The Importance of Being Wanton - Christi Caldwell Page 0,88

entirely.”

“You’re telling me you didn’t start your book club because of the lady?”

Actually, she was the very reason he’d been inspired. Charles’s gaze moved out over the crowded gaming floor, and he saw himself in a different place, a different setting. Seated on a floor with Emma—

Landon thumped the table, calling back Charles’s attention. “Hullo, there it is, again. That is the distractibility I’m speaking of. And as St. John is busy being in love, I’m all you’ve got to intervene.”

“Ah, and that is what this is?” Charles drawled, taking a sip of his drink. “An intervention?”

“Precisely.”

At that moment, a voluptuous beauty sidled up to the table, interrupting the other man’s lecture.

“Hullo,” she purred her greeting, and wrapping her arms around Charles’s shoulders, she glided her talonlike fingernails under his jacket, and caressed the flat of his stomach, and then lower still.

Tall, and in possession of loose golden curls that hung down about her shoulders, the woman’s coloring put him in mind of another, one also with blonde hair, but drawn back severely, and as stubborn as the woman herself in its refusal to curl. That woman, whose lithe frame was too gaunt to ever be considered lush, and—

As the woman pressed a trail of kisses along his neck, the thick, overpowering jasmine scent of her made him slightly queasy, and he found himself preferring . . . longing for . . . a brighter, richer scent that conjured summer.

She wrapped a hand around his length, and Charles shifted in his seat, swiftly angling away from the persistent beauty.

Emitting a breathy laugh, she took it as some manner of game, and edged back his cravat to touch her rouged lips to the front of his throat. His mouth pulled in a grimace, and he hastily disentangled her hands from his person. “That will be all,” he said quickly, completely unsettled, and likely more alarming, unmoved by his absolute disinterest in her attentions. “I’m not interested tonight.” He softened that rejection with a coin.

The young woman pocketed the sovereign, and with a pout, she sashayed on over to the next table, where she took a perch on Lord Waters’s lap.

Feeling Landon’s stare on him, Charles looked over. “You were say—? What?” he asked, putting a different question to the man.

“That was unbearable.”

“I know.” Charles shifted in his seat and adjusted the even more wrinkled cravat the woman had mussed on him. “She was a bit clingy, wasn’t sh—”

“I meant you!” Landon knocked his head against the table softly. “I meant you.”

Charles’s ears went hot. “Oh.” But then, this was the effect Emma Gately had on him. She climbed into his head and muddled his thoughts and distracted him from . . . everything and anyone.

Sitting up, with his drink in hand, Landon leaned forward across the table. “This is what I’m talking about.”

“My disinterest in being seduced by a woman in the presence of a friend who summoned me for drinks?”

“That!” Landon exclaimed, pointing his glass so quickly in Charles’s direction he sloshed droplets over the rim.

Charles puzzled his brow. “I do not follow.”

“You sent that pretty thing away,” his friend charged. “When any other time, you would have happily dangled her on your lap and at least availed yourself of some of her charms.”

Yes. The other man wasn’t incorrect—when Charles had been a lad, doing that which his family had wished . . . playing the role of rogue. And shamefully, he had enjoyed it. More than he should. And in so doing, he’d betrayed Emma. Pushing away useless regrets that would change nothing, he shook his head. “I’m struggling to follow, Landon,” he began.

“I see that.”

Charles continued over Landon’s mutterings. “You summoned me for a meeting, and then expect I should dally with some woman while we speak.” Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered either way. Charles hadn’t been interested in what she’d offered. He’d sooner cut out his own tongue and never form another word than admit as much to Landon. “And you’d now be offended that I should turn her away. My God, I’m not some randy youth who . . .” His words trailed off as he looked from Landon to the beauty, then settled finally once more on Landon. Charles narrowed his eyes. “This was the intervention, wasn’t it?”

His friend shifted on his seat. “It was more of a test,” Landon mumbled. “One that, I’ll have you know, you failed.”

Charles gave his head a disgusted shake. “The only reason you summoned me is to try