Robin Schone by Gabriel's Woman (10 ebook reader TXT) 📕

Gently he caressed the blue leather wrinkle. “How long have you been out of a position?”

An image of her naked body, legs splayed for easy access, flashed through her mind. It was chased by a

picture of a long slender finger caressing her ...

Her gaze snapped up from his caressing finger. Hot blood flooded her cheeks. “Six months.”

His silver gaze snared hers. “How long were you a governess?” he repeated.

He would repeat the question until she answered, Victoria realized.

“Eighteen years,” she bit out.

“You became a governess at sixteen?”

Victoria glanced down at his hand, away from the memories that had determined her profession.

A long finger gently prodded the dark depression of leather.

“Yes.” Sharp sensation stabbed up between her thighs. “I became a governess at sixteen.”

“And after eighteen years, you have just now realized that prostitution pays more than being a

governess?” Gabriel asked idly.

Victoria glanced up.

There was nothing idle about the silver gaze that captured hers.

Yes, rose to her lips.

“I was dismissed from my post,” came out of her mouth instead.

Victoria had been dismissed without a reference, she did not need to add. The knowledge was inside his

eyes.

Society did not trust their children with governesses who were dismissed without a reference. Nor did

employers hire inexperienced governesses for menial positions when rural laborers migrated to London by

the flock.

There were many women in Victoria’s situation. It did not make it any easier to bear.

“The whore who sent you here”—shadow lurked inside his eyes, memories, perhaps, of his own past

—”you believe she is your friend.”

Victoria did not hesitate. “Yes.”

“You would protect her from me.”

Dolly had stopped a man from raping her when no one else had lifted a finger. She had talked to

Victoria. Confided in her. Advised her when Victoria had needed advice.

She had been a friend when Victoria desperately needed friendship.

“Yes.” Victoria squared her shoulders. “Yes, I would protect her if it were within my power.”

Without warning, the long white finger that had been idly worrying the blue leather wrinkle slid over the

padded arm of the chair and hooked the wool laces of her reticule.

For a second Victoria stared at the flawless beauty of his hand and the squat, graceless purse he

plucked from the chair.

The full impact of his action struck her.

He had her reticule.

Everything Victoria possessed was in that reticule. He had no right.

She rushed forward to reclaim her property. Her life. Her dignity.

Reaching into the wooden rim, he pulled out a small piece of tightly folded brown paper. “What is this?”

Victoria halted, remembering the pistol concealed inside his dress coat. “It is a ... a remedy to prevent

conception. Please give me my reticule.”

He did not relinquish the reticule. “Your friend ... did she give you this contraceptive?”

There were men who believed it their right to indiscriminately impregnate women merely because they

were male and women were female.

Surely he was not one of them?

“Yes, my friend gave it to me.” She imperiously held out her hand. “Please return my reticule.”

Looping the twin wool laces over his wrist, he unwrapped the paper, reticule swinging, paper crinkling,

dark eyelashes shadowing his cheeks. Two white tablets spilled into the palm of his right hand.

Slowly he raised dark lashes. “Did your friend tell you what this is?”

Victoria’s silence spoke louder than words.

“It is corrosive sublimate, mademoiselle.” His silver eyes were relentless. “Did your friend tell you how

to administer the tablets?”

“You seem well informed about the product, sir,” Victoria returned, hand dropping, fingers fisting, nails

digging. “Why do you not tell me?”

“Each tablet contains 8.75 grains of corrosive sublimate. One tablet causes violent convulsions, often

followed by death. Two tablets inserted into your vagina, mademoiselle, would most certainly bring about

your death.”

Victoria felt the blood drain out of her face. Dolly had told her to insert both tablets into her body in

order to prevent conception.

She had not told her what they were or what they could do.

She had not told her that they would hurt her ... k ill her.

“You are lying,” Victoria said. And did not believe it for one moment. The silver-eyed, silver-haired man

did not comment.

He did not need to comment.

Dropping the two tablets onto the brown paper, he refolded the whole.

“She said many women use the tablets,” Victoria persisted.

“No doubt. However, women who use it once obviously do not do so again. And having survived its use,

a woman would certainly not recommend it for contraceptive purposes.” He crimped the ends of the paper.

Slowly his eyelashes lifted, pinning her with the truth. “Was your friend young and inexperienced,

mademoiselle?”

Dolly had been a self-proclaimed, two-pence prostitute who had whored from the time she was ten

years old. A woman with graying brown hair and missing front teeth.

She had urged Victoria to crash the opening of the House of Gabriel. No one would notice her, she had

declared, in the busy traffic of people.

Only rich, powerful men would be allowed inside, she had added. Men who would pay far, far more for

her virginity than men in a brothel or on the street.

And all the time she had plotted Victoria’s death.

Hoping, no doubt, to take Victoria’s money while her body lay cold in an alley.

All in the name of survival.

The elegant room was too close. The overhead chandelier too bright. The crackling fire