“But this woman is not even a client.” Samantha gestured to the crisp folio of itineraries and watercolor images of Italy.
“Yes, but she will be,” said Isobel, tucking the folio into her satchel. Isobel excelled at winning new clients, especially old women.
This particular old woman, a dowager countess called Lady Harriet Braselton, had sent a card by messenger to request a private audience. The dowager had passed the spring and summer nursing a fractured ankle and wished to celebrate her restored health with an Italian holiday. She had questions about destinations and restricted mobility. She would be accompanied by her goddaughter and travel with a small staff. Her wish list was long and expensive, a talisman of Isobel’s most lucrative type of client.
“Things should be slow while I’m out,” Isobel told Samantha, tucking the folio in a satchel. “Sir Jamison must deliver payment today or his wife’s holiday will be canceled with no refunds on the money already paid. And there are the Austria bookings to post...”
“I’ll do it,” sighed Samantha, slumping behind the counter, “but I won’t understandwhyI’m doing it.”
“Until Mr. Hooke evicts us, it is business as usual,” Isobel repeated for the hundredth time. “There is always the chance he’ll forget his misguided proposal and allow us to carry on.”
“He won’t,” called Samantha as Isobel hurried out the door.
Samantha was correct, of course. He would not forget. After Isobel’s rejection of him, Drummond Hooke announced he would remain in London for the foreseeable future. He did not mention their row or his proposal. He dropped in and out of the office instead,interjecting his disruptive presence into the business of the day and lavishing Isobel with what she assumed were meant to be the trappings of courtship. He bore droopy flowers, soft chocolates, and invitations to dine. Worst of all, he made awkward attempts at playful affection, pats and nudges and bumps and grazes that made her jump.
As long as Hooke kept quiet on the topic of marriage versus termination, Isobel would too. She accepted the flowers as an office-wide gift; she offered the chocolates to boys in the street. She refused all invitations and skittered away from his bony fingers. Until he actually sacked her, she wouldabidehim. They would ooze along: Hooke believing that he was somehow winning her favor and Isobel planning for the day he would give up and send her packing.
Which he would do. He was not accustomed to being told no, especially by someone he believed to be beneath him. Entitled men did not expend effort onlesserwomen for long.
Until that time, she would not sabotage her work of the last five years just because he couldn’t see beyond the end of his prick, and that meant cultivating new clients like Lady Braselton.
Her meeting with the dowager was set for a tearoom in Hammersmith, and she hailed a hackney cab for the journey west. Isobel routinely met in the homes of her clients to go over holiday itineraries or to introduce a travel porter to the family. First interviews, however, were sometimes convened in public establishments such as tearooms or the dining rooms of coaching inns. It was a very good sign, Isobel thought, when a lady requested an introduction in a public place instead of thesecurity of her own parlor. It demonstrated an intrepidness and a versatility that would serve her well on her holiday. And also the dowager’s estate was too deep in Middlesex for Isobel to travel in a day. Hammersmith was mid-distance for them both. Best of all, the remote meeting meant several blessed hours out of the office and away from Mr. Hooke.
Worst of all? The journey meant time to ruminate over her newest, most ruinous distraction.
The Duke of Northumberland.
And the kiss.
And why it happened.
And what it meant.
Although how foolish to speculate on what it meant. Sheknewwhat it meant.
To him, it meant nothing—one of a million kisses.
To Isobel, it meant that she’d not actually become the staid and respectable lady she’d worked so very hard to become. She’d merely been acting the part these last seven years.
Isobel Tinker was as wild and provocative and hopeless as she’d been the day she left Iceland.
The cab lurched into the crush of vehicles in Oxford Street. Shops and offices blurred outside her window and she replayed the Grosvenor Square encounter in her mind. Perhaps her favorite moment was him scooping her up: his strong arms lifting her as if she’d weighed nothing. His body had been so very large where hers was small, so hard where hers was soft.
And his fervor, of course. He kissed with an urgency that matched her own. She’d kissed him passionately, and he’d not backed down.
She’d reviewed every second of the kiss countlesstimes and could not find fault with any of it—save her own brazen indulgence. But that went without saying. The kiss had been near perfect.
Now the cab trundled past Hyde Park. Isobel studied the fine ladies in open carriages, enjoying the summer sun from beneath frothy parasols. Men in top hats were mounted on docile horses, trotting beside the ladies or cantering between the vehicles.
Isobel had promenaded in parks, once upon a time—not in London, of course, but in the grand parks of Paris and the piazzas of Rome. She had taken care with her dresses and carefully chosen her seats in open carriages. She had laughed and schemed and bade the driver to circle back with the hope of catching someone’s eye.
No longer, she thought.I’m all grown up now, andI work.Real, actual work.
With luck, I will continue to work.
Her work this week, however, had been diluted with the entirely useless and futile task ofsnooping.
She’d searched old newspapers for articles about the Duke of Northumberland.
