The Importance of Being Wanton by Christi Caldwell

Chapter 5

THE LONDONER

LADIES ARE FLEEING

The Mismatch Society has seen a fluctuation in their membership, which can be explained only by reasonable fathers, brothers, and guardians at last saying “Enough is enough” to the nonsense that has been tolerated far too long.

M. FAIRPOINT

Each meeting of the Mismatch Society began with a formal attendance being checked.

Given how precarious each lady’s ability to participate in the female-centered group, in fact, was, verifying just who was amongst them and who was missing had been a vital part of each session. Because when members disappeared, there were specific reasons for those absences. Always, it had to do with disapproving parents or guardians or brothers serving as guardians, who eventually tired of “shows of spirit and disobedience” from a lady who was in attendance.

Such challenges had become less frequent following Sylvia’s marriage to the much-respected and highly proper viscount.

Which made the abrupt and sudden change to their membership so stark and alarming.

For in a fortnight, there could be no doubting their numbers were somehow dwindling . . . by five, to be exact.

Lady Sylvia had called an emergency meeting—only the second since the Mismatch Society’s inception. This time, however, the meeting had been called not at their usual location on Waverton Street, but at Lady Sylvia’s new residence, also home to four of their members, the three eldest Kearsley sisters and their mother.

A din filled the parlor as the remaining seventeen ladies spoke loudly amongst one another, outrage lending their voices increased volume.

“It is shocking. And upsetting . . . ,” Cora Kearsley was saying, dabbing at the corners of her eyes. “I so enjoyed Miss Dobson’s c-contributions.”

“There, there.” The young lady’s mother, the dowager viscountess, used a white kerchief to dab at Cora’s damp cheeks.

Seated between Olivia and Isla, Emma watched the pair. From the moment the Kearsleys had joined the society, they’d been accompanied occasionally by the now dowager viscountess. It was a show of maternal support that continued to singularly fascinate Emma. As one whose own mother had betrothed her as a babe, it was a bond Emma hadn’t known was a real one between a mother and a daughter.

Yes, Emma’s parents had allowed her and her sister to attend . . . but they’d put up a fight whenever Emma went against societal norms. They’d allowed her to attend, but they’d not believed in what she’d helped found, or in the mission of their group.

“It is so predictable, is what it is.” Brenna Kearsley stormed back and forth, pacing before the hearth. “Time and time again we will be expected to justify our purpose, and assure Polite Society that we aren’t a threat.”

Except . . . while the women around her spoke to one another, frantic in their mutterings and whisperings, Emma’s gaze was on three amongst their ranks: Sylvia, Valerie, and Annalee, the ones who lived at the Waverton Street townhouse. Or, rather, the latter two ladies lived there, as Sylvia had recently wed.

Now, the trio sat silent. And then over . . . to Brenna, rightly ranting, and yet . . .

She puzzled her brow.

“What is it?” Olivia asked at her side.

“Anwen isn’t here.”

“Yes,” Isla muttered.

“But . . . it does not make any sense. Her absence was included amongst the loss of our members, but it isn’t . . . consistent with the others,” Emma said, motioning with her hand.

Her sister, Olivia, and the ladies seated nearby followed that gesture over to where the dowager viscountess soothed the still-inconsolable Kearsley sister.

“And there is also Cressida,” Emma noted. Miss Cressida Alby, their most recent member, a timid, quiet young lady whose brother had inherited a bankrupt title and betrothed her to a scapegrace lord, had approached Emma at Almack’s when Cressida made her Come Out. Bonded by the fact that she’d also been betrothed against her wishes, they’d struck up a quick friendship, and Emma had taken her under her wing.

“We have a specific answer on her whereabouts. She sent a note,” Valerie announced, brandishing a page.

Before anyone else could move, Emma was quickly across the room and rescuing the folded page. Breaking the seal, she read:

It is as I feared . . . the inevitable. Since I ended my betrothal, my brother disapproves and has forbidden my attendance. I’ve been unable to convince him. I don’t have that ability. I’m not as strong as the rest of you. I shall miss you forever.

