Page 30 of Lady Waldrey’s Gardening Almanac for Cultivating Scandal (Love from London #3)
“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.”
“Indeed. Luckily we both have all the company we could want, right here.”
He smiled at her in agreement. He didn’t mind that Vera knew his feelings for Candace. They’d both danced around the issue in such a way that he was convinced of her discretion. He hadn’t lied to her—James considered Vera a friend.
She obviously felt the same—she’d confided some personal things to him, too.
The unrequited desire she held to be a wife, her feelings of loneliness within the social swirl—those weren’t small things for an unattached lady to confess to anyone, let alone to an unmarried man.
He gave her another smile, one that spoke of their shared understanding, and she smiled and gave a single nod of meaning in return.
It was several moments before they looked up to find Candace standing at the edge of the blanket, looking back and forth between them.
James leaned back and blinked—how long had she been there?
He mentally retraced their conversation, wondering if anything incriminating had actually been said , where Candace was concerned.
He didn’t think so, but a slightly awkward silence descended in the interim while he thought about it.
“You must come to dinner,” Candace said abruptly, lacing her gloved fingers together tightly. “Next week. We’re going to invite the baroness as well, aren’t we, Vera?”
Vera nodded, but her shaky smile told James that this was the first she’d heard of it.
“That sounds wonderful. Thank you for the invitation.”
“Well, then. I should get back to helping Arthur with his kite. I’m glad you’ll join us for dinner, James.”
She hurried off toward Arthur, who didn’t appear to be having any issues he needed assistance with.
“I’m sure the baroness is a wonderful dinner companion,” he said to fill the beat of silence.
“I’m very fond of her. I don’t know her very well yet, but we dined with her a while back. Do you know that she collects wounded animals and nurses them back to health?”
“How interesting.”
“Candace nearly sat on a hedgehog. She thought it was a decorative pillow.”
James laughed and glanced over in time to see Candace looking their direction. She whipped her head back toward the kite when their eyes met.
“I’m glad the hedgehog was saved.”
“The baroness also has a rabbit and a mole. And a fox.”
“How does she keep track of the animals? I’ve only been there once, while her husband still lived, and I remember it being a rather large house.”
“She keeps them in her morning room, which opens onto a walled garden.”
“A charitable exercise, albeit an inconvenient one.”
“There’s a maid assigned to the room. All she does is clean, replace shavings, and let the animals in and out when they stand on either side of the door.”
James hid his smile. Vera spoke of the baroness’s eccentric behavior with near reverence; it was clear she looked up to the lady.
“It’s admirable she’s devised a system to rescue both the animals and her floors.”
Vera laughed.