“It doesn’t matter,” she finished, tightening her gloves. “I’ll run away if I must. I need formal training despite being quite accomplished, even now. I’ll perish if I cannot perform.”
It was a mouthful of an admission, even without referencing their father.
Isobel thought she should feel something dark and spiteful, but she found only sympathy. Also, affection. Lady Wendy was too earnest and honest and impetuous not to like. And Isobel’s fondness for actors was far more deeply ingrained than her distrust of half sisters.
“Enjoyed various theatrical productions, have you?” Isobel asked.
“Oh loads,” assured Lady Wendy. “Whenever we are in Town. My brother ferries me to Drury Lane. We’ll see whatever’s on. Before that, my father and I were constant patrons.”
And now Isobel did feel a pulse of something heavy and uncomfortable in the area of her heart. Their father had delighted in the theater; it was how he and Georgiana met. The connections felt too tight to be comfortable.
Even so, Isobel could not help but ask, “By any chance have you had the opportunity to travel, Lady Wendy? To see theatrical performances in Paris or Vienna or St. Petersburg?”
“No,” breathed Wendy, “but I aspire to. I promised my mother I would participate in one London Season if she would accompany me to the great opera houses of Europe. She agreed, and I slogged through that terrible Season, only to have her retract the offer when it was all said and done. She thought I would enter into a courtship and forget about Europe. But I have an excellent memory. And no intention of being courted by anyone.”
“Indeed,” said Isobel, impressed. This was no trifling vow for a debutante.
“And that is why I intend to run away,” Wendy continued. “And that is why I thank you. It’ll be far easier now that I don’t have to pretend to care about the Duke of Northumberland for a week, or a fortnight, or even a night. Now I can move forward with my—Oh!”
She slapped a hand over her mouth. “Why am I telling you this?”
“Your intentions are safe with me, my lady,” said Isobel.
“Well, you have a kind face,” Wendy theorized. “And you remind me of someone. I have a very bad habit of saying too much . . . to familiar people . . . with kind faces. Please, I beg you, tell no one? About my plans?”
“Never you fear,” said Isobel. “The duke should be along any moment. However . . . I’d like to invite you to call to my travel agency in Hammersmith. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? Tinker’s Travel?”
The girl shook her head, blond curls bouncing.
“Right. Well, if you convince your mother that she does, indeed, owe you a holiday, my shop can assist with all the arrangements. I’ve secured front-row seats at the finest theaters in Europe for other girls. I can even get you backstage to meet the players.”
And now Lady Wendy was hopping up and down again.
“Consider it, perhaps, before you embark on any plan to run away.”
Isobel was just reciting the shop name and direction when Jason strode into the corridor.
“Go,” whispered Lady Wendy, frowning as she watched him approach. “Do us both this favor.”
The girl was already backing away. “I will call on you in Hammersmith. Thank you, Miss Tinker!”
Isobel may have said, Thank you, or Please do, or she may have said nothing at all. Her eyes were fixed on the approaching duke, her insides filled with light.
“Where’s the box?” he asked, coming upon her.
“Oh,” said Isobel, fumbling in her pocket. “But what of your cousin?”
“Packed away in a carriage with his parents,” he said, snatching the box from her hands. “The Frenchman mollified—if you can imagine—by your mother.”
Isobel let out a laugh. “I can imagine. She is useful in mollifying Frenchmen.”
He snapped open the box, plucked out the jewelry, and pitched the empty box into a plant.
“Take off your glove,” he ordered.
Isobel peeled off the moss-green leather.
“Should we do this properly?” he asked, dropping to one knee. Isobel laughed. They were nearly alone in the hall. Only the occasional servant, distracted with the duties of the ball, hurried along the wall.
“You’ve been a stickler for propriety from the beginning,” he said, looking up, reaching for her hand.
A second too late, he swiped his hat from his head and placed it over his heart. His hair was deliciously rumpled and she reached out to smooth it.
