Cloudy With a Chance of Marriage (13 page)

The sun!

How fortunate Alicia Fotherington had been.

Jilly read only a few more pages, laid the book aside, and dutifully blew out the taper on her simple bedside table. As she drifted off to sleep, she thought about Alicia and how happily she’d lived on Dreare Street so long ago.

What a different place it had been then!

Sunny. Happy.

Prosperous.

Heavens. Jilly sat bolt upright in bed, and with shaky fingers, felt for her matches and lit her candle again. Springing out of her sheets, she wrapped herself up, grabbed the taper, and walked into the sitting room.

Otis was attempting to repair his shoe, the one he’d lost at Captain Arrow’s, by the light of the dying fire.

“I have an idea,” she announced, her heart beating fast with excitement.

“What?” Otis held the shoe up and squinted at the newly fixed heel.

“Maybe we don’t have a family, but we have all our neighbors, don’t we?” Jilly began to pace behind him.

Otis’s brow furrowed. “Beyond the artist and the seamstress you told me about, and Captain Arrow, they’re not very friendly. Lady Duchamp is a veritable devil.”

“I know, but we should have a meeting—a meeting of the whole street. Everyone else has to produce the money to pay off the lease, too. At dinner, I was thinking only of how to solve Hodgepodge’s financial woes, but no doubt
all
the businesses—indeed, all the residents—on Dreare Street are suffering.”

“True, but what about the residents who have plenty of money?” Otis laid aside his shoe. “We also have people like Captain Arrow. He wouldn’t mind leaving Dreare Street, and I’m sure he’s not the only one. Why should they bother to help us?”

Jilly thought about Mrs. Hobbs’s long, pale face. “Captain Arrow will help us because he needs to sell his house. And the others may help simply because … it’s dreary here on Dreare Street.”

“It is!” cried Otis, pushing out his chair and standing. “It would be such a pleasure to look out and see people walking up and down enjoying the weather.” He raced to the window and flipped back the curtain. Jilly could see the evening fog swirling about the sputtering gas lamps across the street.

“All right,” he said, turning back to face her, “mayhap
not
enjoying the weather but perhaps enjoying each
other
.”

“Yes.” Jilly chuckled. “Not to mention that if the others ever want to join Captain Arrow and sell their homes, they’ll have a much better chance to do so if the street appears prosperous.”

Otis clasped his hands beneath his chin. “Oh, my,” he whispered happily. “We’ll all get together and have a wonderful time making Dreare Street flourish. Do you think we could get rid of the fog?”

“I don’t see how that’s possible.” Jilly sighed. “I suppose we’re in some sort of valley between the neighboring streets. The fog simply rolls in and stays.”

“That’s a demmed shame.” Otis strode to a looking glass and adjusted his cravat. “But even with the fog, we can still be a happier street. What shall we do?”

“A street fair.” Jilly was so excited, she wanted to do a little jig.

But Otis’s face fell. “Those aren’t common anymore, especially in Mayfair.”

“That’s a good thing,” she replied happily. “It will be a special event.”

“What if we’re not allowed?”

“Who would tell us no?”

“Perhaps the Lord Mayor of London.”

“We’ll not worry about that quite yet. Let’s think about the fair. I need you, Otis, to be as enthused as I. Please.” She paused. The fire crackled loudly in the hearth. “Don’t be afraid.”

Otis grinned. “Very well.” He clasped his hands together. “We’ll have booths to sell things.”

“Yes. All sorts of things.” Jilly laughed. “First thing tomorrow, we’ll make a sign.”

“You and your signs.” Otis waved a careless hand. “If no one walks by, no one will see it. What you need to do is … employ a town crier.” His voice cracked with excitement.

“We can’t do that.”

Otis clapped his hands. “Yes we can. I’ve got a lovely scarlet jacket and a black tricorne hat. You have a bell. Now we have a town crier. Get the bell, Miss Jilly. Posthaste! I’ll be right back.”

The man was deadly serious. By the time Jilly had found the bell on the mantel, her faher’s ex-valet had groped his way through the dark to his room and arrived back upstairs kitted out in his version of a town crier’s uniform.

“Tomorrow,” he said fervently. “Tomorrow begins a new age for Dreare Street.”

“Yes,” Jilly said, adjusting the shoulders of his jacket. “Tomorrow we shall tell everyone about the street fair.”

“We’ll make loads of money.” Otis rang the bell.

“And if it’s a success, we’ll hold another one.”

Then Jilly had a brilliant thought: she was in a position to demand Captain Arrow act as a partner in creating the street fair. There’d be booths to construct, at the very least, and someone would have to organize the neighbors. Who better to do that than a ship’s captain?

If for some odd reason he balked at the idea, she’d remind him he had no choice but help her—if he wanted her to continue pretending to be the object of his affections, that is.

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.”