Page 121 of Lady Waldrey’s Gardening Almanac for Cultivating Scandal

Candace lifted a shoulder and hoped it looked casual instead of defensive. “If you say so. Then again, the first time I met the baroness, she tracked mud in on the carpet and deposited her rifle into the umbrella stand.”

“Did she really? A rifle? Of all the things!”

Candace couldn’t force herself to lift her eyes above her wineglass. She was ashamed of the words she said, even as she spoke them. “And she doesn’t just wear pants in her house. She wears them everywhere.”

“Truly?” Daisy raised her eyebrows, looking interested despite herself. “I’ve also heard she keeps a nip of chew in her bottom lip.”

Candace nodded and forced herself to laugh along with them. She felt sick.

“It might also interest you to know that she also shares her home with animals,” Candace heard herself say. It was as if now she’d started, she couldn’t make herself stop. “She has a maid clean up the droppings in her parlor.”

The ladies dissolved into shrieks of disbelief and laughter.

James's chair barked a warning as he slid abruptly back from the table. “If you’ll all excuse me, I must retire for the evening.”

“We haven’t had dessert yet,” Miss Ritten argued.

“Oh, thank you. I’ve had my fill.” His eyes met Candace’s meaningfully.

“I’ll see you out, James.” She was suddenly desperate to speak with him, to explain.

“No need.”

He bowed at the dinner table and was out the door before she could come to terms with him going.

“Of all the...I would never speak ill of one such as he, but that was strange, very strange, indeed,” Mrs. Knope began.

The sickness in her stomach grew; a sourness rose in the back of her throat. What had she done? She was on her feet the next instance. She must go to him; she must apologize.

“Where are you going?” Daisy snapped.

Candace hesitated for a half-second. She knew what would happen if she were to leave the table. It was an unforgivable sin to be rude to one’s guests. And yet—the look on James's face when he’d met her eyes. It was reproach, and she felt the deservedness keenly.

“Excuse me, one moment,” she said, then fled the room.

Little gasps erupted in her wake; she heard Vera say something but couldn’t make out the words.

James had already quit the hall. She gripped her velvet skirts and ran for the front door. Benson’s eyes went wide as she passed.

“Is everything all right, my lady?”

But she yanked the door open and threw herself into the night. James was there, pulling on his riding gloves, his hat already upon his head.

“James, don’t go. I’m sorry.”

“For what, precisely?” His dark eyes flashed. “Do you even know?”

“I am sorry. I...it’s so easy to get swept up in the conversation, to speak without thinking.”

“That I do believe. What they were doing in there was wrong, but you shouldn’t have stooped to their awful level. If that was a competition to see who could be worse, I don’t know who won.”

She jerked back. “That was unkind.”

“That was honest. What you did in there—that was unkind. The baroness has been nothing but good to you. Sure, she’s a different sort of person. But she visited nearly every day when you were low and needing fresh company. I thought you and she had developed a friendship.”

“We had. We have.”

“That was not friendship, Candace.” He jabbed his finger back toward the house with every word. “That was cheap humor at her expense. For people you don’t even like. Why did you even invite them over? Why were you trying to impress them? What were you trying to prove?”