The Importance of Being Wanton - Christi Caldwell Page 0,23

your club.” And then it was as though she’d imagined that unexpected show of real emotion from him, as Charles dropped a shoulder casually against the wall, curving his body in a way that framed her perfectly and managed the impossible . . . to make Emma, taller than most men, feel dainty beside him.

She gritted her teeth. He’d choose this instant, of course, to keep her at his side.

“Do you need one of us to beat him, Emma?” Morgan called over, far more loyal than either of their parents combined.

“As if you could beat Scarsdale.” Pierce snorted, and the twins promptly forgot about coming to her defense, should she need it, and instead sparred over the matter of Scarsdale’s prowess.

Emma briefly closed her eyes. This, again, from her brothers? Their great fascination with duels and dueling. “Men,” she muttered. Not that she’d require either of their help anyway. They’d all proven remarkably useless where she was concerned.

Charles leaned in. “What was that?”

She squared her shoulders and got back to the prime focus of her annoyance. “I’ll have you know, we are a society.” She’d opened her mouth to launch into a lecture when she registered the glimmer in his chocolate-brown eyes. She firmed her lips. “I see.” She’d often read that he was one of the teasing sorts. But never had he engaged her so. She’d wanted him to. “You are making light.”

An eyebrow went arcing up. “You’re in the habit of recognizing jests now?”

Yes, because he’d taken her as one incapable of having fun or even a spirit. “It is rather hard not to when I have the biggest one before me.”

He blinked slowly, and then those long golden lashes ceased moving altogether. Good, let him stew upon that.

“Furthermore,” she went on when all their family members present were otherwise diverted. “You should have a care, throwing around willy-nilly jests about my ability to laugh or smile, Lord Scarsdale.” Emma took a step toward him. “You never took time to learn anything about me. As such, allow me to advise you . . . I’ve always been capable of doing so, and were I you, I wouldn’t go throwing about my lack of amusement in your presence, given you never provided me with a reason to laugh or smile. Therefore”—she stuck a finger in his chest—“I would also say it is a greater reflection of you, and a deficit on your character, more than mine.”

With that, she yanked her skirts away and stalked off.

“What in hell have you done now, my boy?” The marquess’s booming disapproval for his son followed Emma all the way out into the corridors.

And with her second victory in the matter of Charles Hayden that day, Emma smiled.

Chapter 4

THE LONDONER

FATHERS AND GUARDIANS BEWARE

The Mismatch Society poses a very real danger to Polite Society . . . and all the institutions it extols. At the start of their formation, they may have enlisted the honorable Viscount St. John to provide a veneer of respectability; however, the shine is well and truly off.

M. FAIRPOINT

Lots of people spoke disparagingly about Charles.

They’d done so when he’d been a wild youth in Oxford.

The words spoken of him had only increased after Seamus’s arrival. But then, society never tired of whispering about those babes born outside the bounds of matrimony.

Charles had managed to let those unfavorable words roll off; people’s opinions of him mattered far less than the well-being and happiness of his family . . . of any of his family: His parents. His brother . . . His lone sister, whom he would have done anything for, and whom he’d also failed so terribly.

And Seamus.

In fact, Charles had believed himself immune to the ill opinions.

Only to be proven wrong that day by Emma’s impressive takedown of him.

Why does it matter to you? She has made clear what she feels about you . . . and it is . . . nothing. Nay, it was worse than nothing. She despised him. She didn’t respect him.

So why did he care so very much? Why did he hate that she thought him to be . . . the exact same thing the world believed him to be?

Because you saw in her, too late, a woman of spirit and strength and convictions, the likes of which you’ve known in no other person before her.

“You don’t take anything seriously, Charles. Everything and everyone is a joke to you. You’re notoriously late . . . You hunt . . . You drink too much