Cloudy with a Chance of Marriage

by Kieran Kramer

  Jilly squeezed his arm. “Your time for speaking will come soon enough,” she whispered back.

  He bit his lip and endured, but once in the drawing room, Lady Duchamp rang for tea and proclaimed that no one was allowed to speak until the niceties were observed.

  So Otis must tap his feet another five minutes.

  Finally, both he and Jilly held a brimming cup in their hands.

  “Now I shall proceed,” Otis said.

  Lady Duchamp glowered. “Not until you take a sip and offer your compliments.”

  Otis made a face. But he did as he was told and set the cup down. “Lovely blend,” he said to his hostess with feeling.

  “Why, thank you,” she began, then stopped herself.

  Otis also looked mortified at his sincere compliment.

  “Speak your foolishness now, so I can return to being alone,” Lady Duchamp muttered around her own teacup.

  Jilly was eager to hear what Otis had to say.

  He looked first at her—with a mixture of pride and affection—then at Lady Duchamp. “Your power over the street has ceased as of today,” he proclaimed in a pleased yet defiant manner.

  “Is that so?” offered Lady Duchamp.

  Otis nodded, and picked up a biscuit from a plate. “I followed you this morning.”

  She sucked in her cheeks. “How rude of you!”

  “As if you are not the same?” He huffed, then put his hand on his breast. “Now that I know your tragic history, you’ll not only quit your stranglehold on the neighborhood, you’ll return my shoes.”

  “Never!” she cried.

  Otis pointed the biscuit at her. “You’re just the same as the rest of us sad sacks on Dreare Street, my lady. You can deny it no longer.”

  Lady Duchamp’s white-powdered cheeks paled even further.

  “Do explain, Otis,” Jilly said softly. “And gently, please, if it involves tragedy.”

  Otis sent a dark look at Lady Duchamp. “Oh, she can bear it. She’s a stalwart old thing.”

  Lady Duchamp tried to look insulted, but she had a difficult time maintaining her pique, particularly when Otis let down his own defenses and bestowed a pitying look on her.

  Jilly sighed. “Otis? The story, please?”

  “Oh, right.” He placed a hand on her arm. “You wouldn’t believe it. I found Lady Duchamp depositing a daisy from her garden onto the front door step of a spectacular mansion on Dover Street. After she left, I knocked on the door and inquired. It seems she’s been leaving a flower on the stoop for almost four decades. In the winter, she’ll leave hothouse blossoms. The butler’s favorite are the pink peonies.”

  “No!” said Jilly, and looked at Lady Duchamp.

  She appeared to be shrinking, having made herself into a small ball (with delicious shoes) in the corner of the settee.

  “Yes,” insisted Otis. “I found out from the housekeeper that Lord and Lady Duchamp used to live there as a young couple. They were very much in love. But the earl came to an early demise. Fell off a horse.”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Jilly to his widow.

  Lady Duchamp scowled at her. “I told you bacon-brains my history.”

  “Yes,” said Otis, raising his finger. “But you didn’t tell us that Lord Duchamp didn’t die from a fall off a horse. He died in your own bed with his longtime mistress, someone you’d no idea existed.”

  Lady Duchamp waved a hand. “Pure faradiddle.”

  “I think not,” said Otis. “The houseboy who found him is now the butler at the Dover Street house. I told him you intend to destroy the lives of everyone on Dreare Street because you’re so damned unhappy. He decided it’s time for you to put the appalling circumstances of your husband’s death behind you. So he told me all the details.”

  Lady Duchamp’s hands began to shake.

  Jilly immediately dropped to her knees in front of the settee and held the old woman’s hands. “It’s all right, my lady.”

  Otis’s face softened, and he moved over and sat next to Lady Duchamp on the settee. “The butler also told me that your husband left you penniless. It seems he spent much of his fortune on his mistress and her home, a fabulous mansion in the countryside of Kent. You were forced to leave your beloved home and all your false expectations and move to Dreare Street because you were too ashamed to ask your family for financial help.”

