The Importance of Being Wanton by Christi Caldwell

Chapter 15

THE LONDONER

PROBLEMS ABOUND FOR THE MISMATCH CLUB

The Mismatch Club continues to go from bad to worse; the group still struggles to find itself. How quick was their rise . . . and fall . . .

M. FAIRPOINT

Despite Isla’s earlier insistence that Emma hadn’t put enough effort into her latest assignment with the Mismatch Society, those worries had been for naught.

Emma had spent the remainder of the week preparing. She’d mapped out various ideas on all manner of topics, from the rights women were denied and deserving of to the unrealistic expectations that existed for them. And having settled upon the latter, she’d taken copious notes, which she’d committed to memory so she needn’t bore the other members with a dull recitation.

She’d rehearsed enough, with her sister and Olivia serving in the role of a pretend audience, and she had practiced her inflection and delivery to the point that even Isla couldn’t have . . . and more importantly, hadn’t . . . found fault with her performance.

In the end, standing in the meeting parlor on Waverton Street, all Emma’s efforts appeared to be for naught.

Nay . . . not appeared.

In fact, were.

For their once large gathering had been reduced to their original numbers: Emma, Isla, Olivia, Sylvia, Annalee, and Valerie. Lila also remained.

“Where is . . . Clara?” Emma blurted. Not Clara, too.

“Oh, she is dealing with a problem with the music hall,” Sylvia explained. “She wanted me to assure you all that she has no intention of—”

“Abandoning us?” Valerie drawled. Her smile faded to a scowl. “As all the others have done?”

“If ever there was a time for a drink, this is it,” Annalee said into the quiet. Uncorking her silver-etched flask, she held it aloft. “Though in fairness, every time is an ideal one for a drink.” The young socialite’s laughter reverberated around the otherwise solemn room.

Nay, “morose” was a more apt description for their group.

Seated next to her, Valerie leaned over and rescued the flask from Annalee’s fingers.

Annalee pouted. “This is hardly the time to encourage me to abandon my spi—”

Valerie tipped back the drink and continued downing the spirits in one long, slow swallow. When she’d finished, she set the flask beyond the other woman’s reach. “There. They are finished.”

Sylvia clapped once. “For the sake of the meeting, might I suggest we focus on new business? New business being our continued reduction in numbers.”

And there went Emma’s planned material for the Mismatch Society. She tightened her hold upon the small notebook on her lap, those pages filled with the details of her prepared speech. For the nervousness she’d felt at this new-for-her role, there wasn’t a rush of relief, but only the sting of regret. Everything she’d prepared would fall by the wayside, forgotten. Not that it much mattered, anyway, if the other members weren’t there to speak to.

While Valerie went about doing roll call, a hand rested on Emma’s knee, and she glanced up.

“It was going to be magnificent,” Olivia whispered with the support and loyalty only a best friend was capable of. “And it still will be. One day, when you share. Which you will.” Valerie got to Olivia, and the other lady looked away, answering the call.

Frantic footfalls sounded outside the room.

They looked up, just as an out-of-breath Cora staggered into the room. “I’m here,” she gasped. A moment later, she was joined by Brenna. “We’re here!”

And then, the most unexpected of the missing members arrived. “As am I.”

Everyone gasped. “Cressida!”

The young woman blushed, and head down, she rushed to join Emma.

“How . . . ?” Emma whispered to Cressida as the others around them chatted happily with the return of the three.

Stealing a furtive glance about, Cressida caught Emma’s hands. “You mustn’t say anything. He swore me to absolute secrecy.”

“He?”

“The Earl of Scarsdale paid a visit to my brother and managed to convince him to allow me to return.”

Floored, a jolt went through Emma. “He did . . . what?” she asked, earning a curious look from Sylvia.

“Hush,” Cressida implored.

And as the group refocused, Emma’s mind raced under the discovery of what her friend had revealed . . . and more, what Charles had done. Why? Why would he do that? Nay, it mattered not why . . . just that he had. Her heart beat wildly. As this day, which had started out as grim, suddenly brightened.

“Perhaps the others are coming as well?” Isla ventured, pulling Emma’s head out from the clouds. “Mayhap we’ve been worrying for naught?”

“Oh, no.” The Kearsley sisters spoke in unison, still lightly winded as they took their customary seats. “They aren’t,” Cora added, earning a put-off look from her younger sibling.

Or mayhap they hadn’t.

Cora continued on anyway through that sisterly disapproval. “I have it on authority from Miss Dobson that she will not be attending. That is, not today.”

Well, that wasn’t so dire. Emma cleared her throat. “I am happy to report, however, today’s reduction in members is unrelated to Lord Scarsdale,” she offered, knowing so implicitly. After what they’d shared . . . And his sending one of their missing members back was proof—

“Oh?” Sylvia asked, fetching a newspaper off the table, and all eyes went to Emma. “Are you . . . certain of that?”