“Oh yes,” she said. “A paragon, that’s me.”
“Isobel Tinker,” he continued, “will you make my life complete—after much, much excruciating delay—by becoming my duchess?” He slid the beautiful, glittering ring on her finger.
Isobel nodded, her voice too choked to speak.
“Brilliant,” said Jason, vaulting up. “Let us hope the priest is still available.”
Chapter Thirty
Percival Toombs had been the parish priest of the Syon Hall vicarage for as long as Jason could remember. A kindly old man, considered a member of the family by his mother, Toombs was delighted at the prospect of marrying a Northumberland duke, rather than burying one. Jason had called on him earlier in the day to make the special request.
Toombs had shown less delight in the timing of the proposed matrimony, which Jason wanted to commence that very night. During the ball. Down the corridor from the dancing. Not only was this irregular, the vicar suggested that the duke’s urgency might come off as a little . . . irreverent. And indecorous.
Jason did not care. He felt as if a blade had been yanked from his ribs. The pain was gone and he could look to the future with anticipation and not dread.
He would not be saddled with managing the dukedom alone.
His sister seemed truly relieved and happy.
Best of all, Isobel had come to him. And now that she was here, he would not let her go.
He told the priest the wedding time would be “cannot say for sure,” and named the location as “I’ll find you.” The lack of a plan so distressed the priest that Jason promised another ball in the near future to properly celebrate the nuptials. Eventually Toombs relented, reviewing the special license and agreeing to make himself available. He clearly doubted the probability of an extemporaneous wedding but the old man never missed a party at Syon Hall and promised to bring his prayer book, just in case.
Now Jason stalked the ballroom, Isobel on his arm, searching for Reverend Toombs.
“But will you silence the orchestra,” ventured Isobel, “to announce the betrothal? Or may we simply gather a small circle of family?”
“I’m less concerned about the announcement,” Jason clipped, “and more about the deed.”
Where was Percival Toombs? Jason began a wide circuit of the drinks carts.
“Deed?” she asked.
“The ceremony,” he said, dodging a trio of giggling debutantes.
“Jason, I don’t understand?”
“The wedding,” he sighed. He spotted Percival’s bald head bent over a tray of prawns. Finally. Thank God.
Isobel stopped walking, and he was yanked back. Damn! So close.
“Jason,” Isobel whispered. “You cannot mean to conduct a wedding tonight. Here? In the middle of your sisters’ ball?”
“That is precisely what I intend,” he said. “Why not?”
They stood in the middle of the crowded ballroom. Revelers passed on all sides; servants offered libations. A footman passed with drinks on a tray and Jason snatched two of them.
“Well, because it’s . . . it’s not done,” she explained weakly, taking a glass. “What of the legalities and the customs—what of a church?”
“We can be married here just as well as in the chapel. I’ve seen weddings happen on the field of battle and in a prison. Surely the Syon Hall conservatory will be a step up from these. And I assure you it will be perfectly binding and legal.” He slid a packet of papers from his coat and unfurled t
hem, showing her the special license he’d obtained from the archbishop.
“But when did you—?” she asked, blinking down at the paperwork.
“In London,” he said. “After we made landfall. You’d sprinted away but I made this my first order of business. It was settled before I left London for Middlesex.”
“You’ve had this for weeks?” she marveled. She put down her champagne to study the paperwork.
“Of course, Isobel. I’ve been waiting for you. The rest of my life has your name scrawled all over it. I want my name on yours. Look at us.” He downed his drink and placed his glass beside hers. He took both of her hands in his own. “I’ve been privy to complicated marital relationships all around the world. I’ve seen everything from strong bonds like that of my parents’, to ‘understandings’ that allow dalliances, to forced misery and everything in between. Only very rarely have I seen two people more perfectly suited than the two of us. Your strengths align with my frailties; your weak spots match up to my . . . my . . . charm and good looks.”
