Page 9 of Lady Waldrey’s Gardening Almanac for Cultivating Scandal

She stood at his elbow, where he couldn’t help but see her, and smiled tightly up at him. “Shelbourne?”

He was grinning at someone else when he turned to her. When their eyes met, the smile slid from his face, replaced by a cool sort of detachment. Candace’s eyes went wide—she’d never seen that expression on his face before, and certainly never directed at her. Then his gaze went over her shoulder to Canterbury, who’d followed and stood behind her like a stalwart soldier.

Shelbourne’s visage transformed into one of livid fury. Then he did the worst possible thing one could do to another noble in a room full of onlookers—he turned his back squarely to Candace and pretended he’d never heard her.

The cut direct.

Gasps sounded around her, each one a quiet wing—together, the eruption of a flock of pigeons in a town square. She stood, stunned, until Canterbury took her elbow.

“Candace,” he murmured.

She allowed him to lead her across the ballroom, through groupings of openly gaping young ladies. Heads craned. Scandalized half-smiles flitted behind fans. Wide eyes followed wherever she went.

Canterbury walked Candace toward the hall, Vera behind them. They were solemn, silent—a three-person funeral procession in the middle of a party.

For something had died just then, hadn’t it? Her relationship with Shelbourne, possibly. Her social standing, definitely.

“I don’t understand,” she said faintly.

“Hush now. Almost there,” he murmured. His fingers were firm on her elbow, his face drawn in long lines of anger.

Before her mind could catch up with her feet, they were out in the hall. Canterbury didn’t so much as pause—he plowed forward like a draft horse, towing a weak and confused Candace alongside. One of her slow, perplexed blinks later, they stood in a library, the door shut behind the three of them.

“I don’t understand,” she said more clearly.

Her eyes beseeched each of them in turn—for what, she didn’t quite know. An explanation? To tell her that it had all been a terrible nightmare?

“It’s going to be all right,” Vera said—but her voice was trembling; she sounded unconvinced.

“He shouldn’t have done that.” Canterbury paced, swiped a hand through his dark hair. “I can’t believe he did that.”

Candace collapsed onto the edge of a tufted leather sofa. “And everyone saw.”

She shook her head, but it really had happened—her fiancé had given her the cut direct, in front of everyone. In fact, he couldn’t have found a more public venue in which to humiliate her. What she didn’t understand was why.

The word rolled around in her mind like a slightly uneven wagon wheel. Why-why-why? Why had he done that?

“It doesn’t make sense,” she said, inanely repeating her fragmented thoughts. “Why would he do that?”

Vera’s eyes were wide. She shook her head frantically. “I don’t know,” she squeaked.

Canterbury said, “I’m so sorry. Just wait here. I’ll...I’ll fix this.”

He turned for the door and was through it before Candace realized he aimed to leave. She couldn’t think well right now, and she prided herself on her ability to think. She focused on breathing in and out. Slowly. Deeply.

It seemed to help. She became aware of more of the details of the room—the rich leather sofas, the ticking of the clock on the stone mantel, the hissing of the oil lamps. Vera sat next to her, her lips pressed together in a show of concern.

She was exceedingly grateful for Vera—not only had she shadowed Candace all the way out of the ballroom in a show of support, but she was quiet now. She didn’t prattle, didn’t offer empty condolences or suggestions, didn’t ask inane questions to fill the gaping silence. She simply sat, breathing the same air, her very presence a demonstration of solidarity.

Candace closed her eyes, took another deep breath, and opened them. “That actually happened.” Her voice was flat. “Shelbourne turned his back to me. On purpose. In public.”

“Yes.” The word was seeped in sympathy.

Her hands fell open, palms up, on her knees. “I’ve done nothing to him to warrant such behavior, such cruelty.”

“I don’t know.” Vera pressed her lips together and shook her head. “It’s not as if he was forced into your engagement. Why ask you to marry him and then treat you like this?”

Candace stiffened, stunned. She’d never told Vera the full account of their betrothal; she’d never told anyone. Perhaps her mind had abandoned the facts of the matter in favor of the story that everyone else believed—that Shelbourne, society’s most eligible bachelor and notorious rake, had reformed himself overnight. For her.