Cloudy with a Chance of Marriage

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

In the early hours of the morning of the fair, Stephen was with Jilly again, and she was all over him. It was pure heaven—

Until he smelled her breath.

Good God.

Onions?

His eyes popped open.

“Captain!” Lady Hartley was in his face, and she was stark naked. She laid a kiss right on his gaping mouth.

He sat bolt upright on the pillows, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and pointed at the closed bedchamber door (which he should have locked, he realized a little too late).

“Get out, Lady Hartley,” he said in low tones. “Get out before I call Sir Ned in here.”

She pulled a sheet up over her breasts. “You wouldn’t.”

“Yes I would.”

She stuck out her lower lip. “But Captain—”

“Your behavior is entirely inappropriate,” he said.

She turned to him. “Do you not find me attractive?”

He couldn’t say no. He was too much of a gentleman.

“You’re married,” he said. “That makes all the difference.”

Dear God, listen to him! A wave of guilt ricocheted through his chest.

Lady Hartley’s brow puckered. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, ah, married women are off limits. It’s a vow I made long ago to keep, come hell or high water.”

“Oh, all right. If that’s all it is.”

“Yes,” he muttered, and looked away from her. “Please go. Before we cause a scene.”

She tittered. “Very well.”

He heard her stand, and then she began humming.

“Are you decent yet?” he asked her.

“No, you naughty man.” He could hear small sighs emanating from her as she dressed.

“Please hurry.” He could barely contain his impatience. It was a terrible way to wake up in the morning, even worse than being called to watch on board ship in the middle of the night after a day-long storm that had already left everyone weary.

He heard her sigh and then she thumped on her heels over to the door. “You can look now, Captain.”

Slowly, reluctantly, he turned toward the door.

She was wrapped in a voluminous silk dressing gown. “Just remember this,” she said, fingering the cleft between her breasts, “married women are experts at sneaking about. And we have the experience you’re looking for, without the diseases.”

“Oh,” he said brightly, “that’s a high recommendation. Makes me want to give up my lightskirts right away.”

She nodded sagely. “I thought so. If you ever change your mind…”

She left the statement unfinished.

“Right.” He gave her an uncomfortable half-smile and waved her off.

But she paused in opening the door.

“I forgot to mention,” she said. “Lord Smelling will be here today, and he’s prepared to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.” She began to chuckle. “It’s really quite amusing. He prefers country living, you know. Can’t bear London. But he’s got a shrew of a second wife, who insists he purchase a home in Mayfair for her mother to live in permanently, and the daughter occasionally, when she visits Town. So he decided it would be an awful joke to buy a house on Dreare Street. He hopes the bad luck will rub off on them both.”

He sounded rather a stupid man, Stephen thought.

“I wonder what Miss Jones will think of having another old harridan as a neighbor?” Lady Hartley asked him.

Ah, Miss Jones. His heart gave a sharp twist of longing.

The baronet’s wife didn’t wait for a reply. “At any rate, Lord Smelling is willing to pay through the nose to get his hands on this house.” She pursed her lips provocatively and waggled her brows. “Are you certain you wouldn’t like to celebrate with me?”

Dear God. The poor woman looked like a clown from Astley’s when she did that thing with her eyebrows.

“Positive,” he replied. “You do understand.”

He attempted to look noble—

Which he wasn’t.

He’d slept with a married woman only the day before.

He must have succeeded in his effort, however, because Lady Hartley fluttered a hand in front of her face, as if she were terribly hot. “Oh, thank God for men like you, protecting the motherland with your commitment to principles!”

And then she gave a mighty gasp which subsided in a strange wail, almost as if she were—hell’s bells, he didn’t even want to think what it sounded like—and pulled the door shut behind her.

He threw himself back on the bed, aghast.

The sooner the Hartleys left the premises, the better.

He released a pent-up breath.

On further thought, the sooner he left, the better, too.

“It couldn’t be a prettier day, Captain!” An hour later Mrs. Hobbs went scurrying past him outside his house, carrying one of many pots of flowers the neighborhood ladies had assembled to beautify the special section of the street designated for Prinny and his advisors to occupy during the theatrical performance.

“Yes, Mrs. Hobbs,” he called after her. “And we had not a shred of fog this morning.”

“Surely a good sign, capitano!” called Pratt to him from the bottom of the balcony Stephen had built for the Canterbury Cousins. Pratt was rolling the contraption to the center of the cobblestones with several other men, Nathaniel among them.

