Cloudy With a Chance of Marriage (36 page)

Why didn’t he
say
something?

His gaze finally met hers, and she knew.

She knew it was over.

“We have to face the truth,” he said carefully. “We can’t have a future together. We’ll have to say good-bye for good.”

She blinked. How did one deal with one’s world—one’s dreams—collapsing into dust in a fraction of a second?

Stephen sighed and rubbed her upper arm.

She flinched and pulled back from him. “What’s stopping you?” She almost didn’t recognize her voice. It was bold, angry, some might say slightly hysterical, but she knew better. It was the true Jilly. She wasn’t hiding from anyone anymore.

She was done with hiding.

“Why won’t you go with me?” she asked, her heart hammering in a steady, hard rhythm. “Because I know you can. You can do anything you want, Stephen Arrow. You’re a free man. Not only that, you’re the bravest man I know.”

He said nothing.

She rose to her knees, then stood, the soles of her feet pressed firmly against the rug, her breath coming in great, even lungfuls.

He stood, too, and faced her.

“I love you,” he said plainly. “And I know you had every reason to lie about your marriage. But there’s a part of me that can’t—that can’t let go of that.”

She tossed her head. “Just because you were lied to by your mother and your village about your father—which they did to protect your feelings, by the way, so you’re utterly selfish holding it against them—you’re willing to let me go?” She scoffed. “That’s not love. That’s an immature boy who hasn’t learned to grow up.”

She strode away from him, and with shaking arms, thrust the window up and pointed out.

“Get out,” she said.

His face was still, his expression inscrutable.

When one loved, one didn’t
hide
. It was a lesson she’d learned too late. But now that she knew, she couldn’t go back.

“You have to know this pains me to the core,” he said, pronouncing every word as if it were a shard of glass he must swallow. “You’re everything to me.”

She kept her eyes on his, daring him to look away. “
You’re
the one who pursued me, who entangled me in that foolish web you created to keep Miss Hartley at bay. You’ve come here twice now and made love to me in my bedchamber, practically under my husband’s nose. We were in this mess together—or so I thought. I’ve told you how sorry I was for deceiving you, but no. My explanation isn’t good enough for you.
I’m
not good enough.” She lifted her chin. “What do you know about what’s right and wrong? You’ve never been in my position and will never understand what it’s like to be a woman afraid.”

Once more, she thrust her finger at the open window, at the dense fog hanging there like a shroud. “I never want to see you again,” she told him. “Don’t attempt to contact me.”

She couldn’t be there to watch him go. She left, taking her candle with her. Downstairs, she shook the kitchen boy awake, and told him to take a lantern and walk a straight line out back until he reached the stables, where he should rouse a groom immediately. She needed to get to Otis, to Hodgepodge, and to Dreare Street—

The fog, Hector, and Stephen Arrow be damned.

CHAPTER THIRTY

There was something wrong with him. Stephen knew that now, as he stumbled through the fog toward Dreare Street. He’d never realized it before.

He was a coward.

He winced just thinking of the word.

Coward
.

He’d always used it to describe other people. But it was what
he
was.

Good God, and he’d been so sure of his identity. He was a tested warrior, a former captain in the Royal Navy who’d earned high honors. He’d fought and won battles against merciless enemies.

He also had supreme confidence on land. With women, especially, he was assured of his prowess as a man.

Until now.

For another quarter of an hour, he wended his way, slowly, instinctively, through the blinding vapor. On the sea, fog could be both a helpful friend or one’s worst enemy. It allowed one to hide from danger. You could slip right by an opponent’s ship, and they’d never know you’d come near. But a dense fog could also lead a ship to the rocks and almost certain death.

Stephen had come to find out, however, through his lengthy experience with it, that fog wasn’t the real challenge. Fear was. The test came in his own response to the primal fear fog induced. Fog was a great separator, the reminder that in the end, you were alone to either give in to the fear—or not.

Until now, Stephen had chosen to be soothed by the notion that he was ultimately his own man. Finding out that his mother and his entire village had perpetuated a myth about his beginnings only affirmed the fact that he lacked an anchor, was sailing through life on self-generated power, answerable to no one, his destiny in his own hands.

But now in the midst of the mist, he had the odd sensation of being panicked. His natural fluidity—his calmness in the center of the white blindness—was shaken.

He was glad when the fog began to ease slightly, enough that he could see a few feet ahead of him in the dark. A well-lit carriage crept by, the horses whinnying in fright, the driver calling encouraging words to them. Stephen watched and wondered who would take a carriage out this late at night and in such conditions. A doctor on the way to see a patient? Some drunken fool on the way home from a rout?

Who else would dare?

When the last ring of the horseshoes on the cobbles faded in the distance, he was left behind, a solitary shadow figure on an empty street.

He remembered Jilly’s cozy bedchamber, the rug, the low fire, and he wished he were back there with her.

But once again, he was cast adrift. It was what he knew best. There was to be no more Jilly. And no more Dreare Street.

When he arrived back at Number 34, the house was dead quiet. He felt much too empty—raw, actually—to sleep. He knew if he tried, the sheets would feel like sand, the mattress like gravel.

He lit a candle from the mantel and saw a small, bound book lying next to it.

Alicia Fotherington’s diary.

Otis had given it to him earlier to keep safe for Jilly.

He picked it up, took it to a chair, and sat down to read. He’d nothing else to do, and reading would remind him of her. At first, the entries in the diary were cheerful. But little by little, the tone changed.

