The Importance of Being Wanton - Christi Caldwell Page 0,31

a drink too many that day.

All eyes immediately went to Lady Sylvia.

Nay, not all of them. Lord St. John had his gaze firmly on the doorway.

Escape.

As one who’d fled her mock marriage ceremony and most meetings with her then betrothed, Lord Scarsdale, in the years to follow, Emma recognized that longing to leave. All too well.

“As you are aware,” the lady began, “there is always a great concern when members leave our ranks. We’ve all come to know precisely what that usually means.”

Murmurs of assent went up amongst the ladies present.

Yes, it meant that disapproving kin had stepped in and barred their daughter or ward from attending.

“And though that is the heart of the reason you’ve all been called,” Sylvia went on, “there is another more pressing matter that merits a discussion prior to our lost membership.”

Emma sharpened her gaze upon the viscount.

More blood leached from his cheeks, and he leaned forward in his chair, then sank back. Arching forward a second time like a baby bird practicing flight . . . and failing.

“I’ve recently discovered by chance”—Sylvia lifted her voice for just those two one-syllable words, drawing a noticeable attention to them—“the possibility a new society has been formed.”

“What sort of society?” Olivia puzzled aloud.

Emma’s suspicions deepened. What sort of society, indeed?

“Surely not a . . . rival organization?” Cora sounded so very close to crying that her mother produced another kerchief.

More murmurings rolled around the room, these more shocked and frenzied than the prior ones.

“Well, need it realllly be a rival?” St. John ventured. The gentleman wrestled with his previously perfectly folded cravat. “I mean, can it not simply be that there’s an alternative place? Why should there be just one society? A need was identified . . . and as such, there should be many places that allow people to come together and share in ideas and frustrations and beliefs.”

Well, that was quite the defense. Emma sharpened her eyes on the viscount, whose response was more than a rote deliverance. “That strikes me as very specific for someone who knows nothing of such a league,” Emma said into the quiet, and all eyes swung her way. She grunted as Isla sent an elbow sailing into her side. “Ouch.”

“Now that is unpardonably offensive,” Isla said on a furious whisper, and then looked to Sylvia. She raised her voice. “I do not agree with my sister.”

“You should,” Sylvia drawled, and Emma felt her sister’s pause and the tensing of her leg against hers, and as she looked to Emma, Isla’s expression wavered.

“I . . . should?” she asked hesitantly, sliding a wary glance to the tense, pale gentleman at the center of the room and the discussion unfolding.

“Oh, yes.” The viscountess placed her palms on either side of her husband’s chair and leaned forward. “Isn’t that right, dear husband?”

Sweat beaded the gentleman’s brow, and he shifted back and forth in the too-small-for-him seat, the delicate scrap groaning under his movement. “I . . .”

“Are you uncomfortable, dear husband?” the viscountess went on. “If so, you have only yourself to blame.” Fierce in her command of the moment, she straightened. “You do know something of it, and I’d ask you to share what you know.”

His mother leaned forward, proffering a kerchief for her son, which he accepted, promptly mopping at his perspiring forehead. After he lowered the rumpled fabric to his lap, retaining his hold on it, he spoke. “I understand how you might perceive my support of a new society as a betrayal. Initially, I was of like mind.”

“Initially,” Valerie spat.

He frowned, and continued, “It was, however, pointed out that salons are not an original idea. Nor should they be reserved for one group of people. If there are others that would like to bring people together to engage in meaningful discussions, then who is anyone to suppress such opportunities?”

Silence rang in the uncharacteristically quiet gathering.

Annalee was the first to break it. “And I take it you’ve been attending these meetings?” she drawled, using the candlestick beside her to light her cheroot. The end sizzled ominously.

Except this time the viscount inclined his head, and appeared steadied by the justifications he’d provided the room. “I have.”

Gasps went up.

His wife rocked back on her heels.

And Emma seethed. Another betrayal. This here, this meeting, was precisely why a woman would be wise to never fall in love. For there was no other way to look at Lord St. John’s actions as anything other than a betrayal. As prettily as the viscount may