Cloudy with a Chance of Marriage

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Jilly was not one to feel sorry for herself. She knew she was more fortunate than most. She’d been born a lady. She’d grown up in comfort and had been well educated. She’d had parents who’d loved her dearly, a village full of kindly neighbors, and a loyal friend in Otis. But at the moment, riding along the streets of Mayfair in a luxurious carriage with Hector, she was tempted to believe she was the unluckiest woman in the world.

Hector spent most of his time staring out the window, his cane between his legs, his hands resting upon the brass top. But she sensed he was keenly aware of her every move.

And no wonder. She was his wife, and she’d run away from him.

The whole world would agree he had every right to treat her suspiciously.

Finally, he turned to look at her. “You must realize you’ll be punished.”

She felt a roiling fear and loathing rise in her. “According to your God, I’m a sinner, I’m sure.”

He scoffed. “And who is your God?”

“Not yours, that’s certain,” she said, not blinking.

He turned his face toward the window again. “I saw how that golden-haired man looked at you in that decrepit bookstore of yours, you harlot. You’re lucky I’ve taken you back.”

“You don’t have to,” she said quickly. “You could have left me there.” She paused. “We could get a divorce.”

Divorce was the ultimate shame. But she’d rather live in shame than live with Hector.

He leaned forward, and she pressed back against the squabs.

“Over my dead body,” he said viciously. He leaned back as well and studied her. “Your lack of denial about your wrongdoing speaks volumes.”

“Tell me what you intend to do,” she said.

Why should she bother to deny anything? She didn’t care for his good opinion. And she’d already lied by omission to Captain Arrow.

She’d had enough of lies—

And of running away. If she were to be stuck with Hector, this time it would be on her terms, as best she could make them. Most would say it was a laughable idea that she could hope to hold any advantage over her husband, but she had one thing he didn’t: a fully developed sense of irony. There was always another layer to observe in their pathetic interactions. At the very least, she could attempt to find the bitter truth of their incompatibility an amusing pill to swallow.

But she would dare to reach for more. She couldn’t go back to being the woman she’d been before she’d run away to London. She’d learned something in Town—how to take care of herself, to ignore those dark corners of fear lurking inside. Even now they clamored to be heard.

But she’d pay no heed to them.

She wouldn’t.

If Fate demanded she forsake everything else, she refused to lose the only thing left her—her newfound confidence.

Hector leered at her. “I know the first thing I shall do. I’ve quite missed it.”

Jilly’s face flared hot. She knew very well what he was on about. Having him touch her was what she dreaded more than anything. Hector couldn’t complete an act of intimacy. Something was dreadfully wrong there. But he could humiliate her very easily. He’d done so every night of their marriage. He’d watch her strip off her clothes for bed while he sat and watched.

And then—

She couldn’t bear to think about what he’d made her do then.

She blinked rapidly. “I won’t,” she said. “I won’t touch you that way ever again, Hector.”

Hector laughed. “Why not? You’re a slut, my dear.” His face grew dark. “And I can make you do whatever I say.”

“Not this time,” she said. “This time I’ll hurt you back if you dare try to coerce me. And I won’t be quiet. I’ll tell, Hector. I’ll tell the neighborhood that you hit me because you can’t”—she paused—“you can’t perform your husbandly duties.”

She’d never said that out loud.

He narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“I have nothing to lose,” she said. She leaned forward and poked his chest with a finger. “If you insist on having me back, it will be on my terms. Is that clear?”

He sat in stony silence a moment, then said, “Fine. But at least I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you can’t have your little life on Dreare Street. I’ve the law on my side. We’re married and shall stay that way. I plan to make certain you don’t have a shilling to run away with, but if somehow you manage to escape anyway, I promise I won’t be so discreet the next time I’m obliged to find you.”

What could she say to that?

She was stuck.

They walked into the town home on Grosvenor Square, her meager belongings in a small piece of luggage which, of course, Hector made her carry herself. The hired butler shut the door quickly behind them.

“We’re not receiving.” Hector thrust his hat and stick into the man’s hands.

“Very good, sir.” The butler eyed Jilly with curiosity.

She gave him a small smile, bolstered by a strong sense of relief. They weren’t receiving guests. Her suspicions had been correct. Her husband was merely toying with her, keeping her here in London. How many days did he intend for them to linger before returning home?

She would challenge him to find out more.

At dinner later that evening, she began her quest for more information. “Where shall we go first tomorrow? The park? Bond Street? Or the British Museum?”

He looked up from his turtle soup. “Nowhere.”

