Someone Wanton His Way Comes

by Caldwell, Christi

  No . . . not Scarsdale. “That is, I’m here as it appears your meetings have led to not only a series of broken hearts amongst many but also a revolt against the state of marriage, and that simply cannot be.”

  Chapter 6

  When she’d been married and her husband living, Sylvia had never been friends with the men of Norman’s social circle. In fact, she’d rather detested them. Given to still carousing when most gentlemen had settled down, and indulging in more spirits than was prudent, they’d not been the manner of men she’d ever understood Norman wishing to keep company with.

  With the exception of Clayton Kearsley, the Viscount St. John.

  Not that she and Clayton had been friends, per se.

  At least, they hadn’t called one another that.

  In large part because her mother, and society at large, didn’t tolerate friendships between men and women.

  As such, they’d called one another “ballroom companions” in jest, their secret language that made a mockery of the rules that prevented friendships.

  By chance at one of Lady Waverly’s affairs, Sylvia had happened to find herself beside Clayton. They’d exchanged teasing words and jests and then gone off to the card rooms. From that moment on, she’d found herself . . . friendly . . . with him. They had been equally poor at playing, and had laughed over the inanity of card games and dice. Just as they’d bonded over their equally poor footwork, which had them keeping one another company on the side of every ballroom dance floor—“wallflowers,” the two of them, as she’d coined them.

  And for a brief time, before Norman had entered her life, she’d believed that Clayton might offer for her. But he hadn’t. And then her late husband had swept Sylvia off her feet . . . quite literally. Norman, who had waltzed flawlessly and insisted that he was capable of carrying her, should she so need it. And anyone present at the ball or who’d read of it in the papers, who’d not been given to sighing, had spoken longingly of the grand love between Sylvia and society’s reformed rogue, Lord Norfolk.

  From that moment on, her heart had been lost, and Clayton had . . . disappeared. She’d seen him but two times after that: at her wedding, when he’d stood beside Norman as his best man. And the day of Norman’s funeral services, when Viscount St. John had come to pay his respects.

  Until today.

  Now he should arrive—he should come here to call her out and question her motives?

  But then, wasn’t that the way when it came to gentlemen? Nay, to all men?

  Your meetings have led to not only a series of broken hearts amongst many but also a revolt against the state of marriage, and that simply cannot be . . .

  Moving back several steps so she didn’t have to look quite so high to meet his eyes, Sylvia fixed a cool stare on him. “And tell me why this . . . ‘revolt against marriage,’ as you call it, cannot be?”

  He blinked—at her question? Or at being so called out? Either way, her days of meek servitude where men were concerned were at an end. “Well, because,” he said, as if she were a child to whom he’d just doled out a commonsense lesson that she should have already gleaned.

  That was it? That was all he’d say? A single elongated syllable tacked on to one word as his defense? “Because it is in your best interest?” she quipped.

  “Yes,” he said. She flared her eyes. “No,” he hurried to amend. “Both yes and no. It isn’t in my sole interest. You’re twisting what I am saying.”

  “Oh, you are doing a fine enough job of that all by yourself, Lord St. John. Let us be clear.” She shoved a finger in his chest, and repressed a wince at the solid wall of muscle that digit struck. “You are not to enter my home and instruct me or any of the young women in my household on what we should or should not be doing.” She poked him again for good measure, and with every jab of her finger and word from her lips, he retreated . . . and outrage fueled her footsteps forward.

  “I’m not attempting to instruct you but help you.”

  Sylvia gasped.

  He tugged at those closely cropped golden curls. An angel’s halo was how she’d thought of them when she’d first met the smiling lord at Lady Waverly’s. More like a Devil come to visit.

  He flinched. “That is to say—”

  She’d had quite enough. “Are you in the habit of paying visits to people, demanding entrance to their homes?”

  “No. Not normally. My unannounced visit, I acknowledge, is unconventional.”

