Page 24 of Lady Waldrey’s Gardening Almanac for Cultivating Scandal

It wasn’t until they were in the entryway with the front door standing open to the cold, grey afternoon that Candace remembered Vera had been about to tell her something.

She touched her elbow. “What were you saying earlier?“

“Oh, nothing.” She gave a strained smile. “Only that I’m not overly fond of horses.”

“We’ll be safe in the carriage.”

They loaded quickly with a flurry of well-wishes from Bernard and the housekeeper on the front stoop. Candace didn’t lift her head on the walk from the front door to the carriage, and the footman hustled her inside as if he understood the urgency with which she wanted to leave.

Vera settled on the seat next to her, though Candace gave her horsehair-like skirts a wide berth. Hortense sat across from them and made meaningful eye contact with Candace, who nodded at her.

“I saw no one while I waited on the top stair, my lady.”

Candace nodded, relieved. Hortense possessed a sharp eye—if someone had been lurking, she would have spotted them.

The carriage jostled as the footman stowed the stairs and boarded. The driver called something to the horses, gently slapped his reins, and they were rolling over the cobblestones. Though it was unladylike, Candace leaned back against the plush upholstery and removed her hat. She’d done it. She’d escaped with minimal consequence.

Her mind flew to the folded piece of paper Bernard would see delivered within the next hour. The brief announcement would run in the paper two days hence, but Candace didn’t doubt that the news would travel across Mayfair much more quickly than that.

She thought of the betting book at the Black Raven and wondered who would make a winning on her failed engagement. But when she thought of the losers, she dismissed them out of hand.

For in this instance, who could count their losses as greater than hers?

CHAPTER 9- JAMES

From the Quentin Daily-

Mysterious criminal plagues the streets of Mayfair and beyond! The caped cutpurse strikes again, targeting those alone after dark. Nicknamed ‘The Scourge of West London’ by those in the know, this heartless brute targets men and women alike—no one is safe! “I saw him only last night!” Harold Humphries, a local resident, says. “At least seven feet tall, with a disfigured face! No wonder he wears a cape and mask!”

When the bell jangled above James in the doorway of the corner flower shop, the stout owner blinked up at him in surprise, still tying her apron round her waist. It was quite early, but then, Candace was an early riser—especially in comparison to other fashionable ladies. James didn’t want to complicate her situation further, and he’d certainly start gossip if he showed up at her front door during visiting hours, bouquet in hand.

He’d rather arrive before the inevitable stampede. He was keen to hear the news that had reached him yesterday evening from Candace’s own lips, but he didn’t feel right arriving empty-handed. If one of his male friends had dissolved an engagement, he’d bring some fine spirits, but he doubted Candace would appreciate a bottle of fifteen-year-old whiskey.

“For a special lady, my lord?” the woman asked, wiping the already clean counter with a cloth.

“For a friend who has suffered a bereavement,” he corrected. He wished for the floral arrangement to be stately, stoic, as somber and proper as flowers possibly could be.

The woman nodded, but when she reached for subdued white lilies, he tutted his displeasure. She lifted her eyes in surprise, and he pointed toward a grouping of beautiful parrot tulips, white in color, tipped with the palest pink. Those were far more like Candace than the lilies.

“These, my lord?” she said, her voice hesitant.

He nodded and then pointed at a gorgeous cluster of pale-pink peonies, each with a bloom the size of his fist. “And those.”

As she was pulling the peonies to mix with the tulips, he noticed a cluster of blue hyacinth that would set the arrangement off and pointed at them as well. By this point, the shopkeeper knew better than to argue.

She grabbed four stems of the hyacinth and added them to the growing bouquet. But every time he looked up, something wasn’t quite right, so he kept pointing at different flowers like an idiot, which was why—well before visiting hours—the Duke of Canterbury arrived on Candace’s stoop, holding a bouquet far too exuberant to be appropriate for mourning, far too large to be considered friendship, and far too expensive to be displayed in one of her salons without garnering awkward questions from other visitors.

Canterbury cursed himself as he wrestled the massive fluttering arrangement into one arm and knocked harder than was necessary on her front door. He’d felt like a proper idiot riding down the street with this tucked before him on the saddle; it had looked as if he were about to open his very own flower market on a street corner somewhere, or like he was the leader of some ridiculous parade who’d somehow wandered off from his entourage. He prayed the entire time that no one he knew would see him.

James shifted his weight from one foot to another, then glanced over his shoulder at the park behind him. The Baron De Gournay was fond of an early morning ride through the park. The man had no qualms about sharing each and every thing he saw with anyone who would listen. Not that the man was an officious busybody—more like he was an insufferable bore who sometimes happened to report an item of interest to anyone with the patience to sift through his never-ending onslaught of words.

The Duke of Canterbury standing on Candace’s front stoop in the early morning, with half a shop’s worth of expensive blooms in his arms, would be well worth noting. Especially in light of the news that had already travelled round to tickle most of the ton’s ears: Candace had ended her engagement with the Marquess Shelbourne, and the notice would be published that afternoon or the day after.

After a few moments of watching the park, Canterbury knocked again, this time more insistently. His fist was still raised to the polished wood when the door opened. Bernard, the butler, stood behind it.

“Her ladyship is not at home to visitors at this time, Your Grace,” he intoned.

“You and I both know such rules don’t apply to me,” James said, foisting the enormous bouquet onto the unsuspecting man.