Read Betina Krahn for Free Online

in his mind: a sour, overbearing old crone bent on making the rest of the world as miserable as she had probably made Lord Paxton.
    “Paxton …” He interrupted their diatribe. “I’ve never heard of a Lord Paxton.”
    “Her husband wasn’t a lord,” Trueblood informed him. “The old boy was knighted years ago for amassing indecent piles of money, then having the good sense to be generous with his bribes. Bought himself a lady wife.”
    “And what does he think of all this?”
    “Nothing at all, I’m afraid. He’s dead,” Woolworth answered. “Living with the Dragon probably killed him.”
    “She’s a widow, then,” Remington mused, painting fusty widow’s weeds on the grim portrait forming in his mind.
    “And she seems to make a specialty of finding husbands for marriageable widows,” Searle said with a sullen tone. “No doubt because they are easier to place. A fellow drops his guard with a widow, figuring she’s safe, since there are no eagle-eyed mothers or spotless virtue to bother about. And a widow usually knows what sort of ‘comforts’ a man likes. This Lady Antonia is diabolical, I tell you.”
    A diabolical woman.
Not a particularly rare phenomenon, in Remington Carr’s experience. He’d encountered more than his share of them in recent years and had no desire to get mixed up with another, no matter how deserving a cause it might be. For all the pathos and indignation their stories aroused in him, that single word—diabolical—decided him firmly against becoming involved in their scheme.
    “If all is as you say, then indeed, something ought to be done about the woman. However, I must decline to help. I already have a number of projects in the works, and my late father’s affairs continue to press me.”
    “See here, Landon, you’ve got to help us,” Peckenpaugh declared. “If this woman is allowed to run loose, you’ll look up one day soon and find yourself the last bachelor in London!”
    “Sorry, gentlemen. No doubt you’ll find another St. George to slay your Dragon.”
    They looked positively deflated as he downed the last swallow in his goblet and rose. Avoiding their dispirited faces, he turned away and found the club’s steward bearing down upon him with a harried expression.
    “Your lordship! Thank God.” The fellow fairly ran the length of the bar to reach him. “There is a woman here to see you, sir. Most insistent. I offered to open the annex to her, even at this late hour, so that you might receive her there. But she barged past both myself and the night porter and has ensconced herself in
the window
”—he groaned—“right in full view of the street!”
    The pain in the steward’s expression was genuine. The strategic ground the audacious female had chosen to storm and seize, the famous bow window of White’s, which overlooked St. James Street, was both legendary and revered in the world of London clubs. It was the seat from which the famous and infamous of every generation since Charles II had looked down upon those not privileged to taste the society inside. And now both the club and the window had been stormed and breached by a mere female demanding access to
him
.
    “Who is she?” he demanded, knowing her identity didn’t matter. Whoever she was, at this hour and in the window of White’s, she could be only trouble.
    “She refuses to give her name or to move until youagree to see her, your lordship. Says she’s prepared to stay all night if necessary.” The steward tugged his waistcoat irritably back into place. “And I believe she means it.”
    Heat crept beneath Remington’s starched collar, as one unpleasant possibility occurred to him. “Is she tall, smartly dressed … with a voice like a screeching hinge?”
    The steward nodded, then curled one side of his nose as if smelling something unpleasant. “If you know this woman, your lordship, please come and see her off the premises before I am compelled to employ more vulgar means of