The Importance of Being Wanton - Christi Caldwell Page 0,119

hopes of driving a wedge between him and Emma? That man was capable of any number of dark deeds . . . as had been proven this day.

Leaning forward, Charles urged his mount on all the faster. His breath came hard, little to do with the pace he’d set and everything to do with the numbing panic that had followed him as he’d galloped through the streets of London . . . until the cobblestones had given way to the green countryside, marking the moment he’d left.

The shift from soot and mud and stone to overgrown roads, lined by trees and lush emerald earth, forced his mind back.

To the time he’d loved the countryside. To the time when there’d been no greater joy than riding and running wild over the land. And for some of those days, he’d entertained a little girl at his side. Chasing her and being chased in return . . . until they’d grown up and he’d come to associate those lands and that place with resentment over his lot.

He wanted to go back and live there with her . . . Hell, he wanted to do everything with her. Go everywhere with her.

And yet a sense of hopelessness threatened to swarm him, riding hard, pushing his horse harder than he ever had, because there was no future without Emma in it.

He was lost—

Charles yanked hard on the reins; a downed tree blocked the middle of the road.

Rascal reared, pawing at the earth before settling.

Making a soothing noise, Charles patted the chestnut mount on his withers. When the skittish creature was at last calmed, Charles dismounted. His horse promptly wandered to the side of the roadway and found a patch of overgrown grass to chew on.

Stalking over to the blockage, Charles cursed, assessing the path. Upon inspection, it wasn’t a downed tree, but rather a series of branches. He frowned, skimming his gaze over the road. Ones that appeared as if they’d been strategically placed.

Where in blazes were they?

They couldn’t have been so far ahead. Watley’s sister had come immediately, and according to Emma’s brothers, she’d been in the midst of arguing with her parents over the right to see him not long before she’d been abducted. Gretna Green was the end goal for Watley. Speed would have been his concern. Unless he had taken one of those less-traveled roads, in which case, one of Emma’s brothers or—

A rock landed on the tip of his boot, and he jumped, from not the pain but the surprise of it.

“You’re late, Scarsdale.”

And then he heard it. Nay, he heard her. Or . . . he thought he did. Perhaps it was just the hungering to see her that had led to him hearing her.

Emma.

Another pebble caught him square on his other boot, bringing his eyes flying open, and he grunted. No, there was no imagining that.

“It took you long enough, Charles-love,” a voice called down.

Angling his head back, Charles scanned his gaze, frantically searching . . . and then finding. He squinted at the beloved figure high overhead, perched as comfortably as in a seating room, only in the nook of a branch.

“You were once very skilled at climbing trees to escape me, Charles. Never tell me you won’t scale one to find me,” she teased, and a dizzying lightness suffused his chest, leaving him buoyant, and he felt his lips form the first smile he’d managed since they’d been together yesterday morn.

Catching the low-hanging branch, he drew himself up, and he scaled the old oak until he reached the place just below the perch she’d made for herself. “You knew about that.”

A twinkle lit her eyes. “I had the tree across from you,” she whispered, and then winked.

His eyebrows went flying up. “You—”

“Were there? Yes. Heard everything?” She nodded. “Indeed. I climbed down before you or your parents saw me.”

His mind raced back, recalling all the remembrances of that day, the words he recalled speaking . . . and then a small figure, in the distance, hovering beside the lake. Emma. She’d been near enough to hear all. His chest tightened. “Oh, God, Emma. No wonder—”

“Oh, hush.” Emma tapped the tip of her boot against his shoulder. “I was hiding, too. You didn’t have a market on ‘child wishing to escape their betrothal’ that day.”

Some of the tension eased from his shoulders. “We were always of a remarkably similar thought,” he said wistfully. They’d just been too proud and filled with resentment to see that they were