Page 60 of Lady Waldrey’s Gardening Almanac for Cultivating Scandal (Love from London #3)

F rom Where the Birds Sing: A Gardening Primer -

Pruning is essential to the health of a garden.

Though possibly the most tedious and seemingly counterintuitive task of the gardener, it encourages new growth, prevents rot and disease, and is crucial to plants.

A garden where pruning has been neglected is easy to spot—dense thickets form from previously beautiful vines, and pests nest comfortably in the overgrowth.

The next morning, after breakfast, Candace wandered the house listlessly.

Though she stared at paintings in the hallway, she barely saw them.

She opened doors at random and trailed through rooms without noting where she was or what she was doing.

Eventually, she opened a door to a narrow room wedged between an unused study and an inconveniently placed sitting room.

It appeared to be a storage room of some sort.

A painting with a tear in the canvas rested next to an empty gas lamp missing its glass hurricane.

A single straight-backed chair with broken caning rested in the dusty corner.

However, what caught Candace’s attention were the neat bundles of papers tied with twine.

They were carelessly tossed into a pile upon the floor as if they were trash, but something about them snagged her eye, bade her look closer. She bent and inspected them, frowning.

She gasped and dropped to her knees, tugging at the twine knots. These were all the copies of the Quentin Daily and the other scandal sheets that she’d requested from London! But why were they here, in this room? Hortense had said there was a back-up with the post...

Hortense .

Her maid had kept them from her, no doubt in some kind of protective gesture.

Candace shook her head and finally freed the first stack with one last, desperate pull.

The twine slipped; the stack of folded pamphlets scattered around her.

Dreadful headlines splayed out before her, each worse than the last.

She plucked several from the pile and read the top one.

Missing! Shamed, or dead? Which is worse?

“Oh, dear,” Vera murmured from the doorway. “Candace, leave those be.”

She turned to her friend, her hands still crinkling the papers. “You knew about this?”

Vera winced, then nodded. “I told her to burn them, but Hortense didn’t feel right about it—you’d paid for them, after all.”

“But why—” She turned back to the sheets and flipped to the next one.

Put Back on the Shelf! From Desirable to Discarded!

Candace wrinkled her nose at the sentiment.

“At first, it was to keep them from you.” Vera twisted her fingers together. “After a while, however, it didn’t seem like you cared any longer. You became absorbed with other things.”

Candace swallowed deeply. Vera was right. It had only taken a week or so to get out of the habit of reading the gossip sheet’s pernicious lies, their wicked inventions.

She’d thrown herself into the garden design, buried her grief beneath shovelfuls of dark soil, planted her hopes amongst the bulbs, watched them sprout again like the tender green shoots of flowers that sent fingers toward the spring sun.

All to see a freak hailstorm bash them to bits once more.

She pushed herself up from her knees, letting the copies in her hands flutter to the floor like the last leaves of fall.

“You’re right,” she said grimly. “I don’t care what they say any longer. As if any of their lies matter against the truth.”

“He will forgive you, Candace. If you go to him and ask. He loves you.”

She shook her head. “You didn’t see him. You didn’t hear the things he said.”

“What did he say?” Vera gathered her shawl more tightly around her—to ward off the chill of the forgotten room or to guard herself against James's words, Candace didn’t know .

“Nothing but what I deserved to hear. Nothing but the truth.”

“Candace—”

“No.” She slashed a hand through the air, then met her friend’s eyes.

“Forgive my tone. It’s just—he was right.

I was cruel and unfeeling. I cared more for the opinions of people I don’t even like than for my friend.

” She shook her head, taking in the stacks of gossip papers.

“Who cares what anyone says, when I’ve lost the regard of the best man I’ve ever known? The man I love?”

Her voice cracked on the last word, and Vera gripped her in a hug. “It will be all right. Even if your greatest fears are realized and you and James never... It will be all right. Someday. I promise.”

Candace hugged her back. She didn’t have the strength to argue, but she knew that Vera was wrong. James might never forgive her, and even if he did, she feared things would never be what they were.

Candace couldn’t muster the energy to worry what the gossips would say if they heard of it—not when compared to the great, looming terror of losing James himself.

