Page 3 of Lady Waldrey’s Gardening Almanac for Cultivating Scandal

“I don’t care for the opinion of journalists—if one could even call them that—who use a heavy sprinkling of exclamation marks to make up for weak content.”

“You might be the only one in society who believes such.”

“I’m convinced that half their stories are complete fiction. There cannot possibly be as many runaway carriages or accidental decapitations as they claim. Nor can there be as many young ladies being besmirched in public.”

“Then again, if their articles are fiction, one would think they might at least entertain you.” Candace laughed nervously and changed the subject. “Are you attending the Mortimers’ ball tomorrow?”

Vera sighed. “I’ll be the one in beige and brown.”

Candace winced. She wished she could get Vera alone with her modiste, Madame Aubert, for an afternoon. What fun they would have! Vera had the most lustrous ash-brown hair (which her mother was always clashing with odd tones), divine skin (which was always washed out by color choices), and an appealing figure (which was always hidden beneath terrible clothing cuts and bulky undergarments).

“The Mortimer ballroom is painted those same colors; you’ll blend right in to the walls.”

“I think that is precisely the idea.”

CHAPTER 2- JAMES

From the Quentin Daily-

One young lady is being left behind, as those around her keep marrying off with haste, while she lingers in a lengthy engagement. We’ve all heard the story, but what is the real reason behind her absent betrothed? A source close to the lady claims she “cries all day and night” for his return!

Paris was said to be the most beautiful city in the world, but there was nothing lovely about this part of it, not tonight. James Richard Eavesdon, the Duke of Canterbury, leaned against a stone building. Rain dripped forlornly from his hat as he wrapped himself deeper into his fine coat, rounding his shoulders against the cold. James grimaced as a rat the size of a loaf of bread skittered past in the gutter.

His grim eyes were locked on the building across the street. At first glance, it looked like a fine merchant’s house—brick, three stories, with light and shrieks of laughter spilling out into the street every time the front door opened. Yet this building was owned by a woman styling herself as Madame Courtney, no last name. It was one of the many brothels in this part of town, and, judging by the foot traffic, one of the busiest.

James wasn’t concerned with all the other men who walked through the door; his attention was reserved for one man in particular. It had been shockingly easy to obtain information about Shelbourne’s activities.

A few pound notes to his steward, and Canterbury had a very tidy list of the proprietors Shelbourne preferred to visit. James had just missed the man at the restaurant down the street from his apartment. This was Shelbourne’s most likely next stop.

James waited another hour—until he’d almost given up, almost convinced himself Shelbourne had chosen a different diversion this evening.

The door opened; a shadow was set against the momentary brightness of the interior. Canterbury recognized him immediately—he’d spent months studying the man across the ballrooms and drawing rooms of London, pretending he didn’t hate him. He knew now that was a lie. His lip curled as Shelbourne stumbled into the night, patting and fumbling at his pockets. A flash of light briefly illuminated the lines of his face, then a cigar was lit.

Canterbury followed at a distance, tracking the red glow from the end of Shelbourne’s cheroot as the man swayed and stumbled up the street.

The dark streets and grim gutters of the neighborhood soon gave way to gas lamps and firm cobblestones. Shelbourne might flirt with the edges of the city for dissipation, but he retreated to the safe center of society to lay his head.

As they neared his house, James increased his stride, coming alongside Shelbourne precisely as the man reached the stone front steps of his row house. Shelbourne peered at him with red-rimmed eyes. If James had been a cutpurse or an assassin, he doubted Shelbourne would’ve had the ability to so much as lift a hand in his own defense.

“Shelbourne?” James jerked back and lifted his eyebrows in surprise, as if shocked to find the man there. Personally, he thought his acting a bit overwrought—if the man had been anywhere in the vicinity of sober, he might have noticed.

“Canterbury, old chap! What are you doing here?”

“Came to take in the sights. There are pleasures that only Paris can offer.”

James made himself linger over the word “pleasures,” let his tone suggest that he and Shelbourne were much the same. It irritated him to even pretend as if he and the dissolute excuse for a man were of similar cloth, but James needed to be invited indoors.

“Indeed. Indeed.” Shelbourne patted his pockets as if looking for something, then blinked up at his door as if amazed to find himself already at home.

“I was headed down for a drink, but I suppose your whiskey is probably better than any my club serves,” James said when the silence drew out too long.

It wasn’t polite, inviting himself into another man’s home, but Shelbourne’s mind seemed to be moving at the sodden crawl of a dying soldier. They wouldn’t get anywhere at his current pace, not without James heaving the conversation up onto his own shoulders and carrying it where it should go.

“Of course!” Shelbourne bellowed with a grin. “I was just about to—hic—have a nightcap of my own.”

James forced himself to smile even though the man had swayed close enough for him to smell alcohol and digestive acid on Shelbourne’s breath. The man was well past a civilized nightcap. By the odor of things, he’d picked a fight with a bottle of cheap gin and lost several rounds.

Still, James allowed himself to be led up the stairs, at one point giving Shelbourne a helpful shove to the small of his back to keep him from toppling back down to the street. The man was moving about as straight as an unsettled plumb-bob at the end of a string, his center of gravity swinging in great loops as he walked.