“Yes. I spoke to the gentleman.” Butterflies somersaulted low in her belly with the remembrances of that night she’d visited him . . . and everything he’d done to her body. “And as such,” she went on, feeling her entire body go warm, “I can say with confidence he has abandoned his plans for a rival league.”

“Alas, it appears the gentleman did not get the memorandum,” Sylvia said dryly, and handed off that heavily creased newspaper. It passed from remaining woman to remaining woman, until Isla reluctantly handed it over to Emma.

With a frown, she scanned the tiny print.

“Front page, center,” Sylvia directed, and Emma’s eyes went there.

And then she promptly wished they hadn’t.

Her entire body went stock still. She frantically worked her eyes over the article. “The Club du Livre is progressive and positive, the influence that Polite Society and all society neeeeeds?” Emma’s voice climbed up on that last particular word. “The unlikeliest of lords, with the patronage and support of his respected mother, has brought both lords and ladies together in an original venture. The Earl of Ssss . . . Son of a swag-bellied bull!” She exhaled that curse through a sharp hiss of air between her tightly clenched teeth.

Oh, it was not to be borne. Where the Mismatch Society had been called into question as scandalous and condemned, Charles’s society continued to be met with appreciation and fascination, and praise.

A growl worked its way up her throat.

“What is it?” Olivia gently prodded as Emma continued reading the article in silence, and as she did, her fingers clasped the pages harder and harder, noisily wrinkling the damning scrap.

“A need was identified,” she made herself continue, fighting to speak past an ever-spiraling rage and shock. “Unlike another less respected, less regarded club, who took itself too seriously, and who set out to lecture young women . . . breaking down the tenets of a functioning society, this new club proves an innovative, welcome addition . . .” A sound of frustration escaped her, and she slapped the newspaper down on the rose-inlaid table. Oh, this was too much.

“We are not a club,” Isla exclaimed.

That disrespect of what they preferred to be known as now seemed secondary when presented with this latest, and very real, threat.

And what made this moment of betrayal all the worse was the silence and the looks trained on Emma. She, who’d been so very certain that Charles would cease poaching her members and abandon his idea, which had been forged only to get to her. “That condemnation for the Mismatch Society comes because we are women,” Valerie said quietly. “Had we welcomed men into our folds—”

“We did.” Sylvia pointed out the addition they’d made of her husband.

“Just one, and one who was highly respected.” Annalee kicked out her legs atop the edge of the table. “Scarsdale’s band of rogues,” the young socialite drawled. “You have to admit, it would be enough to get nearly any woman in London into Lady Rochester’s parlor.”

“Not I,” Valerie muttered.

“Ah.” Annalee lifted a finger. “But just because you’re clever, dear, doesn’t mean all women are. And they aren’t. Not where men are concerned, anyway,” she added.

Lila sighed. “Unfortunately, Annalee is correct.”

Another wave of silence came. All the while, Emma’s mind spun, as did her . . . emotions. How could Charles do this? Why would he? And renege? Particularly after everything they’d shared?

The moment the thought slid in, a taunting voice at the back of her mind mocked her . . . for daring to make anything more of the wicked interlude in his chambers, or the chance exchange between her and Charles and his son. Once again, she’d let herself believe . . . more. Because you wanted it to be more.

When would she learn?

Olivia looked to Emma. “But . . . but . . . he never planned to cease his operation?” There was a hesitant question there from her friend.

“Apparently not,” she seethed, crumpling the hated pages between her fingers.

Why must Emma always be a fool where Charles was concerned? This time, when the frustration and resentment surged to life, it was directed at herself . . . and not at the bounder who’d not quit his poaching.

“The injustice of it all!” she exclaimed, no longer holding back. Outrage brought her to her feet, and her notebook tumbled to the floor. “Had we convened meetings between men and women, we would have met with condemnation.” She paced, stomping a path back and forth beside the stack of scandal sheets. “We are disparaged while they are praised. We are shamed while they are valued for what he created.” It was the way of the world, the wrong way, and she was tired to her soul of it.

“I confess to not being entirely clear as to what he’s created, exactly,” Valerie ventured. “All the stopping and starting . . . no offense, of course.” Unable to read another word in that scandal sheet aloud, Emma passed it back over, and the moment it reached the other woman’s hands, Valerie read silently to herself. When she finished, she looked up. “It appears to be a book . . . club?”

Annalee took it from the other woman’s hands and also skimmed. “Elucidating young minds . . . and more mature minds . . . through current works of literature,” the young socialite said to herself. “Apparently they are reading Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and discussing it as a social commentary on marriages and society.” This time she looked up. “I do have to admit that it is very clever.”

“Yes, it is,” Emma made herself admit aloud, because she was angry, but she wasn’t so very petty as to not see that Charles had come up with a rather brilliant venture. Not unlike the Mismatch Society, his establishment challenged existing social orders, but he’d chosen to do so by incorporating books young women enjoyed reading.

