Cloudy with a Chance of Marriage

wanted to be found.”

Again, she said nothing. But he was coming closer, so she had to move. She walked out from behind her counter. “I’ve some things to pack,” she said.

Not much, really. She couldn’t take the books, of course.

She wouldn’t want to, either.

They belonged to Otis.

She felt a sudden jolt of power.

Hector had no idea.

It was the plan she’d shared with Otis, her worst-case-scenario plan. He’d balked, said it would never happen, not on his watch, but it was happening.

And she was very glad she’d thought ahead.

Now, when Hector thought she would be ripped away from all she’d managed to build up around her on Dreare Street, she would leave behind at least something …

The bookstore, for Otis.

“Yes, you wanted me to come after you,” Hector said, and now he was a mere foot in front of her. She could smell his sour breath.

She raised her chin. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

“You’d better make it quick,” he said.

She turned her back on him and marched up the stairs, hating him every step of the way.

When she found her bag and began stuffing it with the meager clothing she’d allowed herself to bring, she was no longer shaking with shock.

She was furious.

Why, a voice inside her said, did she have to give up her life for a churlish, stingy man with no heart?

She went quickly through the sitting room, leaving everything in place for Otis, and had the fleeting thought that she’d never found that diary again, the one that had belonged to another wife who’d lived long ago, happily, it seemed, at 34 Dreare Street.

At Captain Arrow’s house.

She flicked the curtain back for a moment and stared at the white stucco front of his home, freshly painted. The pirate flag was no longer hanging from the roof.

She was back to thinking of him as the captain.

She could never think of him as Stephen again, not without inciting a little hitch in her breath and a burning behind her eyes.

She let the curtain fall.

It was time to go.

As she descended the stairs, she couldn’t help feeling a bit of triumph. Whatever Hector was doing to her now, he couldn’t erase all that she’d accomplished while she’d been away from him.

There was Hodgepodge. And Otis would run it.

Otis.

He’d be so—

Upset.

She inhaled a ragged breath. Who would take care of him? Who’d notice his shoes?

She stopped for a moment outside her office, closed her eyes, and pressed her fingers over them.

A comforting thought came to her. Otis would find friends. He already had friends. Susan. Nathaniel.

He’d been with them, actually, more than he’d been with her the last few days. He’d been humming about the sitting room in the mornings when he’d made breakfast, and he’d come home whistling at night.

Otis, she felt in her gut, would be all right, as difficult as it would be for them to part from each other.

But would she be all right?

Would she?

She opened her eyes and stared at her office desk, but what she was seeing was a picture of Captain Arrow’s face, of the front door of Hodgepodge opening, of Lavinia Hobbs, Susan and Nathaniel, the Hartleys, Pratt, the Hobbses’ children and Thomas, and all the other people she’d met since she’d arrived on Dreare Street.

Even Lady Duchamp. Jilly had never found out where she went each morning.

She’d wanted to know.

Now she never would.

Drawing in a deep breath, she entered the store again. It was time to go. Time to leave everything behind.

“Miss Jilly!”

Otis was there, his chest heaving and—God love him—his shoe in his hand. The other one was missing, presumably thrown at Hector.

Hector flung his finger in Otis’s direction. “That oaf hit me in the eye with his demmed slipper.”

“Yes, and I’ll do it again!” Otis roared. “You’ve no right to come here and destroy our peace.”

Jilly raised her hand. “It’s all right, Otis. Don’t worry about me. We knew this day would come.”

Her loyal friend looked at her, his eyes hurt and his mouth sagging. “I don’t want you to go.” His voice trembled.

“I have to,” she said, and knew she had to be strong for him. “You’ll be fine. You’ve got Hodgepodge.”

“What?” Hector’s face reddened more than usual.

Jilly looked him in the eye. “You can’t get this, Hector. It belongs to Otis.”

Hector twisted his head to stare down Otis. “You cur. How did you manage that?”

Otis lifted his chin. “I don’t care what you call me. And I didn’t manage anything. Your wife was looking out for her best interests, and if I can help her do that, I will.”

Hector narrowed his eyes and leered. “Aye, you take this moldering place. I’ll take her.”

Otis’s eyes filled with tears.

Hector had known exactly what to say to hurt him. For a stupid man, he was surprisingly able to sling barbs.

Jilly wished she could hit him over the head with one of her large atlases.

The street was busy. Several children ran by the shop window. An elderly couple strolled down the other side of the street to watch the fair planners hard at work painting someone’s front stoop.

“Hello, Miss Jones.” A cheerful young man stuck his head in the open door. “How are you today?”

She gave him a wan smile. “I’m well, Gerald. Thanks for asking.”

“Good.” Gerald grinned. “Seeing your sign puts an extra spring in my step. Especially when we’ve got to do more hedge cutting next door to Lady Duchamp’s. She’s doing her best to be unpleasant. Yesterday she instructed her maid to toss a huge pot of rotted potato peelings out the windows on top of our heads while we were working.”

“Oh, Gerald!” Jilly was horrified.

“No matter,” he said. “We managed to get out of the way. Probably because her maid hates her, too, and called out a warning to us.” He put his hand up in a friendly farewell and departed.

“Who’s Lady Duchamp?” Hector asked.

Otis glowered at him. “Someone not nearly as wicked as you.”

Jilly cleared her throat. “She’s my neighbor across the street. She’s not particularly friendly. She has a niece, Lady Tabitha.”

“I wonder if we’ll see them about Town,” Hector said.

Jilly started. “What do you mean?”

Otis’s eyes grew wide.

“We’re staying here.” Hector looked her up and down. “In fact, we’ll be on Grosvenor Square. I rented a town house for the rest of the Season. I want Prinny and his cronies to know you’re no Celtic princess. You’re just Mrs. Broadmoor, a lying wife who needs a good comeuppance.”

“So that’s how you found me,” breathed Jilly. “Someone at the ball—”

“She never stopped being Lady Jilly!” Otis cried. “And who wouldn’t lie to get away from a blackguard like