Cloudy With a Chance of Marriage (8 page)

“Oh, yes it is.” Miss Jones’s face was bright red.

Otis looked almost as unsteady as his mistress. “I do believe I’ll brush my spare coat,” he said, and left through the rear door of the shop.

“I heard today from Otis, who heard it from a shopkeeper on Brook Street, that you’re an Impossible Bachelor,” Miss Jones said, her fists on her hips. “That title only confirms my suspicions about you.”

Stephen felt a momentary pique. “It’s not my fault Prinny chose me for the title, but what has that to do with anything anyway?”

“First of all, you’d never be pursuing any woman with any remotely honorable intentions,” she replied instantly, “and second, I wouldn’t in a million years
allow
myself to be pursued by you.”

“Oh, is that all? We can work around
that
.”

“Oh, really?” Miss Jones picked up the broom again and held it close to her chest. “What you’re asking of me is too much, Captain.” Her voice was fervent with disapproval. “I can’t possibly allow it.”

He’d been prepared for her to object. “They’re here for only a little while,” he soothed her. “Life with them is going to be difficult enough as it is, but if they think I’m eligible to court their daughter, it will be so much worse. I told them you have no idea I want to pursue you. You may act ignorant of the whole matter.”

“If that’s true, why did you bother even telling me?”

She wouldn’t give him an inch, his shrewd neighbor. “Because I wanted you to understand why I’ll be acting rather
warm
toward you in their presence. And there’s always the chance the obnoxious Sir Ned might say something denigrating about my supposed quest to have you. He’d no doubt like to dissuade your interest. I didn’t want you caught off guard if that happens.”

Miss Jones’s brows almost crossed over her nose. “Why don’t you simply move out while they’re here?”

“I can’t. I’ve got repairs on the house to make before I sell it. I’ve got to stay.”

She said nothing, merely pinched her mouth shut.

“I know you have no reason to help me,” he said, “but I appeal to your sense of charity. And if there’s ever anything I can do for you in return, I promise, on my word of honor, I will.”

“No,” she said into his eyes.

He would wager it was a favorite phrase of hers.

Sir Ned strode into the store then, the tips of his ears pink. “So, Miss Jones, you’re the favored one,” he announced.

She gave him a warm but wary smile. “May I help you?”

The newcomer looked her up and down. “I understand Captain Arrow has his eye—”

“On those atlases.
Do
go and look them over for me, Sir Ned.” Stephen spun the man around and gave him a light shove in the direction of the oversized tomes.

Thankfully, the man, once pushed, kept going, like a boat shoved away from a dock.

When the baronet was out of hearing, Stephen returned to his appeal to Miss Jones. “Please,” he begged her in a low whisper. “Please go along with it. Otherwise, my life will be a living hell.”

“Not forever, it won’t.” Her cheeks were rosier than usual. “Besides, there are other women you could have chosen for your imaginary pursuit. How about one of your fancy ladies?”

He stared at her, at a loss to answer the question. “I saw you outside with your daffodils, and at that crucial moment, it never occurred to me to think of anyone else. Of course, several seconds later I did, but by then it was too late. They’d latched onto you.”

He wouldn’t tell her he’d been thinking about her before he even saw her—all day, as a matter of fact.

She stared at him a long moment and then sighed. “Very well, Captain. I suppose saying yes won’t do any harm. I can feign ignorance of your intentions, after all. But I’ll have you know—I do this with a great deal of misgiving.”

He released a pleased sigh. “Thank you.”

Now that the pressure was off, he wasn’t able to help noticing she looked extremely fetching in her pale pink gown.

“But someday soon I might need a favor, and you’ll do whatever I ask,” she said, “or I shall tell your houseguests the truth, that you’re making this charade up.”

“You’re blackmailing me.” He could hardly credit it.

“Don’t worry.” She gave him an impish smile. “What could I ask from you? Not much, I assure you. But I shall enjoy thinking on it.”

“Captain,” called Sir Ned excitedly, “what’s the farthest place you sailed on your last voyage?”

Stephen never took his eyes off Jilly’s. “The Horn, Sir Ned, the Horn,” he called back to the man.

Looking rather smug, Miss Jones stood waiting for his answer.

“Under duress,” he murmured, “I accept your offer. But I have a requirement of my own.”

“And that is?” She was toying with him. And toying with him was damned near close to flirting, even if she didn’t recognize that fact.

“If you want my assistance,” he said, “—and you must, for judging from your expression, the prospect of subjugating me to your whims absolutely delights you—you can’t tell the neighbors my pursuit of you is contrived.”

She looked up at the ceiling then back at him. “Very well. I agree. Except for Otis. I tell him everything.”

“Agreed.”

They shook hands quickly, at the precise moment the door to the shop was thrown open.

Stephen dreaded turning around. What if it were the crying Miranda? Or her moaning mother?

Thank God it was only Lady Duchamp. “Captain Arrow, the top-heavy matron on your front doorstep is spitting nonsense,” she drawled, “something about your being here to pursue Miss Jones. I shall feel compelled to box her husband’s gigantic ears if she’s told me a lie.”

Stephen drew himself up. “It’s no one’s business but mine and Miss Jones’s, my lady.”

Lady Duchamp looked at Miss Jones. “Has he proposed marriage?”

“No.” Miss Jones’s mouth was a bit white.

“Well?” Lady Duchamp stared accusingly at Stephen. “Whyever not, if you’re pursuing her? Do you have reservations, young man, about commitment?”

“As I said, my lady, it’s—”

“Hellooo? Is she in here?” Lady Hartley thankfully interrupted, her voice calling like a foghorn from outside.
“Miss Jooones!”

Miss Hartley, her hands clamped to her ears, peered over her mother’s shoulder into the shop. “Oh, ith lovely!” she exclaimed.

