“When the dust settled—we won the ensuing battle by the way—I was approached by our colonel, and then our general, and then Whitehall came calling.” Another flip. “And there you have it. I began the day as a captainand awakened . . . oh, about a month later . . . as a foreign agent.”
“There is more to it,” she guessed.
“Perhaps a bit. The point is, I joined the army because life in Middlesex was tedious—maddening, really—and because the military is a natural path for the third son of a duke. I gave it no more thought than that. I joined the Foreign Service because someone asked me; also with very little thought. And someone asked me because they felt my rashness could be harnessed for the greater good.”
She laughed again and he allowed himself to bask in the glow of it. He’d hardly been gunning for a laugh, but when had he ever discouraged the delight of a pretty girl? He’d been in the business of delighting girls for longer than he’d been in the business of rash behavior.
“And that, Miss Tinker, is how the leopard got his spots,” he concluded, snatching the coin from the air. “Perhaps we both fly by the seat of our pants. Or we have done. At one time or the other.”
Her laughter died down and her expression turned speculative. “Perhaps,” she said. “I... I actually fell into working as a travel agent after I’d given up on flying. It was during my time at the Starlings’.”
“Is that so?” Jason’s heart thudded heavily. It was one thing to impress her, butthiswas what he really wanted to hear. He flipped his coin and waited.
She nodded. “But it was not overnight. Or even in a month.”
Jason nodded and said nothing. He would wait—he could wait. Admittedly, Isobel Tinker made waiting less painful. With Isobel Tinker, it was exciting even towait.
“The Starlings,” she explained, “have four very charming but very demanding daughters—my cousins.”
“Oh yes, I saw two or three of them when I called.”
She nodded and smiled wistfully. “They are dear girls. And they were a balm to me when I came to live with them. It would be impossible to overstate how rattled and... and miserable I was when I joined their household. Most respectable families would have worried about my influence on young, impressionable girls, but Sir Jeffrey and Aunt Bonnie did not restrict my relationship with any of them. To the girls I was exotic, and grown up, and I’m sure I had a vague sort of... ‘fallenness’ to them. But my aunt seated me among them at dinner every night.”
Fallenness?What the devil did that mean? Nothing pleasant obviously. Also, nothing consistent with what Jason knew of her. The Isobel Tinker he knew seemed regimented and resilient, not fallen.
She went on. “When I’d lived in the Starlings’ London townhome for half a year, their oldest daughter, Jane, was invited to accompany an elderly aunt on a holiday to Paris. Jane was... oh, sixteen at the time? Barely out in society. Her parents would not allow her to go, but Jane refused to accept their decision. She begged and begged. For weeks, it was all we heard, unrelenting.
“Finally, simply to validate her, I asked Jane to show me the details of this forbidden holiday so I could, perhaps, explain why her parents—who were generally rather progressive and open-minded—wouldn’t agree. I’d spent several summers in Paris and had traveled through France many times.
“Well, her parents had been correct to disallow it. I was appalled when I read the proposed itinerary. The hotels were located in dodgy parts of the city; theschedule and tours were illogical. The porter who was meant to look after them and their belongings had no references or experience. Someone’s brother-in-law would collect them in a wagon in La Havre and deposit them at a coaching inn outside Paris. It would have been a debacle. When I began to explain all the reasons why, Jane begged me to suggest how I might restyle the holiday in such a way that her parents would allow it.
“At first, I said no. I was so incredibly indebted to my aunt and uncle I could not undermine their attempts to keep Jane at home. But the girl was relentless, and finally I drew up a brief Paris itinerary—how I would see the city if I was a young woman in France for the first time, a journey I had actually taken when I was about her age. I’d kept my journals and old letters and used them as references. With little effort, I outlined hotels where she might safely lodge, museums and cathedrals that they might seeifthey were in the company of a knowledgeable, trusted porter, and the modes of transport they might hire. It was meant only to be an aspirational, ‘in theory’ sort of plan.
“But when I showed it to Jane, she whisked it away—first to the elderly aunt and then to her parents, begging them to reconsider the journey. She said they would travel exactly as I had described it. By some very great miracle, Uncle Jeffrey said... ‘Probably.’
“And that was the very first holiday ever commissioned,” she finished. She took a deep breath of cold sea air.
“So you sorted it all and squired the girl around Paris?” Jason asked.
Isobel shook her head violently. “Oh no. I’d vowed not to leave England again, and I meant it. You—well,the promise of your building—has been my only motivation to leave England in seven years.
“I spent weeks researching,” she explained, “writing letters, making reservations, calling around London to old friends from the Continent. I planned every mile of the holiday from the moment the family carriage dropped them in Portsmouth until it collected them at the same spot a month later. I talked an old friend into traveling with them. We styled her as a ‘travel porter’—a sort of guide and chaperone, which is an amenity all of my holidays include to this day. They followed my itinerary, employed the travel porter’s savviness and ability to improvise, and used the old aunt’s money.Iremained in London. In fact, I think I passed the entire month in my bedroom, pacing back and forth, praying for their safe return.”
Jason was transfixed. “And did they?”
Isobel smiled at the horizon. “They did, thank God. And they had the time of their lives. Jane could speak of nothing else. For weeks. Soon her sisters and friends wanted their own Paris holidays. After that, they wanted to see Rome. Hamburg. My life as a travel agent was born. Eventually, demand grew beyond what I could sustain. I was working from a tiny desk in my bedroom at the Starlings’. My uncle connected me with the Hookes and their Everland Travel shop—this was when Mr. and Mrs. Hooke were still alive. I was hired on and given this lovely purpose in life. And a way to support myself. By then, I was ready. Mostly healed and eager to be on my own. Since then, I’ve launched old women, young women, friends, sisters, generations of females, on adventures throughout Europe.”
“Remarkable,” he whispered, and he meant it. “Butyou’ve no wish to travel yourself?” He flicked the coin into the air and caught it.
Isobel was silent for a moment, staring at the damp leather of her gloves. Finally, she shook her head. It was hardly a proclamation, but she appeared very earnest. She looked as if she wanted very much for it to be true. She looked as if sheneededit to be true.
She said, “I’ve traveled. Now I want only to stay back. To be safe. To...” she shook her head, “...keep out of trouble.”
“Does this mission qualify as trouble in your view, Miss Tinker?” he asked, his voice just above the sound of the waves.
She laughed without humor. “Of course it is trouble. Pirates. Smugglers. Dashing foreign agents.”
“But we are doing good work, you and I. Noble and honorable work. Someone has to sort out this situation before lives are lost or—”
