Page 11 of Lady Waldrey’s Gardening Almanac for Cultivating Scandal

“The likes of me?”

“When I do marry, it will be to a woman who knows her place, not some high-in-the-step chit who’ll go running to her brother every time I’m home late from the club.”

Horror thrummed through her veins, souring her stomach.

He leaned closer until Candace had to fight the urge to step back. “If you don’t release me from this, if you don’t call off our engagement, I will. I’ll spread rumors of the worst kind—then no one will have you.”

He turned on his heel and banged from the room. Candace gasped once he cleared the threshold; she’d frozen. Call off their engagement? It would be a scandal, especially after the length of their betrothal, his absence.

But the scene in the ballroom tonight...How could she not back out of their union? He’d humiliated her. On purpose. And what had he meant about the duke? What did Canterbury have to do with anything? Or had Shelbourne been speaking of Devonshire?

Tears collected on her lower lids; one escaped over her lashes. Mortification swelled around her like a rising tide, threatening to drown her in its undertow. Everyone had seen him dance with Miss Harrison. Everyone had seen Shelbourne turn his back on her.

She chewed her lip until it threatened to bleed. There was nothing for it—the longer she stayed in here, the greater the rumors would grow. She had to go out there, had to hold her head up high and pretend everything was all right.

Except she was so tired of pretending.

The door swung open.

“Candace?” Vera said. “The Duke of Canterbury has called your carriage.”

Candace nodded and swiped at her face. Good—that was good. She could go home and regroup there. She could escape the hundreds of eyes in the ballroom.

She could allow herself to fall apart. But not here, not now.

Who knew how many people had found cause to linger in the hallway or just outside the ballroom to witness more of this private tragedy playing out in a public way? Candace had to go, and she had to go now.

“Will you come with me?”

Vera nodded stoutly. “Of course. As long as Mrs. Green will make us toasted cheese.”

“Champagne, too, I think,” Candace said, aiming for an airy tone and failing miserably.

Vera slid her hand around Candace’s elbow. “Let’s go.”

CHAPTER 5- CANDACE

From the Quentin Daily-

Mr. Pickwick’s Identity Revealed! A printing house on the east side of the city burnt to cinders yesterday. Sources claim that copies of Mr. Pickwick’s Guide to Marriageable Young Ladies rained down from the sky as it burned. The owner of the press, one Mr. Callian, vehemently denied the claim that he is the infamous gossiper. “I’m seventy if I’m a day, innit?” he yelled before forcibly removing our reporter from the scene. Is he Mr. Pickwick? You decide!

The city was but a blur of light against darkness on the carriage ride home. Candace and Vera were silent, both cocooned in their own private bubbles of thought. The butler, Bernard, frowned when he met them at the door, obviously confused by Candace’s swift return, but thankfully he was professional—he didn’t ask any questions.

“Bernard, please ask Mrs. Green to make us a large platter of toasted cheese sandwiches and an arrangement of any sweets we might have in the house. We’ll be in the study.”

The study was the coziest room. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined the walls around two leather sofas that faced each other before the marble fireplace. Right now, Candace thought if she spent another moment in one of her pastel-shrouded sitting rooms, she’d pull her hair out and scream. She shook her head as she climbed the stairs.

To think that she’d been sitting there, entertaining ladies and feeding them, and all the while her engagement was falling apart. And she’d been foolish enough to hope. She’d hoped that Shelbourne had just overlooked her. Hoped that he’d been busy attending to matters of business. Hoped that was what had kept him away.

Was it better or worse that she’d been such an incomprehensible idiot? That she’d given Shelbourne the benefit of the doubt until he literally took her by the arm and shook her and snarled in her face?

She couldn’t decide.

If Candace had known what was coming, she could have braced for it, perhaps could have even slipped out of it altogether.

But after tonight, she thought she might understand that old adage: Ignorance is bliss. She had been worried before, but now...now she didn’t quite know what she was.

Candace slumped into one of the leather sofas, setting her wrap and purse to the side. She hadn’t realized until then that she still carried them—she should have left them with the butler. Vera sat across from her and pressed her lips together.