Page 21 of Lady Waldrey’s Gardening Almanac for Cultivating Scandal (Love from London #3)

F rom the Quentin Daily-

Countess flees in disgrace from ballroom! Rumors swirl about the real reason she left—was it a broken slipper as she claimed, or something far worse?

“Gin is not for me,” Candace lamented, her words half-muffled by the cold compress draped across her face.

She sprawled reclined upon the leather sofa before her bedroom fireplace. A fire crackled lowly in the grate. Every so often, Hortense bustled in to tsk sympathy or judgement in Candace’s direction and to throw a sprig of dried eucalyptus on the flames.

“My father always claimed gin was medicinal, that it cured regrets and emotional malaise,” Vera replied in a low tone—she’d already been upbraided twice for speaking too loudly.

“In this case, the cure was far worse than the initial disease. I can’t believe you recommended it. ”

“I was joking! But at least it got your mind off things for a while.”

“On the contrary—I can barely tell which is the cause of my headache—the liquor or Shelbourne. At least with the gin, there’s an end in sight to my suffering. Hortense says I’ll feel much more myself by tomorrow.”

“One wonders if a full day of this suffering was worth an afternoon of forgetting.”

“I can emphatically tell you it was not.”

Vera’s lips trembled in a smile. “I feel keen sympathy for your suffering—both from Shelbourne and from the gin—but I must say that you look rather ridiculous just now.”

“Must you?”

In true dramatic fashion, Candace had thrown herself down, one foot still in its silk stocking, propped on a needlepoint footstool, the other bare and stretched out on the sofa toward Vera.

In that position, with her head tilted back against the cushions, a light-blue towel over her face, Candace looked like a porcelain doll carelessly tossed down by some giant child in the throes of a tantrum.

“It’s nice to see that you are human—that the flawless rose of noble society sometimes appears as less than perfect.”

“Flawless?” Candace snorted. “I’ve never been that. Nor am I the rose of society any longer.”

“I’m dearly sorry that I missed you testing your theory of gin.” Vera’s voice was even and sympathetic, but a slight waver at the end of her sentence hinted at her mirth .

Candace’s long fingers rose, pinched the edge of the towel, and lifted it.

Candace peered out at her. “Are you laughing at me?”

“Not… precisely ?”

Candace arched her eyebrow, then winced and dropped the towel back into place. “I cannot even be miffed at you—it hurts my head too much to manage the accompanying expression.”

Vera laughed lowly in that rasping way of hers. Candace couldn’t help it, her lips rose begrudgingly in response to the sound. She winced again—everything hurt.

“I heard that you danced upon the table at one point.”

Candace scoffed, the puff of air ruffling the edge of the towel. She slid it back into place. “There’s no need to make up stories at my expense. I’m already thoroughly embarrassed without your added fictional license.”

“It’s not a lie—I heard it from Canterbury himself.”

Candace jerked upright, floundering with the sudden pounding at her temples and the nausea that roiled in her stomach. Finally, she flung the towel from her eyes to squint at her friend. “ What? ”

Vera blinked. “Canterbury. You do remember he called upon you yesterday afternoon, don’t you?”

She clasped the towel to her face and groaned.

Now that Vera mentioned it, snatches of memories winged toward her like deranged birds.

Her complimenting the sturdiness of the furniture and climbing upon the low table to demonstrate her point.

Her leaning forward over said table to inhale the sandwiches Mrs. Penn brought her—the best she’d ever tasted.

At one point, she’d told Canterbury she should have married him.

“Oh no,” she whispered into the towel. “Oh no . I’ve embarrassed myself beyond repair.”

“I assure you, it was completely fine,” her friend was quick to soothe. “He was leaving as I returned, and we spoke briefly. He was smiling—didn’t seem shocked or offended in the least.”

“Just because men have a higher tolerance for licentious behavior doesn’t mean it hasn’t altered his opinion of me. I am a lady .” She punctuated this statement with an unexpected, uncomely burp.

“More tea?” Vera offered.

“Please.” Candace thrust the towel back over her face and resumed her slumped position.

Vera set the full teacup upon the table before them with a clink. “I’m sure he’s all but forgotten it by now. You know how these important gentlemen are—always something stealing their attention away. Why, at home, my father retreats to his study for the majority of each and every day.”

Candace privately thought that “retreat” was an apt description for what Lord Ashbury was doing. In the face of being married to a lace-clad tyrant like Lady Ashbury, Candace would have done much the same.

