Page 60 of Lady Waldrey’s Gardening Almanac for Cultivating Scandal

He frowned. “I don’t think⁠—”

“She’s already had one proposal by post.”

James sat up. “She has?”

Vera lifted a shoulder. “Granted, it was from a man who keeps his teeth in a glass of vinegar water on his bedside table at night—or so goes the rumor—but I’ve no doubt that in time, others will come sniffing.”

“What’s your meaning?”

Vera turned to him. “I think she’s mourned her broken engagement as much as she ever will. I think she’s far readier to move on than even she knows. I’d hate to see her form an attachment to someone else before she realizes all the options that are open to her.”

James pressed his lips together and watched Candace and Arthur attempt to wrangle the kite in the distance.

“I have been told that patience may have been my failing in this instance,” he finally admitted.

“I think the time for patience is over. If she’s not settled before she leaves Devon, I’ve no doubt she will be shortly upon returning to London. Don’t you agree?” Vera nodded her head in her friend’s direction. “Don’t you think there are plenty of gentlemen who know what Shelbourne is? Don’t you think there are plenty of men who’d be delighted to overlook their engagement—especially when everyone knows the geographical distance that lay between them for the entirety of it—in order to marry a lady such as she?”

As if on cue, the wind plucked the kite from Candace’s fingers and she laughed in delight as it soared upward—the silvery sound carried across the field.

“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Any gentleman would be happy—and beyond lucky—to have her as wife.”

Vera nodded as if satisfied and looked forward once again. The kite fluttered in the sky, and Candace ran to Arthur’s side.

“What of you, Vera?”

“What of me?” She turned to him, a small frown on her full lips.

“Forgive me for saying so, but I find it hard to reconcile the fact that a young lady in her prime would give up a Season to follow her friend to the deserted countryside.”

“It isn’t deserted.” Her voice aimed for lightness but failed. “You and the baroness are here.”

“We both know why I’m here.” He glanced up at Candace once more. “I appreciate your discretion in that regard, by the way.”

She lifted a shoulder. “It isn’t my story to tell. It wouldn’t do any good, anyway. Ladies need to come around to that way of thinking for themselves.”

“Why did you leave London and the prospect of finding a husband of your own?”

Vera gave the approximation of a laugh, but there was no humor in it. “It’s not as if a swarm of suitors were breaking down my front door every morning.”

“Thank goodness; that sounds alarming. Still, why give up the social engagements and the balls, to follow Candace here?”

“I used to believe that, you know,” she said, hugging her knees. “That every ball, every dinner, every promenade through the park was a chance to find love, or at least a husband. I thought that even if Mother dressed me terribly and did her best to keep people away, that someone would see past it. That someone would see me.” She turned to him and met his gaze, sadness lingering on her face. “But that wasn’t true. No one ever saw me. No one but Candace.”

James cast about for something to say, some comfort to offer that wouldn’t sound trite, but found nothing.

She spared him the silence by continuing, “Candace saw me. Saw what my mother was doing—her efforts to keep everyone at bay, even friends. So of course I followed her here. It wasn’t a sacrifice, not at all. I would rather be with one person who genuinely cares for me than surrounded by a crowd who never sees me at all.”

“For what it’s worth, Vera, I’m glad to know you. I hope it isn’t too forward to call us friends.”

She gave a shy smile. “Not at all. I’m glad to know you, too.”

Arthur whooped as the kite caught the wind and soared upward on a draft, its paper tail fluttering.

“You have a lot of time left to find an excellent match, Vera. I know many gentlemen who’d consider themselves lucky to find a woman such as you.”

“But none in Devon, I suspect,” she joked.

“Devon is limited in its social offerings.”