She sputtered a laugh, her eyes swimming in tears.
“Please. Let me make you my wife. Without further delay. In other words . . .” he affected a pensive, faraway look, “. . . how can I say this?
“Now,” he finished, walking again, pulling her along.
“But—why?”
“Why do I want to marry you?” Jason sighed. “Or why do I want to do it as soon as possible?”
“Why . . . tonight?”
Jason stopped walking and turned to her. He leaned down to her ear. “Do you recall the state in which you left me at the thermal pool in Iceland?” he whispered. “On the last night? Have you not thought back, Isobel? Because it is all I bloody think about.”
She sucked in a little breath and nodded slowly.
“I have endured some measure of that state for nearly two months. Why now, you ask? Now we can finish what we started.”
He raised up to give her a quick, hard kiss.
She stared up at him, her blue eyes wide, her creamy cheeks tinged raspberry pink.
He turned and pulled her along. “The priest agreed to marry us whenever the moment presented itself. I wanted you to have the ring obviously. I’d not planned for my mother to squire you around the room like a long-lost relation, but I’m happy the two of you get on.”
Jason caught sight of Reverend Toombs again, now raising a toast to a neighbor and his wife. “Caught,” Jason mumbled, scooping Isobel in the man’s direction.
They were so close—a line of dancers away—when Isobel dug in her heels and stopped walking.
Affecting a half pivot, she spun and freed herself, stepping to a shadowy alcove.
Jason swore in his head, watching her. “Let me guess. You have some romantic notion about a lavish wedding. Copious flowers and musicians and breakfast guests? Am I being a cad to keep these from you?”
She blinked twice, considering this, and shook her head.
“Because I would postpone my, er, enthusiasm if this is what you wanted,” he said. “Please be certain—is that the wedding you want?”
“No,” she rasped, “I don’t suppose it is. I want only you.”
“Excellent, we are in total accord.”
She paced twice, back and forth, wiggling her fingers at her sides. “Stop.”
“Stop asking you what you want or stop the wedding?”
“There is no wedding, Jason—who gets married in the midst of a ball?”
“I do. You do. Who pretends to trade the love of their life to pirates, her hands bound in ropes? Who abandons her with said pirates so she can fight her way free? We do. Please, for the love of God, let us finish this.”
She made a sound of half laugh, half sob. “Yes,” she said, “alright, let us finish it. But what is the need to sprint through it, Jason? It’s not your nature. After all your talk of ambling about, learning the terrain, observing, not locking yourself in?”
“Bollocks to that; it doesn’t apply. When I know what I want, I do not amble.”
“Well, there is ambling and then there is some moderate pace, with a week to catch our breath. I understand that you are . . . that we are . . . desirous but—”
He let out a bark of a laugh. Understatement, thy name is “desirous.”
“—but we are not children.” She smiled a little, wiping her eyes. “We can wait until a proper wedding.
“Or,” she challenged, “you could take me upstairs. Have your way with me. You’ve made your intentions clear. We needn’t entertain pretense about the purity of anyone in this union. I am nearly thirty years of age. I’ve been around the world in every sense. I love you. You love me . . .”
She gazed down at the ring on her finger. She looked up and cocked an eyebrow. “We needn’t be disrespectful to your mother, but surely there is someplace in this sprawling house we could slip away . . .”
Jason’s body surged at the provocative look, but he forced out the word, “No.” He shook his head.
“You may stop trying to protect me,” she said, laughing a little now. “It’s sweet, and I’ll cherish it all of my life. But I feel fully ‘approved.’ I feel ‘accepted.’ Truly. There’s no need to—”
“My aim was never to have you know ‘approval,’ Isobel. I couldn’t care less about that. What I want is for you to feel ‘chosen.’ To be chosen. I choose you, love. And I pray God you will choose me.”
“Yes. Alright.” She sucked in a breath, the tears back in her voice. “You have burned me to the ground. In the very best, most necessary way. I am in ashes.”
