Page 78 of Lady Waldrey’s Gardening Almanac for Cultivating Scandal

“I’ve no dowry.”

“I wasn’t aware you needed one. But if that’s the impediment, surely we can find a solution. What’s an average-sized dowry for the best lady’s maid in all of London, do you think?”

Hortense didn’t answer; she just clutched the ends of her shawl with white fingers and looked out the rain-lashed window. Candace studied her for a moment. Her mouth was drawn down at the corners in deep distress. As she watched, Hortense began to blink rapidly.

“Oh, dear,” Candace said, reaching across the expanse to place a hand on her maid’s knee. “Please don’t cry. I was only teasing. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It isn’t the dowry.” Hortense sniffled and fairly slapped the tears from her cheeks, as if they offended her. “There’s...well. There’s someone else.”

“Another man, you mean? Hortense, are you already engaged?”

“Yes. I mean, no. I mean...it’s very complicated.”

Candace pressed her lips together and joined Hortense in staring out the window. This was a rather shocking turn of events. Hortense had never mentioned being betrothed before now, and she’d been in Candace’s service for...

“I don’t understand,” Candace blurted. “Was this fellow in London, or before?”

“Before.” Her shoulders slumped.

“But you must have been very young. Certainly too young to enter into such an arrangement.”

“’Arrangement is the appropriate word, my lady. My parents contracted the match.”

“Wait—is there an actual contract?”

“I don’t know. I left. I haven’t spoken to them in some time now.”

She nodded. Hortense’s family had always been a delicate subject that Candace had quickly learned to avoid—asking about them or her past was a sure way to have the curling tongs forgotten in the fire.

“Did you agree to the match? Did you want to marry the fellow?”

“Of course not. I was far too young to have a clear opinion of what a woman should want in a husband. Not to mention, he was far too old for me.”

“How old?” Candace asked darkly—wondering if the age gap was akin to the one separating her and James, or something far worse.

“Too old.”

Candace nodded sharply. “Very well then. That settles it. You aren’t engaged, and there is no other man.”

“My parents would never approve.”

“My dear Hortense! If I had a shilling for every match that’s been made under those circumstances, I could buy the Duke of Devonshire’s London estate fifteen times over. Stop thinking of your parents and their imagined disappointment. What do you want?”

“I...I don’t know.” Her hands clenched and unclenched. “I’ve only just met Thomas. Though he seems to be everything wonderful and kind, and he certainly has shown a partiality to me, what if we marry and a year later I find out he’s a rotten cheat, or lazy? What if he sails off to the Americas and leaves me and our four children behind?”

Her eyes were wide. She leaned forward, breathless with the exertion of all her fears.

Candace wanted to laugh. Instead, she nodded solemnly. “Every romance—every relationship—is a risk. Every single one is a leap into the unknown. Even if you’ve known someone for years upon years, a commitment is still built upon faith. But I know you, Hortense. You’re a good, intelligent person. You saw Shelbourne for what he was, long before I did. I should have listened when you first cautioned me against him. Perhaps if I had, I wouldn’t be the gossips’ soup du jour.”

Candace shook her head and refocused. “But that’s beside the issue. I only mention it to point out that you’re an excellent judge of character. You aren’t like some young ladies, whose heads are turned by every handsome man who smiles their way. If Thomas is lazy, or unkind, or slovenly, or any one of the thousand things that would discredit him to you, then you’ll be able to see it. And if the worst happens, and you marry him and find out he isn’t who he claimed to be, then you’ll always have a position in my household.”

Hortense blinked emotion back from her eyes and nodded, her jaw tight.

Candace smiled and teased, “Unless of course, it is you who becomes the lay-about with too much fondness for whiskey.”

Hortense gave a watery laugh and ducked her head, touching a bent finger to the corners of her eyes. “Thank you, my lady.”

Candace examined her as she set herself to rights. “You really do care for him, don’t you? That’s why you’re so frightened.”