“What if he writes Percy? What if he tells someone?”

“If you’re going to invent worries, at least have the self-respect to make them somewhat logical. Canterbury isn’t going to tell anyone. And as for your brother—whose gin do you think that was?”

“I suppose you’re right. Percy is always encouraging me to indulge more. If he returns from his honeymoon to find me a debauched shell of a human, he’ll cheer before having Hortense toss me into the creek for a bath.”

Vera smiled. “There’s no one I’ve met who is less in danger of becoming a ‘debauched shell’ than you. Engaged to one, sure, but heading that direction yourself?”

Candace moaned.

Vera’s nose wrinkled. “Is it too early to make light of the situation? Perhaps it is; my apologies.”

“It’s not the joke. It’s the gin.”

She smiled. “I see this as a great improvement in your situation, then. If the gin is the biggest problem you have, that’s a success in itself, for the effects will wear off by tomorrow. If only every problem could fade so quickly.”

Something in her tone had Candace lifting her head and peeking from beneath her damp towel once more. “Is something the matter?”

“Nothing.”

But the reply was too quick, too sharp, to be anything but a pointed lie.

“Vera, you are my closest friend. I certainly hope you feel you can confide in me.”

“Of course.” Vera nibbled her lip, staring at the low fire in the grate.

Candace waited, instinctively feeling that her friend teetered at the edge of a decision, and one errant word from Candace could have Vera landing on the side of silence and denial.

But just as Vera opened her mouth to speak, the door opened and Hortense strode in, another bundle of eucalyptus in her hands. Vera clamped her mouth shut; Candace sighed.

“Feeling any better, my lady?” Hortense asked.

“A little.” She leaned forward and retrieved the lukewarm tea from the table.

“Well enough to eat? I’ll have Mrs. Davis prepare some sandwiches.”

Candace winced as Hortense bustled out without waiting for a reply. “I cannot believe James was here to witness my indiscretion yesterday. What he must think of me...”

“I doubt that one afternoon’s mistake is enough to dislodge his firm good opinion of you.”

“It isn’t just one afternoon. My life lately has been a string of knots, all tied by my own hand.”

“You need something to do, something to distract you.”

“Now you sound just like James.”

“Unsurprising that two intelligent individuals might view the same circumstances and come to the same conclusion.”

Candace grinned, ignoring the accompanying throbbing in her head—it was a delight to watch her friend grow. She’d only been a short time from beneath the shadow of her mother’s influence, and already Vera had turned her face to the sun and began to bloom.

Still, it was curious that Vera and James had both suggested a project of some kind. Candace rubbed her temples and closed her eyes against the echo of her heartbeat within her head. She’d consider it more when the fog of a headache wasn’t clouding her mind.

“It’s a wonder James is in the countryside at all,” Candace said .

“Not that large of a wonder,” Vera murmured.

“You’re right. He has less patience for the bustle of the city than some.”

Her maid reappeared, topping off Candace’s cup of tea from a steaming pot, then tending to the fire.

“Hortense, where are my copies of the Quentin Daily ? I left them on my side table and cannot find them.”

“I thought you were finished with them, so I used them to start the fire this morning, my lady.” She jabbed at the coals as if for emphasis.

“I wanted to save those!”

“Very sorry, my lady,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “There’ll be a fresh batch next week for you to obsess over.”

Candace narrowed her eyes but held her tongue.

She’d learned long ago that it was unwise to start a spat with a woman who often wielded hot tongs near one’s forehead.

Instead, she slapped the cold compress back over her face, missing the meaningful look that Hortense and Vera shared in the resulting silence.

The following morning, Candace felt completely restored.

She and Vera sat in the back parlor, a room not as well-decorated as the rest of the house, but with full windows that let in the soft morning sunshine and offered unparalleled views of the back pasture.

Candace had just opened a large book across her knees when the distant sounds of a crash of pottery trailed into the room.

She and Vera stood, frowning at each other in mild concern. They tracked the small domestic uproar to the front entry.

James tugged the leather leash of an enormous dog who’d flopped down just to the side of a broken clay pot.

Dirt and half-forced bulbs lay in the epicenter of the small disaster.

Mrs. Penn and a maid were already picking at the pieces of pottery, gathering the shards into their outstretched aprons.

Arthur stood against the paneling with a ramrod back.

He was a small boy with dark hair and large hazel eyes, who at the moment looked seconds from breaking into tears.