  And it was even more so from the slightly socially awkward lord she recalled from the past. Now, he should simply show up to school her? Her fury mounted—with him. With Polite Society. With the world at large and how women’s views and desires and interests were secondary to all men’s. “You are not to come and volunteer help that I neither need nor want.”

  He backed into a small leather footstool, and came down backward over it. The pace of Sylvia’s forward motion was too great, and she toppled over.

  Clayton shot up his arms to catch her, settling around her hips and easing the brunt of her fall some.

  Some.

  She grunted as she landed on his barrel-size chest.

  Her heart thudded. How had she failed to realize the sheer power and size of the viscount?

  Because he’s never been under you before. As he is now . . .

  And she’d never been so very close to any man who’d not been her husband. A husband who’d made love to her only with the intent to get an heir, and not with great regularity. And from that moment on, he’d not come to her bed again.

  She felt every contour of the muscles under her fingers.

  He tensed, and those muscles rippled under her touch.

  Remove your hand . . . Say something.

  Except, she couldn’t form words through a mouth that had gone suddenly too dry. Nor did he speak.

  There was an inadvertent standoff in the matter of word production, triggered by the thrum of energy that came from the shock of their nearness. Sylvia’s fingers reflexively smoothed the fabric of his sleeve. The carved planes of his triceps jumped. The burn of embarrassment at her own boldness brought her yanking her palm back, making words impossible for an altogether different reason—mortification.

  In the end, she was saved from speaking.

  The door exploded open.

  Sylvia whipped her head so quickly toward that commotion her butterfly comb snagged the button of Lord St. John’s jacket.

  Bloody hell on Sunday.

  And there was a new, and different, humiliation.

  Pushing against Lord St. John’s chest, she struggled to extricate herself from the viscount’s arms, but her hair comb, still tangled on his button, thwarted her attempts.

  Sylvia gasped.

  As did all the ladies from their morning meeting. The group struggled in an impossible feat to squeeze as one into the doorway.

  “Oh, dear, he is hurting Lady Norfolk.”

  Lord St. John’s sputtering drowned out her response. “I am not hurting her,” he said, indignantly. “Not . . . intentionally, that is.”

  More exhalations of outrage filled the parlor. “He said he is intentionally hurting her,” one of the girls cried out.

  “Oh, for the love of all that is holy.” The viscount let his head fall, knocking it with a loud enough thwack to make her wince.

  “Who is hurting Sylvia?” a concerned Miss Gately cried from her position at the back of the group. “I cannot see.”

  “I believe they said he is killing her?” Miss Dobson whispered.

  “No one is hurting me or killing me,” Sylvia hurried to assure the room at large. Lord St. John had annoyed her. Insulted her. And challenged her. But he’d certainly not harmed her. In fact, he’d made all attempts to keep her from the fall she’d ended up taking anyway. “Lord St. John and I . . . simply became tangled,” she finished lamely.

  Annalee and Isla Gately spoke as one, though Annalee’s snort reached Sylvia first. “I’d say.”

  “As in a fight?” the
youngest Miss Gately asked, sounding thoroughly befuddled.

  Sylvia turned quickly to level a silencing glare on her roommate, but winced as the snagged strands of her hair pulled sharply at her scalp and ruined her efforts.

  “Here. Allow me,” the viscount muttered, and then with surprisingly quick, effortless movements, he freed those captured strands.

  Those were the long, capable fingers of a man who’d far too much experience with a lady’s tangled tresses.

  Hands and motions that belonged to men like her husband, who’d had so many lovers that he’d learned the ins and outs around things such as . . . a lady’s hair. Or untangling themselves from compromising situations.

  She set her teeth so hard her jaw slid sideways. Bracing her hands on that solid wall of muscle that was Lord St. John’s chest, Sylvia scrambled to get herself off him and on her feet.

  Nine young ladies had maneuvered their way into Sylvia’s offices and formed a half crescent at the entrance of the room. And just like that, the impossible had been achieved—the complete and utter silence of the Mismatch Society.

  “Er . . . I believe it was the other way around,” came another whisper from the group. “If she was on top of him, wouldn’t she be the one hurting him?”

