The Importance of Being Wanton - Christi Caldwell Page 0,30

Lord Scarsdale.

A whistling sounded in the near distance, growing increasingly closer.

Lord St. John entered the parlor. “You summoned me, lo— Ohhh.” The viscount’s tender greeting ended abruptly, as he moved an ever-widening gaze from his wife to take in the eighteen pairs of eyes upon him. “Hell,” he finished, earning a series of shocked gasps.

Eris giggled.

His eyes widened. “Hello!” he quickly amended. “That is . . . I meant to say ‘helloo!’” He dropped a hasty bow.

Emma narrowed her eyes as suspicion stirred. “He knows something,” she said out of the corner of her mouth. “And I’d wager it is not good.”

“What makes you say that?” Isla protested.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Emma took in the exchange between the gentleman in question and the dowager viscountess. “The way in which he’s darting his eyes around, looking for an escape, all the while his mother speaks to him.” More specifically, it was the tense way in which Lady Sylvia watched him while he spoke. The intensity of the other woman’s stare. As a lady who’d been hurt by a man, Emma had come to recognize the marks of an aggrieved or offended woman. And there could be no doubting . . . “Lady Sylvia is displeased with him.”

Isla cocked her head. “I . . . she looks exactly as she always does.”

“Then you’re not paying close enough attention, little sister.”

Isla made a face. “He’s only been supportive of the Mismatch Society. From the start.”

Emma slid a look her sister’s way. How conveniently Isla forgot about the fact that he’d paid their meeting a visit once with the express intention of shutting them down. “From the start?”

Color bloomed in Isla’s cheeks. “Almost from the start. When others were attempting to shut us down, he lent his name and presence to the Mismatch Society. And I know you are cynical, Emma.” About love and men. Her sister didn’t speak it, but her message was clear. Nor, for that matter, was Isla incorrect. As such, Emma didn’t take offense. “But I refuse to believe that our founding leader’s husband would have some nefarious, underhanded involvement in our demise.” Isla turned to Olivia. “Tell her.”

The other woman held up her palms. “I know better than to involve myself in your disputes.”

And additionally, Olivia was second only to Emma in terms of her distrust and skepticism where men were concerned.

“Ladies,” Lord St. John called to the room at large, lifting a hand in a gesture that signified both a salutation and a parting. “Forgive me. I was unaware you were meeting. I do not seek to intrude . . . If you’ll excuse me?”

He took a step toward the door. An entirely too quick and also damning one. “You will do no such thing, dear husband,” Lady Sylvia drawled. “I noticed it’s been quite some time since you’ve attended any of our meetings; however, I thought you would join us today?” The leader of the Mismatch Society gripped a Venetian giltwood side chair and moved it into position at the center of the room.

The gentleman’s swallow was audible, and also so wild his cravat moved under the force of it. “In-indeed? I had a meeting, however . . .” Sylvia winged up a blonde brow, and the gentleman promptly sat in the seat that was too small and too uncomfortable in its stiffness for the selection to have been anything but deliberate.

“Enough. Stop looking at him like that, Emma,” Isla whispered furiously.

She’d do no such thing.

“You’re going to upset Sylvia,” her youngest sibling went on.

“Sylvia wouldn’t want for Emma to blindly follow, either,” Olivia pointed out.

Emma gave a decisive nod. “There you are. Listen to Olivia.”

A sound of frustration escaped the younger girl. “I’ll not be party to such disloyal discussion,” Isla muttered, and in a marked display of distancing herself, she drew her skirts close and inched away from Emma.

To her sister’s defense, Isla had never been betrayed or hurt by a man to know just how little they, on the whole, were to be trusted.

KnockKnockKnock.

Annalee banged the gavel, an intricately crafted piece designed by the husband of Mismatch member Lila, the Duchess of Wingate. A Lost Lord who’d been abducted as a boy, the former fighter had found his way back into the peerage, and had been supportive in every way of the Mismatch Society.

Annalee looked to Sylvia. “This meeting is called to orderrr.” Only the slight slur of that last word indicated the young woman, a survivor of the Peterloo Massacre, had already consumed