Emma crushed the page in her hands, cursing softly. This was to be their continued lot . . . women arriving, asserting themselves, only to be ripped out of their fold and thrust back into the neat societal role the world had for them.

“Is she lost to us?” Isla whispered.

“Yes,” Emma said tightly. For now. She wasn’t abandoning Cressida.

“That doesn’t account for Anwen’s absence,” Olivia murmured as Emma reclaimed her seat. “What of her?”

Lady Sylvia sailed to her feet, so self-possessed she managed to command a room to silence with a stoic quiet of her own. “I suspect I know the reason for the changes.”

When all the conversation had ceased, she stepped forward. “I’ve called an emergency meeting, as you know, and I’ve also requested the attendance of a former member who might be able to provide us with the details we seek regarding the current changes to our group and our group’s membership.”

The door opened, and Eris, at five the youngest of Lady Sylvia’s sisters-in-law, skipped in. “I got him for you. Clayton is coming,” she said in a singsong voice as she skipped over to Sylvia.

“Splendid! Thank you, Eris.”

“Can I stay?” the little girl piped in hopefully. “Can I pleeeease attend this meeting?” she begged, clasping her hands together and looking to her mother.

“Oh, I think it would be a good idea for you to be here for this,” the dowager viscountess allowed.

Olivia’s brows came together. “Has Lord St. John rejoined our ranks?”

Something was amiss. The same warning bells that had chimed at Emma’s mock wedding at the age of six blared loudly now. “Not . . . to my knowledge,” she murmured. Best friend to her former betrothed, and yet as different from him in every way as it was possible for two men to be, Viscount St. John was nearly as tall as Emma’s father and in possession of heavy features. He would never be called handsome, but he loved his wife with an enviable devotion. He was serious and supportive. Unlike Emma’s own faithless, Michelangelo-subject-of-sculpture-worthy Lord Scarsdale.

A whistling sounded in the near distance, growing increasingly closer.

Lord St. John entered the parlor. “You summoned me, lo— Ohhh.” The viscount’s tender greeting ended abruptly, as he moved an ever-widening gaze from his wife to take in the eighteen pairs of eyes upon him. “Hell,” he finished, earning a series of shocked gasps.

Eris giggled.

His eyes widened. “Hello!” he quickly amended. “That is . . . I meant to say ‘helloo!’” He dropped a hasty bow.

Emma narrowed her eyes as suspicion stirred. “He knows something,” she said out of the corner of her mouth. “And I’d wager it is not good.”

“What makes you say that?” Isla protested.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Emma took in the exchange between the gentleman in question and the dowager viscountess. “The way in which he’s darting his eyes around, looking for an escape, all the while his mother speaks to him.” More specifically, it was the tense way in which Lady Sylvia watched him while he spoke. The intensity of the other woman’s stare. As a lady who’d been hurt by a man, Emma had come to recognize the marks of an aggrieved or offended woman. And there could be no doubting . . . “Lady Sylvia is displeased with him.”

Isla cocked her head. “I . . . she looks exactly as she always does.”

“Then you’re not paying close enough attention, little sister.”

Isla made a face. “He’s only been supportive of the Mismatch Society. From the start.”

Emma slid a look her sister’s way. How conveniently Isla forgot about the fact that he’d paid their meeting a visit once with the express intention of shutting them down. “From the start?”

Color bloomed in Isla’s cheeks. “Almost from the start. When others were attempting to shut us down, he lent his name and presence to the Mismatch Society. And I know you are cynical, Emma.” About love and men. Her sister didn’t speak it, but her message was clear. Nor, for that matter, was Isla incorrect. As such, Emma didn’t take offense. “But I refuse to believe that our founding leader’s husband would have some nefarious, underhanded involvement in our demise.” Isla turned to Olivia. “Tell her.”

The other woman held up her palms. “I know better than to involve myself in your disputes.”