  Kissing him.

  She’d nearly been kissing him.

  “I don’t know any murder that looks . . . like that,” Annalee said, and the knowing sarcasm contained within her response sent another rush of heat to Sylvia’s cheeks.

  One of Lord St. John’s sisters piped up eagerly, with apparently more concern for gathering up those details than for the brother who, for all intents and purposes, might or might not be suffering harm or death at Sylvia’s hands. “Have you seen a murder?”

  “This will be my first.” Emma’s sister, Isla, clapped her hands with a disturbing amount of zeal for the proposed state.

  Sylvia briefly closed her eyes. “No one is killing anyone. Or harming them. Or . . . doing anything else nefarious,” she rushed to assure the crowd of onlookers. “As I said, Lord St. John and I stumbled.”

  Which wasn’t untrue. He had stumbled in every sense this day.

  “You should really go, Lord St. John,” she said quietly in a steadied voice that was belied by the shaking within.

  His sisters hung outside the doorway in various states of glaring disapproval for their brother.

  Escorting the quartet of Kearsleys from her offices, Sylvia headed for the foyer, eager to have him gone so she didn’t have to think about the momentary lapse in her judgment. A moment of wantonness and wickedness.

  Mr. Flyaway drew open the door, and a wild figure stumbled in. “Trouble!” she cried. “Fetch Her Ladyship immediately. My son”—Lady St. John’s gaze landed squarely upon the tall figure framed between her daughters—“is here,” she blurted. “Oh, dear.”

  “Mother,” he drawled.

  Sylvia braced for his outrage.

  Only, it wasn’t there. Not any of the tangible hints of fury and annoyance at his mother’s and sisters’ roles in the Mismatch Society. Or at the scandal they were causing.

  Which was preposterous. It went against everything she knew about men and their attempts at preserving and protecting their dignity and pride at all costs.

  Lady St. John laughed nervously. “We were just going . . . for now. Business and all that.” She clapped her hands once, and her daughters sprang into motion.

  The moment the Kearsley women had taken their leave, Clayton tipped his hat. “Lady Sylvia.”

  She inclined her head. “Lord St. John.”

  The other ladies seemed to take that as their cue to leave, collecting their cloaks from the footmen and following after the viscount and his family.

  When Mr. Flyaway shut the panel behind the last of the members, only Sylvia, Valerie, and Annalee remained.

  “That was the most exciting meeting yet,” Valerie remarked.

  “That isn’t saying much about our meetings, then,” Sylvia mumbled, earning a laugh from Annalee, who removed a cheroot from the deep V between her breasts.

  “Before you go, Mr. Flyaway?” she asked, holding the scrap out before the old servant took the leave he so desperately wished for.

  The butler used one of the crystal candlesticks to light the tip of that scrap.

  With a word of thanks, Annalee accepted the cheroot and took a deep draw. “They are an unconventional lot. I like them. Especially the mother and the sisters.” She waved away the little plume of smoke that wafted in the air between them. “You knew him.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  “I know most members of Polite Society.” With that, Sylvia headed back for her offices, both women trailing close.

  “And I know most members of Impolite,” Annalee pointed out with a robust laugh. “What of it?”

  And Sylvia had been friends with Clayton Kearsley, Viscount St. John, before she’d gone and married his best friend. Though, in truth, their friendship had come to an end the moment she’d met and danced with Norman. She chose to pretend and misunderstand that question. “I wouldn’t turn away young women interested in our messaging simply because they happen to be related to those whom my late husband called friends.” Just as she wouldn’t have rejected or blamed Valerie for Norman’s actions.

  “I didn’t think you would,” Annalee said.

  “Nor I,” Valerie added for measure.

  “What I was asking about was the gentleman . . . the Saint.” Laughter filled Annalee’s voice.

  The Saint. It had been a nickname her husband and most in society had reserved for the viscount; polite and kindly, he’d not fit in with the sinners he ran with.

