Isobel’s gaze shot to his face.
“I know,” Hooke soothed, “we were both surprised to serve a duke. Very esteemed patronage indeed. However, seeing him there... alone... asking to speak only to you? It rekindled my worry.”
“Worry?” croaked Isobel, scanning the street behind him.
“Hmm, extreme worry,” said Hooke. “About an unattached single woman managing the shop alone.”
Not this again.Isobel closed her eyes.
“Is that distress I detect?” he said. “Oh yes, I can see you are so very troubled.”
“I amnottroubled,” she assured him. She forced a smile.
He gazed at her with a piteous expression ofCome now.
“Mr. Hooke, no,” she said. “You mustn’t devote another second of worry to so-called troubling male clients. The success enjoyed by Everland Travel has been earned, as well you know, by service to thefemaletraveler. Men may accompany women to the shop—they pay the bills—but Samantha and I accommodate the ladies. Truly. It’s what sets us apart.”
“So you say,” mused Hooke, “but imagine the earnings if we cultivate gentlemen clientele as well? What then? You cannot discuss hotel suites and Grecian bathhouses withmen. A single woman alone is ill-suited to discuss most things with men—I don’t care if theyaredukes.” His faced dipped closer. “I am thinking of propriety for the shop as well as your own safety.”
“My safety,” she scoffed. “I assure you I am perfectly safe.” This was the truth. Even now, as her heart pounded and she scanned the darkening street, she felt no danger. She felt like a juggler spinning two towers of fragile plates.
“Perhaps,” Hooke said, “but it cannot be said enough: it’s very strange for an unmarried woman to conduct business without a male superior in the shop. Highly irr—”
“Please remember,” Isobel cut in, trying to sound reminiscent, “this was never an issue for your dear parents—”
“But I can think of a solution,” he pressed.
Isobel wanted to squeeze her eyes shut. She wanted to dive behind the door and slam it in his face.Don’t say it, don’t say it. Please do not say it.
“If we married,” he went on, absolutely saying it, “then you would not be single or unattached. You would be a respectable matron and a member of the Hooke family. If you must invoke my parents, you might as well know that this is what they wanted.”
“They expressed no such desire to me,” she said, inching sideways.
He stepped sideways too, flanking her. She could smell the herring on his breath and see the barley stuck in his teeth.
“It is what they wanted,” he repeated slowly. “And it is what I want too.”
Jason hovered in the shadows, weighing his options. He could insert himself into the uncomfortable conversation across the street, or he could leave Miss Tinker be.
In favor: her face was pure misery, Hooke’s tone had gone from wheedling to threatening, and he was crowding her like a hungry wolf with a sheep.
Against: she’d waved him off twice already, and she didn’t seem like the type of woman who welcomed intervention.
Ultimately, he elected to keep back. For now. Hooke was more insect than wolf and Miss Tinker was no sheep. She’d evaded Hooke three times in the last ten minutes—slick spins and sidesteps—she could handle herself. Her faux smile was matched tonight with a faux laugh, and all the while she was flashing Jason angry hand signals on the sly. He reached into his pocket for a coin, working it back and forth through his fingers.
“Mr. Hooke,” Isobel said now, “I’ve made no secret of my wish never to marry. You know this about me. Marrying a woman against her will is a recipe for misery.”
No wish to marry...Jason had spent the afternoon wondering a great deal about Isobel Tinker. He’d returned to Whitehall and combed through her file, realizing that the facts had not been wrong so much as absent. He’d not gotten bad information; he’d made up details in his head. He’d thought she’d be older because—why wouldn’t she be? What young woman would have already spent years in Iceland, still more years in other countries on the Continent, and made her way back to England to set herself up in a travel shop?
Jason had returned to Mayfair with far more questions than answers and taken up a spot in the shadows to cease the assumptions and start paying attention.
“If you would butallow meto demonstrate how I might make you happy...” Hooke was saying. He dropped a clawlike hand on her waist, and Miss Tinker jumped. Jason shoved off the wall.
“I can persuade you torethinkwhat you wish,” Hooke insisted. “Your stubbornness stands in the way—”
“I am not stubborn, Mr. Hooke,” Isobel bit out, all trace of cordiality gone. “I am telling youwhat I want.Please do not contradict me.”
She ducked left, slipping from his grasp. The door was steps away. In half a beat, she had her hand on the knob, pushing it open. “Good night to you, Mr. Hooke.”
