Page 39 of Lady Waldrey’s Gardening Almanac for Cultivating Scandal

“Very.” She gave an exaggerated nod. “But I wanted romance. Flowers. Chocolates. Attention. I wanted grand gestures and picnic outings and riding horses through the park. And maybe I wanted people’s jealousy, too. Maybe I wanted them to see that I was good enough, worthy enough, for the biggest rake in all of England to settle down and choose me. I never loved him, you know. Not at all, I don’t think.”

Mrs. Penn appeared in the doorway. “Someone rang, my lady?”

James said, “Would it be possible to have some hearty sandwiches and some very strong tea?”

Mrs. Penn glanced to where Candace appeared to be nodding off to sleep in the middle of her sentence. A smile plucked at the corners of the housekeeper’s mouth. “Right away, Your Grace.”

“So perhaps it was my fault as much as his,” Candace said, as if she hadn’t even been aware of Mrs. Penn’s momentary presence. “Maybe I brought this all down upon myself with my pride.”

“Regardless of that, the marquess behaved abominably toward you. He shouldn’t have...done the things he did that evening of the ball. He shouldn’t have run off to Paris when he realized your engagement was quite serious.”

“He was a terrible kisser.” Candace stared stupidly at the fireplace. “Simply awful. It’s a wonder, because if one listens to the gossips, he should’ve had plenty of practice.”

Canterbury didn’t quite know how to respond to that—he didn’t think laughter was appropriate, but it bubbled within him all the same. Besides, there was a rather larger part of him that enjoyed hearing her criticism of the man—especially in such an area.

“He just put his tongue there. Like a dead fish.” She flopped her forearm down upon a pillow to illustrate her point. “As if I was supposed to know what to do with that!” Candace turned to him, wide-eyed, as if looking for explanation. “I’d never been kissed before. And the very worst part of it is that now I shall never be kissed again! I’ve been thrown over, very public—hic—very publicly, mind you. No one will want me as a bride. No one except Lord Fettiwig, and a man that old won’t have any dregs of passion left in him. He’s all wrinkled and wrung out. Like a dishrag! Like me! Oh, what is to become of me?”

She flung herself down upon the cushions and began to cry. Canterbury wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of her words, but the sight of her grief did something odd and uncomfortable to his stomach.

“Please don’t cry.” He patted her shoulder gently, retrieved his embroidered silk handkerchief, and pressed it into her hand. She promptly blew her nose into it, noisily, which was a little off-putting, but he supposed that under the circumstances, it couldn’t be helped. “You are not a wrung-out old dishrag. I’d wager my entire estate that your best years have yet to find you. The marquess was a terrible mistake, but one mistake doesn’t have to ruin your whole life.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I do.”

There was so much he wanted to say, about the kind of man she should choose, about how she should choose him, but he helped her sit up and did his best not to wince as she blew her nose again. There was no coming back from that kind of treatment, not for silk. It would have to be thrown into the fire.

“You need something to take your mind off that wastrel. He never deserved you. In time, I believe you’ll come to view this as the closest you ever came to true misery.”

“But I am miserable now. Nothing can take my mind off it—nothing but gin.” She peered around James’s large form. “What happened to the gin?”

“It’s all gone,” he lied smoothly.

“Oh, dear. The whiskey, too?”

“Indeed.”

“Percy’s going to kill me.”

“Hardly. You forget I’ve whittled away several evenings under his exuberant hosting. If the gin is all gone, he’ll assume he drank it himself and just forgot.”

“Very well.” She sank back upon the cushions and folded her hands over her stomach.

“I’m glad to see you’re amenable to suggestion in such a state, at least.”

“I always listen to reason.” Her blinks lengthened until her eyes closed altogether.

“Excellent. Then what kind of project will you undertake to distract yourself?”

“Distract myself from what?” she mumbled, eyes still closed.

“From... nevermind. Here are the sandwiches.”

A quarter of an hour later, after Candace was finished with the sandwiches—and the dancing—he called Mrs. Penn back and instructed her to put Candace directly to bed. That task was half-done already—the lady could barely keep her eyes open after her hearty meal.

James was fairly certain that Mrs. Penn had intended the platter of sandwiches to be enough to feed both of them, but Candace had set upon them with such ravenous hunger that James would have worried for his fingers if he’d tried to take one.

Still, he closed the front door behind him with a lightness in his heart. Candace would be all right—he was convinced of it. She was much more concerned with the loss of her bright future and the damage done to her reputation than she was at losing Shelbourne himself.