In short, everything he’d insisted about Locke and learning he’d cleverly applied to his new pursuit, creating an endeavor that was pleasurable. Whereas Emma? She’d been crafting lectures and taking notes. How were they to have ever competed with Charles’s innovative approach? One that combined true learning and literature that women were eagerly reading?

“Our society is enjoyable,” Lila said belatedly. “How dare they presume otherwise?”

“Yes, just because we take ourselves seriously does not mean the women who attended were not enjoying their time here,” Isla piped in . . . before blushing, as the irony and truth became clear.

Had they truly appreciated their time with the Mismatch Society and the discussions and enlightenment that had occurred here more than what was taking place at Charles’s, they’d not have defected in the first place.

Cora cleared her throat. “Well, I needn’t frills and fluff to add to my enlightenment. I need nothing more than the stimulating discourse of my fellow women, who make me think.” The young lady brought back her shoulders. “And if that wasn’t, isn’t, and cannot be enough for some women? Then I say it is their loss.”

Murmurs of assent went up, and as one, the ladies all stomped their feet in a rolling applause.

With the exception of Emma . . . Emma, who couldn’t even muster for herself false confidence or cheer or anything beyond this crushing . . . hurt.

And if it weren’t blasphemy, she’d have cursed the late, great writer Jane Austen. After all, it was hardly Miss Austen’s fault that her works were being used in ways that she’d likely not expected. Emma’s lips pulled in a grimace. And by a man, at that.

How were they to compete with that great writer’s works and all the women who wished to read them?

“What is it, Emma?” Sylvia asked gently when the room had settled once more.

Of course, their fearless, astute leader should have seen and known Emma’s lack of enthusiasm. Emma folded her hands on her lap. “I don’t disagree with Cora,” she began, glancing at the older Kearsley sister, who smiled at that acknowledgment, “and yet, at the same time . . . our goal, our mission is to encourage women to think freely.”

“And you’re making the assumption they aren’t doing that with Lord Scarsdale’s society?” Sylvia asked, without inflection.

“Yes. No.” Emma emitted a sound of frustration. “I don’t . . . know.” And that was the honest truth where Charles was concerned. From their meeting at Regent Street to the Old Corner Bookshop with his nephew? She didn’t know how to make heads or tails of him. “I simply know that if we’re only speaking to like-minded individuals who already believe in the advancement of women’s rights and goals and dreams and aspirations, then . . . it is as though we are shouting into a like void, where those thoughts can never take greater root and grow and spread as we so hoped.” Then she was the same woman she’d always been . . . on the fringes, raging only in her head at the injustices, all the while not really contributing anything of real import.

Sylvia, the eternal optimist who’d fought for their society from the start, persisted. “Just because some have left”—Most. Most have.—“does not mean they won’t find their way back. Or that others shan’t find their way to us.”

“But will they?” Emma persisted. “Will they, when Lord Scarsdale’s group not only affords them a similar setting, with similar goals as ours, and does so in a way that is thrilling because the men present”—Annalee’s face pulled—“and their proper mamas and papas all approve?”

Sylvia held up a palm. “I do believe it bears pointing out that we aren’t in competition with Lord Scarsdale and his members.”

Emma firmed her jaw. Like hell they weren’t. She agreed with the viscountess on much. Nearly everything. But not on this.

“As I see it,” the viscountess said, “we aren’t shutting them down. So we can either bemoan their existence”—the regal hostess glanced around, touching her gaze upon each woman, before speaking—“or we can focus on restructuring ours.”

Restructuring . . .

“What, exactly, does that mean?”

“It means whatever it was that once brought women into our fold . . . we need to find that magic again,” Valerie said quietly.

“But . . . but . . . we are magical,” Isla moaned.

Except they weren’t.

“I motion that we entrust our rebuilding where it belongs, with the woman responsible for the creation of the society,” the viscountess suggested, and Emma directed her focus on that person who would lead them.

That same fearless leader who was staring directly back at Emma . . . Her skin prickled with the feel of several pairs of eyes, and she registered their intent. “Why are you looking at me?” she blurted.

“I think it should be obvious.” Annalee withdrew a cheroot and touched it to her nearby candlestick, sparking a flash of orange. She took a puff on the scrap, then exhaled a little cloud.

“Actually, no. No, it is not at all obvious.” Because the last person of any of the remaining women in the room who should be tasked with such an important charge . . . was her. She’d not the influence nor the ideas . . .

“You were leading our next discussion,” Sylvia gently pointed out. “But it makes sense that the same woman who imagined the Mismatch should also be responsible for saving it.”

“And going up against Scarsdale, no less,” Olivia pointed out.

Emma opened her mouth to protest, looking to her sister and her best friend. Alas, their attention was on the group.

“I call for a vote. Emma to lead the charge,” Cressida called out, earning nods from the other women around the room.

And as the members put it to a vote, Emma couldn’t suppress a groan.

War had been waged this day for the very soul of the Mismatch Society.

And it would seem Emma had been nominated as the one to lead the charge . . . and against her former betrothed, no less.

She smiled.