The Importance of Being Wanton - Christi Caldwell Page 0,17
off their betrothal.
“. . . with his father and brother, this time,” Pierce was saying.
“Indeed?” Morgan angled his head, looking out for his Eton and Oxford chum, and closest childhood friend. “Wasn’t expecting Derek.”
“Oh, would you stop,” Pierce muttered. “He’s not here for you. It is obvious why he’s here. Scarsdale’s come with reinforcements this time.”
Emma sprinted across the room, yanking her brothers by the backs of their jackets, forcing them off to the side and out of view. She peeked around the edge of the green silk curtain, and angled her gaze down, bypassing the white-haired gentleman and dark-haired fellow in favor of just one . . . and her heart did a silly leap, for an altogether different reason. Several inches past six feet, in possession of a frame that showed off his love of riding and boxing, he was everything unlike the padded, soft fellows of Polite Society. The sun glinted off golden strands a fraction long enough to flirt with respectability. His jaw square. His cheeks chiseled. His nose a perfect slab of aquiline flesh. He was entirely more handsome than any man had a right to be. Emma tightened her mouth. Yes, he might be more beautiful than Apollo himself, but beauty didn’t erase all the many flaws that made him the absolute last man she’d ever tie herself to. “It doesn’t matter that he’s arrived,” she whispered furiously, as Barley drew open the panels to greet the earl.
The old butler said something, his back to them as it was, so there was no hope Emma could make out anything of what the servant was saying.
She squinted. Wait a moment . . . ? Emma pressed her forehead to the lead windowpane.
“He is smiling.” A crooked grin that dimpled just one cheek curved Charles’s perfectly formed lips. “Why is he smiling?” Emma whispered, ignoring the glance Olivia and her siblings shared. “Either way. It does not matter. Papa has ordered him—”
Barley nodded vigorously, and gestured with his hand.
Emma’s eyebrows went flying up.
“Inside?” Morgan drawled.
“I expect it is only because the marquess and Lord Derek are with him,” Olivia said unconvincingly. “He cannot go about sending his and Morgan’s closest friends away. However, I should expect he would send Scarsdale away.”
Yes, one should expect.
Emma gritted her teeth.
“Should” being the operative word.
Flipping his Oxonian hat back and forth between his hands like a damned master juggler, Charles took a step forward, then stopped. He glanced up.
Curses and gasps went up from the lot around Emma. Not Emma, however. She remained rooted to her spot. Yes, he’d caught her spying, but she’d be damned if she looked away.
His grin widened, and then he bowed his head.
“As if it is a bloody social call,” she said to herself.
And then he followed Barley, disappearing . . . within her house.
Silence fell once more.
More tense. More tangible.
Emma released her hold on the corner of the curtain.
Pierce cleared his throat. “Well, I think that is what makes it safe to say Father has not relented.”
Chapter 3
THE LONDONER
FRIENDSHIPS ABOUND
The Earl of Scarsdale has never met a person he couldn’t charm, and that includes the Viscount Featherstone.
M. FAIRPOINT
Charles had known since he was a boy that he’d no wish, interest, or even curiosity in the woman his parents had betrothed him to as a babe.
It hadn’t been until he was a grown man, watching her walk away, that he’d realized what a damned fool he’d been.
That did not mean, however, he’d given up all hope of wooing her back.
Charles let his cue fly, and cracked the balls upon the billiards table.
“Well done, Charles. Well done,” Emma’s father, the Viscount Featherstone, boomed, slapping him hard between the shoulder blades with an enormous hand that managed to shake even Charles. But then, the viscount was a mountain of a man . . . which made it rather fortuitous that he didn’t want to separate Charles from any of his limbs for the broken betrothal. “Better than your father, you are. Not that that is much of a recommendation, eh, Jared,” he jested, nudging the marquess beside him.
Both men jostled one another the way two jocular youths at Oxford might.
Charles’s younger brother, Derek, slid into position beside him, and made a show of studying the billiards table. “This is how you’ve been spending your time,” Derek said from the corner of his mouth. “Joining the older set for ribbing and billiards? You really are dicked in the nob since Emma Gately’s defection.”