Cloudy with a Chance of Marriage

CHAPTER NINE

Early the next morning, Stephen woke up to the sound of shrieking.

He was now sleeping in a different room, one on the ground floor, until the beam beneath his bedchamber was repaired. Fully clad in breeches and shirt, he tried to jump from his bed to see what was the matter, but he was detained by a feminine hand pushing on his chest.

“Hello, Captain.” A well-endowed woman lay next to him in a filmy cotton shift.

“Lady Hartley!” It was like waking up to a nightmare. “What in God’s name are you doing in here?”

She smiled. “I’ve been waiting for you.” She leaned forward with her thin, dry lips parted, but he yanked the sheets down and scrambled around her out the bottom of the bed.

“Your daughter is screaming.” He was vastly annoyed, but he held his temper in check. “I’ll deal with you later.”

He didn’t wait for a reply but raced upstairs to the second floor to find Miss Hartley in her bedchamber pointing at the ceiling with a shaky finger.

“Bats,” she lisped. “Loads of them. They just flew in the window and … and disappeared. Where’d they go?”

Sir Ned was snoring loudly in the bed in the next room.

Stephen crept closer to the beam Miss Hartley pointed at and saw bats clinging to its far side. One by one, they disappeared into the attic, obviously through a hole in the beam.

Good God, another rotten beam. Was the whole house to fall down around them?

“You’ll have to find another bedchamber,” Stephen said, well aware that now two bedchambers in the house were uninhabitable. Not a good thing if you wanted to sell a house.

Miss Hartley gave a small sob. “I was so frightened. Where’s Mother?”

He felt himself color. “I don’t know. Sleeping, presumably. Or awake. Who can say?”

“What if the bats have gotten to her?” Miss Hartley scurried off, presumably to look for her mother.

But she ran right into Pratt, who was coming up the stairs with a magnificent, bejeweled sabre.

“My goodness,” she said, “where did you get a sword like that?”

“It belonged to my great-grandfather,” he said. “Stand aside, per favore, bella.” Pratt immediately put her behind him and held the sabre out in a defensive stance. “I will defeat the thing that makes you shriek like a demon.”

“It’s all right,” Stephen told him. “It was only bats.”

“Thank you anyway,” Miss Hartley told Pratt softly. She trembled just a little.

Pratt lowered the sabre, looking almost disappointed. “Come with me.” He put his arm around Miss Hartley’s shoulders. “I will feed your mouth delicious flavors—crisp toast with golden butter and yellow plum jam, savory fried eggs, and sweet, milky tea—so you forget your fear.”

“I’d like that.” Miss Hartley smiled.

Stephen strode past them down the stairs, pulled on his coat, hat, and Hessian boots, and went out into a dense fog. Even though the daughter was all right in her own way, he hated living at 34 Dreare Street with the reprehensible Hartley parents.

And he hated the fog.

He was off to the attorney’s office to see what could be done about the Hartleys and the house, which obviously hadn’t been inspected recently.

There was nothing he could do about the fog.

He could kick himself for signing for the house without checking its sturdiness himself, but who was he to say no to an inheritance? Particularly when the pirate loot he’d been relying on to finance his new life had been unfairly taken from him mere days before he’d learned of the house?

He’d gone only a few steps onto the street when he smelled a delicious odor—frying bacon. And it was coming from the first floor of Hodgepodge.

He saw the vague shape of Otis leaning out the window. “Come up for breakfast, Captain! London isn’t even awake yet. Where could you be off to so early?”

“I’ve got business at my attorney’s office,” he said. “But you’re right. I’m too hasty. No doubt he’s not there yet.”

Otis chuckled. “So wait here with us. The shop won’t open for another hour and a half. We’ve got tremendous news to tell you anyway.”

Otis did sound rather lively for so early in the morning.

“I’d enjoy that,” said Stephen, “if it’s all right with Miss Jones.”

“It should be all right with Miss Jones,” a whiny masculine voice called out from a window at his own house, “since you’re courting her. But what kind of food shall I break my fast with here?”

Stephen gritted his teeth.

Sir Ned.

He was, sadly, awake.

Stephen turned toward the large shadow hanging out one of his windows. “Pratt will take care of you.”

“Bah!” called another voice through the fog.