  “I was the worst thing that ever happened to this place,” Lady Duchamp said proudly. “Even worse than the fog.”

  Jilly patted her hand. “How did you rebuild your fortune?”

  Lady Duchamp glared at her. “None of your business.”

  “Her parents had loads of money,” Otis said glibly. “So after they died, her penurious circumstances ended. She bought up a great deal of Dreare Street.”

  “I couldn’t very well leave it. I had to serve as a scullery maid in this very house.” Lady Duchamp shuddered. “After I received my inheritance, I dared not move to another part of Mayfair and risk becoming a laughingstock. My mistress had lavish parties, and I was always afraid a member of the ton would visit the kitchens to compliment Cook and—and see me washing out a huge pot lined with pig grease and bits of potato, or some such thing.”

  “Oh, my lady!” Otis cried.

  There was a brief, pregnant pause.

  Otis reddened, and Jilly bit her lip, wanting to laugh. She knew it was wrong of her, but she could swear Otis was feeling soft feelings toward Lady Duchamp, which was outrageous. But somehow … appropriate. She had no idea why it should be so, but it was in a strange—ahem, very strange—way.

  Lady Duchamp glared at Otis, but her mouth was soft, almost pleased. “Get on with it,” she demanded. “And keep your pity to yourself.”

  “Very well.” Otis sniffed, straightened his spine, then stuck out his chin, which was his storytelling posture.

  “It was the shame and the heartbreak,” he whispered, “that made Lady Duchamp the way she is now. She bought out the land lease from the previous owner so she could make an entire street miserable along with her.”

  “Can you blame me?” Lady Duchamp said hoarsely. “It worked like a charm for decades. And then that silly captain moved in, and you two—all at the same time—and everyone started cheering up. It couldn’t be borne. So I consulted with my attorneys and accountant and found a way to rid myself of all of you and start over with new people on the street. The damned lease is what did it. I’d forgotten all about it.”

  Otis wagged a finger at her. “It’s time you stopped this nonsense. That house on Dover Street was never your home. Dreare Street is. And you can have the family you never had as a married woman.”

  Lady Duchamp sucked in her teeth. “You don’t want me as family.”

  “Certainly we do.” Otis glared at her. “But not Lady Tabitha.”

  “She’s a witch with a capital B,” Lady Duchamp agreed. “But she comes by it honestly.”

  There was an extended awkward silence.

  Jilly finally rose. “Well, we’d best go. We have to work on our new plan to save the street.”

  Otis stood, and he pulled up Lady Duchamp. “Are you still going to give us only three days to pay our leases?”

  She shook her head quickly. But she was as prune-faced as ever. “No. You may have the entire week.”

  Otis bent in—then pulled back—then bent in and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, my lady.”

  Jilly dared to lean in and hug her. Lady Duchamp flinched, and she was brittle as a dried stick, but she endured the embrace.

  When Jilly pulled back, Lady Duchamp stood staring at the wall, her cane between her hands. “I don’t really need that lease money,” she admitted.

  She wouldn’t meet either of their gazes.

  Otis looked at Jilly with wide eyes.

  Jilly looked at Lady Duchamp. “P-pardon?”

  Lady Duchamp knocked her cane on the floor. “Are you two deaf?”

  “Oh, no, my lady,” Otis said in a rush. “You’re saying
we don’t have to pay you any lease money.”

  “Exactly.” She glared at him. “But don’t go asking for those shoes. They’re mine. And I demand five more pairs, all different colors. But not yellow. I despise yellow.”

  He lifted his chin. “Very well. It’s a small price to pay.”

  “Otis,” Jilly remonstrated with him.

  Otis put up his hand. “I’ll have plenty of time to make more shoes. And as I’ll be taking Lady Duchamp about Town again—I refuse to let her hide anymore—all the ton shall see my shoes on her feet. Which means I shall do very well, indeed.”

  The old woman narrowed her eyes. “Very well. Begone.”