He leaned down to kiss her. “It was meant to be a dashing, romantic sort of gesture. Memorable and fun. But if you must view yourself in ashes, so be it.”
She laughed and wiped her eyes again. “Now?” she asked.
“Right bloody now,” he said. “I’ll not risk losing you again, S’bell. I’m determined. Before you construct some other evasion.”
“No evasion,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m . . . I’m here. I came.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. Jason kissed her again, sweeping her into his arms in the dim alcove. He breathed in the smell of her, kissed her neck, and looked out at the milling party guests and hustling staff and—
Reverend Toombs.
“There he is,” Jason said, and they were off again, hand in hand, winding through the crowd. “It’s on.”
Chapter Thirty-One
They were married half an hour later in the candlelit conservatory of Syon Hall’s east wing. The room was cold, the fires having been lit only ten minutes before. The floor-to-ceiling windows provided a moonlit view of the pond and pleasure garden but did little to forestall the October chill.
Jason felt no discomfort. Jason felt only relief and elation and anticipation. Underlying all of that, he felt blissful calm. No longer did he dread the future. He was free of guilt over his lapsed responsibilities as duke. He was so very grateful to his sister and to whatever convergence of luck, and the divine, and (remarkably) his cousin Reggie, that brought Isobel to him.
The service was brief. His mother was impatient to return to her guests and the Very Reverend Toombs had grown drowsy after too many glasses of wine. Isobel’s mother, Georgiana Tinker, was also in attendance, as well as her clerk, Samantha, and all of Jason’s sisters. There was no shortage of witnesses; so many, in fact, Jason thought perhaps they might forgo any future celebration that promised more guests and flowers and wedding finery. His mother disabused him of that idea in no uncertain terms, insisting that she would host a proper celebratory breakfast as soon as the arrangements could be made. Jason was to mention the party when he introduced the new Lady Northumberland to the ballroom.
He would have just as soon skipped this step—he was prepared to skip all steps that did not lead to a bed—but he knew he had a better chance of controlling the gossip surrounding a secret wedding if he and his family took ownership of the narrative.
“May I have yo
ur attention, please,” Jason called out to the ballroom after the ceremony. He held a crystal goblet aloft and clanged it with a knife. The orchestra sat drowsily behind him, silent at last, and dancers began to drift toward the bandstand.
“The dowager duchess, my sisters, and I wish to take this moment to thank all of you for joining us at Syon Hall. As you know, the title of duke has fallen to me under tragic circumstances. May God rest the beloved men who came before me.” He paused, unexpectedly choked up.
“In many ways,” he went on, “I am still growing accustomed to the title.” Another pause.
Behind him, Isobel placed a firm hand on his shoulder. He looked to her, took a deep breath, and raised his glass.
“However,” he went on, clearing his throat, “when it comes to the role of party guest, I am as veteran as any of you—and my experienced eye informs me that everyone is having a jolly good time. Brilliant, and how very welcomed you are. Not to outdo any man here, but I should now like to lay claim to the very best time of all. But let me not get ahead of myself.”
He cleared his throat. He smiled because most things went down more easily with a smile.
He paused again—why not build suspense?—and turned to beckon Isobel to step beside him.
She’d been smiling up at him, uncertain of what he would say, and now she blinked twice, looked to her mother, and then stepped forward. He clamped a hand around her waist.
“You lot,” he said, pointing to the crowd, “are the very first to be introduced to my new wife, Lady Isobel Beckett, the Duchess of Northumberland. We married recently in a private family ceremony, and it gives me great pleasure to announce our nuptials publicly tonight.”
His mother cleared her throat and whispered behind him.
“Oh yes,” he continued. “And we invite all of you . . . and ten of your closest friends . . . to a more formal celebration of this happy news in coming weeks. Watch the post or for private messengers or homing pigeon or however it’s done for an invitation.”
When You Wish Upon a Duke Page 32