She ladled a few more spoonfuls herself. She had no appetite, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how upset she was. Her heart was in pieces over Captain Arrow. Their relationship had come to an ugly end, and she simply couldn’t reconcile herself to that fact. More than any desire she had to bring prosperity to Dreare Street, she looked forward to seeing him at the street fair so she could—

She didn’t know.

How did one make an impossible situation better?

And what did it matter when she and the captain hadn’t made any sort of declarations anyway? She was going on feeling, that instinct she’d had this morning that theirs was more than a mere infatuation.

Something bigger had loomed between them. It had been the same in the garden. It wasn’t something they’d asked for, but it was there as sure as the moon was in the sky.

There was love between them.

Love.

The very idea made her eyes burn with unshed tears. She gulped them back with a hefty swallow of ratafia.

“And the day after?” she asked Hector smoothly.

He put his spoon down and glared at her. “You’re not going anywhere.”

She gathered her courage. “Then why are we here? Why not return home immediately?”

“Because I’ve business here.”

“What sort of business?”

“It doesn’t concern you.”

“It does. Every penny you have belonged to me first. I certainly hope you haven’t run through all of it.”

There was no account, no property left that Hector hadn’t already pilfered from. She’d gambled what little resources she’d had on that one attempt to be free—

And she’d lost.

There was still the satisfaction, however, that Otis had Hodgepodge. She hoped he could make something of it. Perhaps if he earned enough, he could open up a store for gentlemen’s fashions, as well.

Hector stood from the table. “I don’t have to explain anything to you.”

But she needed more information. She couldn’t make plans to leave for the day on Wednesday without some sort of knowledge of Hector’s schedule.

She rose, too. “I accept that, believe it or not,” she said. “And I would be glad to accompany you wherever you go. If we must stay together, we should make the association as painless as possible, don’t you think?”

It took everything in her to say such conciliatory things to him.

Hector simply smiled. “I don’t think so. I’d rather keep you like a caged bird in this house, tantalizingly close to your beloved Dreare Street. The servants have strict instructions to keep you under lock and key while I’m gone.”

Gone.

Did he mean for an hour? For a day? Or several days?

She had no idea.

But gone was a good word. With Hector out of her path, she’d find a way out. She was sure of it. She wasn’t Lady Jillian, daughter of Lord Harris and his wife, Lady Harris, for nothing.

Mama, she prayed silently. Papa. Be with me.

She needed a way to live—truly live—despite her miserable attachment to the man standing before her with a cruel look of satisfaction on his face.

“Very well,” she said. The knowledge that she was a lady made it easier for her to swallow all the rude retorts that came to mind, that and the fact of some sort of looming absence on his part.

Slowly, silently, she ascended the stairs to her bedchamber and locked the door. She didn’t care what the servants thought about the arrangements. She’d made sure she was at the opposite end of the hall from Hector.

The single night rail she’d packed still smelled of her sitting room above Hodgepodge, a sweet, homey smell that brought Otis’s face instantly to mind. She inhaled its fragrance and let the tears come.

She wanted to go home.

As foggy and unlucky as Dreare Street was, it was her home, and she missed it with every fiber of her being.

Stephen was there.

Captain Arrow, she corrected herself.

If he were gone, would she still feel the same sense of home she did on Dreare Street?

He was to leave soon, as soon as he could sell his house.

A great sadness pressed down on her.

With trembling fingers, she crawled into bed and pulled up the coverlet. She was sure she wouldn’t sleep—she still had no idea how she’d get to the street fair undetected—but she fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.

Stephen never went to bed that night. First, he convinced a very shy Nathaniel, who’d finally finished his watercolors, to supervise the merchants and oversee the schedule of events at the fair now that Miss Jones had been called away due to family illness. Then he assisted Pratt and his crew with the building of a new watering trough at the stables—one that would be fit to refresh Prinny’s horses. After that, he helped Susan and Otis devise a system of strings and clothespins with which to display Susan’s mobcaps and gowns in her booth.

He then went on to work all evening, aided by Pratt, replacing the rotted beams in his house with new ones. It was a sweaty, laborious chore, but it kept his mind off Miss Jilly Jones.

Although deep inside, he was worried. He didn’t like her husband at all.

He hoped she was safe.

Those unwelcome and disturbing thoughts about his diminutive neighbor kept coming to him as he hammered and sawed. They plagued him while he and Pratt secured posts against the walls and laid temporary, load-bearing beams on top of those posts. They assailed him as he removed the old, rotted beams and replaced them with new beams. In the affected bedchamber, he made sure the path to the attic taken by the bats was completely blocked, as well.

No matter how long and hard he worked, images of an unprotected Miss Jones beset him, continuing when he and Pratt took down the temporary beams and posts and when he sheepishly plastered over the hole he’d punched in another bedchamber wall earlier in the day.

