It is about you, he wanted to call, but she’d turned and was striding down the passageway.
“Make Mr. Beddloe comfortable but don’t release him,” she said over her shoulder. “If he reports whathe’s seen and heard to his comrades, the plan will never work.”
The plan, thought Jason, his stomach filling with dread.
Isobel made the corner at the end of the passageway and was gone.
Chapter Fifteen
One day later, Isobel stood in her cabin, examining tidy stacks of green garments on her bed. This would never do. The soft wool, the fine muslin, the silk and lace detailing of her wardrobe—these were the clothes of an elegant Mayfair shopkeeper, not... pirate bait.
She’d evolved in so many ways by returning to London, including the way she dressed. She adored the color green and had made it her signature hue. Fashion and finely made clothes had always been a passion, and her London wardrobe had been designed to impress her female clients and make her feel tasteful and confident.
When she’d been one of Peter’s Lost Boys, she’d dressed to appear careless, natural, and wild, relying on a versatile collection of well-made staples: men’s linen shirts; brocade skirts; a silk shawl that could be worn as a sash, cloak, turban, or ten other ways. The result had been provocative—but not because it was revealing (although it was often revealing)—but rather, because it seemedunconsidered. She cared so very much but worked very hard to look as if dressing had been an afterthought.
None of that mattered now, except that she would work very hard to make herself, now seven years older, appear as carefree as she once had.
Starting with this very morning, when she would have to leave the brig and go out. Stokkseyri was hardly known for its shops, but there would be a meager mercantile and a storehouse selling provisions for fishermen and sailors. She had other needs too. One did not submit oneself to pirate capture without a ready supply of decoys, distractions, and defenses. How proud Samantha would be.
Isobel sent a note to the duke, requesting a trip to shore. Now that the plan was to trade her life for the Englishmen, she must always appear to be Northumberland’s captive.
“This feels risky,” North told her an hour later. She balanced on the bench seat of the swaying tender while sailors lowered it to the water with a splash. Mr. Shaw sat at the helm, ready to row them to shore. North sprawled on the opposite bench.
“If Mr. Beddloe can be believed,” she told him, “there are no pirates or pirate spies in Stokkseyri. He was only in town himself because of a woman.”
“His first mistake,” grumbled Jason, and Mr. Shaw snickered.
“Calling to shops in Reykjavík would be a risk,” she predicted. “But a quick trip to these shops will not disrupt our plan. Although you should pretend to sort of... lord over me, just in case.”
He laughed at this, amused, she assumed, by the notion that she could belorded over. Isobel smiled a little herself. In fact, he did not lord over her. He was not happy about trading her to the pirates, but he was doing it. He’d consented.
She’d worried so much about fighting her attraction to some man—any man, especially him—but had thereal triumph been her newfound ability to speak her mind? To fight for her notion of the best plan?
The thought of telling Peter Boyd what to do, or how, or when, had been absurd. Everything about him pointed to complete acquiescence. He alone played the tune to which they all danced.
It was not the same with North. Yes, he’d compelled her to come on this mission, but he’d earned her cooperation with something very valuable.
And trading with the pirates had been her idea. In this, they were equal collaborators. He’d resisted heartily, but in the end, he’d taken her seriously and done things her way.
“What do you need in the village?” he asked, staring at the craggy rocks of the shore and rough-hewn wharf.
“Clothes actually,” she said. “Doucette will expect to see the Isobel Tinker he remembers, not a travel agent from Mayfair.”
“You expect to find a dressmaker in Stokkseyri?”
“I don’t need a dress,” she said. “I need to cobble together some semblance of a costume.” She took a deep breath. “And I require a few other... staples.”
“Dare I ask?”
“Better, perhaps, if you do not.”
The tender slid to the pier, sloshing unsteadily as North handed her onto the slick planks. She turned her back to the warehouses and pulled up the hood on her cloak, shielding her face within its velvety folds. Her peripheral vision was blocked, but she could feel Jason hovering beside her, large and uneasy. Even on the rowboat, the tight set of his shoulders and his glower conveyed deep objection. He wasn’t happy, a circumstance she did not relish, but at least it would play well with the locals.
“Has your messenger reached Doucette’s man in Reykjavík, do you think?” Isobel asked, keeping her head bowed, her posture submissive. They walked briskly to Stokkseyri’s lone shopping street.
“By dawn, I hope.” A weary sigh. “The die has been cast.”
“I suppose we can rely on Mr. Beddloe’s claims about the best site to set the swap.”
