”

  Doucette shrugged. “They are weak. Too soft for our way of life. But they are alive.”

  “Barely.” To Shaw he said, “Help them into the cart.”

  “Give me the girl,” said Doucette.

  The next words were the most difficult Jason would ever say. “Take her. She will walk to you as the Englishmen walk to my men.”

  Jason nodded to Declan Shaw and the large man gave her a shove. Isobel affected a perfect stumble, righted herself, and then walked, head high, to the pirate captain.

  A pirate unlocked the long chain confining the merchants and they trudged in the direction of the cart.

  “Jason, you’ve come!” Reggie rasped, his voice a prayer. “You’ve come, you’ve come. Thank God. I said that you would come. But who is the woman?”

  Reggie disentangled from the group to watch Phillipe Doucette snatch Isobel’s arm and jerk her to his side.

  “No, Jason, you mustn’t allow this,” Reggie called weakly. “A woman has no place among these barbarians. It’s no good, Jason—”

  “Reggie, shut up,” ground out Jason.

  “But she’ll be—”

  “I said shut it, Reggie,” growled Jason.

  Shaw stepped up to push Reggie back to the group. His grumbling continued and he craned around to catch sight of Isobel. The wagon was small but sturdy and the other merchants had begun to comprehend what was happening. They heard the King’s English, saw English faces, and hustled into the wagon, draggin
g Reggie along with them.

  “Our business is done,” proclaimed Jason, turning to remount his horse. “Take her.”

  “Yes, go,” spat Doucette. “Hopefully these men will spread the word to other ambitious exporters. Keep out of Iceland. All smuggling will be managed by the Skallagrímur family and Phillipe Doucette.”

  “The devil take the lot of you,” grumbled Jason. He swung into the saddle and gave a nod to Shaw. The wagon began a slow turn in the direction of Stokkseyri. Shaw’s team took up positions flanking it, marching in formation.

  Reggie was talking—Reggie was always talking—calling to him, explaining to his fellow merchants that his cousin was a duke and a foreign agent. “I can’t believe he’s traded that girl to rescue us,” he marveled.

  Jason ignored him, watching the assembled pirates and the little tavern on the horizon. His last glance was to Isobel. She glared back with believable contempt. They’d planned for this last moment. If he touched his hat, it meant she could begin trying to escape almost immediately. If he made no gesture, she should hold off for as long as possible—at least an hour—so the wagonload of injured Englishmen could make more progress.

  The merchants in the cart looked as if they’d been collectively kicked in the teeth, but Jason didn’t care. He wouldn’t leave her in the hands of these criminals for a second longer than necessary. He would be back for her as soon as the wagon was out of sight and the pirates were distracted.

  He glanced at her, touched his hand to his hat, and then kicked the horse into a spin and cantered away.

  Chapter Twenty

  North idled in the distance, his impatient horse stamping and throwing its mane, while the wagon with his cousin trundled ahead. When the procession of men and cart made fifty yards, the duke spun the animal and cantered ahead. He did not look back.

  Isobel watched him disappear onto the horizon, savoring the sight of him, and buying time. Three main thoughts jostled around in her head.

  First, the pirates were not, in fact, the same as they had been. They were harder, leaner, more desperate. It appeared as if they’d not only starved the English merchants, but beaten them as well.

  Second, she would need to win over Doucette. If he was an ally, they all became allies.

  Third, the Duke of Northumberland had faith in her abilities. He would not have left her if he did not.

  She was determined to prove him correct.

  If Doucette had allowed it, she would have watched North until he was a tiny speck on the horizon, but the pirate captain was already dragging her around the side of the tavern.

  “To the boats!” he bellowed.

  The boats? Isobel felt a jolt of panic. She looked around. The pirate crew was lurching to comply. Doucette’s face was set with a sort of greedy determination; he looked as if he intended to sail to Peter Boyd’s unknown location this very night. But they couldn’t go now, not before they’d taken refreshment at the tavern. They were meant to be exhausted from rowing upriver. And thirsty. Very thirsty.

  Isobel dug in her heels. “Stop, Captain, if you please!” she demanded in French. “I need food and drink.”

  She employed her most upper-class French accent and used tenses consistent with an order. The pirate paused a fraction of a second.

  Isobel swallowed and doubled down. “The English duke has starved me, and beaten me, and humiliated me. He and his men were crude and brutish. I’ve never been so grateful for your recovery of me.”

  “There is food on the ship,” he said, moving again, dragging her along.

  “I will not make the ship if I do not eat. I’ll faint. I’ll faint and have to be carried. I am strong but I require food, just like anyone.” She pulled against his hold, straining her entire body toward the tavern door.

  Doucette hovered between the river and the building, his expression torn. This was the moment of truth. He’d agreed to release the Englishmen because he gained her instead. Extraneous, irritating captives for one highly prized ally. She was trying to shift his view, make him believe he’d rescued her.

  “The tavern will have rúgbrauð,” she insisted. “And butter. Oh God, my kingdom for a dab of butter!”

  The bread she’d named, a traditional Icelandic dark rye, was meant to prick Doucette’s nostalgia and remind him that, for a time, Isobel had been a local.

