Lady X's Cowboy Read Online Free PDF Page B

stable.”
    “Stables smell better.  Now get out of my way.”  He took a step, but the owner blocked him.  The desk clerk appeared to try an add some muscle.  Will considered himself someone with a goodly long fuse, but felt it burning up by the second.  “Am I going to have to clean your plow, too, junior?” Will asked through his teeth.  The clerk whitened.
    Just as he was getting ready for his second fight in as many days, the front door behind Will opened and closed.  He wouldn’t have paid it any mind, except both the owner and the clerk goggled over his shoulder like fish on a riverbank.
    “I’m not interrupting anything, am I, gentlemen?” asked a soft female voice.
    He had only met a few women during his short time in England, but he knew that voice as sure as he knew his own dreams.  Turning around, he saw a sight that made him stare as much as the man and his crony standing on the stairs.
    Will had never seen a more incongruous or surprising sight than Lady Xavier, pretty and rare as a peach in December, standing in the mildewed, faded lobby of his fleabag hotel.  He wanted to snatch her up and run out into the street to keep lowlife dirt like the men behind him from even looking at her.  She was dressed as smart as they come in a burgundy dress and black velvet coat, with a delicate pair of leather gloves and a hat with a turned-back brim, trimmed in burgundy ribbon.  He’d had never seen a woman in such elegant clothing before, and certainly no one else who could wear them as naturally as their own skin. 
    With wry amusement and a hint of confusion in her face, she surveyed the scene in front of her.
    “Madam.”  The owner hustled his bulk down the stairs as fast as he could.  “Can I be of some assistance?”  He looked bewildered, but tried to cover it up with sweet talk.
    Which was better than Will—who could only stand and stare like a green kid’s first visit to a saloon.
    Lady Xavier looked past the owner at Will.  Her direct gaze sent a hundred fireflies of awareness skittering through his body.  What the hell was going on?
    The owner caught the direction of her gaze.  “Please take no notice of that hooligan, Madam.  The Bentley Arms is a respectable establishment and we are having him removed from the premises immediately.”  The owner glared at Will, daring him to argue in front of a lady.
    “Removed?” She frowned a little.  “Has he done something wrong?” 
    The owner slid his eyes around the room, trying to drum up complaints against Will and finding nothing.  “Regardless, he is leaving right now .”
    “Goddamit, I’m going to get my gear and then I’m leavin’,” Will growled.  Lady Xavier had already seen him fight with the toughs the other day, but he didn’t care for the idea of her seeing him brought low. 
    “Fetch the bobby,” the owner squealed to the desk clerk, and the little man began to scuttle towards the door.  Will took several threatening steps, causing both the owner and his crony to shrink into themselves, but Lady Xavier’s voice stopped them all.
    “All this is quite unnecessary.  Mr. Coffin is a friend of mine.”
    “He is?” the owner and the clerk asked together.
    Will knew better than to question her, though he could hardly call bailing her out from a couple of rowdies the basis of a friendship. 
    “Who are you?” the owner managed to ask through his shock.
    She gave him a look so cold it could freeze chile peppers.  If Will had ever doubted that she was high-born, the arctic aloofness of her voice convinced him otherwise.  Only folks certain of their place in the world could ever talk or look the way she did at that moment—completely untouchable.  “Lady Olivia Xavier, and who are you?”
    “H...Horace Whitbridge, my lady.”
    “Mister Whitbridge, if you do not want to earn my lasting enmity, you will allow my friend Mister Coffin to retrieve his belongings from his room at once.”  Though nobody in their