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

F rom 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.

The row house was nearly dark. Shelbourne almost sprawled onto the parquet of the foyer.

At the last moment, he caught himself against the paneling and burped an apology.

James ignored him. A servant rushed down the hall toward them—the same steward James had paid off only that evening.

The man stopped abruptly, his eyes wide.

“Light a fire in a sitting room,” James said, taking charge. Shelbourne was still braced against the wall, taking heaving breaths. “Get me an empty coal bucket, in case he’s sick. Then brew some very strong tea and make some sandwiches.”

The steward jerked a nod and hustled through to the first room off the hallway to obey James’s clipped orders.

By the time James half guided, half wrestled Shelbourne onto a leather sofa, an empty bucket sat atop a towel by the spot closest to the fire. Shelbourne moaned, his head in hands, his elbows braced on his knees. James set the bucket between his legs and moved to the fireplace to wait.

After the inevitable retching, Shelbourne spent some time heaving deep breaths and staring into the bucket as if the contents were his deepest regrets. Then he blinked at the small towel draped over his own leg, wiped his face and mouth, and looked up.

“Oh, Canterbury.” His eyes widened. “Terribly sorry. It seems my supper didn’t agree with me.”

James had retreated to the furthest reaches of the room and now leaned against a bookcase, arms folded.

“Undoubtedly.” He nodded toward a tray set on the low table before Shelbourne’s sofa. “I took the liberty of ordering some restoratives.”

Shelbourne wasted no time in slurping back the cup of strong tea his steward had poured when he’d delivered the tray—though it was probably just a bit warmer than the room at that point.

James waited as Shelbourne ate one half of the large sandwich and drank two more cups of tea liberally doused with sugar and cream.

The steward cleared the first bucket and replaced it with a clean one, just in case.

By the stoic manner of the steward—marred only by the slightest curl of a lip out of Shelbourne’s view—James thought this wasn't such a rare occurrence.

The sandwich was finished, the teapot drained, and Shelbourne didn’t appear to require a repeat of his previous disgusting performance with the bucket. Color crept back to his face, and a hint of intelligence now gleamed in his bleary eyes.

“Shelbourne.” James came forward and took a seat across from him. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.”

“Ah, the nightcap. Blenkinship!” he called. “Bring the whiskey!”

“Neither of us needs to imbibe during this conversation, though you may certainly have the desire by the end.”

Shelbourne didn’t seem to hear him; he was frowning at the doorway in expectation, though it remained empty.

“Shelbourne,” James said, more sharply. “I’m here to request that you return to London and fulfill your promises there.”

“What?” The man finally left off staring after his whiskey and faced James.

“You’re betrothed.” His voice nearly caught on the word. “Certainly you realize you’ve been gone too long.”

Shelbourne’s face screwed up like a wadded dishrag. “ She sent you? As if it isn’t bad enough I have to deal with her letters arriving every other week, now she’s sent you after me like...like some kind of dog catcher ?”

The accuracy of Shelbourne’s analogy wasn’t lost on James—the man before him was a mangy mutt, wayward and lost in every sense of the word.

“Lady Candace doesn’t even know I’m here. But that doesn’t absolve you of the responsibility you have toward her, toward your engagement.”

Shelbourne shook his head, his lips pressed together, his brow lowered. “She got what she wanted—a betrothal.”

“Betrothals are meant to lead to marriage, and you’ve been gone over a year.”

“She hasn’t taken up with someone else, has she?”

“Of course not.” James’s words were a whip. “She’s an honorable young lady.”

“Honorable,” Shelbourne scoffed. He slugged back the rest of his tea. “If you say so.”

“It would be very unwise of you to besmirch her name in my presence.” James’s words were a glacier—unyielding, cold. They left the impression that if Shelbourne weren’t careful, he’d suffer a slow, freezing death.

“You want me to marry the chit? Why do you care?”

“I’m a friend of her family.”

“Wish I’d known how many friends her family had before I set eyes upon her,” he grumbled, staring into the fire.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.” Shelbourne patted his pockets, came up with a flask, unscrewed it and tipped it upside down into his mouth, then frowned and tossed it to the carpet. He rummaged again and produced a fresh cheroot and lit it, letting it hang from the corner of his mouth.

James fought the urge to take the man by his lapels and shake him.

Shelbourne stared into the fire, then his eyes narrowed and returned to James. “And what if I don’t?”

“Surely even someone of your character can see that this solution won’t resolve itself. However, if you throw Lady Candace over, there will be repercussions.”

He snorted. “Like what?”

“The natural disdain of society, for one. The enmity of some very powerful people, for another.”

“I’m a marquess.”

And such a wonderful example of one, James wanted to retort. Instead, he swallowed his vitriol. “Even marquesses need friends in higher places.”

The inference was clear—Shelbourne may have been a marquess, but so was Candace’s brother, Percy, and James himself was a duke. If Shelbourne wanted to toy with the heart of a noble lady without consequences, Candace was a very poor target indeed.

“Fine. I’ll return to London. Paris is becoming dull, anyway.”

“Very good. I’ll expect to see you within the month.” James stood, uncaring if Shelbourne saw how eager he was to quit the room and its disgusting company.

Shelbourne didn’t reply, just sullenly puffed at his cheroot and stared into the fire.