And additionally, Olivia was second only to Emma in terms of her distrust and skepticism where men were concerned.

“Ladies,” Lord St. John called to the room at large, lifting a hand in a gesture that signified both a salutation and a parting. “Forgive me. I was unaware you were meeting. I do not seek to intrude . . . If you’ll excuse me?”

He took a step toward the door. An entirely too quick and also damning one. “You will do no such thing, dear husband,” Lady Sylvia drawled. “I noticed it’s been quite some time since you’ve attended any of our meetings; however, I thought you would join us today?” The leader of the Mismatch Society gripped a Venetian giltwood side chair and moved it into position at the center of the room.

The gentleman’s swallow was audible, and also so wild his cravat moved under the force of it. “In-indeed? I had a meeting, however . . .” Sylvia winged up a blonde brow, and the gentleman promptly sat in the seat that was too small and too uncomfortable in its stiffness for the selection to have been anything but deliberate.

“Enough. Stop looking at him like that, Emma,” Isla whispered furiously.

She’d do no such thing.

“You’re going to upset Sylvia,” her youngest sibling went on.

“Sylvia wouldn’t want for Emma to blindly follow, either,” Olivia pointed out.

Emma gave a decisive nod. “There you are. Listen to Olivia.”

A sound of frustration escaped the younger girl. “I’ll not be party to such disloyal discussion,” Isla muttered, and in a marked display of distancing herself, she drew her skirts close and inched away from Emma.

To her sister’s defense, Isla had never been betrayed or hurt by a man to know just how little they, on the whole, were to be trusted.

KnockKnockKnock.

Annalee banged the gavel, an intricately crafted piece designed by the husband of Mismatch member Lila, the Duchess of Wingate. A Lost Lord who’d been abducted as a boy, the former fighter had found his way back into the peerage, and had been supportive in every way of the Mismatch Society.

Annalee looked to Sylvia. “This meeting is called to orderrr.” Only the slight slur of that last word indicated the young woman, a survivor of the Peterloo Massacre, had already consumed a drink too many that day.

All eyes immediately went to Lady Sylvia.

Nay, not all of them. Lord St. John had his gaze firmly on the doorway.

Escape.

As one who’d fled her mock marriage ceremony and most meetings with her then betrothed, Lord Scarsdale, in the years to follow, Emma recognized that longing to leave. All too well.

“As you are aware,” the lady began, “there is always a great concern when members leave our ranks. We’ve all come to know precisely what that usually means.”

Murmurs of assent went up amongst the ladies present.

Yes, it meant that disapproving kin had stepped in and barred their daughter or ward from attending.

“And though that is the heart of the reason you’ve all been called,” Sylvia went on, “there is another more pressing matter that merits a discussion prior to our lost membership.”

Emma sharpened her gaze upon the viscount.

More blood leached from his cheeks, and he leaned forward in his chair, then sank back. Arching forward a second time like a baby bird practicing flight . . . and failing.

“I’ve recently discovered by chance”—Sylvia lifted her voice for just those two one-syllable words, drawing a noticeable attention to them—“the possibility a new society has been formed.”

“What sort of society?” Olivia puzzled aloud.

Emma’s suspicions deepened. What sort of society, indeed?

“Surely not a . . . rival organization?” Cora sounded so very close to crying that her mother produced another kerchief.

More murmurings rolled around the room, these more shocked and frenzied than the prior ones.

“Well, need it realllly be a rival?” St. John ventured. The gentleman wrestled with his previously perfectly folded cravat. “I mean, can it not simply be that there’s an alternative place? Why should there be just one society? A need was identified . . . and as such, there should be many places that allow people to come together and share in ideas and frustrations and beliefs.”

Well, that was quite the defense. Emma sharpened her eyes on the viscount, whose response was more than a rote deliverance. “That strikes me as very specific for someone who knows nothing of such a league,” Emma said into the quiet, and all eyes swung her way. She grunted as Isla sent an elbow sailing into her side. “Ouch.”