Stephen looked up and down Dreare Street. As far as he was concerned, it looked spectacular. Every house was brightened by paint. The doorsteps had been cleaned and swept. The trimmed hedges and trees were perfectly lovely. Newly cleaned windows shone, and the faces of his neighbors were bright with optimism.

He felt a surge of pride.

And defiance.

They’d raise the money, they would, and send that money man, Mr. Redmond, packing.

But Stephen must admit, he also felt a bit of melancholy. He’d grown to like this place. Yes, it was damned foggy most of the time, but the people—well, they were sterling. Everyone, that is, except Lady Tabitha, Lady Duchamp, and perhaps Mr. Hobbs.

On the bright side, at least Lady Tabitha didn’t live here on a regular basis. And Lady Duchamp was old—and perhaps in pain—and so rude she was almost entertaining. She could be forgiven her godawful disposition on both counts. Mr. Hobbs at least had a fine wife and children to recommend him.

Despite his best intentions to avoid thinking about personal matters while he was cast in the role of leader of the street fair, he allowed himself to glance at Hodgepodge.

Immediately, the deep, dull ache near his heart began. Would Jilly get here today? She deserved to see what her wild idea had wrought. And if she did get to come, what would he do when she had to leave again?

It was a hopeless, painful situation, yet his whole world now focused on those moments when he might see her, be with her.

It was a damned foolish way to live. He’d told innumerable sailors with broken hearts to move forward. There were plenty of fish in the sea, he’d reassured them.

Yes, there were plenty. But there was only one Jilly.

That’s what his sailors had tried to convey to him, too, about the women they’d pined after, but he’d never been able to understand until now.

Love gone awry was a miserable thing and not as easily got over as he’d presumed.

Now Otis was fussing about the flower pots he’d set outside, waving and smiling at passers-by, but Stephen could sense his tension. Every few seconds, he began to whistle off-key and cast furtive glances down the street.

He was waiting for Jilly, too.

Stephen strode over to him and watched him twist a pot forty-five degrees.

“I want this bloom facing the Prince Regent.” Otis pointed at a bright pink blossom.

“He’ll no doubt appreciate that,” Stephen said.

The bookstore clerk stood straight and made a face, then bit his lip, and—

Didn’t speak.

It was so unlike him, Stephen thought. Dear God, they were both pathetic, weren’t they?

“I miss her—” Otis said.

“I hope she’ll get here—” Stephen interrupted him.

Both of them crossed their arms over their chests and looked up the street.

“You love her, don’t you?” said Otis.

“Yes,” Stephen answered, and released a weary sigh.

Otis sighed even louder.

Neither of them said a word as Nathaniel came running up. “Here, Otis,” he said, and handed him a small book. “Miss Jones wrapped this up by accident with my book on the canals of Venice.”

Otis looked down at it. “No! It’s Alicia Fotherington’s diary!”

“Yes, well, I meant to give it to you ages ago. But I’ve been”—Susan walked by with an armful of frilly mobcaps she’d sewn, and he sighed—“I’ve been preoccupied.”

He followed her with his eyes.

“Do you love her?” Stephen asked.

“Yes.” Nathaniel sighed and crossed his arms over his chest, too.

A beat of silence went by, and then Stephen shook himself out of his bleak reverie. “I’ve got to check on the stables.” He slapped Nathaniel on the back. “Grab her while you can, my friend, before someone else does.”

He began to walk off, but Otis stopped him. “Please take this, Captain, and keep it safe for Miss Jones.” He handed him the diary. “With so many books in one place, it’s very easy to misplace one. I know she’ll appreciate your protecting it.”

Stephen paused a moment, then took the slim volume. “Very well. If she comes looking for it, it will be at my house, on the mantel in the drawing room.”

He tucked it in his pocket and remembered how avidly Jilly had read from it. The whole idea for the street fair had come from the diary.

But really, the inspiration had come from Jilly. She’d chosen to believe the undertaking was possible.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Otis said. “The street fair was her idea.”

Stephen nodded and shrugged. “Yes, well.” What else was there to say?

Otis crooked his finger at him. “I’ve made her a surprise.”

He walked with a great deal of panache into Hodgepodge, his green shoes glinting with paste emeralds, his coattails swaying gently.

Stephen followed, amused and touched, of course, by Otis’s devotion.

The ex-valet unrolled a long cloth banner with a giant message painted on it.

He winked. “I’ve enlisted two young men to hang it from the roofline right after the theatrical performance.”

Stephen nodded, not sure what to think.

“So?” Otis waited.