James . She squeezed her eyes closed and felt the resounding ache in her chest. Tears crawled down her cheeks once more, sliding unchecked down her face and neck, soaking into the already damp fabric of her collar.

“Enough,” she finally said, as much to herself as to Vera. She released her friend and set her gently back by the shoulders. “I have things to see to today. Many things.”

Vera shook her head. “You can cancel the garden party.”

“Indeed not. The party is as much for the villagers as it was for myself. Now even more so. I don’t know when they’ll ever get another chance to visit the grounds of Devon Manor, to see the rotunda in all its glory.

” She smiled sadly. “I’ll be all right, dear friend.

Besides, my errand today is far grimmer than party preparations. ”

“Oh?”

“I’m off to visit Jacqueline.”

“I’ll go with you,” she offered.

“No.” Candace shook her head. “This I must do alone.”

Candace didn’t take Hortense with her in the carriage. After all, what was the point of a chaperone, when her reputation was already beyond salvaging? The biggest gossips in England had seen her run after James like a desperate harridan.

It wasn’t second-hand knowledge—they’d witnessed it themselves. She had no doubt that there were a number of letters winging their way back to London at this very moment, dissecting every sordid detail, and inventing a number altogether.

She leaned back against the plush upholstery and sighed.

Perhaps she should care. Perhaps she should enact some sort of defense against it, but she couldn’t muster the energy.

The words she’d spoken to Vera were true—no social tragedy that befell her now could come close to comparing to the loss of James .

Candace pressed a hand to her chest to try to ease the ache that roosted there, but it was pointless. Her emotions were the host of this terrible party; her body was only attending.

When she mounted Jacqueline’s front steps, the butler informed Candace that the baroness was busy in an outbuilding behind the house, and bade her wait in the parlor. Instead, Candace insisted she be brought to the woman immediately.

Which was how Candace ended up standing in a large shed with a sloped concrete floor. Sloped, to help with the run-off of blood from the deer Jacqueline had shot that morning. The carcass sprawled across the table—a grotesque still-life of tan and scarlet.

“Ah, Candace.” The baroness swiped a wickedly sharp, bloody blade across her waxed-canvas apron to clean it. A smear of blood blotted the fabric; Candace did her best not to gag. “I didn’t know you had an interest in learning the techniques of field dressing, but welcome.”

Candace swallowed deeply and stepped just over the threshold where the floor was still clean. She couldn’t stop staring at the deer’s face. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth.

Until that point, she hadn’t even known deer had tongues. Which was ridiculous, because most animals who ate greens did have tongues, of course. It just was a bit shocking, seeing a tongue in such a relaxed state. Why, in death, did the tongue appear too large for the mouth?

“ Candace .” Jacqueline snapped her fingers in Candace’s face. The motion didn’t quite produce a snap , as her gloved fingers were slick with blood, but it helped Candace focus all the same. “Don’t you go swooning in here; you’ll ruin your clothes. The ground’s covered in blood.”

As if she needed reminding. Candace’s eyes flicked toward the dripping mess, then back up to the baroness’s face. She took a deep breath to clear her mind of the grisly tableau.

Jacqueline’s forehead wrinkled. “Whatever you have to say must be very important for you to insist upon seeing me at once. Is Vera all right?”

At Candace’s nod, the baroness returned her attention to her task. Now that she was here, Candace was lost as to how to begin. She paused for a few moments to think, then decided bluntness was the best course of action.

“I’ve betrayed you,” Candace blurted. She inhaled through her nose as the baroness slid her knife along the deer’s belly.

“Oh?” She arched an eyebrow. “I didn’t notice. Tell me the story, then.”

Candace took a deep breath. “At dinner last night, with Miss Knope and Miss Ritten... I tried to deflect their negative attention from me by joining in on their negative opinions of you.”

“What precisely did you say?”

Candace suddenly wished she’d waited to tell the baroness when the woman wasn’t holding a sharp knife.

“I confirmed that you wear pants and use chewing tobacco. I told them you keep animals inside your house. I told them you ride astride your horse and that the first time you visited, you deposited your rifle in the umbrella stand and tracked mud in on the carpet.”

