The Importance of Being Wanton - Christi Caldwell Page 0,109
troubles the society now faced any easier to accept.
Her gaze slid over to the copy of The Londoner resting at the side of her desk. Even as she reached for it, Charles intercepted her efforts. “Don’t,” he said quietly and firmly.
The unfavorable words and, worse, the warnings about the Mismatch Society as an evil influence had persisted. Charles, she knew, had nothing to do with those words. Despite the misgivings still held by her friends . . . and sister.
Concern spilled from his gaze. “I didn’t—”
She cut him off. “I know you didn’t.” Even when they’d just been rivals, she’d still not believed him capable of what Owen professed he was guilty of. Emma threw down her pen, and abandoned all pretense of work. “I care less about who is responsible and more for the fact that the Mismatch Society is struggling,” she confided, and it felt so freeing and wonderful to have someone from outside of that sphere to commiserate with. Someone who’d also created something from scratch, and cared about it as she did.
“Perhaps . . .”
When he stopped, she dropped her elbows on the surface of her desk. “Yes?” she urged. She didn’t want him to have to measure words with her.
“Perhaps you’re worrying too much. Trying too hard.”
She wrinkled her nose. “How is it possible to try too hard?”
“Well, when you began the Mismatch Society,” he said, “did you worry about who would join your ranks and who would not?”
Emma’s brows came together. For in actuality, she hadn’t. It had been more about a place where she could go and meet with just the handful of fast friends she’d found . . . Only when it had grown, so had her expectations for what she wanted them to be. But what if he was correct? What if the reason for their recent struggles was because they’d gotten so very far away from what they’d started out as? A group dedicated to discussions that evolved in a natural way. In a way that wasn’t scripted or . . . in a way that they tried so hard.
Now, most of their meetings were spent worrying after their decreased numbers. Over the years, she’d spent so much time listening to society’s condemnations and worrying about them . . . even when she herself hadn’t realized as much. She’d prided herself on being boldly assertive, but all the while she’d listened to the critics: what they’d said about her betrothal. About her relationship with Charles. About . . . even the Mismatch Society.
Emma shoved back her seat as the truth hit her. She stared at him with unblinking eyes. “You’re right,” she said on an exhale. “We’ve been so focused on a competition with your club that we’ve failed to see the reason ladies were leaving was because discussions ceased happening. You provided what we’ve recently been unable to.”
His brow furrowed. “And what is that?”
Did he really not know? “A stimulating place where women can speak on topics that matter to them, while using literature as a vehicle to do so.”
He blushed. “I . . . It just evolved. I didn’t set out with that specific goal in mind.”
Resting an elbow on the table, Emma dropped her chin atop it. “It just came naturally to you, Lord Scarsdale,” she praised.
And then wonder of wonders . . . he blushed. “No! That isn’t what I was saying. Rather—”
Emma stretched her hands across the table and covered his ink-stained fingers with her own. “You didn’t say it,” she agreed. “I did. It is what you did.”
She’d always taken him as self-important and arrogant. He’d erected a flawless facade of a man so urbane and unaffected. Or mayhap it was simply that she had failed to look close enough to see the real man. And in that, he’d been entirely correct in some of those earliest accusations he’d hurled at her. Emma let her arm drop and leaned forward, erasing some of the space between them. “It comes naturally, and there is no shame to be found in that.” She stared wistfully down at her collection of crossed-out lines and failed lectures. “I would give anything to have a bit of that talent.”
“You conceived something from nothing, and are direct in your studies and devoted to your members. And I . . .”
His gaze locked on her face.
The door burst open, killing that declaration on his lips.
“Fraternizing with the enemy,” Isla muttered, stalking forward. “I never thought I’d see the day.” Close at