Page 8 of Lady Waldrey’s Gardening Almanac for Cultivating Scandal (Love from London #3)

“I don’t mean to be crass. I’m only pointing out that they’ve moved on. They’re living their lives as they desire. Don’t you want the same for yourself?”

“Of course I want that. But certainly you see what a broken engagement will do to my prospects.”

Candace’s reputation would suffer, and men who only months ago would have considered her above them would feel no hesitation in approaching her.

The men in the highest echelons who’d once waited at her door would feel as if they’d dodged a bullet and avoid her altogether.

In a single year, she’d gone from the darling of high society to a veritable pariah.

All she’d wanted was to be a wife, a mother.

She’d fancied herself in love with Shelbourne—at least at the very beginning.

Now she realized she’d only been swept up in a romance of her own imagining.

And who would have her as a wife now? No one but men too old to have children, or men Candace would prefer not to speak to, let alone share a lifetime with.

“Then do it—live a life of your choosing.”

She scoffed. “You speak as if it were a simple option, a choice that’s mine for the making—lavender or blue, silk charmeuse or wool.”

“It is.”

“It isn’t.”

“You are the only one making this complicated.”

“It is complicated.”

He looked at her for long moments, then swung his eyes away. “Perhaps it feels that way to you. Let me lay out the choices as I see them.”

“By all means. ”

Her sudden flash of temper had not been assuaged by his calm demeanor and his even words.

“I’ve no doubt your brother and his well-established friends could force Shelbourne into marrying you, if that is your desire. You would have your fancy wedding. You’d escape the momentary mortification of a failed engagement.”

He met her eyes for a pointed moment, then continued, “But then you would be his marchioness. You would live out your days pitied and ridiculed as your husband became less and less inclined to hide his various dalliances, as he gambled and frittered away whatever dowry you came with. And you would most likely live alone at one of his country estates, without the comfort of company, most likely without children, too.”

Candace grit her teeth. “That is my betrothed you speak of.”

A stupid argument, considering what Shelbourne had done to her this very evening, but she felt the need to bare her teeth at Canterbury’s blunt appraisal of her situation.

“You do not need to remind me!” A shock of dark hair fell into his eyes and he swiped it back again.

“But perhaps you should remind him! I am here with you, and he’s out there making a spectacle of himself, a spectacle of your engagement!

It’s only the tip of the dagger that he dances with whomever he pleases at balls.

He stays out with heaven-knows-whom at the clubs and frequents the brothel so often he might as well run one. ”

“Stop,” she whispered. Her shaking hand came to cover her mouth. “I don’t wish to hear it.”

The ticking clock punctuated the silence between them for many moments. Her stomach roiled—how on earth had she arrived here, at this moment?

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It...it was not my intention to cause you additional grief. He doesn’t deserve you, Candace. He doesn’t deserve the time you’ve spent thinking of him, waiting for him.”

“If what you say is true, then I have no choice. Perhaps the scene in the ballroom tonight could be explained away, but combined with the other things... I must go to him first thing tomorrow morning and break our engagement.”

James shook his head. “I wish you were doing this for the right reason, but I fear you are still trying to protect your reputation.”

“Of course I’m trying to protect my reputation! It’s all I have left. The tattered remains of it, anyway. Every lady I’ve ever whispered about will laugh at my turned back. Every gentlemen who felt slighted will call me damaged goods.”

“Perhaps there’s a lesson in that, then. Be kinder to people.”

“I’m kind enough. You don’t understand the pressure that comes with being the most sought-after lady of a Season.”

“Do you hear yourself? Stop trying to be that lady, Candace. Let someone else have the spot on top of the social mountain. Stop playing their game and you’ll win.”

“What could I win? What remains for me except recrimination wherever I go? They’ll laugh at me, James. And they’ll have every right to.”

“What remains? True friendship. If you’re extraordinarily lucky, true love. You have a wonderful opportunity wrapped in a terrible trial here. You’ll be able to deduce who truly is your friend and who’s just some social climber who views you as a convenient rung in the peerage.”

Her chin wobbled. “What if that’s all of them?”

“It won’t be. You’ll still have Vera, your brother, your sisters, the Devonshires. You’ll still have me.”

Her vision blurred with tears. “I’m scared.”

“I know. I don’t make promises lightly, Candace. But I promise you this—you’ll be happier free of Shelbourne than you would be married to him. I’ve no doubt that your very best days are ahead of you.”

She nodded and dabbed her damp eyes with a lace handkerchief. “I just hope Devonshire isn’t too angry with me.”

James frowned. “Devonshire? Why would he care?”

“He’s the one who arranged the engagement in the first place.”

“ Pardon ?”

She flicked the subject away with a shaking hand. “My current mortifications are quite enough to deal with at the moment without unearthing past ones.”

After a second where a twitch at the corner of his eye said he might argue the point, James set his jaw and gave a terse nod. “Very well.”

The tightness in her chest eased slightly. The fewer people who knew that story, the better.

“It doesn’t matter.” She sighed so deeply she felt it in her bones. “I’m the one who got myself into this mess. This is all my fault.”

He grimaced. “Not precisely. I?—”

He stopped, frowned. Candace peered over at him—she couldn’t possibly imagine what he had to look so guilty about, and she’d never heard him at a loss for words.

James was slow to speak, but once he started, his words were measured, confident.

It was one of the things she appreciated about him—he wasn’t the flashiest person in the room, but he was steady, calming.

“I went to see Shelbourne. In Paris.” He raked a hand through his thick hair once more.

“What? Why?”

“To get him to come back and follow through with the engagement.”

She closed her slightly ajar mouth through rote manners. “So that’s what he meant. You were the white knight he spoke of. I thought he was speaking of Devonshire.”

“What does Devonshire?—?”

Candace turned to him. “Why on earth would you do that?”

“Everyone could see how miserable you were.”

Her eyes widened. They could?

He shook his head and continued. “Or at least, I could see it. It was an untenable situation, what with the rumors and the wager book at the Black Raven?—”

“They’re betting on me?” Her eyebrows raised. “What are the details of it?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me. What’s the wager?”

“Whether you’d marry within the next six months.”

She huffed a humorless laugh. The gentlemen were betting on her at their clubs. Everyone had been in on the joke except for her .

“I’m sorry, Candace. Truly, I am. I never thought he’d do what he did tonight. I only sought to preserve your happiness—to stop the rumors. But after watching his behavior, both in Paris and in London, I see that my entire premise was flawed. I should never have gone to retrieve him.”

The crackling of the fire and the ticking of the clock were the only sounds for several moments while Candace sorted her feelings.

She turned to him, a grim smile on her face.

“Of course I forgive you. In fact, there’s absolutely nothing to forgive.

How could I possibly blame you for not knowing who he really was when I didn’t, either?

You were only trying to help. Besides, better a sharp, quick death than a slow, lingering one. ”

“I’m sorry for my part in it, regardless.”

“Tomorrow I’ll go to him and hold a pillow to our engagement’s face once and for all.

” She took a bolstering breath, stood, and gathered her things.

After a moment’s pause, she snapped open her purse and handed him a gold coin.

“If you make it to the Black Raven before the word gets out, place a bet on me.”

“I’ll always bet on you, Candace.”

Something in his tone made her pause in the doorway and look back. But James was studying the coin, his head bent so she couldn’t see his expression.