The Importance of Being Wanton - Christi Caldwell Page 0,105
God. Emma’s eyes slid closed once more, and she made herself open them, thinking of how young Camille would have been . . . and what terror and heartbreak she would have known.
Through it, Charles spoke, his words rolling together rapidly, his voice still hushed so that she edged closer to hear every one of them. “A girl who’d just turned seventeen? With child? In this world? She would forever be an object of scorn. Her future settled by society. Her life uncertain.”
But a gentleman . . .
Those three words lingered in the air, a whisper that percolated, and then the realization hit her square in the chest, rocking her back on her heels. Emma’s breath caught on a noisy gasp that sent a still-gliding pelican off into flight. Incapable of words, she urged him with her eyes to confirm what could only be imaginings in her head, because the alternative would mean so much about Charles and her belief of him had been . . . wrong, in all the worst ways.
He nodded tightly. “He is Camille’s son.”
All the muscles in her legs turned to putty, and she sank onto a nearby boulder. Unblinking, she stared up at him as he spoke, his words a whir in her ears.
With that, he continued on, quickly, almost as if he delivered a rote telling he knew too well and was eager to have done. “I’d already been a wild student. Society knew I was reckless and given to mischief; as such, my parents . . .”—his lips formed another of those wry twists—“encouraged me to fulfill those expectations. That any ill behavior on my part would feed into the perception.” Twisting at the sides of his Oxonian, Charles glanced down at the article. “Until the perception became the reality. I would go to gaming hells and dens of ill repute, and I lived that part, Emma. That was true. It became true anyway.”
A wave of hurt rushed through her; it brought her to her feet. Burning with jealousy at what those nameless women had known with him . . .
“Some years ago, I was at one of those clubs, and there was a woman there.” He paused. “Miss Lee.”
“Oh.” She wetted her lips as Miss Lee became more real, with a beginning with him. And a tale between them.
“Her father was a merchant.” His jaw tensed. “He sold her on a losing hand to some dissolute lord.”
Another gasp escaped her, but Charles continued over that interruption.
“She was the same age as Camille when Camille had been so used. I helped free her from that man.” He took a step toward her. “I gave her the funds to maintain a townhouse, and provided a stipend over the years so she might survive, but that has been the extent of my connection with her.” He lowered his brow to hers. “From that night on, I returned to my clubs, and I searched for hints of women in those same straits . . .”
“Miss Linden,” she whispered.
“Miss Linden.” He grimaced. “I didn’t pay enough care to being discreet in the help I was providing until it was too late. For them . . .” He held her eyes, the intensity of his stare piercing through her. “And for you.” Charles ran his knuckles along her cheek. “But you were the first for me since that night I . . . vowed to change my life.” With a last, lingering caress, he let his hand fall and returned to the edge of the river.
Her chest rose and fell quickly, and Emma ran a hand over her brow. She took a step nearer and then stopped, her world knocked out of kilter by everything he’d revealed.
He’d taken his sister’s child as his own . . . He’d rescued women who’d been wronged and in peril. All the while, he’d let the world believe the worst of him when he’d only been giving the best of himself to the sister he loved.
She looked to him, her heart stricken. “My god, I doubted you,” she whispered. She’d been so blinded by jealousy she’d not allowed herself to believe in him. “I saw the rouge on your shirt.” Emma’s eyes slid shut briefly. “And I believed every worst thing about you.”
Charles took several angry steps forward, closing the small distance she’d put between them. “Don’t do that,” he said harshly, splotches of red suffusing the sharp planes of his chiseled cheeks.