Cloudy with a Chance of Marriage

“It was so easy,” Miss Hartley said. “I told Lady Gallagher about it last night at the Fordhams’ ball. She’s an awful gossip. The whispering began, and all night long, I could see the word being passed. By the end of the evening, I’ve no doubt at all that everyone knew that if they come to Hodgepodge this Friday at noon and say the secret word, the special tea will be made available to them.”

“What is the code word?” asked Pratt.

Miss Hartley turned toward him, her eyes wide. “Throb,” she said in a sweet, yearning voice.

Pratt leaned toward her. “You’re much too good for me, bella,” he whispered.

“No I’m not,” she cried.

“Miranda!”

Jilly and everyone else jumped.

“There you are.” Sir Ned was at the door with Lady Hartley. “Captain Arrow has said no to Lord Smelling’s offer to buy the house, but he still insists we move into a hotel.”

“Why we must depart is beyond me,” said Lady Hartley. “I showed him the letter from our attorney giving us permission to stay here, and he tore it up, said he’d take us to court to dispute it if he had to. And then he said it would be a moot point anyway. I have no idea what he meant by that, but he has a strange light in his eye. A very strange light.”

“Now say your good-byes,” Sir Ned ordered his daughter, “and meet us in the carriage.”

Miranda stood. “No, Mother and Father. I’m not leaving Reader Street.”

Her mother sneered. “It’s Dreare.”

“No, Reader,” Miranda insisted.

“Dreare,” said Sir Ned.

“No, Reader!” said the whole room as one.

Lady Hartley made an ugly face. “You people can rot on Reader Street for all I care. Come, Miranda.”

Miranda shook her head. “I’ll stay with Susan or Jilly if I have to, but I’m staying. I’m going to marry Pratt if he’ll ask me—and I have high hopes he will after he tries the Hobbses’ aphrodisiac tea.”

Lady Hartley’s eyes lit up. “Aphrodisiac tea?”

Pratt suddenly broke into a big grin. “I can’t wait to try it. Not that I need it with your daughter. She sets my heart racing with amore.”

Miss Hartley smiled broadly. “Really?”

Lady Hartley waved a dismissive hand. “Ignore him, Miranda. Love is for the lower classes.”

“And so is this amooray you’re talking about!” Sir Ned blustered.

Without a word of warning, Pratt got down on one knee in front of Miss Hartley. “I need no special potion to ask you to marry me,” he said, gesticulating wildly at his heart and then Miss Hartley’s sweet countenance with his hands. “I’m a free man. I can ask any time I desire, no?”

Jilly felt a pang of remembrance. She hadn’t been a free woman for such a long time—

But now she was.

She wished she could be as happy as she’d been when she’d first heard the news of Hector’s fraudulent behavior, but all she could think about was Stephen and how they weren’t talking and about how she was so confused. He was being so patient—

Waiting for her.

Gently, Pratt took Miss Hartley’s hand. “Will you marry me, my dear Miranda?” he asked in a ragged whisper.

“Ye-th!” she said, and burst into happy tears.

“She shall not marry you!” Sir Ned cried.

“You can’t expect our daughter to marry a nobody,” Lady Hartley snarled.

“He has a name, Mother,” Miss Hartley gritted out. “It’s Pratt.”

Her mother rolled her eyes. “He must have another name to go with it.”

“Of course he does!” Miss Hartley said hotly, then blinked confusedly at her new love. “Don’t you?”

Pratt lifted his chin. “Yes, I do. It is no one’s business but mine and Miranda’s, but I am Lucio Basso, Conte di Cavour. Your daughter has made me very happy.”

“Conte di Cavour?” Sir Ned stumbled over the title.

“Indeed,” said Pratt coolly. “I go by the name Pratt when I travel with my friend Captain Arrow. Until now, I preferred the vagabond’s life and enjoyed seeing the world incognito. But now that I’ve met you, my love”—he cast a doting glance at Miss Hartley—“I’d like to take you home. To my castle.”

Miss Hartley gasped. “Oh, dear! You’re not really Pratt?”

Lucio shook his head. “Are you disappointed, dearest?”

She looked a trifle worried. “Not really. Not if it means you’ll still fry eggs for me each morning.”

“Of course I shall. I am an Italian count, my love, of excellent family, and I can do anything I want. Even serve as cook on a ship if I so choose.” He turned to Sir Ned and Lady Hartley. “I suggest you two depart. We will talk to you at some other time. Perhaps when you become kinder, I shall invite you to my home in Sardinia.”

He turned his back on them and kissed Miss Hartley to much applause.

“Miranda?” Lady Hartley called weakly.

Miranda lifted her head for just a moment. “Later, Mother,” she called breathlessly.

And she went back to kissing her count.

Sir Ned and Lady Hartley’s mouths dropped open, and then they turned quietly away and left.

When Lucio finished kissing Miss Hartley, his gaze roamed around the room until it landed on Nathaniel. “I am a great collector of fine art. Your paintings bring me much happiness. Would you care to sell me your entire collection? We have many rooms in my home.”

Nathaniel beamed. “I’d be glad to.”

Lucio smiled at Susan. “And before I take my bride back with me, I would love for you to sew her trousseau. I pay very well and shall spread word of your great talent throughout my country and to any expatriates who live here in London.”

Susan blinked rapidly. “Of—of course, Lucio. I mean, Count. Thank you very much.”

“You must call me Lucio,” he said, and was about to open his mouth to say more when there was a mighty rumble and groan that literally shook Hodgepodge.

Some women screamed, and there were shouts from the men.

The crowd gathered at the window. And then there were more cries, this time of astonishment.

Jilly almost fainted when she saw what was happening. Stephen and his friends, including Lumley and Lord Harry Traemore, stood outside in the street with a team of four large draft horses. Several ropes led from the horses’ harnesses to Stephen’s house. They ran through the front door and several windows and now—

Now a portion of 34 Reader Street had fallen to the ground. The rest was leaning very precariously. Jilly could see it wouldn’t take much more to pull it all down.

Otis threw open the door and ran outside. All the people in Hodgepodge did the same. Jilly was caught in the crowd, but she was desperate—desperate—to get to Stephen.

Finally, through all the chaos, she was able to reach Stephen’s side.

Everybody was talking, yelling, pointing, gesturing, and some were simply staring in awe at the destruction.

Stephen grinned when he saw her, and his eyes lit up like a little boy’s, as if he’d just played a prank and was laughing at the results.

She’d never been so confused in her life.

“What have you done?” she cried. “Your house! You worked so hard on it. And—and you had a buyer. You could have sold it and taken the money and—”

“Stop, Jilly.” He took her by the shoulders and stared into her eyes, his own filled with so much strong yet tender feeling that she had to burrow into his chest and cling to him because it was too, too much. Her own raw emotions were about to burst from her, but she couldn’t let them.

Not now, not in front of all these people.

He held her close and stroked her hair. “It’s what I want to do,” he said softly into her ear. “I read Alicia Fotherington’s journal. And I figured out why Dreare Street—I mean, Reader Street—is so filled with fog.”

She looked up at him. “Why?”