“Now that is unpardonably offensive,” Isla said on a furious whisper, and then looked to Sylvia. She raised her voice. “I do not agree with my sister.”

“You should,” Sylvia drawled, and Emma felt her sister’s pause and the tensing of her leg against hers, and as she looked to Emma, Isla’s expression wavered.

“I . . . should?” she asked hesitantly, sliding a wary glance to the tense, pale gentleman at the center of the room and the discussion unfolding.

“Oh, yes.” The viscountess placed her palms on either side of her husband’s chair and leaned forward. “Isn’t that right, dear husband?”

Sweat beaded the gentleman’s brow, and he shifted back and forth in the too-small-for-him seat, the delicate scrap groaning under his movement. “I . . .”

“Are you uncomfortable, dear husband?” the viscountess went on. “If so, you have only yourself to blame.” Fierce in her command of the moment, she straightened. “You do know something of it, and I’d ask you to share what you know.”

His mother leaned forward, proffering a kerchief for her son, which he accepted, promptly mopping at his perspiring forehead. After he lowered the rumpled fabric to his lap, retaining his hold on it, he spoke. “I understand how you might perceive my support of a new society as a betrayal. Initially, I was of like mind.”

“Initially,” Valerie spat.

He frowned, and continued, “It was, however, pointed out that salons are not an original idea. Nor should they be reserved for one group of people. If there are others that would like to bring people together to engage in meaningful discussions, then who is anyone to suppress such opportunities?”

Silence rang in the uncharacteristically quiet gathering.

Annalee was the first to break it. “And I take it you’ve been attending these meetings?” she drawled, using the candlestick beside her to light her cheroot. The end sizzled ominously.

Except this time the viscount inclined his head, and appeared steadied by the justifications he’d provided the room. “I have.”

Gasps went up.

His wife rocked back on her heels.

And Emma seethed. Another betrayal. This here, this meeting, was precisely why a woman would be wise to never fall in love. For there was no other way to look at Lord St. John’s actions as anything other than a betrayal. As prettily as the viscount may have dressed up his actions, the truth remained: he’d been as disloyal as every other man. He was no different from the company that he—

She froze . . .

Her thoughts trickled to a slow stop, then resumed a rapid, waterfall-like flow, each thought after another crashing through.

No.

He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t dare interfere in this. Why, the idea even coming to her was preposterous. A man who spent his days at his clubs and his nights at his wicked clubs, Charles Hayden, the Earl of Scarsdale, wasn’t one to go filling any part of his time with a pursuit such as the Mismatch Society. It defied logic and reason of the rules of rakes and rogues.

And yet, telling herself all that . . . she knew. She knew with the intuition only a woman was capable of—the same intuition that had told her at the age of six that he didn’t wish to wed her.

Because she knew him. Even as he’d insisted she didn’t. She knew how he thought. And following their broken betrothal, witnessing his dogged determination, she’d learned the depths to which he’d go to make her life an everlasting hell.

A curtain of red rage fell across her vision, briefly blinding . . .

“And who is the founder of this great society?” Clara, former courtesan turned countess and proprietor and a leader amongst the ranks, put that question to the viscount in a way that had him shifting once more.

“Scarsdale,” Emma hissed, answering for the viscount and bringing everyone’s focus back over to her. This had the earl’s doing all over it.

Lord St. John hesitated, then nodded.

A curse exploded from her lips, the sound paired with Charles’s name and drowned out by like curses from her offended sisterhood.

Sylvia clapped her hands. “You are excused, husband.” The viscount promptly stood. “This has been most informative.” She leaned up and kissed his cheek.

“You’re not mad, then,” he said, the tension leaving his shoulders.

“I did not say that exactly.” The viscountess adjusted her husband’s cravat in an intimate, tender moment Emma couldn’t look away from. She’d wanted that for herself. And having always known what marital fate awaited her, Lord Scarsdale had slid into those imaginings, taking up a natural place in the romantic musings she’d once carried.

