their younger sister’s heels, Morgan and Pierce came trotting in. The two young men who’d always been enamored of the earl studiously avoided his gaze.
“Get up,” Isla said without preamble. “We have a meeting—”
Emma glanced down at her notebook. She’d been more dazed than usual, but she’d not yet resorted to confusing her days. “We don’t—”
“It is an emergency meeting. You remember,” her sister shot back. “When there are crises that merit us gathering as a society outside of our usual hours.”
“Oh.” And it was surely wrong to feel this rush of disappointment at having her time with Charles ended.
Emma’s father immediately stumbled into the room. “Billiards!” he exclaimed breathlessly. “If Emie is rushing off, won’t you join me for a match?”
Previously, that devotion to Charles had grated. Now, Emma had come to appreciate that mayhap her father’s taste in friendship with Charles had less to do with Emma and her betrothal, and more to do with the simple fact he enjoyed the younger man’s presence. Because in fairness . . . who didn’t?
“Alas, I must decline. I have important matters to attend to regarding my own club.”
“Important matters to attend,” Isla muttered. “Speak plainly and say, plotting further against the Mismatch Society, will you.”
Emma gave her youngest sibling a sharp look . . . which Isla ignored.
“Uh . . . yes, well.” Charles cleared his throat and returned his attention to the bereft bear of a man, who looked like a child who’d dropped his Gunter’s ice. “As I was saying, I’m unable to join today; however, if you’d welcome some company tomo—”
“I would,” the viscount boomed. “Bring your father—”
“And brother,” Morgan and Pierce said at the same time.
“Men,” Isla muttered with the vitriolic fury only a loyal, loving sister could manage. “Well, then, come along.” Alas, for all the ways in which Emma had proven happy, her sister had been far less easy to trust Charles. Nor could or would Emma ever dare violate his confidence. In time, her friends and the family not already besotted with Charles would see him as she did.
Emma hesitated, hating for this moment with Charles to end.
“Go; we will meet later.”
Seeming to realize she marched alone, Isla stopped in the doorway. “Well, then, you, too, brothers. You are part of the society,” she snapped. “Thanks to this one,” she added under her breath with a scowl for Emma.
Their twin brothers instantly fell back, their expressions abruptly a whole lot dourer.
A short while later, they arrived at Waverton Street and were shown to the parlor. Emma settled herself on the window seat overlooking the streets below, with her sister joining her on the upholstered cushion.
The room immediately quieted, with Annalee gaveling them in. “Emergency meeting, called to order.”
And it certainly was a testament to Emma’s distractedness that she’d no idea what the latest trouble to face the Mismatch Society in fact was.
“There have been . . . some concerns raised by several of the members, Emma,” Annalee said gently.
It did not escape her notice that Owen, Olivia, and her brothers directed their stares up at the ceiling—Emma narrowed her eyes—or that Isla stared angrily back. “Concerns?” she asked slowly.
“Because you are cared about, of course,” Valerie rushed to assure her.
Of course.
“You have been distracted, and you are not even caring about our sinking numbers and his rising ones,” Isla exclaimed.
And there it was.
Emma stiffened. This was the reason for the emergency meeting? Because of her relationship with Charles. Granted, her resentment of the gentleman in question was one of the whole reasons she’d found most of her friends and started the Mismatch Society in the first place. But this? This . . . felt like a betrayal. And yet she was as much responsible for the misgivings anyone had of Charles.
“It occurred to me just this day that we have worried entirely too much about who is leaving of their own volition,” she said quietly. “We are so focused on competing with Lord Scarsdale we’ve gotten away from what our mission is.” And yet so much of this was her fault. “I take responsibility for that,” she said to the room at large. “I have made this a competition, but it is not,” she implored, placing a slight emphasis on that last word, willing the women and men present to understand. “At least, that is not what it should be.”
“She is lost,” Annalee whispered.
“She is in love,” Lila and Sylvia corrected in time.
“And blinded because of it.” Those bitter words came from Owen.
“I