Betina Krahn Read Online Free PDF Page A

would be to put the diabolical Lady Matrimonia out of business … get rid of her,” Woolworth declared.
    “Here, here!” Searle raised his glass and the others joined him.
    It was as if the burn of the Scotch and cognac somehow seared Woolworth’s words into their sodden minds. By the time they lowered their glasses, the idea had seized their thoughts and sobered their vision.
Get rid of her.
Each of them was suddenly savoring the delicious possibility of revenge in his mind. Was it possible?
    “There ought to be some way to put her in her place,” Searle mused.
    “Some way to make her suffer as we have,” Trueblood said with a sigh.
    “Humph!” Everstone blew a stream of smoke and rocked forward in his chair. “She ought to be leg-shackled like the lot of us. Find a fiend as foul as herself and chain her up with him for life. Some unscrupulous cad … a real blighter.”
    “As fitting as that might be,” Lord Woolworth said, his eyes heating, “I cannot help wishing for a more personal bit of satisfaction.”
    “Don’t we all,” Peckenpaugh agreed. “Damme if Iwouldn’t give a year’s winnings to catch her with
her
drawers down, in some fellow’s bed.”
    Searle hooted a laugh. “The Dragon of Decency in a man’s bed? Perish the thought!”
    But the thought didn’t perish, it lingered. And as the clock ticked relentlessly on, it blossomed into an idea.
    “Lady Matrimonia caught with a man,” Woolworth said, contemplating it.
    “Good God, yes. Perfect bit of revenge. But where would we find a man jack capable of taking her on and then taking her down?” Everstone demanded, rubbing his chin. “He would have to look like an archangel and have the soul of a demon … a bloke who despises women every bit as much as she hates men.”
    There was a small commotion at the far end of the bar, and Basil Trueblood lifted his languid gaze above their circle to see what was happening. A new arrival was being greeted in hearty tones. Blinking and squinting through the haze, Trueblood made out the contours of an angular face, a pair of handsome dark eyes, and a fierce, quixotic smile. He sat a bit straighter, drawn to attention by the force of that countenance. He recognized those arrogant features and that elegant frame, which, even in the simple act of walking, communicated a self-possession that caused other men to step aside.
    The object of Trueblood’s scrutiny made his way past several fellow club members to the empty end of the bar and answered the barman’s greeting with an order for a fire-breathing brandy from the club’s select stock. Trueblood sat abruptly straighter in his chair and grabbed the forearms of the men seated on either side of him. They followed his directional nod to the gentleman at the bar, then exchanged looks of puzzlement, then speculation. When the others demanded to know what had caught theirattention, they turned and also became riveted on the sight of him.
    “Landon,” Everstone said on an indrawn breath. “Good God.”
    “Handsome as Lucifer and tough as teakwood,” Peckenpaugh declared.
    “A pure devil with the women, when he wants to be,” Woolworth muttered. “Which isn’t too damned often.”
    “Not susceptible to muslin madness, that’s for certain,” Searle added, then frowned. “Runs with the radicals in Parliament … hot for that female suffrage business and a lot of other bally-nonsense.”
    “For which reason the queen won’t allow him in her sight,” Trueblood whispered with rising excitement. “Says he’s godless and subversive … antimarriage, antimorality, and against the God-given order of things.”
    Antimarriage.
    They exchanged broadening smiles.
    Remington Carr, ninth Earl of Landon, gulped his first brandy without giving it its due, an act that would have been considered barbarous any other hour. But at half past twelve in the evening the members of White’s generally dispensed with the niceties of indulgence in the club’s bar. And