“Good,” Stephen murmured. “Yes, I think she’ll like that.”

Or not.

He wasn’t sure. She was a modest sort of bookseller (modest, not boring, as she’d once proclaimed herself to be).

Otis smiled. “On your way, Captain. We’ve got a fair to put on.”

“All right, Jared.” Wearing her drab muslin gray gown for the Prince Regent’s amusement, Jilly rode with the stable boy in the shiny black carriage Hector had bought with her father’s money. “I had to wait far too long to leave the house, and I’ve no time to waste. Can I bribe you to leave me alone or not?”

He squinted at her. “It depends, mum.”

“How about this much?” She showed him some money. The amount she’d had in her reticule wasn’t very impressive. But she’d not wanted to take any from Hodgepodge.

He shook his head. “Double that.”

“I don’t think so.” She pointed the candle taper in her reticule at him. “I’d hate to put a hole through my new reticule, but you either take this exorbitant amount of money and go get blindingly drunk at a pub, or I’ll be forced to shoot you.”

“Right,” he said, holding on to the top of the carriage window. “Put that way, I think I’ll go get blindingly drunk.”

She smiled. “Good man. I’ll find my own way home. Did he say if he’d be back today or not?”

“He never committed one way or the other. But if he does come back, it won’t be until late this evening, mum.”

“Oh, in that case—” She cocked her head at the carriage door. “Get out.”

“See you later,” he said, stuffing the money in his breeches.

“Good-bye,” she said, then leaned out the window. “Do you know where he went, Jared? Tell me the truth, or I’ll put a ball in you.”

“To see his fancy lady!” he called to her as the carriage began to roll away. “Although I’m not sure which one!”

“Right! Thanks!” She waved at Jared with the candle taper, and his face fell.

She sat back on her seat and sighed. Why was she not surprised? Hector had a fancy lady. No, not one fancy lady—more than one.

Poor fancy ladies, she thought and couldn’t help an hysterical giggle.

She leaned out and told the driver to take her to Dreare Street. She might have gotten a late start, but she had the rest of the day free, and she was going to take full advantage of it.

She’d become Mrs. Broadmoor again tomorrow.

For today, she was Jilly Jones, fair organizer and woman in love.

The driver tried to drop her off at the top of the street, but there were so many elegant carriages lined up with members of the ton descending from them, she had to walk an entire half block to the entrance.

She caught her breath at the marvel of the scene. The massive holly bushes were neatly trimmed back, and on either side of them stood two little boys wearing miniature town crier outfits. They’d donned the same sort of black tricorne hats Otis sported as a town crier. In fact, one of those hats probably belonged to Otis.

And they rang hand bells, all while encased in important jackets that were only two or three sizes too big for them, like the hats.

“Welcome to the Dreare Street fair!” they both called out to the fine gentlemen and ladies milling by.

The crowd, Jilly saw, was impressive, and amused by the two young boys.

They entered the street happy.

And she hoped they’d spent loads of money.

When the boys saw her, they grinned and rang their bells harder.

“Miss Jones! You’re back!” cried one.

“Yes, I am.” She gave them both hugs.

“Just in time,” said the other. “The Prince Regent’s arrived. He yelled at all his advisors to get these people out of his way. He’s heard about Otis’s shoes and wants to see them.”

“But the people are still coming,” said the first boy, gulping so much air, he hiccupped.

“That’s lovely news,” said Jilly. “And you’re doing a splendid job.”

She blew them kisses and entered the street. It looked beautiful—both dignified and cheerful. The sun was shining, and everywhere she looked, people were smiling.

At the far end, she could see Stephen’s house standing tall and proud (and yes, a bit rambling, with all its crazy wings). Nevertheless, it was impressive. And to its left was Hodgepodge. She could see the roof where she and Stephen had sat and had their picnic—and where he’d kissed her for the first time.

She inhaled a breath. Even the air smelled good today.

She was back with her friends. She’d play proprietress of Hodgepodge one last time. And if Prinny thought she was really a Celtic princess, then so be it.

She’d play the part. It was a small price to pay.

Her heart brimmed over with happiness. It had only been going on an hour, and the fair was far better than she could ever have imagined.

But then she heard loud exclamations from the crowd at the far end of the street, near Hodgepodge and Stephen’s house. It was where the theatrical performance was to take place later that afternoon.

Much to her dismay, the random yells became a dull roar that assailed her ears and didn’t stop. It could mean only one thing.

“Fight!” one of the little boys cried.

The two small greeters left their assigned stations and went running into the crowd.