The Importance of Being Wanton by Christi Caldwell

Chapter 12

THE LONDONER

A RENAISSANCE MAN

Notorious rogue the Earl of Scarsdale continues to be spied in London bookshops. Between his rumored hunting, shooting, and boxing skills, he epitomizes a true Renaissance man. It is no wonder the dour, unsmiling bluestocking Miss Gately was unable to make good on their betrothal.

M. FAIRPOINT

Over the years, Charles had all manner of thoughts about Emma Gately, his one-day bride, whom he’d known since she was in the cradle. He’d believed she was an impossibly wild little girl, who’d grown into a woman who was proper and staid, and who dutifully did whatever it was her parents expected of her.

And yet in just over two months, he’d come to find all the ways in which he’d been wrong about her.

He’d failed to see—and appreciate—her spirit. Her biting and clever wit. Her strength and courage that had allowed her to do whatever it was she wished, despite her parents’ opinions about those decisions. She’d proven a surprise in every way.

But last evening, her clandestine nighttime visit had marked his greatest shock where Emma was concerned.

Someday, hopefully a day a long way from this one now, when he drew his last breath, he’d do so with a smile, recalling her as she’d been in those shimmering crimson garments. The rustle of those articles as she’d walked, her siren’s song that had lured him.

And when she’d sat in that chair, laid possession of the seat in his chambers . . . and splayed her legs for him, she’d been beautifully unapologetic in her passion. She’d thrown herself into her desire.

God help him; after she’d marched off like a goddess warrior leaving a battlefield behind her, sleep had been impossible as he’d thought of nothing but her and her cries of surrender.

Following her barefoot exit last evening, he’d not been able to think of anything but her. Those memories followed him still the next morn as he walked down the cobbled streets toward the Old Corner Bookshop with his nephew, Seamus, prattling at his side.

“I’ve decided to leave Eton.”

“Hmm.”As a gift, she’d left behind those translucent silk stockings, those languorous articles that still bore the rosewater scent of her.

Seamus gripped his arm and steered Charles around a pair of approaching young ladies and their chaperones. The quartet all walked with their gazes down . . . unlike the bold woman who’d laid siege to his household last evening.

“I’m also going to join a circus. I’ve always been rather good at somersaults, you know.”

“Yes.” And her crimson laced, heeled shoes had been abandoned in her departure. He would forever . . . “I know . . .”

Seamus held up his arms toward the overcast London sky, then made as if to spring forward.

Wait a moment . . .

Slowing his steps to a stop, Charles blinked in confusion. “That would be a terri—” He caught the teasing light in the boy’s eyes too late. “You’re ribbing me.”

“It was easy to do.” With a grin, Seamus winked, the very wink he’d pleaded with Charles to teach him on one of his weekly visits. “You weren’t paying attention.”

Nay, because his mind had been firmly on Emma Gately and their late-night meeting. Details which, of course, couldn’t be shared with anyone. Ever. And especially not his almost-eleven-year-old nephew. “I was paying attention,” he lied. “You . . .” He furrowed his brow. Charles turned, and dropping to a knee, he faced the little boy. “Aren’t truly thinking of leaving Eton?” he asked, searching his nephew’s heavily freckled face. Seamus loved his studies. Nothing short of sheer misery would make him quit attending the school he’d always longed to go to.

His nephew stared back with a somberness better suited to a man sixty years his senior. “I think of it quite regularly.” The boy paused. “And joining the circus,” he added, a slow grin forming on his lips.

“Not paying attention, you say? See, I heard everything you said.” Charles reached out a hand.

His nephew ducked out of the way, attempting to dodge his efforts, but Charles looped an arm around Seamus’s narrow shoulders and pulled him close. Forming a fist, he lightly tousled the top of the boy’s head until Seamus snorted with laughter.

Charles ignored the sharp stares shot their way from passersby who sniffed their disapproval at the air.

Seamus immediately sidled closer. “I don’t like that people look at me like that,” the boy confided after they’d resumed their walk down the pavement.

Charles tensed. That disapproval followed whenever he and Seamus made their way about society. “It doesn’t matter what they think,” he said tightly, hating the world for turning their unkindness upon a boy. Hating himself for not being able to do anything to prevent it. It was generally why Charles opted for places where there would be less of that scrutiny: less-traveled areas of London. Hyde Park in the early-morn hour. Shops that were not the most popular ones.

Seamus scrunched up his small brow. “Perhaps.” An anger that Charles had never observed before from the boy flashed in his green eyes. “But I still don’t like it. It isn’t fair.” His nephew spoke with all the truth only a child was capable of.

It isn’t fair.

“No.” There could be no truer words uttered about everything surrounding Seamus’s birth and Camille’s broken heart. “It’s not.” None of it was. For any of them.

Fortunately, they reached his nephew’s favorite place in the world, and the conversation found a natural, if abrupt, end. As he opened the door and Seamus went scurrying off, Charles stared after the little boy as he disappeared behind the enormous shelves.

Or mayhap it was just that he let the matter rest because he was a coward. But God help him, he’d no idea how to handle . . . any of this in terms of Seamus’s reception.