When the Hartleys came home at four in the morning from a rout, he’d sent Pratt to bed and was just beginning to clean up. His unwelcome guests were fast asleep and the sun was rising into a murky layer of fog when he swept up the remainder of his carpentry mess.

The task complete at last, he stood outside the house and looked up at what he could see of it through the fog. The paint had dried on the stucco façade. He’d also managed to fix a hanging shutter. The chimney, where it had crumbled slightly, had been repaired, as well. The bull’s-eye would have been hidden beneath a layer of fog now, but he’d managed to remove it, with a little extraneous help from several neighborhood boys who got on their hands and knees with scrub brushes to move the job along.

And now … now Lady Hartley’s contact could come see the house, and if that person didn’t want it, perhaps someone at the fair would.

He looked over at Hodgepodge. There was no light from the sitting room. Otis must still be abed. All of Dreare Street appeared to be.

Perhaps all of London was.

It was just he … and the fog.

A roiling, unnamable emotion overcame him, and he marched through heavy shrouds of white vapor to Hodgepodge.

He’d put it off long enough. He had to find out where Miss Jones was.

Now.

“Fifty-four Grosvenor Square,” Otis said a few minutes later, still in his nightcap. “But Captain, you can’t see her. Her wretch of a husband won’t allow it, I’m sure.”

“I know he won’t.” Stephen turned on his heel to go then looked back. “Thanks, Otis.”

“You’re welcome.” The unlikeliest of bookstore clerks had a fresh wrinkle on his brow.

Stephen grinned. “Don’t worry about me.” But then he grew serious. “It’s Miss Jones we need to be concerned about.”

“And I am!” Otis cried. “I didn’t want her to go. I hit that blackguard in the eye with my shoe, but”—he hesitated—“I didn’t know what else to do. I’ve been up all night thinking about it.”

His expression, already heavy with lack of sleep, drooped even further.

“You did the best you could,” said Stephen. “I’ll let you know what I find out when I return.”

Otis smiled. “Very well. Godspeed.”

When Stephen arrived at the town home on Grosvenor Square in a hired hackney, all was quiet. He instructed the driver to wait on the corner. He sat in silence for an entire hour. In that time, the street lightened substantially. Another quarter of an hour went by before he saw any activity on the premises.

Someone flicked aside a curtain in a front window. A minute later, Broadmoor exited the front door on foot. Other pedestrians were out, not many, but a few. There was a chimney sweep, two young bucks who appeared to be headed home after an evening out on the town, and a nurse with three young children heading in the direction of the park.

Stephen was sorely tempted to knock on the door and demand to see Miss Jones, but he suppressed that temptation, slipped out of the hackney, and began following his quarry at a safe distance.

A little while later, Broadmoor entered the Pantheon Bazaar, lingering over a stall featuring men’s silk hats and another that boasted cures for all men’s ailments. After wandering for another ten minutes, he raised his cane in greeting to someone in the crowd.

Stephen’s heart beat faster. Who was he meeting?

A woman emerged from the milling shoppers, and Stephen’s first thought was that the two were a well-matched pair. Broadmoor was decked out in the fine garb of a gentleman, but he came across as low class. The woman wore an elegant gown and was quite beautiful—but in a hard way.

They appeared to be in intent conversation. The woman nodded repeatedly. Broadmoor gestured with his cane, as if he were giving her directions to another place.

After a few minutes, they went their separate ways.

Stephen continued following Broadmoor out onto the street. The man approached a line of hackneys and spoke to one driver, then moved down the line to another. He entered that vehicle, and it rolled away.

Stephen ran to the first hackney driver. “Could you follow the one that just left?”

The driver shook his head. “Only if you pay me more than that cheapskate was willing to. I’ve got a toll to cover, you know.”

“Of course,” said Stephen and named a fair price, which the driver accepted. “Can you catch up with them?”

The driver shrugged. “I’m sure I can, although I know where he’s going.”

“Where?”

“To a cottage in Kensington. He wanted me to wait there a few hours, but he wasn’t willing to pay the extra money for that, neither. What does he think I am? Desperate?”

Stephen warred between the desire to know exactly what cottage Broadmoor was heading to and why—and an overwhelming need to see Miss Jones.

The need won.

“Keep the money,” Stephen said to the man, “and I’ll pay you triple that if you can tell me what the other driver says when he gets back. I’d like to know the address of that cottage.”

“Fine by me,” said the driver. “I’m here every day at this time. Ask for Jack.” He tipped his hat.

“Thank you, Jack.”

Stephen felt a sense of satisfaction that he’d soon learn more about Mr. Broadmoor. But it was nothing compared to the surge of happiness that overwhelmed him.

He was happy because he was going to see Miss Jones.