Cloudy With a Chance of Marriage (37 page)

“Wonderful!” Jilly said, even though her heart ached at hearing Stephen’s name.

“That’s not all,” Susan said. “Nathaniel proposed last night. I know we don’t have much to live on, but he loves me, Jilly. And I love him.”

“I love him, too!” said Thomas.

“I’m so happy for you both.” And she meant it. Jilly hugged Thomas, then Susan. Genuine happiness had created a new glow in her friend’s eyes.

“But now we’re worried about you,” Susan said, squeezing Jilly’s fingers.

“Please don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine, no matter what happens here.”

The worst had already happened. She’d lost Stephen. As far as she was concerned, everything else that occurred in her lifetime would be manageable.

“The only reason we didn’t arrive sooner,” Susan said, “was that Thomas was in his bath. And then we couldn’t find his shoes.”

“Yes,” Thomas piped up with the droll disinterest of a child. “Mother was quite frantic to get here. She told me I didn’t even have to make my bed first.”

Jilly and Susan laughed. In the distance, Otis rang his bell and called, “Emergency meeting at Hodgepodge!”

She felt a pang of doubt return. Would anyone else come? But she suppressed it by grinning at Thomas. “Let’s go find your bird book, shall we?”

When she led him to the back table, the door opened again.

It was Pratt, Nathaniel, and several other young men who’d helped with heavy lifting and cleaning the street in preparation for the fair.

Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of them. She smiled and said simply, “Thank you for coming.”

Nathaniel and the young men gave her shy grins and didn’t say much. Nathaniel made a beeline for Susan. The other fellows shuffled in awkwardly and didn’t appear to know what to do with themselves. But Jilly directed them to the delicious scones and pot of tea she’d made for anyone who cared for some.

Pratt, on the other hand, came straight to her and raised her hand to his lips. “I am very glad, my dear lady,” he said in his lovely Italian accent, “that you’ve returned to your home. We were concerned about you.”

“Thank you,” she said.

A frown creased his brow. “Have you seen Miss Hartley yet this morning?”

“Not yet.” She sensed his disappointment. “But I do hope she’ll come to the meeting, even though she’s not actually a resident of Dreare Street.”

“How could you think I’d stay away?” a voice came from the door. It was Miss Hartley, and she smiled softly at Pratt, and then at Jilly.

He strode over to her and kissed her hand as well, but he lingered extra long.

She dimpled. “I’m so glad you’re back, Miss Jones. And Mr. Pratt”—she took a deep breath—”you’re a wonderful man, just the way you are.”

He smiled modestly. “Thank you. And you are a wonderful lady.”

They both stared into each other’s eyes, and Jilly and Susan exchanged an amused glance.

The next people to walk in were Mrs. Hobbs and her tall, pale children. Mrs. Hobbs looked gravely at Jilly, and she felt her stomach clench. The children looked quickly away from her when she greeted them and went immediately to find Thomas.

Mrs. Hobbs came to Jilly and took her hands. “I’ve something very important to say.” Her mouth was set and firm.

Jilly felt a slight burning behind her eyes. She knew she’d disappointed her friends—she’d hated to lie to them—and now one of them was going to call her to task.

“Miss Jones,” Mrs. Hobbs said in a low, serious voice, “you’ve deceived us.”

“I-I know.” Jilly sighed. “I’m so sorry.”

Mrs. Hobbs put up a finger. “There’s someone at the door who wants you to know how he feels about your being here on Dreare Street under false pretences.”

Jilly looked over and saw Mr. Hobbs there. He gripped his tall hat in his hands and looked at her with a baleful expression.

She cleared her throat. “Thank you for coming to visit, Mr. Hobbs.”

It was the first time he’d ventured into the store.

He glowered and stepped around two lads eating scones and came to stand in front of her. “Miss Jones—for I cannot think of you as Mrs. Broadmoor—what you did was extremely … unconventional.”

She bit her lip. “I’m sorry. Really, I am.”

He clenched his jaw. “But I can’t help thinking that a woman who was trying to help her entire street—however nosy she was—must have had an excellent reason for hiding her identity. I want to do all in my power to help you if your aim is still to pull Dreare Street out of the pit of foggy despair in which we now wallow.”

Jilly blinked, not sure she was hearing correctly. Was
Mr. Hobbs
saying he wanted to help?

Evidently so, because the very edge of his mouth curved upward.

“T-thank you,” she stammered. “I’m overwhelmed.”

“Don’t be,” he said flatly. “I was a pompous ass. It took my wife threatening to leave me last night, the same way you’d left your husband, to make me see how wrong I was.”

Mrs. Hobbs had a twinkle in her eye. “That’s right,” she said, lifting her chin. “I told him if Miss Jones can succeed on her own selling books, I can do the same.” She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket. “And I think I know how.”

“What is it?” Jilly asked.

Mrs. Hobbs smiled. “A receipt for a special tea. And Jilly, I made it up myself. I may not be very good at following other people’s receipts—my meat pasties were a disaster yesterday—but I’m excellent at following my own intuition. And I know, my dear, that we have a winner here. You must trust me on this, the same way we’ve trusted you.”

“Oh, I will!” Jilly said.

“We’ll tell you more about it during the meeting,” Mr. Hobbs said, and took his wife’s hand in his own and kissed it.

Jilly bit her lip. Mr. Hobbs’s loving gesture was very sweet. One might even say adorable. She met Susan’s eyes again, and hers were shiny with emotion, too.

Within several minutes, the room had filled up. Lady Duchamp, of course, was missing, and so was Stephen (her heart skipped a beat knowing he was probably right next door), but everyone else had come.

She and Otis exchanged hopeful glances.

