Читать книгу A King by Night онлайн

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"Mr. Fleet will see you," she snapped, and opened a flap of the counter.

"If your eyesight's good, even you can see me. You ought to go down on your knees, my good girl, and thank the Lord for your bonny blue eyes. Forgive my embarrassment, but pretty women always worry me."

She jerked open the door, her black eyes blazing with anger.

"You're too fresh, Locks. You'll get what's coming to you one of these days."

"Mister Locks," he murmured. "Politeness costs nothing, Virginia."

She slammed the door behind him.

He was in a large, luxuriously furnished room, the walls of which were panelled with expensive woods. At an ornate ormolu Empire writing table sat a man who was no stranger to Goldy Locks. He would have been dressed sombrely but for the flaming splendour of his cravat.

A sleek man was Mr. Marcus Fleet. Sleek was his raven-black hair, brushed back from his forehead; sleek were his plump white hands, ornamented with a big ring on one finger. Heavy-jowled, clean-shaven, sleepy-eyed, expressionless, he watched his client with an unfriendly eye.