Kieran Kramer - Cloudy with a Chance of Marriage

There was a stunned silence.

Then Mr. Hobbs stood. “What of it? We don’t care who owns the land beneath our feet. We’ll pay you and be done with it. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

There were murmurs of assent from all around.

“Oh, yes there is.” Lady Duchamp smiled, and it was an awful smile, to say the least. “As of yesterday, I’ve changed the terms of the lease.”

Jilly felt her stomach sink. “What are the new terms?” she called out, refusing to let any fear enter her voice.

The old woman’s smiling face suddenly went stony. “The money is due in three days.”

“No, it’s not, my lady.” The young man with the scone wiped his mouth. “We have a whole week.”

Lady Duchamp poked him in the chest with her cane. “Not any longer. Of course, I wanted the money due today. But the attorneys said it would take three days for the paperwork to go through. Good-bye, all of you, for good. Might as well pack and leave.”

The whole room fell deathly silent as Lady Duchamp walked out the front door again. Everyone turned around and looked at Jilly as if she’d know what to do.

The old bat had been right. Jilly did feel like throwing up. But she wouldn’t let any of her friends know.

“So we have three days now instead of seven,” she said briskly.

“But we need seven,” Nathaniel said.

“We don’t have them. “ What else could she say? “We’ll simply have to adjust to the new schedule.”

Everyone but Otis—how good a friend he was!—looked rather doubtful.

“Right.” Jilly blew a tendril of hair off her face. “This is only a temporary setback. Let’s disband for the moment and regroup here at two this afternoon.”

The group stood and moved to the door, quiet again.

Deflated.

Like her. But she remained stalwart until the last of them left. And then she sank onto a stool.

For the first time, she truly felt defeated. “What are we to do?” she asked Otis. “Nathaniel is right. We really do need a week.”

Otis stared at her a moment. On his face, she read worry. But there was something else, something that buoyed her.

“Follow me,” he said, and stuck out his arm. “I told you once I’d save you at your darkest hour, and I will. I know exactly what to do.”

And he marched her over to Lady Duchamp’s house and knocked on the door.

Jilly was surprised to see that Lady Duchamp answered Otis’s knock herself. “It didn’t take you long to come begging, did it?” The old lady smirked. “This should be quite diverting.”

“We’re not begging.” Jilly stepped into the entryway. “We’re confronting. And if you call confronting your foe diverting, then I suppose it is.”

Once inside, Otis stared at Lady Duchamp’s feet. “Those are my shoes,” he said flatly.

Jilly saw she was wearing a pair of aquamarine-colored slippers with golden ribbons.

“Yes,” the old woman said. “What of it?”

“Give them back.” Otis spoke sternly, and Jilly was surprised at his vehemence.

“Absolutely not,” said Lady Duchamp. “They’re mine, fair and square.”

“You threatened them out of me at the beginning of the street fair,” Otis said. “You said you’d find a way to shut it down. I capitulated then, but I’m here to tell you we won’t be threatened by you anymore.”

Lady Duchamp huffed. “Come to my drawing room. I don’t endure fools in my entryway.”

They followed behind her at a snail’s pace, which frustrated Otis no end, Jilly could tell. He’d been so full of fire at the door, and now … now the tension was seriously dissipated. No doubt Lady Duchamp was aware of that fact as she shuffled along.

“She’s the only person I know,” Otis whispered to Jilly, “who can make frailty a devastating weapon.”

Jilly squeezed his arm. “Your time for speaking will come soon enough,” she whispered back.

He bit his lip and endured, but once in the drawing room, Lady Duchamp rang for tea and proclaimed that no one was allowed to speak until the niceties were observed.

So Otis must tap his feet another five minutes.

Finally, both he and Jilly held a brimming cup in their hands.

“Now I shall proceed,” Otis said.

Lady Duchamp glowered. “Not until you take a sip and offer your compliments.”

Otis made a face. But he did as he was told and set the cup down. “Lovely blend,” he said to his hostess with feeling.

“Why, thank you,” she began, then stopped herself.

Otis also looked mortified at his sincere compliment.

“Speak your foolishness now, so I can return to being alone,” Lady Duchamp muttered around her own teacup.

Jilly was eager to hear what Otis had to say.

He looked first at her—with a mixture of pride and affection—then at Lady Duchamp. “Your power over the street has ceased as of today,” he proclaimed in a pleased yet defiant manner.

“Is that so?” offered Lady Duchamp.

Otis nodded, and picked up a biscuit from a plate. “I followed you this morning.”

She sucked in her cheeks. “How rude of you!”

“As if you are not the same?” He huffed, then put his hand on his breast. “Now that I know your tragic history, you’ll not only quit your stranglehold on the neighborhood, you’ll return my shoes.”

“Never!” she cried.

Otis pointed the biscuit at her. “You’re just the same as the rest of us sad sacks on Dreare Street, my lady. You can deny it no longer.”

Lady Duchamp’s white-powdered cheeks paled even further.

“Do explain, Otis,” Jilly said softly. “And gently, please, if it involves tragedy.”

Otis sent a dark look at Lady Duchamp. “Oh, she can bear it. She’s a stalwart old thing.”

Lady Duchamp tried to look insulted, but she had a difficult time maintaining her pique, particularly when Otis let down his own defenses and bestowed a pitying look on her.

Jilly sighed. “Otis? The story, please?”

“Oh, right.” He placed a hand on her arm. “You wouldn’t believe it. I found Lady Duchamp depositing a daisy from her garden onto the front door step of a spectacular mansion on Dover Street. After she left, I knocked on the door and inquired. It seems she’s been leaving a flower on the stoop for almost four decades. In the winter, she’ll leave hothouse blossoms. The butler’s favorite are the pink peonies.”

“No!” said Jilly, and looked at Lady Duchamp.

She appeared to be shrinking, having made herself into a small ball (with delicious shoes) in the corner of the settee.

“Yes,” insisted Otis. “I found out from the housekeeper that Lord and Lady Duchamp used to live there as a young couple. They were very much in love. But the earl came to an early demise. Fell off a horse.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Jilly to his widow.

Lady Duchamp scowled at her. “I told you bacon-brains my history.”

“Yes,” said Otis, raising his finger. “But you didn’t tell us that Lord Duchamp didn’t die from a fall off a horse. He died in your own bed with his longtime mistress, someone you’d no idea existed.”

Lady Duchamp waved a hand. “Pure faradiddle.”

“I think not,” said Otis. “The houseboy who found him is now the butler at the Dover Street house. I told him you intend to destroy the lives of everyone on Dreare Street because you’re so damned unhappy. He decided it’s time for you to put the appalling circumstances of your husband’s death behind you. So he told me all the details.”

Lady Duchamp’s hands began to shake.

Jilly immediately dropped to her knees in front of the settee and held the old woman’s hands. “It’s all right, my lady.”