  His grip loosened, and she dragged him to the door of the tavern like a child. With every step, she expected to be snapped back. Her heart raced.

  When they reached the tavern door, Isobel fell against the wall, making a show of breathing in and out. The pirates gathered around, watching her with uncertainty.

  Just you wait, she thought, putting on a show. Silently, she counted the men, sizing up who would be a challenge and who could be ignored.

  “Only one drink,” Doucette hissed to her in French. “While you drink, you tell me what you know about Peter Boyd.”

  “And about Filip Skallagrímur,” Isobel added. She’d come prepared with local gossip about the Icelandic family allied to the pirates. She would need every lie and ruse and all the flattery she could muster. It wouldn’t be enough for her to eat and drink. Doucette must drink. They all must drink as much and as long as possible.

  “What about Skallagrímur?” sputtered Doucette, bending his pepper-red face to hers.

  “Idle prattle, perhaps,” she said. “But I’ll tell you what I’ve heard. But sustenance first? Please!”

  Doucette relented and dragged her inside, his pirate crew crowding in behind him. The tavern was dark and rustic: a dirt floor, stone walls, a few tables, and a counter. There was only one way in and out. The bar was tended by an old man in a woolly hat. There was not, in fact, bread and butter, only the local ale. Without asking for permission, Isobel switched to Icelandic and ordered a round for every pirate.

  As one woman working alone, Isobel knew that motion and sound would provide distraction, her most reliable tool. Step one, never stop talking. From the moment the pirates stepped inside the dark, smoky confines of the tavern, Isobel chattered. Switching easily between French and Icelandic and other languages in between, she complained in colorful detail about being captured by the duke. She invented a reason for being in Greece and extolled the virtues of the Greek islands as potential territory for enterprising pirates. She asked how much money Peter Boyd had won in their card games and revealed that he was a prodigious cheat.

  Meanwhile she scooted chairs across the dirt floor, stirring up dust. She kicked the bar with her boot. She swished her skirt and flipped her hair and petted the dogs sleeping by the fire.

  The pirates watched her as if they’d not seen a woman in a year, a circumstance that could have well been accurate.

  “Sit!” Doucette finally bellowed, ordering her away from the hearth. Isobel complied, but not before she kicked a log from the tinderbox to the base of the hearth. If it caught flame, she would have another distraction. Every move was calculated to benefit the next five minutes of survival. By her count, she’d been within pirate company for fifteen minutes. She had forty-five minutes to go at least.

  When she sat, she asked to have her wrists unbound so that she could drink. Doucette reached for his knife, but she turned away and offered her wrists to a nearby pirate. While the man worked at the binding, she spoke to him in various languages. He answered her finally—he was German—and she chatted with him to distract from the fact that she’d been bound with copious rope but no actual knot. The German pirate was so beguiled by the end, she held out her hand for the loose rope as if it had been hers all along. He returned it to her and she tucked it smoothly in her belt.

  “Tell me about AnaClara,” Isobel said, whirling back to Doucette.

  “What? Who is AnaClara?” sneered Doucette.

  Isobel spun a half-true tale about the beautiful girl with whom she “shared” Peter Boyd, the one who lured him away from Iceland and, in fact, from Isobel. With exaggerated jealousy, she painted a convincing picture of how she
came to be separated from Peter and the Lost Boys.

  While she talked, she fidgeted with her hair and vest. She claimed the fire was too warm, the afternoon too cold, the tavern too dark. The last thing she did before she ceased fluttering braids and feathers and skirts was tug the black pouch from inside the shirt to hang by her hip.

  Doucette was frowning into his tankard. “Boyd was surrounded by all the beautiful ones,” he grumbled, “just like always.”

  “But not me,” Isobel exclaimed with bitterness, throwing up her hands. As she did it, she purposefully knocked over her own tankard, sending the metal cup clattering to the ground and soaking the pirate with pungent ale.

  Doucette lurched back, cursing and trying to flick drink from his coat. Isobel seized the chance. Working quickly and stealthily, she recovered the cup and tapped a good portion of the apple-seed dust into the pirate’s drink.

  When the dust was back in her pouch, she affected an elaborate apology and took up two rags from the bar. She used one to dab Doucette’s coat and the other she tossed very near the fire.

  Doucette shoved away her ministrations, angry about the spill. She fell back and made her way to the bar, stooping to pick up empty tankards on the way. She plunked them down and told the barman in hurried Icelandic to refill all of them.

  “Another round?” she called, pretending to be a little drunk.

  “We must make the ship by sundown,” Doucette called out, slurping his own drink.

  “I’ve never been so grateful,” Isobel shouted, raising an empty tankard, “to sail away from this godforsaken island . . .”

  The pirates shouted their agreement.

  In that moment, the alcohol-soaked rag she’d dropped by the fire sparked and caught flame, shooting flames into the air and startling the dogs. The dogs yowled and scuttled away and two pirates leapt up to contain the fire.

  It was the ten seconds she’d been waiting for. Moving quickly, she tapped the remaining apple-seed dust into the tankards waiting on the bar.