Seized by a regret that would always be there, Emma forcibly averted her gaze.

Lord St. John made a beeline for the doorway. He paused at the entrance, clinging to the threshold. “I should also point out the meetings aren’t exclusively reserved for gentlemen,” he said. “Women have also been encouraged to attend.”

With that, he left.

Energy ran through Emma. It brought her to her feet, and she began to pace. The Mismatch Society fell to what was becoming a new quiet for them. And she felt all their eyes upon her as she marched back and forth across Lady Sylvia’s floral Aubusson carpet. That was how it had always been: because of him, all eyes upon her. Not for any reasons that were good. But because she was the object of pity. And scorn. People saw his infidelities and the delay of their nuptials as a reflection of Emma, some imagined failings over which she’d had no control.

But this? This was different. This was him infringing upon something she had created. Nay, the first endeavor she’d ever had in the whole of her life. When Emma had first paid a visit to the three women living on Waverton Street, she’d stepped through the doors, there seeking guidance on how to change. How to earn Charles’s affections. Everything had changed that day. Nay, more importantly, Emma had changed that day. She’d looked at her reasons for being there. She’d considered everything that had been asked and expected of her . . . and had come to find she wanted no part of that. From the seeds of her resentment with her lot in life, the Mismatch Society had been conceived . . .

She seethed, her steps growing more frantic and frenzied.

Olivia stretched out a hand, and Emma ignored it, increasing her stride once more.

Now he’d simply start up his own damned society. And he’d sold it, so convincing in his reason for doing so that he’d swayed Lord St. John into thinking there was something more to it than there was.

And, of course, Charles’s gathering included women. And, of course, those women would invariably attend. Because all society was endlessly fascinated by the charming rogue. But to know so many of the women she called friends had defected so? It was unconscionable. It was unforgivable.

“Is that where our members are going?” one of the newer members, Miss Lawlor, whispered.

“It appears that way,” Sylvia said quietly.

“But . . . but . . .” Isla’s eyes wavered as her illusions were shattered by the evidence of the truth that she’d mistaken as cynicism from Emma.

Alas, what else would one expect of a man linked to Scarsdale and Landon?

“How could Anwen?” Brenna seethed, each of them apparently directing their outrage in different places this day.

“Because she wants to get marrrried,” Eris piped in.

Emma hardened her mouth. Yes, because after all, that was what this all came down to. Ultimately, women might scream for independence and speak about wanting a new place in the world, but when it was all said and done, the moment they had an opportunity to find love, off they went. Charles had been clever enough to see that. Clever enough to give women a society that wasn’t anti-marriage, where they could meet gentlemen.

“Damn him,” she whispered before she could call that telling curse back.

“Lord Scarsdale wouldn’t,” Cora said, and resumed crying once more.

Emma stopped her pacing and sat. “Oh, he did.” He’d done precisely that.

“Or should we say . . . they did?” Valerie glowered at the chair Lord St. John had previously occupied.

“It is ‘they,’” Little Eris piped in with an absolute lack of artifice only a child could be capable of. “Because we’re angry at Clayton. And Scarsdale. I think we’re probably going to be angry at Landon, too.”

“Oh, undoubtedly,” sisters Cora and Brenna said at the same time.

And then it came . . . whispered but loud enough through the din to be heard . . . and to be heard by all: “Poor Miss Gately.”

There it was.

That one word spliced together with a name—hers.

And just like that, Emma found herself the object of what she’d been for so long amongst society—an object of pity.

Her hands formed reflexive fists, balled so tightly she drained the blood from her knuckles.

As everyone slid those benevolent glances her way, Emma sat stiffly through it. Those looks being directed at her, all the worse because they now included her sister and her best friend. Damn Charles. Damn him for doing this again to her, just in a different way.

Sylvia cleared her throat. “Now we’ve sorted through the mystery of our missing members and verified they are not waylaid by unscrupulous guardians and dastardly fathers, and that is what matters,” she said quickly. “As such, I am adjourning today’s meeting.”