  “He disapproves of what we are doing here,” Sylvia said. This was safer than talk of just how she had been found with the gentleman. “However, when he set out to speak to me, he didn’t realize I was”—Norman’s widow—“one of the women running the society.”

  There was a brief somber silence.

  “Nor did he realize several of the ladies included amongst our members were in fact his sisters and mother,” Annalee said with her usual levity, and the three women shared a smile.

  That ability to lighten any exchange or topic was a singular gift the woman had, and just one of many reasons Annalee so fascinated the ton. That and her scandalous penchant for daring dresses, fine—and not-so-fine—spirits, and of course, her use of a cheroot.

  “There also seemed to be . . . tension there,” Annalee said, ever so conversational as she took another drag from her cheroot. “Between you and him . . . being together as you were.”

  And just like that, Annalee revealed her other skill—disarming a person in a bid to elicit the truth.

  Sylvia prayed the cloud of smoke left by that noxious little scrap was enough to conceal the blush heating up her cheeks.

  Valerie stepped into the role of peacekeeper, as she so often did when they were at odds over opinions. “Any woman would be uncomfortable at being discovered so.”

  Annalee shot up her spare hand. “I wouldn’t. If it were the correct gentleman, I’d quite enjoy it . . .” She sharpened an already too-astute gaze upon Sylvia. “And you did seem to be enjoying it.”

  Valerie swatted the other woman on the arm. “That is enough.”

  “I fell down hard, and on top of that, I snagged my hair upon his buttons. I assure you, I could name all manner of pleasures I’d enjoy a good deal more than losing several strands to a gentleman who’d come to lecture me on our society.”

  Annalee eyed her for a long moment before nodding slowly. “All right. I’ll allow it.” Sylvia no more believed the tenacious woman would let it go than she believed the King of England would give up his throne. “But—”

  KnockKnockKnock.

  They looked over as Mrs. Flyaway let herself in. “A young lady has arrived. Asking questions about joining the club.”

  “Society,” Sylvia, Annalee, and Valerie corrected as one.

  “Aye. That.”
The housekeeper looked amongst the women. “I took the liberty of showing her to the parlor. Unless you’d rather I send her away?”

  “We’ll see to her,” Valerie said quickly.

  As the two women started for the door, Sylvia looked down at the newspaper Lord St. John had left behind, detailing Lord Scarsdale’s broken heart.

  Broken heart, indeed. According to the gentleman’s former betrothed, theirs hadn’t been a love match. Far from it. Betrothed as children, in an entirely medieval manner. As such, it had been altogether too easy to guide the young woman away from a future with Lord Scarsdale . . . and on to whatever future she wanted.

  But what if he had, in fact, been in love? What if Lord St. John had been correct with the charges he’d alleged? That Sylvia and Valerie and Annalee were actually responsible for shattering unions that might have been born of more than the empty one Sylvia had found herself trapped within? One that she’d not realized had been unloving until after her husband’s passing?

  “Sylvia?”

  She jerked her head up. “Hmm?” Guiltily, she jammed the copy of The Times behind her.

  Valerie paused in the doorway and looked questioningly back. “Are you joining us for the interview?”

  “Of course.” Hurriedly dropping the rubbish column on the very stool that had taken her and Lord St. John down, she headed after Valerie and Annalee.

  And as she went on to join her friends and Mrs. Flyaway, Sylvia could not help but feel that she’d protested entirely too much.

  For she had been very aware of Lord St. John in ways she shouldn’t.

  Chapter 7

  There was a traitor in his midst.

  Four of them—not only three sisters but also a mother to boot.

  If ever there was material for one of their sister Delia’s Shakespearean plays, this was it.

  That quartet of traitorous kin had managed to cram onto a single carriage bench with Eris on their mother’s lap, impossibly squeezed in like sardines in a can, all so they didn’t have to sit near him. Or mayhap to give themselves a sense of power by numbers.

  And yet . . . looking back, there wasn’t a hint of shame or regret from a single one of the four of them.