He indicated that he was going to keep an eye on the door and signal her if Hector came anywhere near—it was their plan.

Jilly cleared her throat and addressed the gathering: “It’s so good to be here,” she said, “and I simply want to state unequivocally that I’m sorry I misled all of you. I
am
Mrs. Broadmoor, and I’ll acknowledge that openly now. But I don’t plan on living with my husband, and I’d prefer you all call me Jilly. There’s no place I’d rather be than with friends like you—if you’ll accept me back here. I can endure the fog. I can endure the bad luck. But I can’t endure being without you as my neighbors.”

Nathaniel stood. “On behalf of the whole street, I think I’m safe in saying we all embrace you … Jilly. Because from your very first day here, you’ve embraced us. And even though the fair went wrong, for an hour there it was working, wasn’t it?”

He looked around. Everyone nodded their heads.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years on Dreare Street!” piped up one ancient old man. “For the first time, I felt like Dreare Street was
the
place to be in London!”

Everyone cheered.

“Good,” said Jilly. “Because we can’t give up. We have only days left before those leases come due.” She smiled gratefully at Mr. Hobbs. “I’m very glad to announce we have Mr. Hobbs working with us now. Together we can still raise the money we need. But even more important, we’re going to get rid of Dreare Street’s poor reputation once and for all.”

After talking for another half an hour, a plan was hatched to everyone’s satisfaction.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Stephen arrived at the little cottage in Kensington with a great deal of misgivings.

Who was he to interfere in someone else’s marriage?

But he had to know.

Before he’d left London, he’d gone to see Harry, who’d instantly understood the crazy mess in which Stephen had landed himself.

“You’ve got it bad, my friend,” Harry had said sympathetically. “But your plan is sound. You didn’t need me to tell you that, although it couldn’t hurt to hear it from someone who’s been right where you are now.”

And then he’d slapped his back, told him he’d take care of telling Lord Smelling to shove off, and wished him luck.

Stephen had gone to the Pantheon Bazaar next, where it had taken him an hour to locate that hackney driver, the one named Jack. But finally he had, and now he was here in Kensington.

He would get some answers.

A woman of uncommon beauty opened the shabby front door. It was the same woman he’d seen with Hector at the Pantheon Bazaar.

“Yes?” Her voice was sharp and unpleasant.

Her beauty dimmed instantly. But he gave her a cordial smile.

“I’m Stephen Arrow. May I come in, please? I’m here on rather urgent business.”

“Urgent?” She arched a brow. “Pray tell, what is so urgent that you’d knock on the door of a complete stranger?”

“Who’s there, my love?”

Hector
.

Stephen pressed his lips into a thin line and stepped over the threshold.

The woman’s brow puckered, but she didn’t tell him to move back. “Someone asking questions,” she said over her shoulder. “A man named Arrow.”

There was a stark silence. Then a clatter of a fork on a plate.

Hector came out of another room, chewing. “Not
you
again,” he said with his mouth full.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Get out,” Hector said, pointing to the door.

Stephen widened his stance. “I’m not going anywhere. We can either hash this out inside, or go outside together.”

“Go with the man,” the actress urged Hector, fear in her voice.

Hector narrowed his eyes at Stephen. “Wait here then, Bessie.”

In a great sulk, he followed Stephen outside.

Stephen faced him beneath a gnarled fig tree. “Tell me who that woman is.”

“None of your business.” Hector had spittle in the corner of his mouth.

“She’s your mistress, isn’t she?” Stephen asked carelessly.

Hector shrugged. “So what if she is? What wealthy married man doesn’t have a mistress?”

“I’ll grant you that some do. I also know plenty who don’t,” Stephen replied. “At the moment, I’m only concerned about you and yours.”

Hector laughed. “You love my wife, don’t you?”

Stephen refused to answer.

Hector tsked. “What a shame she can never be yours. Because I assure you, we won’t divorce. And I won’t let her go. Ever.”

A bird whistled from the fig tree, and from the cottage next door, several children’s voices could be heard arguing. A woman opened the door to that cottage and pointed outside.

“Go,” she ordered.

A moment later, several children came out and went scampering off down the street.

Stephen watched them run, their bare feet flying. The world itself didn’t care that the woman he loved was trapped in marriage to the wrong man and that he would be lonely the rest of his life.

There were so many stories everywhere. His was just one.

“You don’t know what to do, do you, Captain?” Hector cocked his head, looking vastly amused at his discomfiture. “You can’t ram me. You can’t take me down with cannon fire. So why are you here?”

The children ran toward the next corner, laughing now—their argument already forgotten—and disappeared from view.

The words rushed into Stephen’s head.
I am here to set Jilly free
. Like those children. The woman he loved shouldn’t be tethered. She should be able to come and go as she pleased, to laugh, to run if she wanted to, by God.

To be her true self.

But what could Stephen do—other than kill her husband—to make that happen?

No matter how much he despised Hector, no matter how poorly the wretch had treated Jilly, Stephen couldn’t kill the brute as a matter of convenience. He believed in justice, yes, but justice properly administered within the framework of laws. He was an experienced war veteran, but he would not be a vigilante.

Besides, he knew in his gut that Jilly, no matter how mistreated she’d been by Hector, would not condone his murder, either.

“I’m here to inform you that I
will
bring you down,” Stephen said evenly. “It might not be today. But it will happen, and soon.”

Hector laughed. “Go on, Captain. Back to your dreary little street. Alone.”

And he went back inside, shutting the front door behind him.

Stephen seethed with frustration. He needed more information. He could travel to Jilly’s village, but Mayfair was closer. Perhaps he should start with Otis. He should know something more about Hector’s background.