Cloudy with a Chance of Marriage

captain moved in, and you two—all at the same time—and everyone started cheering up. It couldn’t be borne. So I consulted with my attorneys and accountant and found a way to rid myself of all of you and start over with new people on the street. The damned lease is what did it. I’d forgotten all about it.”

Otis wagged a finger at her. “It’s time you stopped this nonsense. That house on Dover Street was never your home. Dreare Street is. And you can have the family you never had as a married woman.”

Lady Duchamp sucked in her teeth. “You don’t want me as family.”

“Certainly we do.” Otis glared at her. “But not Lady Tabitha.”

“She’s a witch with a capital B,” Lady Duchamp agreed. “But she comes by it honestly.”

There was an extended awkward silence.

Jilly finally rose. “Well, we’d best go. We have to work on our new plan to save the street.”

Otis stood, and he pulled up Lady Duchamp. “Are you still going to give us only three days to pay our leases?”

She shook her head quickly. But she was as prune-faced as ever. “No. You may have the entire week.”

Otis bent in—then pulled back—then bent in and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, my lady.”

Jilly dared to lean in and hug her. Lady Duchamp flinched, and she was brittle as a dried stick, but she endured the embrace.

When Jilly pulled back, Lady Duchamp stood staring at the wall, her cane between her hands. “I don’t really need that lease money,” she admitted.

She wouldn’t meet either of their gazes.

Otis looked at Jilly with wide eyes.

Jilly looked at Lady Duchamp. “P-pardon?”

Lady Duchamp knocked her cane on the floor. “Are you two deaf?”

“Oh, no, my lady,” Otis said in a rush. “You’re saying we don’t have to pay you any lease money.”

“Exactly.” She glared at him. “But don’t go asking for those shoes. They’re mine. And I demand five more pairs, all different colors. But not yellow. I despise yellow.”

He lifted his chin. “Very well. It’s a small price to pay.”

“Otis,” Jilly remonstrated with him.

Otis put up his hand. “I’ll have plenty of time to make more shoes. And as I’ll be taking Lady Duchamp about Town again—I refuse to let her hide anymore—all the ton shall see my shoes on her feet. Which means I shall do very well, indeed.”

The old woman narrowed her eyes. “Very well. Begone.”

Jilly took Otis’s arm and paused at the door. “We have a special event going on soon at Hodgepodge, and you shall be one of our guests of honor.”

“Pish-posh,” she said, waving her cane at them.

But the arc she made with it was not nearly as pronounced as it had been when she was their enemy.

“You did save me, Otis,” Jilly said, leaning on him on their way across the street. “My darling, you saved the entire street, including Lady Duchamp.”

He expanded his chest. “I told you I had it in me.”

“I never doubted it for a minute.” Jilly squeezed his arm. “There’s only one thing we have left to do. Save London from its misconceptions about who we are.”

“And the sooner we do that, the better,” Otis agreed wholeheartedly.

Of one accord about their mission—even their steps were synchronous—both of them jumped at the booming voice of Lady Hartley.

The lady came running toward them from the captain’s house. “Where has Captain Arrow gone?” she demanded to know.

Neither of them had any idea, of course.

The baronet’s wife pressed a hand on her heart and widened her eyes. “I’m so surprised. He left without telling me anything.”

“Whatever could you mean?” asked Otis.

Lady Hartley tossed her head. “I thought we had an understanding, the Captain and I.”

“Understanding?” Jilly was flummoxed.

Lady Hartley looked at her with a bit of pity. “For a married woman, you’re awfully naïve.”

“I am?”

“Yes, you are.” The annoying woman snorted. “Isn’t she, Otis?” She elbowed him in the ribs.

“No.” He glared at her. “She’s not.”

Lady Hartley abruptly stopped chuckling, glared at the two of them, and stalked back to the captain’s house.

Otis gulped. “She wasn’t saying—”

“I think she was,” whispered Jilly.

They both started walking again without saying anything further about it. Jilly did her best not to think of Stephen. But seconds later, she paused right outside the bookshop window and stared.

Dear heavens. Forgetting about him would be awfully hard to do when he was inside Hodgepodge at that very moment.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Stephen looked up when Jilly walked in with Otis.

She stared at him, unblinking. Otis tiptoed away, and Stephen heard the door at the rear of the store open and shut again.

They were alone.

“Hello,” he said to her. He was busy making her that outdoor easel she’d wanted, the one she’d told him about when they’d lain in bed together at the Grosvenor Street mansion and daydreamed about improvements they’d like to make at Hodgepodge.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her walk slowly over. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

Every muscle in him was tense. He put down his hammer, stood up, and took her by the arms. “I’m here to be with you,” he said.

She looked at him with hurt eyes. “It’s too late.”

Ah. Those were the words he’d dreaded hearing.

“I understand why you’re angry,” he said. “I deserve to lose you. You trusted me—and I disappointed you.”

She said nothing back.

His whole life revolved around this moment. “You were right.” He squeezed her arms. “I was acting like a boy, still pouting over the fact that I didn’t have the ideal family I so desperately wanted. But that’s no reason not to trust you. And not to understand why you had to lie.”

Her face softened a fraction. “I’m no longer interested in going to another country. I don’t want to spend my life hiding. Everyone has accepted me here, so … I’m staying at Hodgepodge.”

There was a brief pause.

“I’m glad,” he eventually said.

She looked at him a long time. “Lady Hartley claims you and she have an understanding. I know she’s been living at your house this whole time. And … and men have needs.”

She looked away.

Good God! Would that meddlesome woman never leave his life?

Gently, Stephen drew Jilly’s face back. “You don’t think that Lady Hartley and I would ever—”

He couldn’t possibly complete that sentence.

Jilly shrugged. “You’re a rake,” she whispered. “You never claimed to be anything else.”