Page 124 of Lady Waldrey’s Gardening Almanac for Cultivating Scandal

“He will forgive you, Candace. If you go to him and ask. He loves you.”

She shook her head. “You didn’t see him. You didn’t hear the things he said.”

“What did he say?” Vera gathered her shawl more tightly around her—to ward off the chill of the forgotten room or to guard herself against James's words, Candace didn’t know.

“Nothing but what I deserved to hear. Nothing but the truth.”

“Candace—”

“No.” She slashed a hand through the air, then met her friend’s eyes. “Forgive my tone. It’s just—he was right. I was cruel and unfeeling. I cared more for the opinions of people I don’t even like than for my friend.” She shook her head, taking in the stacks of gossip papers. “Who cares what anyone says, when I’ve lost the regard of the best man I’ve ever known? The man I love?”

Her voice cracked on the last word, and Vera gripped her in a hug. “It will be all right. Even if your greatest fears are realized and you and James never... It will be all right. Someday. I promise.”

Candace hugged her back. She didn’t have the strength to argue, but she knew that Vera was wrong. James might never forgive her, and even if he did, she feared things would never be what they were.

Candace couldn’t muster the energy to worry what the gossips would say if they heard of it—not when compared to the great, looming terror of losing James himself.

James. She squeezed her eyes closed and felt the resounding ache in her chest. Tears crawled down her cheeks once more, sliding unchecked down her face and neck, soaking into the already damp fabric of her collar.

“Enough,” she finally said, as much to herself as to Vera. She released her friend and set her gently back by the shoulders. “I have things to see to today. Many things.”

Vera shook her head. “You can cancel the garden party.”

“Indeed not. The party is as much for the villagers as it was for myself. Now even more so. I don’t know when they’ll ever get another chance to visit the grounds of Devon Manor, to see the rotunda in all its glory.” She smiled sadly. “I’ll be all right, dear friend. Besides, my errand today is far grimmer than party preparations.”

“Oh?”

“I’m off to visit Jacqueline.”

“I’ll go with you,” she offered.

“No.” Candace shook her head. “This I must do alone.”

Candace didn’t take Hortense with her in the carriage. After all, what was the point of a chaperone, when her reputation was already beyond salvaging? The biggest gossips in England had seen her run after James like a desperate harridan.

It wasn’t second-hand knowledge—they’d witnessed it themselves. She had no doubt that there were a number of letters winging their way back to London at this very moment, dissecting every sordid detail, and inventing a number altogether.

She leaned back against the plush upholstery and sighed. Perhaps she should care. Perhaps she should enact some sort of defense against it, but she couldn’t muster the energy. The words she’d spoken to Vera were true—no social tragedy that befell her now could come close to comparing to the loss of James.

Candace pressed a hand to her chest to try to ease the ache that roosted there, but it was pointless. Her emotions were the host of this terrible party; her body was only attending.

When she mounted Jacqueline’s front steps, the butler informed Candace that the baroness was busy in an outbuilding behind the house, and bade her wait in the parlor. Instead, Candace insisted she be brought to the woman immediately.

Which was how Candace ended up standing in a large shed with a sloped concrete floor. Sloped, to help with the run-off of blood from the deer Jacqueline had shot that morning. The carcass sprawled across the table—a grotesque still-life of tan and scarlet.

“Ah, Candace.” The baroness swiped a wickedly sharp, bloody blade across her waxed-canvas apron to clean it. A smear of blood blotted the fabric; Candace did her best not to gag. “I didn’t know you had an interest in learning the techniques of field dressing, but welcome.”

Candace swallowed deeply and stepped just over the threshold where the floor was still clean. She couldn’t stop staring at the deer’s face. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth.

Until that point, she hadn’t even known deer had tongues. Which was ridiculous, because most animals who ate greens did have tongues, of course. It just was a bit shocking, seeing a tongue in such a relaxed state. Why, in death, did the tongue appear too large for the mouth?

“Candace.” Jacqueline snapped her fingers in Candace’s face. The motion didn’t quite produce a snap, as her gloved fingers were slick with blood, but it helped Candace focus all the same. “Don’t you go swooning in here; you’ll ruin your clothes. The ground’s covered in blood.”

As if she needed reminding. Candace’s eyes flicked toward the dripping mess, then back up to the baroness’s face. She took a deep breath to clear her mind of the grisly tableau.

Jacqueline’s forehead wrinkled. “Whatever you have to say must be very important for you to insist upon seeing me at once. Is Vera all right?”

At Candace’s nod, the baroness returned her attention to her task. Now that she was here, Candace was lost as to how to begin. She paused for a few moments to think, then decided bluntness was the best course of action.