“I did?” The baroness blinked, then turned back to the deer. “Very sorry about the mud, but other than that, you related nothing but the truth. I don’t see the problem.”

Candace’s brow furrowed. “Perhaps I’m not explaining this well. I laughed. With them. At your expense. At you. And I’m...I’m very sorry.”

Jacqueline reached into the deer’s midsection and pulled out some innards, then dropped them into a waiting bucket with a splat . Candace swallowed back bile and held her ground.

“Apology accepted,” Jacqueline said.

Candace blinked. “As easy as that?”

“Just so.”

“But...” Candace wrung her hands together. “Perhaps I’m not describing it well enough.”

Jacqueline arched an eyebrow. “You mocked me behind my back.”

“Yes.”

“And you regret it.”

“Very, very much.” Her voice wavered; tears hovered on her lower lashes, threatening to drop.

“Then I forgive you.”

“But how do you know I mean the apology? I don’t think you appreciate the depth of the injury I’ve done to you.”

The baroness turned to her, dripping knife in hand. “Candace Waldrey, when you first arrived here from London, you’d just broken your engagement. You were running from all the gossips and scandal sheets in London. But you looked perfect. Flawless.”

Candace waited for her to continue, then prompted, “So? ”

“This morning, you look worse than this deer. I forgive you.”

Candace burst into tears.

The baroness laughed, not unkindly. “My dear, under any other circumstance, I’d hug you, but I don’t think your ensemble would survive the experience.”

“I appreciate the sentiment all the same.” Candace sniffled and set her face to rights with a handkerchief—her third one that morning.

Jacqueline smiled sadly. “I’m sorry to see your distress. This cannot be all on my account.”

She shook her head. “No. Unfortunately, Ja— the Duke of Canterbury and I have had a disagreement. He’s ended our courtship.”

“Ah.” She turned back toward the carcass, which was now dripping blood at a rapid pace. “Was this a result of you speaking ill of me?”

“Yes,” she croaked.

“I doubt it’s truly over, but even if it is, you will recover. A heart is a surprisingly resilient thing.”

Candace was staring at the deer again; she could barely register the baroness’s words. She’d never known that one animal could contain so much blood, so much viscera. How Jacqueline could stand to keep cutting at it...

“Would you like to stay for tea? I have about an hour’s worth of work left here, but then we could have refreshment.”

“No, thank you. I’ll head home.”

The baroness turned to her fully. Blood slicked her glove and dripped from her blade. “Are you certain?”

“Please don’t be offended by my abrupt departure, Jacqueline, but I desperately want to get away from that deer.”

She laughed. “Of course. I’ll see you at the garden party.” She gave an impertinent grin. “I’ll be the one in pants.”

Later that same day, a messenger arrived carrying a parcel addressed to Candace.

She unfolded the note with trembling fingers, hope and dread warring in equal measure that it might be some kind of letter from James.

To her relief or disappointment—she couldn’t tell—the handwriting was distinctively feminine.

Candace,

I hope you’ll accept this gift in the spirit it was given—as a token of our friendship, which I enjoy very much. Though my dressmaker insists on attempting to broaden my horizons into softer colors and patterns, I never acquiesce. After all, I am who I am, no matter who approves.

I sincerely hope that you’ll be able to say the same someday, without any reservation. Life is best lived authentically, even if your circle of friends becomes smaller and despite the fact that outsiders won’t hesitate to mock the light they see in your heart, even as they envy it.

Your dear friend,

Jacqueline

Candace unwrapped the package to find a lovely blue-and-white striped coat dress, in the same style that the baroness typically wore, as well as a coordinating set of blue trousers. The dress buttoned down the front and had a sash at the waist, currently tied into a plucky, oversized bow.

Candace smiled down at the coat and her eyes welled with tears once more. At least that terrible night hadn’t ruined a friendship along with her relationship with James. At least Jacqueline forgave her.

The ensemble was lovely. Jacqueline was right—it looked far more like Candace than it did her.

In fact, Candace knew just what to do with it.