This voice came from in front of Lady Duchamp’s house, and it was the old crone herself. Stephen hadn’t realized it until just now, when a break came in the mist, but a horse and carriage waited before her house, and she was inside the carriage, at the window. She was apparently going on her regular morning outing, wherever that was.

She leaned on her cane. “You’re a poor excuse for a host, Captain Arrow. And that baronet and his harpy of a wife are up to no good, mark my words.”

“Who is she?” called Sir Ned, his voice thick with fury.

Lady Duchamp’s carriage began to roll down the street.

“Arrow?” Sir Ned yelled again from his window. “You’d better set her straight! Arrow, are you there? And what are you going to do about the bats?”

Stephen ignored him and slipped through the fog to the front door of Hodgepodge. Otis had come downstairs and was waiting to let him in. The familiar odor of books comforted him, and that delicious bacon smell had wafted down from the first floor. He realized he was hungry, he hadn’t read a good story in a long time, and he was anxious to finish the ledge.

It felt good to have such simple cravings.

Of course, his craving for Miss Jones was much more primal. He looked forward to seeing her this morning.

“Miss Jilly is finishing up the toast,” Otis said, as if reading his mind. “Come upstairs.”

Stephen was taken aback by the man’s appearance. He was dressed in a tricorne hat and red coat and was carrying a bell, like a town crier. “What’s going on?”

Otis stood tall. “We have an important announcement to make to Dreare Street,” he said in a dramatic voice. “But first, we must eat.”

Upstairs, Miss Jones was bending over the fire and holding a slice of bread on a poker.

She looked over her shoulder, her cheeks pinkening at the sight of him. “Good morning, Captain.”

He’d never seen a more alluring sight. “Good morning, Miss Jones.”

She seemed struck dumb by his presence, but then she stood straight with her poker and toast. “We’ve much to discuss,” she said rather breathlessly.

“Do we?” He’d rather not discuss. He’d rather do. Kissing, that is. He wished it could be more, but he knew a scorching flirtation was all he could allow.

“Captain.” He felt reprimanded with that word alone.

“Yes, Miss Jones?”

She let out a huff of air. “You need to stop being so … so—” She waved her poker and toast.

“Stop being so what?” He pretended he had no idea what she meant. But he knew she wanted him to stop looking at her the way he’d looked at her on the roof the afternoon previous.

“Are you asking him to stop being so spirited, good-looking, and stylish?” Otis interjected.

“Of course not,” said Miss Jones crossly. “Forget I even spoke. Here.” She thrust the poker toward Stephen. “Grab a plate and take this. We’ve plenty of butter and jam.”

Stephen did as he was told. After he’d slathered the toast with both butter and jam, he sat down at the small table and began to eat. Otis ate a piece of toast as well and then remembered to pass the bacon, which Stephen took with thanks.

Otis looked back between Miss Jones and Stephen and chuckled. “My, my,” he said, and wiped his mouth with a linen serviette.

“What are you on about?” Jilly asked her assistant.

Otis merely shrugged and kept chuckling and eating his toast. Stephen couldn’t help it—he knew that Otis was aware of the tension between Stephen and his mistress. He gave a short laugh, too. Which made Otis chuckle more.

“I need you to be serious,” Jilly said to Otis in her primmest manner. “And you, as well,” she said to Stephen.

Stephen stopped chewing. “I’m perfectly serious, Miss Jones.”

Otis giggled again.

“No you’re not.” Miss Jones narrowed her eyes at Stephen. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“Do you?” He cast a sideways glance at Otis.

He knew they were being like two little boys, but it was an amusing diversion, especially when one wasn’t allowed to give in to impulse and damned well kiss the girl.

“Yes, I do know,” his beautiful neighbor said, “and you’re putting our futures in peril by refusing to listen.”

“But you haven’t said anything,” Otis declared in his sauciest manner.

Miss Jones pursed her lips. “I’m saying it now.”

Stephen sat up straighter. “Do go on.” He did his best to intimidate her with the face he’d used when facing the enemy at sea, the one that had set his own sailors trembling in their shoes—but she merely put a hand on her hip and stared him down with her violet-blue pansy eyes.

Good God, he could get lost in those eyes. But at the exact moment he had that delicious feeling, her pupils sharpened dangerously, and he looked away.

First.

What was the world coming to when he looked away first? And from a female other than his own mother? It had never happened before.

