Page 138 of Lady Waldrey’s Gardening Almanac for Cultivating Scandal

“And you don’t want me to see how much it cost, is that it?” His eyebrows rose. “Now I demand to see it.”

Candace sighed and untied the twine, tore at the brown paper. White silk as smooth as liquid poured into her hands and spilled toward the floor until she caught it. She shook the gown gently out by the shoulders and stared.

It was possibly the most stunning dress she’d ever seen. The sleeves were lace, as delicate as spiderwebs, encrusted with groupings of seed pearls and diamonds that were stitched to look like a graceful flowering vine. The embroidery and embellishment continued at the bodice and down the front of the gown, splitting in two at the front. The light silk was made heavy by the sheer number of pearls and diamonds covering it.

Candace had no idea how Madame Aubert had completed it as soon as she did—her seamstresses must have worked day and night.

Percy frowned. “Where on earth are you going to wear that? It’s quite formal, isn’t it?”

Candace swallowed back the emotion from her throat and tried to answer her brother, but she didn’t know what to say. Adelaide’s eyes met hers, and Candace swore she saw understanding in their blue depths.

“As if a lady needs a reason for a new dress,” Adelaide said lightly. “Really, Percy. Don’t try to understand the fickle whims of ladies’ fashion—it will only twist your mind into knots. I’m shocked you’re even mildly interested in the trivial matters of dress shopping. Are you that bored with the country already? We can return to London if that’s the case. I believe we might be able to make it back just in time for the Marchioness Vickhalder’s ball next week.”

Percy’s eyebrows shot to his hairline, horror growing in degrees upon his face as his wife spoke. “Indeed not. We only just got here, and we’re not leaving until...well, not for months.”

“Maybe there’s a project you can find to keep you occupied,” she said, leading him away by the arm. “Reorganizing the library, perhaps? Or modernizing the plumbing?”

Candace was left to stare at what was very obviously a wedding gown in silence until she took a deep, ragged inhale, folded the dress carefully, and headed towards her room. Maybe if she were very clever, she could hide the dress where even Hortense couldn’t find it.

Drenched for the second time in as many days, Candace thought.

It had started well enough—good weather, excellent intentions. In search of something to do, she’d walked to the garden folly to ensure the cleanup of the picnic was complete. There was nothing sadder than forgotten party bunting left to rot limply in the elements. Though Percy and Adelaide had returned—and this had always been far more their property than hers—Candace still felt responsible for the outcome of the picnic.

After all, she’d been the one to invite two hundred strangers to tromp across the fields and peek at the statues in the garden folly. To both her satisfaction and dismay, there was very little trace of the garden party that only yesterday had filled the clearing. The grass was still matted in some places—Candace could tell where the quilts had lain—but other than some divots where the poles once stood, it was all gone.

She frowned at the thought and walked listlessly to the dock, her boots rapping against the wooden planks as she walked to the end. She peered over the edge. Why on earth had that great lummox of a dog jumped? Looking at it now, Candace was surprised she’d mounted the courage to do so, and she could swim. A little, anyway. She retreated from the edge—she had no intention of falling in and getting wet today.

As if in response to her errant thought, a low rumble rolled in the distance. Candace frowned and lifted her face to the sky. When had it become so grey? Rain plopped onto her cheek—the drop so isolated and lazy that for a moment, Candace feared she’d been bestowed a dubious kind of blessing from a bird flying overhead.

Then more of them came, all crowding together as if that first raindrop had been the first daring lady to try a new fashion, and once it had been received well, all the others rushed to follow her lead.

“Drat it all.” Candace picked up her skirts and aimed for the only shelter available—the garden folly.

By the time she ran up the steps, they were wet, and she was, too. In the safety of the building, she turned back toward the entrance and looked out at the pattering spring rain. It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as the storm she, James, and Arthur had been caught in, but it was a hearty, steady kind of rain that didn’t look as if it would let up anytime soon.

Resigned to the wait, Candace wrung out her skirts as best she could, then glanced up at the statues. In the low light, the warrior’s expression looked even fiercer than usual, his love for the lady across the way plain upon his face. Candace sat against the statue of the lady and stared up at him. She searched his face, looking for any resemblance of James, but only the intensity of the soldier’s gaze reminded her a little of him.

“Is it not enough that you nearly caught your death out here once?” James demanded from the doorway. “You’re determined to do it again?”

“James,” she said, her words colored in half surprise, half relief. “What are you doing out here?”

“Looking for you, of course.” He stomped his feet free of mud, then flapped his jacket to rid it of moisture. Candace smiled—just now, he reminded her of some great, agitated bird.

“What are you smirking about?”

“Nothing. I’m just happy you’re here.”

His eyes narrowed as if he smelled the partial falsehood but deigned to let it go. And she was happy he was here—sitting in the rain was dreadfully lonely and a small slice of frightening—even if part of her heart quailed at the conversation they were about to have. For there was no escaping it now. All of the interruptions that had prevented them from speaking these past few days were gone.

Their relationship depended upon which words were used in the next half an hour or so—the entirety of her future depended upon them. This was the stark fork in the garden path, upon which there would be no retreating. Even her heartbeat seemed to tune itself to the fact—thumping right or left, right or left.

Right or left. Happiness or sorrow. Forgiveness or lifelong regret.

In the face of such pressure, Candace hugged her knees tighter, even as James slipped off his coat and draped it around her shivering shoulders. The warm wool enveloped her, not only with heat borrowed from James's body, but also the smell of him. Cedar from his closet, clean soap, and just a hint of those cigars Arthur complained about.

It was a heady combination, and Candace blinked stupidly as James lowered himself to her side and threw his arm around her back, resting his warm hand upon her knee.

“We need to talk,” he said.