Lyle just added on a second wing,
he read.
Our elegant little house is getting larger and larger. Lyle makes it very clear why. He’s preparing the house for our children. But—it pains me deeply to say it—I’ve not been able to conceive. Every day that goes by, he acts more like a disapproving father, not a loving husband.

All these years later, Stephen felt sorry for Alicia. A little while later, she wrote:

A chill fog this morning seems to match my growing sadness about the lack of a babe in our lives. I don’t believe Lyle loves me anymore. Indeed, I think he might have taken up with someone else. He comes home with the scent of her on his garments.

Stephen read swiftly. Alicia had his complete attention now:
The third wing is complete,
she wrote.
It is to house
her.
He pretends he feels pity for her. She’s been widowed these two years. But I know why she’s here. She’s my cousin. How could they do this to me?

Stephen gazed into the candle flame. Poor Alicia Fotherington. How different these later entries were from the first ones, where she’d had such hope about her new life as wife to Lyle. As he turned the pages, more and more entries mentioned the unrelenting fog.

The sun had just come up when he began the last entry:

I’m a far distance from the woman I used to be. There’s nothing left here that I love. The house is a rambling mess of wings that reminds me every day that I’ve failed in my duty as a wife to bear my husband children. My beloved street fair is long gone, chased away by the strange, clinging fog that seems peculiar to Dreare Street only this past year. I’ve decided I shall run away, but before I do, I must save some money. It will take me at least a year of my gritting my teeth and pretending I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll do it. And then she’ll have to move out. They won’t have me here to guard her reputation anymore.

And that was the last thing Alicia Fotherington had to say.

Stephen closed the book and thought about Jilly, about Alicia, about all women who’d been mistreated by unloving mates.

It was a sad thing, profoundly sad. But there was nothing he could do about it, although everything in him raged against cowardly beasts like Lyle and Hector.

He stood, looked out the window, at the fog creeping up his steps—steps Lyle and Alicia had traipsed two hundred years ago—and wondered what had happened to the pair. Had she succeeded in running away? Had Lyle died a slow, lingering death—alone?

Stephen knew it was wicked of him, but he hoped so.

It came to him that Hector was still alive, and at this very moment, he was probably sleeping a fine sleep. Soon he’d wake and have a hearty meal and continue living his comfortable life, all the while causing Jilly tremendous pain.

It wasn’t right.

And it wasn’t too late, either.

Stephen couldn’t do anything about Lyle, but he
could
do something about Hector.

He’d find him. And he’d make him pay.

*   *   *

The next morning Jilly kept her hand on the counter, straightened her spine, and prepared herself for another disappointment. Otis was outside with his bell, calling a meeting at Hodgepodge. She insisted he wear his town crier regalia to do it, too. Reluctantly, he’d agreed. He’d stood silent, forlorn, while she placed the tricorne hat on his head and wished him luck.

Now he rang.

And rang.

And rang.

Through the fog, he called, “Emergency meeting at Hodgepodge!”

At one point, he came to the bookstore window and stared at her mutely. She knew what he was thinking. No one was coming. He should stop
now
.

“I can’t bear thinking of you enduring any more rudeness directed toward you,” he’d said earlier as he’d reluctantly put his arm through the magnificent scarlet coat she’d held out for him. “The ignominy you’ve suffered already is more than I can bear.”

She’d smiled at him and said firmly, “
I
can bear it. I’m stronger than I realized. And so are you.”

She’d patted him on the back then and sent him on his way.

While she waited now, she wondered what Hector would think if he’d arrived home last night and this morning would find her gone. No doubt he’d come straight to Hodgepodge. This time, however, she wasn’t going to go back with him.

No more hiding.

She had to fight back.

This was her only life, and she was going to live it without fear.

This
time, she was going to tell him to go away. And if he tried to pick her up over his shoulder and force her to go back, she’d scream and thrash and pummel him.

But she didn’t think it would go that far. Because if Hector did show up, the first thing she’d do was stand behind her counter, where Papa’s small pistol was now sitting in a drawer. She’d never thought she’d use it when she’d taken it with her from home, but she was a different person now.

No longer manipulated.

No longer hiding.

She was going to fight to stay at Hodgepodge. She’d cling and cling and cling until something or someone managed to tear her away.

She clung now to hope while the bell rang.

The first to show was Susan, with Thomas. At the door, she looked tentatively at Jilly. “Are you all right?” she said, her voice stricken, her eyes wide.

“Yes,” Jilly said, even as she felt a great sadness wash over her about Stephen.

“I’m so glad you’re back!” Susan opened the door wider, and Thomas came running in, his hair wet and slicked neatly over his head.

Jilly felt an immediate surge of happiness. At least one family was welcoming her back, the very first one who’d greeted her when she’d arrived on Dreare Street.

Thomas hugged Jilly around her legs. “You went away yesterday. My mother couldn’t even sing me to sleep last night, she was so sad.”

Susan hugged her next, a long, lingering embrace. When she pulled back, understanding passed between them.

“Are
you
all right?” Jilly asked her. “Even though you couldn’t sell your gowns and mobcaps?”

Susan grinned. “I’m fine.” She colored. “I hate to say this right now in the midst of your suffering, but even though I sold only one gown in the time the fair was open, things are
very
good. I sold that gown to a fine lady named Lady Harry, and she told me she’d tell all her friends in Mayfair about me. She’s a friend of Captain Arrow’s.”