  Jilly took Otis’s arm and paused at the door. “We have a special event going on soon at Hodgepodge, and you shall be one of our guests of honor.”

  “Pish-posh,” she said, waving her cane at them.

  But the arc she made with it was not nearly as pronounced as it had been when she was their enemy.

  “You did save me, Otis,” Jilly said, leaning on him on their way across the street. “My darling, you saved the entire street, including Lady Duchamp.”

  He expanded his chest. “I told you I had it in me.”

  “I never doubted it for a minute.” Jilly squeezed his arm. “There’s only one thing we have left to do. Save London from its misconceptions about who we are.”

  “And the sooner we do that, the better,” Otis agreed wholeheartedly.

  Of one accord about their mission—even their steps were synchronous—both of them jumped at the booming voice of Lady Hartley.

  The lady came running toward them from the captain’s house. “Where has Captain Arrow gone?” she demanded to know.

  Neither of them had any idea, of course.

  The baronet’s wife pressed a hand on her heart and widened her eyes. “I’m so surprised. He left without telling me anything.”

  “Whatever could you mean?” asked Otis.

  Lady Hartley tossed her head. “I thought we had an understanding, the Captain and I.”

  “Understanding?” Jilly was flummoxed.

  Lady Hartley looked at her with a bit of pity. “For a married woman, you’re awfully naïve.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes, you are.” The annoying woman snorted. “Isn’t she, Otis?” She elbowed him in the ribs.

  “No.” He glared at her. “She’s not.”

  Lady Hartley abruptly stopped chuckling, glared at the two of them, and stalked back to the captain’s house.

  Otis gulped. “She wasn’t saying—”

  “I think she was,” whispered Jilly.

  They both started walking again without saying anything further about it. Jilly did her best not to think of Stephen. But seconds later, she paused right outside the bookshop window and stared.

  Dear heavens. Forgetting about him would be awfully hard to do when he was inside Hodgepodge at that very moment.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Stephen looked up when Jilly walked in with Otis.

  She stared at him, unblinking. Otis tiptoed away, and Stephen heard the door at the rear of the store open and shut again.

  They were alone.

  “Hello,” he said to her. He was busy making her that outdoor easel she’d wanted, the one she’d told him about when they’d lain in bed together at the Grosvenor Street mansion and daydreamed about improvements they’d like to make at Hodgepodge.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her walk slowly over. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

  Every muscle in him was tense. He put down his hammer, stood up, and took her by the arms. “I’m here to be with you,” he said.

  She looked at him with hurt eyes. “It’s too late.”

  Ah. Those were the words he’d dreaded hearing.

  “I understand why you’re angry,” he said. “I deserve to lose you. You trusted me—and I disappointed you.”

  She said nothing back.

  His whole life revolved around this moment. “You were right.” He squeezed her arms. “I was acting like a boy, still pouting over the fact that I didn’t have the ideal family I so desperately wanted. But that’s no reason not to trust you. And not to understand why you had to lie.”

  Her face softened a fraction. “I’m no longer interested in going to another country. I don’t want to spend my life hiding. Everyone has accepted me here, so … I’m staying at Hodgepodge.”

  There was a brief pause.

  “I’m glad,” he eventually said.

  She looked at him a long time. “Lady Hartley claims you and she have an understanding. I know she’s been living at your house this whole time. And … and men have needs.”

  She looked away.

  Good God! Would that meddlesome woman never leave his life?

  Gently, Stephen drew Jilly’s face back. “You don’t think that Lady Hartley and I would ever—”

  He couldn’t possibly complete that sentence.

  Jilly shrugged. “You’re a rake,” she whispered. “You never claimed to be anything else.”

  “Well, I am now,” he said firmly. “I’m not the same man anymore. Not since I’ve met you. I love you, Jilly Jones. You’re the only woman I ever want to be with again.”

  Jilly shook her head. “I don’t know if you understand. I’m staying in England. And so we can’t be together. I love you. But I can’t hide anymore.”