“But I wanted to yell more about Clayton,” Eris whined as her mother came to her feet and took Eris’s hand in hers.

“Come, come. There will be plenty of time and reasons to yell about Clayton,” the dowager viscountess promised.

As the rest of the members took to their feet, lingering briefly to talk to the women seated beside them, Emma seethed.

Fury continued coming. Who knew anger had a taste, and it was fire on a scorned woman’s tongue? “This is not to be borne,” Emma bit out quietly to Isla and Olivia as they stood. First he’d made a pest of himself, striking up a friendship with her father. And finally, he’d plagiarized her idea and turned her into an object of pity amongst her friends. This? This was a step too far.

“What are you thinking?” Isla murmured as they headed for the doorway.

Emma was thinking this was unforgivable, and she didn’t know what she intended, but—

“Emma, might I speak to you?” Sylvia called out.

Isla and Olivia looked to Emma, then quickly excused themselves until just Emma, Sylvia, Valerie, and Annalee remained.

The viscountess pulled the door closed. “I wanted to apologize. When I . . . called today’s meeting, I did not think”—a blush bloomed on Sylvia’s cheeks—“about how the others might respond, and I should have.”

“Damned straight you should have,” Annalee said.

“We all should have,” Valerie pointed out, placing slight emphasis on that reminder.

“It is fine,” Emma assured them. “It isn’t your fault.” Fault belonged with just one this day. She flattened her mouth into a line. Damn him.

Sylvia rested a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t.”

“I—”

“You are thinking to confront him. But doing so allows him back in your life . . .” The older, entirely too savvy viscountess cut her off, and called her out—accurately. “He’s a rogue of the first order.”

As the viscountess’s last husband had been the best of friends with Charles, the other woman would know from experience.

Annalee pointed her cheroot at Sylvia. “She is right. You don’t want this.”

Nay, Emma didn’t want it, but this was just one more piece in her life beyond her control because of her former betrothal. “If I do nothing, he wins,” she said tightly.

“Some might argue that if you do something . . . and with him, you lose more,” Valerie murmured.

Chewing at her nail, Emma stared into the empty hearth, contemplating her friends’ words. They were not wrong . . . Charles merely sought to goad her. This all, ultimately, came down to her rejection of him. And yet . . . Emma faced her friends. “If it weren’t Lord Scarsdale, and if the members hadn’t reacted as they did today, would we have simply let this affront go?”

Their collective silence served as answer enough, and yet Sylvia confirmed it anyway. “But the fact remains it is Lord Scarsdale, and as long as we play whatever game this is to him, the ladies will continue to respond as they did.” She shook her head. “And that is not what this place is about, Emma. This is a place to be free of the constraints that men and society bring to our lives.”

Only it was just pretend. They might walk through the doors and share their views and live in that time, free of those constraints the viscountess spoke of. But it was just pretend. None of them could truly be free of the chains about them . . .

“I’m putting you in charge of our next agenda.”

Emma whipped her gaze back to the viscountess. “But . . .” She was rubbish at speaking publicly in the group. Nor had she ever been charged with developing the agenda. “That isn’t my role.”

“Not before.” Sylvia smiled. “It is now.”

Blast and damn.It was an attempt to distract her and nothing more.

“It will be good for you, and the other members. You’ve never had the opportunity to lead a session.”

And she hadn’t wanted to. Having that focus trained on her left her nauseous in a different way than Charles’s betrayal.

“But—”

“It is settled, Emma.” The viscountess spoke with an air of finality. “We have competition now, and have to be even more creative in our content. Focus your attentions there.”

And not on Charles.

That meaning was clear.

“Very well,” she said stiffly. “Thank you.”

The moment she took her leave, she let loose a stream of curses in her head.

Her friends might think to divert Emma with a new responsibility in the society, but they also underestimated her if they believed she was capable of just that. Nay, first, she was going to pay a visit to Cressida Alby and her brother, and when she was done with that, there was a certain earl in need of her attention.