And damned if it would ever happen again.

He looked back at her, intending to impress her with his best fierce expression, but it was too late. As if his lowered brows and steely-eyed glare meant nothing, she was already on to putting another hand on her hip and opening her mouth to deliver a big speech.

He knew it would be a big speech. Women always nagged men with big speeches.

So he retreated to his own little world, a world that consisted of her breasts, straining against her laces, her pale, delicate neck and the creamy expanse of her shoulders, and the plate of bacon, which still had two slices on it.

“Captain,” she said. “You’re to partner with me in conducting a street fair.”

And then there was dead silence.

Whatever happened to the big speech?

He returned his gaze to her face. “I’m afraid that’s impossible.” He could hardly take the remaining bacon now, a fact which set his jaw on edge.

Miss Jones blinked several times. “You must.” She began to pace in a small, tight circle. “We have no choice but to try.”

“Why?”

She turned to face him. “To make money to pay the overdue leases.”

Otis pushed himself up from the table and took his bell with him. “Now we’ve got that out of the way, I’m going outside to call the neighbors over.”

And then he scampered down the stairs.

Stephen pushed his chair back. “I’m leaving. Thank you for the toast and bacon.”

“Captain.” Miss Jones stood in front of him, her chin in the air. “I did you a favor, now it’s your turn to return it.”

Stephen looked down at her. “People don’t conduct street fairs in London anymore.”

Miss Jones bit her lip. “But they used to have a street fair here on Dreare Street.”

“Used to. They don’t anymore.”

She looked so bereft, he felt almost regretful about bursting her bubble. “I know many of us have money woes,” he said. “But a street fair won’t cure them. You’ve no idea how much is involved in conducting one. It’s a major undertaking. And I, for one, don’t have time to make it happen. I have a house to repair.”

He turned to go.

“You have to help me,” she blurted out. “You made a promise when I agreed to allow you to pursue me.”

He turned back around. A few beats of tortured silence went by. What could he say, other than that she was right?

“You’re right,” he said. “I am pursuing you.” He lifted her chin and had a brilliant thought. A morning kiss would be a nice thing to have, especially one from Miss Jones.

“No, Captain,” she said, her face flushing pink. “You’re not really. It’s all a ruse.”

“That kiss on the roof was no ruse.”

“Yes, well, that was a mistake.” She blinked several times.

“Was it?”

Her lips parted prettily. She wanted to kiss him, too. He saw it in her eyes.

Out the window, they both heard the bell ring and Otis cry, “Urgent meeting at Hodgepodge regarding the overdue leases! Commencing immediately!”

And sadly, Miss Jones took a step back. “We need to focus on my plan. Trust me, Captain. It will work.”

The empty space she’d left near him—and that ringing bell—irritated him enough so that all his good humor vanished. “Why should I trust your judgment over my own?” he demanded to know.

It was a ludicrous idea—especially when a man needed a kiss.

Miss Jones looked at him steadily. “Because I found that diary and got the idea for the street fair from it. It was meant to be. It was … good luck.”

“I don’t believe in luck.” And he didn’t.

“Nor did I,” she replied, “but I’ve realized something recently.” Now she grew agitated but in a delicious way—all breathy and warm and appealing. “We resort to luck when we worry that someone or something else is going to snatch the future we crave away from us. That’s why I believe in luck now, Captain. I’m desperate. And I suspect you are, as well.”

“I’m not desperate, Miss Jones.”

Other than being desperate for her.

“Aren’t you?” She was impertinent, asking him such a question with a daring little arch to her brow.

Of course, she’d no idea how provocative her statement was.

He thought of other ways—other than longing for her—in which he could be desperate. The idea of sitting on Dreare Street while his house crumbled around him came to mind. And of all the money he didn’t have yet that he’d have to spend to fix it. And the days, weeks, months, and perhaps years it would take to sell it afterward.

It was a dismal prospect.

Very dismal.

“I … I might be a little bit desperate,” he admitted. “But not enough to take orders from anyone.”

She cracked a smile. “We’ll see about that. Come on!” She beckoned him with a hand.

“I’m only going to stay and listen because we both made an agreement,” he told her in his firmest manner, the one he’d always used to negotiate the enemy’s surrender. “Together.”

But she either didn’t hear him or ignored him.

She was already running down the stairs and calling Otis’s name.