The Importance of Being Wanton - Christi Caldwell Page 0,6

of . . . legal opinions?” That question really wasn’t relevant to the fact that she was asking to be released of their betrothal.

“Enough,” she said vaguely, lifting her head in acknowledgment, and only further sowing the seeds of his intrigue.

He was learning in rapid order that she was . . . nothing like what he’d imagined. In command of herself and what she wanted. Capable of making a decision about the future she wanted for herself, when Charles himself hadn’t been able to do so. Nay, she was . . . different, in every way.

The sun peeked over the horizon, casting a bright flash of light over the water, the gleam nearly blinding. She lifted her parasol and popped it open. “Based upon my research”—her research?—“the arrangement is not formally binding, and neither party, neither of us, need be concerned on the question of a breach-of-promise suit being raised, as that would require a valid betrothal.”

“And ours was not valid?”

It was a question, and also one she apparently had the answer to.

She shook her head. “Promises of marriage when a member of the party is below the age of consent”—she paused—“which I was, are not valid.” She was clearly winding down, that note of finality creeping back into her dulcet tones. Tones that conveyed she’d tired of this exchange . . . and him.

And it was . . . humbling.

To say the very least.

And it was also when he knew he wanted her in his life. And he was going to fight like hell to not only keep her but also convince her that they’d both been wrong about one another.

“The solicitors were all of the opinion that the contract was well executed, though, because of”—she gave him a look—“our fathers.”

“Of course, our fathers,” he said, holding her eyes.

They shared a commiserative look, their first bond forged, a kindred moment born out of the meddlers of their lives.

“And they were all of a like opinion on the archaism of an arrangement fashioned for mere children,” she went on, putting a nail in the coffin of that brief connection.

“They don’t know a damned thing,” he snapped.

“Actually, they do. One was Mr. Duncan Eveleigh, famed for his defense of women, and even more noted for his work on the defense for Lathan Holman, rumored traitor.” She eyed him like he’d sprung a second head. And mayhap he had, and the second head was also the one responsible for him fighting even now to keep her.

Not that snapping at the lady was going to do him any favors.

“I did not wish for it to come as a surprise to you,” she explained. “Not that I expected you would care,” she said, and the absolute absence of inflection somehow caused that cinch to tighten even more than had she met his indifference these past years with tears. “But it is a formal contract we were forced into, and as such, we should each be fully aware of the dissolution of those terms.” Emma adjusted the frilly lace parasol at her shoulder. “I wish you all happiness you might have been otherwise prevented from finding because of our betrothal. Good day, Charles.”

Charles.

It was the first time he should hear his name fall freely from her lips, and on this, a goodbye?

She stepped around him, and put two paces between them before he registered that to be the end of this discussion. Which hadn’t really been a discussion.

“What if I don’t wish to be set free?” he called after her.

The young lady missed a step, then jammed the tip of her parasol into the ground, righting herself. Turning back, Emma faced him. He could make nothing of her stoic features, nor of the gaze she moved purposefully over his face.

He crossed the remainder of the way to join her. “I asked, what if I do not wish to be free, or end”—he gestured a hand between them—“this?” Whatever this was. And whatever it was, it had become . . . so much more in this one exchange than in every other they had shared before now.

Emma’s serious-as-always stare moved over his face.

Then she laughed, the sound tinkling with a slight snort, unrestrained, when the lady had always been tightly laced. And the sight of her proud shoulders shaking under the force of her levity, of her cheeks flushing with added color, held him even more enraptured than the sight of her siren’s mouth.

Had he ever heard her laugh? Before this? He searched his mind. Why