Lady Duchamp curled her lip at the new arrivals. “I don’t consort with mushrooms,” she said. “I’m leaving.”

Miss Hartley blanched as Lady Duchamp made her way past her by nudging her in the stomach with the tiny porcelain woman at the top of her frightening walking stick.

But Lady Hartley batted the cane away. “Get that thing away from me!”

“Watch yourself!” Lady Duchamp warned her.

For a few seconds, a small struggle at the top of the stairs between both titled ladies took Stephen’s attention away from Miss Jones’s delicate profile, which he’d been admiring while she wasn’t looking.

But the old harridan and her swinging cane were soon out of the way, and Lady Hartley and Miss Hartley finally entered the shop. Miss Hartley smiled sweetly at Miss Jones, but her mother eyed Miss Jones’s modest pink gown and appeared to find it wanting.

“It’s come to my attention you’re the object of Captain Arrow’s pursuit,” Lady Hartley said. “Are you?”

Miss Jones deigned to smile at her. “I don’t know. Am I?”

“Impertinent girl!” The matron reddened, but then her gaze turned hopeful. “You mean you’re not the captain’s intended?”

Miss Hartley bit her lip and appeared most interested in the answer, as well.

Bedazzled virgins often were.

Miss Jones looked at him with a twinkle in her eye—a most unexpected twinkle—and shrugged. “Captain Arrow has never declared himself,” she said in a breezy manner.

Lady Hartley turned to Stephen. “Well?”

“A man likes to choose his own opportunities,” he said grimly. “
Not
be pushed about by interfering women.”

“All I know,” said Miss Jones to the ladies with a confidential air, “is that he follows me about like a lovesick puppy.” She giggled. “He’s quite adorable, if you like that sort of thing.”

Lovesick puppy?

Adorable?

Stephen narrowed his eyes. Miss Jones had adjusted rather well to their so-called impossible and unwelcome circumstances, hadn’t she?

Miss Hartley giggled. Lady Hartley looked at him suspiciously.

Which wouldn’t do at all. The two women mustn’t guess this was all a ruse. He was livid, but he did his best to look like an adorable, lovesick puppy—without losing an ounce of his captain’s authority or his bachelor aloofness.

“You appear quite ill, Captain Arrow,” said Miss Jones, her voice concerned but her eyes alight with amusement. “Are you all right?”

“Never better,” he choked out, and sped off.

He would wring Miss Jones’s neck later.

He found Sir Ned with his nose still in the atlas. “Purchase the thing,” Stephen told him. “And leave.”

Instead, Sir Ned trotted to the counter, the book hugged close to his chest. “I think I shall simply borrow this book for a while. I’m living right next door, after all.”

“I’m sorry, but I need to
sell
that atlas,” Miss Jones said.

Sir Ned glared at her, dropped the book on a table, and stalked out of the shop, his wife and daughter right behind him.

Miss Jones looked at Stephen with dismay. “Sir Ned and Lady Hartley are awful.”

“Yes, they are.”

She didn’t even seem to hear him agree with her, which was a rarity she should enjoy. But now that everyone had left, she was like a balloon with no air. In their short, fiery acquaintance, Stephen had never seen her so despondent.

He didn’t like seeing her this way. She was far too appealing to sink so low.

“I think it’s best you go now, Captain,” she said quietly.

He felt guilt slap into him like whitecaps on the side of a dinghy. “You may not want to masquerade as the object of my affections,” he said, “but you certainly got some enjoyment out of the charade a moment ago. So why are you upset now?”

She took out that damned dusting cloth and began to wipe it over a tabletop. “Because this deception of yours was thrust upon me. It’s a waste of my valuable time, and I regret allowing you to interfere with the running of Hodgepodge.”

“Miss Jones, forgive me for noticing,” he said gently, “but it’s not as if you’re bombarded with customers.”

She wheeled on him. “I know that. But I’d rather spend time on my priorities than on yours. I couldn’t care less if Sir Ned and Lady Hartley attempt to snag you as their daughter’s husband. But I do care about making my bookstore a thriving business. And—”

“And what?”

She bit her lip. “It’s highly improper, our arrangement. What if—”

“What if what?”

She shook her head. “Never mind.”

Gently, he took her arm. “Are you worried I might take advantage of you? Perhaps even kiss you?”

He could see her swallow. “Would you?” she whispered, and looked up at him.

A taut silence stretched between them.

“No.” He did want to kiss her, of course. “I would do nothing without your permission.”

She nodded, apparently relieved, which was a new circumstance for him. Most women craved his kisses.

“Let’s look on the bright side,” he said. “Perhaps we could both work to increase your business. Helping Hodgepodge thrive would help me, as well.”

Her face brightened. “How?”

“I could do some chores for you. My houseguests will see I’m here … which will confirm their belief that I’m pursuing you.”

He thought about his beam that needed fixing. It would have to wait another day or two, maybe even a week, before he could get back to it.

Miss Jones appeared to consider the idea. “I can’t think of anything I need, except—”

She closed her mouth again.

“What?” he asked her.

“It doesn’t matter. I need some carpentry work. But I’ve no supplies and won’t be able to afford any for a while.”

“I’ve got a shed full of tools and whatnot. What did you require exactly?”

He saw a spark of hope flare in her eye. “A window ledge,” she said. “I want to put books in the window for passersby to look at.”

“And a cat,” he added. “Everyone will want to come in and pet it.”

“Yes. I
love
cats.” She was leaning on the counter, looking out onto the street. He thought she looked quite enchanting, the way she spun a tendril of sooty hair wistfully around her finger and smiled at the thought of a cat. “I haven’t had one in several years.”

“Why not?”

“Oh.” She sat up. “No reason.”

Funny. Her eyes were shadowed, as if she’d said something wrong.