The Importance of Being Wanton - Christi Caldwell Page 0,22

damned “flutters,” as she’d come to name the dratted sentiments. “And you’re casual with your words of affection,” she said softly, tiredly. “I’m not your love, Charles.” He’d seen to that long ago.

Charles winced.

But neither did he make any protestations of the contrary.

Of course, what had she expected? The entire reason he’d fought to keep her was because of his wounded ego and his family’s insistence, and a rejection he was so unaccustomed to that he didn’t know what to do with how Emma had ended it.

Emma drew a deep breath. “I’m not even sure you are capable of the emotion,” she said, for herself as much as for him.

He narrowed his eyes. “That is a bold presumption, Emma-love.”

This time she didn’t give rise to that deliberate endearment, one meant only to goad. “Is it? From a man who’ll sire a child and not give his mother the benefit of—”

He surged forward, and Emma gasped, stumbling over herself in retreat, until her back collided with the wall.

“Do not mention Seamus,” he seethed. “And do not mention things you know nothing about.” Volatile emotion blazed from his eyes, burning her with anger . . . on behalf of his son. “Have I made myself clear?”

Laughter went up between their families at play; how could the world be so oblivious to the volatility of her and Charles’s exchange that bordered on fire?

She gave a juddering nod. “My a-apologies. I didn’t—”

“Know that I wouldn’t want his name dragged about?” He cut her off.

Emma bit the inside of her cheek, ashamed and appalled . . . with herself, for having inadvertently done just as he’d said and raised his child as a cornerstone of her upset with Charles. “You are correct,” she said softly. “I should not have mentioned him in such a way.” She grimaced. “In any way, that is. It wasn’t my intention to disparage the boy.” But rather, to what? Highlight that Charles had failed him? And yet all these years, she’d believed Charles . . . indifferent to the boy. Only to find Charles was anything but. It was the first hint of a real layer of a person—a man who was protective of his son. And it was also the first she’d come to see that, as he’d said, there was perhaps more to Charles than she’d believed.

Charles nodded tightly in a silent acknowledgment of that apology. She drew in a deep breath, and forced herself to focus on the whole reason for seeking him out this day. “I want this to stop,” she said quietly. It had gone on enough. “It is hardly fair for me to . . .” Have to see him daily. And be reminded of how little he’d wanted her before. And all the unlikely reasons he supposedly wanted her for his wife now. “Have you subvert my wishes by being friendly with my father and mother.”

He frowned. “I’ve always been—”

“Stop,” she hissed. “Just stop. They will not cease in their efforts until you cease in yours.” And until they did, she would be forced to live in a perpetual hell where the only thing her parents spoke to her about or saw her value in was a potential marriage to this man before her.

Charles trailed a gaze over her face, one that had such shades of tenderness her heart quickened, the organ’s unlikely reaction to the very favor she put to him now. Nay, not a favor. Demand. One that if he cared in any way, he’d honor.

Then, ever so slowly, with a languidness to his movements, Charles brought up his shoulders in a slow shrug.

She gasped. The gall of him. Emma lowered her voice when she spoke. “I am asking you to cease with all these friendly visits to my father.” Because it was . . . impossible having him here daily.

He applied more chalk to that damned stick, which couldn’t possibly require another bit of dust as long as it should ever be used. “Very well, Emma,” he said quietly, and her eyebrows went flying up at the unexpectedness of that capitulation.

“Thank you . . . Charles.” As he’d made a concession, she could certainly do so with something as simple as using his name.

He paired his rogue’s grin with a wink.

And her heart did its characteristic leap in her breast. “If you’ll excuse me. I have matters to see to.”

Charles angled the cue stick, cutting off her escape. “I take it the important business you see to is, in fact,