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

experience.

From a man’s lips. A man’s hands.

A man’s—

“It’s not possible,” Victoria said abruptly.

She knew who wrote the letters: they came from her former employer’s husband. His handwriting did

not match that on the silk napkin.

Unlike the man who had written on the silk napkin, the husband of Victoria’s former employer did not

frequent places such as the House of Gabriel. If he did, he would have paid for a woman instead of taking

away Victoria’s reputation and career.

Merely so that he could possess her virginity.

“I will have my reticule now, if you please.”

“Soon, mademoiselle.”

After he had read the letters, he did not need to say.

“I assure you, sir, I possess no letters which match the handwriting on this napkin.”

“Then you have nothing to fear.”

The electric light scorched her skin.

“I was not aware of your existence prior to tonight,” Victoria reasoned.

“So you said.”

“I have no intention of injuring you.”

“Nor I you.”

“What would be the purpose of this man sending me to you?” Victoria burst out.

She did not know either the man who called himself Gabriel or the man who supposedly sought to kill

her.

It was not rational.

Lowering his lashes, Gabriel dropped the letters back inside her reticule. Slowly, he raised his eyelashes.

The expression inside his silver gaze snagged her breath: she stared at fear.

If he was afraid .. .

“I do not know, mademoiselle.” Instantly the fear vanished from his gaze. He dropped her reticule back

into the chair. “Your tray will soon be here. Would you care to refresh yourself?”

No.

“Yes, thank you.”

Perhaps there was a window in the lavatory by which she could escape.

Silently, he turned.

Victoria resisted the urge to reclaim her reticule.

If she picked it up, he would take it from her.

She did not know what she would do if he used force: scream. Faint.

Fight back.

What Victoria had thought was a satinwood cabinet turned out to be a door.

A door that opened into stark blackness.

Victoria’s heart thumped against her ribs.

Light slashed across a bare wooden floor, glinted off a brass bed. The smell of beeswax polish and clean

linen enveloped her.

Crushing the silk napkin in her right hand and her cloak in her left, Victoria followed him into the scented

darkness.

His footsteps were soft, unobtrusive; Victoria’s were loud, invasive.

There were no windows in the bedroom.

The soft snick of a door opening was deafening over the roar of Victoria’s heartbeat. Bright light

abruptly blinded her.

Gabriel glided back into the shadows, silver hair shining. “You may join me when you are finished,

mademoiselle.”

Victoria resolutely stepped forward.

The door closed, shutting her inside. Immediately she noticed a large copper bathtub encased in

satinwood—tub, front end. A copper-lined hood sealed the three sides.

Victoria had seen combination bathtubs and showers displayed in the Crystal Palace—crafted out of

mahogany or walnut wood rather than the more precious satinwood—but she had never before worked in a

household furnished with the luxury apparatus.

The hood was seven and one-half feet tall. It was quite impressive.

On the opposite side of the door a satinwood cistern hung over an ivory-tinted porcelain toilet. A box of

tissues sat on top of the narrow cabinet that hid the connection of the flush pipe to the toilet.

Etiquette taught that personal tissues were to be hidden from sight at all times, lest one be reminded of

what they were used for.

Obviously the man called Gabriel did not adhere to polite niceties.

It was difficult to remember the time when she would have been offended at such a sight.

At the opposite end of the bathroom a woman with a pale face framed by dark, lusterless hair watched

her.

Victoria’s spark of pleasure at seeing the combination bath and shower quickly died.

The woman she saw was her reflection in the mirror over a gold-veined, white-marble washstand.

One realization followed another: there were no windows in the water closet.

Victoria was trapped.

Gabriel flipped the electric switch, brass plate cold, wooden knob smooth. Light exploded overhead.

A plain satinwood armoire monopolized the inner wall of the chamber; a brass bed hugged the outer

wall. It was covered with a pale blue silk spread.

The French madame had preferred fussiness over simplicity; opulence over elegance.

Perfume over cleanliness.

She would not approve of his house. Did Victoria?

Taking a safety match from the obsidian urn adorning the satinwood mantelpiece, he hunkered down and

lit the bed of kindling underneath the layered sticks of wood. Blue and yellow flames leaped to life.

He held the burning match for long seconds, remembering the years he had lived without food. Shelter.

Safety.

Will you beg me, mademoiselle?

No. No, I will not beg you.

And she had not.

Victoria had not begged for food. For money.

She had not begged for her life.

She had not begged him to satisfy the desire she so obviously felt for an untouchable angel.

Instead, she, a virgin, had threatened to seduce him, a man who for twelve years had been the seducer.

Victoria would have taken him into her mouth. She would have taken him every way that Gabriel had

ever taken a man or a woman.

She would still take him, knowing what he was.

His cock throbbed, remembering the fresh scent of her desire. It did not slow the thoughts racing

through his head.

Six months ago Victoria had been discharged from her position.

Six months ago Gabriel had killed the first man.

. . . Now I bring you a woman.

A woman who had lived long enough on the streets to understand the rules of survival