  “I understand,” he replied softly. And he did. “But I have some news for you. It’s going to shock you, so perhaps you should take a seat.”

  She stared at him a moment. “No,” she said. “Tell me now.”

  He hesitated, as well. “If you’re certain.”

  She nodded.

  He took a deep breath. “Jilly Jones—”

  “Jilly Broadmoor,” she said in a choked whisper.

  He felt his eyes burn, just the merest fraction. “No,” he said, swallowing. “You’re not Mrs. Broadmoor.”

  She looked at him as if he should be sent to Bedlam.

  “Hector is married”—he hesitated—“but not to you. To someone else.”

  Jilly flinched, but he took her shoulders and held her. “The charlatan was married eight years before he married you,” he said as kindly as he could.

  She seemed to stare right through him.

  He gave her a gentle shake. “It’s true,” he assured her. “I left him today after confronting him and his wife. He lives in Kensington. He was with you because he was evil. He was already married, but he wanted you as his property, as well.”

  She gave a little cry.

  Stephen gathered her into his arms. “He’s been taken to gaol.”

  “What about his other wife?” Jilly whispered. “Is she all right?”

  Stephen’s heart filled with more love for her than ever. “Don’t feel sorry for her. She knew about the whole arrangement. He was siphoning money off to her.”

  Jilly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and stared at him with an intent gaze. “This still doesn’t change things between us. You’re only with me now because it’s easy. But when you had to choose me or life in England, you chose England.”

  He nodded again, stricken at the memory. “I had a feeling you’d say that. But I’ve told you. I’m not the same man anymore. You were right—all those things you said about my not being willing to grow up made perfect sense. You’ll have to trust me that I resolved to try again to win you—come what may—before I knew this news about Hector. I can never prove it to you, otherwise. But it’s the reason I went after him. I’d decided that he deserved a comeuppance. And then I was going to come to you and ask your forgiveness. After that, I was going to ask you to move with me to Italy or America—or any other place you wanted to live.”

  Her brow puckered, and he waited patiently.

  “Will you trust me?” he said eventually.

  She looked at the ground. Then she looked back up at him. “I’m sorry, but I need more time. I’m so confused.�
��

  His heart clenched. He had so hoped that today, she’d be his again. But he understood. “I’m sure the news about Hector has completely thrown you.”

  She nodded shakily. “There’s so much to think about. Can you wait?”

  “Of course,” he said, not wanting to burden her with his fear of losing her. She really had had a shock, and he wasn’t going to compound it with his own worries. “Now go upstairs and see Otis. Tell him the wonderful news. And get a cup of tea.”

  She gave a shaky laugh. And then for a moment her face was radiant—as if she finally comprehended the truth.

  “You’re free, Jilly. Free.” He let go of her hand reluctantly and watched her walk to the door in the back. This was one battle he couldn’t win by being aggressive.

  She opened the door, turned around, and looked at him one more time.

  And then, smiling shyly, she shut the door behind her.

  Dear God, he prayed, next time it opens, let her come to me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Jilly realized that even though there was so much more fun to be had at their new special event now that the lease money wasn’t a problem anymore, they still had the biggest dilemma of all to solve—changing Dreare Street’s reputation.

  She was pleased to see that not a single resident of Dreare Street dropped out of the new plan. Everyone, it seemed, still wanted Dreare Street to be known as a place of prosperity and good cheer.

  The first thing they did was enact a name change, which they’d achieved with the permission of the Lord Mayor of London. Lady Duchamp blustered only a moment or two when the sign went up at the top of the street:

  READER STREET, it read through wisps of fog.

  “It’s the same letters as in Dreare but all jumbled around,” Thomas explained to Lady Duchamp. “We’ve got a bookshop here, so it makes sense. Especially because we’re all readers, right, my lady?”

  And he held a book upside down to prove the point.

  Jilly linked arms with Susan and laughed at that. Nathaniel put Thomas’s book down, picked him up, and swung him around.

  Not long after, they enacted the next part of the plan, which was crucial to the success of their mission.