Upon Seamus’s birth, Camille and his parents had insisted the boy be hidden away as much as possible. At that family meeting, they’d disagreed with Charles’s opinion that Seamus would be better served confronting whatever was directed his way, and preparing for that unkindness. Years later, wanting to protect Seamus as he did, he’d come ’round to understanding his family’s desire.

He closed the door, and the same tinny bell that had announced their presence jingled once more.

At the front counter, the proprietor, Mr. Garrick, glanced up and lifted a hand in greeting before returning his attention to the exchange with a pretty, dark-haired woman and her husband, the Marquess and Marchioness of Drake. The lady speaking with the young proprietor balanced a babe on her hip, speaking animatedly with her husband and Mr. Garrick. All the while, around them, three small children spoke over one another, the two little boys engaged in a pretend sword fight and the lone little girl mediating between them like she was the nursemaid that noisy crew so desperately needed.

In short, it was a loving, noisy family . . . the manner of which Seamus had been deserving of.

Charles may have protected his sister’s image and reputation, but he’d not been able to do that in the same way for Seamus. Just as he’d never be able to provide the boy with the respectability he craved and the family he deserved.

And what of what you wanted . . . ? a voice at the back of Charles’s head prodded.

A happy family, including a wife and a parcel of children, was not something he’d really ever given any consideration to. Because it had been a given, much the same as waking up and breathing. Because of that, he’d never thought about marriage. Just as he’d never thought about the family that he and Emma would have had. A bride for him had always been there.

Until she hadn’t been.

And now, seeing that happy family before him . . . and imagining, too late, what might have been with him and Emma . . . left a sharp ache in his chest, the very place where his heart beat.

Just then, the marquess glanced over and frowned.

Charles’s neck went hot at being caught watching the familial tableau; he bowed his head and resumed walking deeper into the bustling shop.

The shop hadn’t always been bustling. When Charles had first begun taking Seamus to the out-of-the-way, dusty old establishment, he’d done so because of the lack of crowds and patrons. Seamus had been allowed to run about freely. With the passing of Mr. Garrick’s father, however, the shop’s new proprietor had slowly and steadily transformed the place into a busy one. Charles and Seamus’s history with the shop, and the familiarity they had with the proprietor, made it impossible to seek out a quieter, safer-for-Seamus replacement.

Charles continued on through the establishment, familiar enough with the place and his nephew to know precisely where he could be found. Reaching the far recesses of the shop, he located Seamus sprawled on his stomach as comfortably as if he were before the hearth in the Hayden family home. It was the same way he’d perused the texts in this place since they’d begun visiting; however, that had been before . . . when there hadn’t been patrons filing about.

Seamus picked up his head and frowned. “Go,” he said, waving an arm in Charles’s direction.

“Perhaps we just purchase it?” he suggested. As it was, the world talked enough about the boy, and Charles would spare him further scrutiny where he could.

“It’s not the same reading at home as doing it here.” Seamus patted the book. “I have to make sure I like it.”

Charles tried once more. “But—”

“Go, Scarsdale.” His nephew cut him off, and then lowering his chin onto the floor, he resumed reading.

Charles gave his head a rueful shake. In moments such as these, he was rather certain he was receiving a taste of what his own father had contended with over the years in terms of Charles’s own displays of disobedience and rebellion. Granted, Charles’s displays had extended more to mischief-making than actual trouble.

Not that he’d not enjoyed his studies. He had.

But neither had he been a natural academic, as his nephew was. In fact, all society needed to do to see Charles wasn’t the boy’s real father was to look at how easily academics came to his nephew. Possessed as Seamus was of a keenly focused mind, one that wasn’t distracted, as Charles’s had always been, that would’ve been all the proof the world needed. But society didn’t look closely. They didn’t look at all. They were content to see only the surface, and as such, it was remarkably easy to convince the world Camille’s son was in fact Charles’s.

Seamus, however, with his flawless ability to focus on his studies and academic pursuits, was very much his mother’s son.

Unlike Charles. There’d always been more a distractedness to Charles’s lessons, with his mind shifting and twisting to some other different and, in the moment, more interesting endeavor.

Perhaps that was why establishing his own counter-club to Emma’s had proven so damned difficult. Because it required that focus he’d always been fighting to find within himself.

Strolling the empty aisles, Charles scanned the books’ spines, examining the titles. The overwhelming inventory of books made it nearly impossible for him to focus on finding one that might aid him in his new endeavor. It was like so much noise that he couldn’t crowd out.

And it was one of the reasons he’d come to so admire Emma. Not only had she managed to create something, but she’d made it look remarkably easy. When Charles knew it was anything but.

It did not mean, however, that he didn’t intend to try. Or that it couldn’t be done.

Distractedly, he studied the gold lettering of one particular title. Charles quickly snagged the book and pulled it from the shelf.

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

He fanned the pages, his eyes skimming the words as they fluttered slowly by, and then they stopped.

His gaze passed over the passage upon the middle of the page, and he continued skimming.

And then stopped.

Frantically, he worked his eyes up . . . searching . . . and then he found them.

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library . . .”

Charles stared contemplatively at the words written there. Over and over.

. . . there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book . . .

He went absolutely motionless as an idea cut through the previous confusion of his club. The idea broke free and blared strong.

Whistling a jaunty little tune, he began to read.