Read Online Betina Krahn by The Unlikely Angel - Free Book Online

are merely
personal
opinions. I have every confidence that his
professional
assessments will be considerably more objective.”
    “The hell they will,” her overseer declared, folding his arms.
    “The hell they
won’t,
” Sir William said with sudden furious calm. “You are a member of the bar, Lord Mandeville, and in court you are subject to my authority.” His volume rose with each precisely chosen word. “You will indeed serve the court as overseer in this case … unless you would prefer to continue in your contempt and find yourself sitting in a cell in Scotland Yard.”
    “A cell does have a certain appeal, considering …” Lord Mandeville looked Madeline over with an expression men usually reserve for something they’ve stepped in while crossing a street. Then he turned to Sir William, meeting him eye to eye, glaring, testing the old justice’s resolve and finding it as firm as Gibraltar. After a long, tense moment he struck his colors and surrendered. “Damned if you wouldn’t do it.”
    “I most certainly would. And so, Lord Mandeville, shall you, since you seem to have nothing better to do with yourself” That settled, Sir William’s mood brightened as he looked up at Madeline. “I am certain, Miss Duncan, that Lord Mandeville will exercise every bit of objectivity and restraint he possesses in overseeing your enterprise.”
    “What he will exercise, Your Honor, is his prejudice. To put him over my Ideal Garment Company is to condemn me to failure!”
    “And to condemn me to three long, suffocating months of having to nursemaid a pigheaded female who insists on stirring up the social order and meddling in other people’slives,” Mandeville said testily. “All because she has nothing worthwhile to do with herself.”
    “Nothing worthwhile?” She turned to face him and realized that stretching to her full height and rocking up onto her toes could not compensate for the difference in their sizes. She struck back with the only weapons at her command: words. “You don’t see the value of freeing women’s bodies from the tyranny of cruel fashions? You find nothing worthwhile in helping the working poor make a better life? You cannot appreciate the benefit of a workplace that enhances human dignity and fosters creativity?”
    He paused a moment, staring down into her face, examining the stubborn set of her jaw and the determination blazing in her eyes.
    “None whatsoever,” he declared tautly. “Leave the poor alone, Miss Duncan. They suffer enough misery without having to put up with reformers and idealists. If females want to squeeze themselves in two with corsets and flaunt their bosoms in public, I can’t see that it’s any business of yours. In fact, the world could do with a bit
more
bosom and a good bit
less
high-minded moralizing. It’s the idealists of this world who get mankind into trouble. Leading people to believe they are entitled to a better lot … promising impossible solutions—”
    “Impossible solutions?” she demanded, swallowing hard. “There is no help for humankind? Just gloom and despair and hopelessness all around?”
    “I’d say that rather sums it up.”
    They had come virtually nose to nose, each refusing to give an inch in this ideological battle of wills. Her heart was pounding and blood was roaring in her head. But through that inner tempest she could feel heat radiating from him, engulfing her senses. Her head filled with the scents of starch, soap, and sandalwood carried on a distinctive current of musk that was foreign to her but that she sensed had to do with “male.” His face was suddenly all she could see—an intriguingblend of planes and angles too sharp and bold to be merely handsome. His eyes were a striking hazel-green, a snatch of autumn forest—jade and amber—changeable. Her gaze fled down the curve of his cheek to his mouth. She’d never seen lips like his—broadly curved … sensuality inscribed in every