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

but who had yet to

be destroyed by the knowledge.

A woman who did not judge his past.

We do what we must to survive.

Heat licked his skin.

Gabriel glanced down at the match between his thumb and middle finger.

Blue fire skimmed blackened wood.

Victoria’s eyes were the same vivid, guileless blue as the fire that burned.

Did the second man hope to distract him with sexual dalliance?

Victoria feared what he would find in her letters.

She had lied about her name. Did she lie about the second man?

Immediately Gabriel remembered the shocked hurt in her eyes when he had told her what corrosive

sublimate did to a woman.

A whore would have killed her, and Victoria had still protected her.

Exactly how far would she go to protect a lover? he wondered.

Where had the second man found her?

How had he found her?

Why had he found her?

Tossing the match into the fireplace, Gabriel stood up.

A Colt derringer and a bowie knife occupied the top drawer of the satinwood nightstand.

Instruments of death.

She had come to him with no weapons; she would find no weapons in his suite. Death would come from

the second man or it would come from Gabriel: it would not come from a woman.

Scooping up the derringer and knife, he silently padded across the room that for the next few days,

weeks or months would serve as Victoria’s bedchamber.

The aroma of freshly brewed tea drifted through the gaping bedroom door.

Gabriel halted.

It was not Gaston who waited for him inside his study.

Chapter

5

Michael perched on the edge of the black-marble-topped desk, head bowed, black hair shining with

blue highlights. Beside him, a large silver tray abutted his hip; gray steam curled out of a silver teapot. He

held a small, brown earthenware pot in one hand and a small crustless sandwich in the other.

Both hands were a solid mass of angry red welts. Fingers. Palms. Backs.

Even as Gabriel watched, Michael dipped the sandwich into the earthenware pot.

It came out covered with chocolate.

The throbbing inside Gabriel’s groin spread to his left hand, his right hand, the first gripping the bowie

knife, the second holding the Colt derringer.

He was not prepared to deal with Michael. Not when the scent of Victoria’s desire lingered in his

nostrils and the sound of the second man’s voice rang inside his ears.

It did not matter.

Gabriel’s desire; Victoria’s desire.

Death.

Laissez le jeu commencer. Let the play begin.

Gabriel had set the stage; now he must perform his role.

Silently he padded forward and closed the bedchamber door behind him.

Michael outwardly appeared intent upon his sandwich: he was not. Michael was aware of Gabriel’s

presence.

Just as he had been aware of the second man in the saloon.

“I told Gaston to evict you, Michael,” Gabriel said neutrally.

Michael slowly raised his head, violet eyes coldly calculating. The puckered burns that scored his hands

edged his right cheek, a stark contrast to the perfection of his features.

“Did you truly think that I would leave without seeing you, Gabriel?” he queried softly.

Michael’s voice had not changed in the six months since Gabriel had last heard it. It was pitched low,

sultry and seductive, the voice of a man who has made his fortune through whoring.

No, Gabriel had not expected Michael to walk away from him. But he had wanted him to.

After all these years he still wanted to protect the dark-haired angel with the hungry violet eyes.

Gabriel’s gaze glanced off of Michael and settled on the chocolate covered sandwich.

A sharp pang constricted his chest.

Twenty-seven years earlier Michael had been unable to stomach the smell of chocolate, let alone the

taste.

“When did you acquire an appetite for chocolat, mon frere?” he asked neutrally.

Gabriel knew that his voice bore the same knowledgeable cadence as did Michael’s: they had both been

trained to entice, to seduce, to gratify.

“Six months ago,” Michael said. And popped the chocolate coated sandwich into his mouth.

Gabriel’s lips burned in memory: six months earlier he had kissed Michael’s scarred cheek. Then he had

killed the first man.

How easy it would have been to pull the trigger and kill Michael. Six months earlier.

Tonight...

“How is Anne?” Gabriel asked abruptly.

The warmth that welled inside Michael’s eyes and the smile that lit his face almost brought Gabriel to his

knees.

For one heart-stopping second he did not recognize the man before him.

Gabriel had seen Michael half starved with hunger and fear. He had seen him half mad with pain and

grief.

He had never before seen Michael happy. But he did now.

Michael had found what Gabriel would never find: love. Acceptance.

Peace.

All with a woman who preferred violet eyes over gray. A dark-haired angel over a fair-haired one.

A man who valued life instead of a man who had taken life.

Instantly, the light illuminating Michael’s face dimmed, violet eyes once again coldly calculating. “Why

don’t you come visit us and find out for yourself, Gabriel?”

“Do you miss me, mon frere?” Gabriel mockingly riposted.

“Yes.”

For one unguarded second Michael dropped his mask. There was no deception in his eyes, no artifice in

his voice.

An invisible fist clenched inside Gabriel’s stomach.

Michael loved him, and Gabriel did not know why.

Michael had never condemned Gabriel for being a nameless bastard or for the choices he had made.

Gabriel wished he had belittled him, judged him.

Gabriel wished he could hate, and know that it was hatred he felt rather than fear in disguise.

He looked away from Michael’s violet eyes.

They had not changed in the twenty-seven years Gabriel had known him—they still openly hungered.

Victoria’s eyes were also hungry.

Guileless blue eyes that hungered for sex.

For love.

For