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

other boys looking for

employment.

John had been raised to be a farmer, simple, honest work. Whoring had gone against his every principle.

But he had done it.

John had been a whore for five years.

It had nearly killed him.

Gabriel had taken John off the streets, fed him, clothed him, employed him, educated him. He had been

with Gabriel ten years. Six months earlier Gabriel had trusted him to protect Michael and his woman.

He felt the dawn pressing down on him.

“You know the price for disloyalty, John.”

There was no remorse in John’s eyes. No protest.

Both John and Stephen had known what their actions would cost them.

Yet they had acted.

Why?

A fleeting smile glimmered in John’s cerulean blue eyes, died with a guttering candle. “She was quite

splendid, wasn’t she, sir?”

In retrospect. . .

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “She was quite splendid.”

The bloods and the politicians had been aghast that a whore claimed as much self-worth as their wives

and daughters and sisters.

“Stephen and I will collect our things and be gone before the house servants rise,” John said

matter-of-factly.

Gabriel could not afford to keep the two men on, not now that the second man had returned.

John, more than any other of his employees, understood that.

More than ever, Gabriel needed men whom he could rely upon.

By allowing the woman inside his house—a woman who could just as easily have been an assassin—

they had proven their unreliability.

He could never trust them again.

That knowledge did not ease Gabriel’s task.

“Gaston will issue you two months’ salary for severance pay,” he said neutrally.

Stephen’s amber gaze glanced off of Gabriel’s silver one. “Thank you, sir.” Turning, he walked away,

chestnut hair dark and lifeless in shadow.

“John.”

John paused mid-turn; gold glimmered in his hair. “Sir?”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed, watching his face and his body for signs of tension.

For signs of betrayal.

“Was there anyone—anyone at all—who accompanied the woman?”

“No, sir.” John looked past Gabriel’s shoulder. “She came alone.”

He could be lying. Or he could be telling the truth.

Gabriel would never know.

John turned, footsteps soundless. He halted.

Gabriel instinctively reached underneath his dress coat, satin lining a warm caress, the grip of the

revolver hard and smooth.

John was armed as Gabriel was armed. As were all of Gabriel’s waiters and doormen.

The doorman’s arms remained straight at his sides.

“The fog was thicker than pea soup, sir,” John said evenly. “Truth be, I do not know if the woman came

alone or not. There could have been someone with her who waited outside the parameters of the lamp on

the door. All I can say for certain is that I did not see anyone with her.”

Gabriel’s chest tightened.

John told the truth. But had Stephen?

“Why did you do it, John?”

“She reminded me of Mr. Michel.”

Hungry eyes.

“And she reminded me of you.”

Gabriel’s eyes had never been hungry.

“She reminded me of all of us.”

Whores. Pimps. Beggars. Cutthroats. Thieves.

All who worked inside the House of Gabriel had survived the streets.

English streets.

French streets.

“I wondered where we would be now,” John continued, “had someone given us the opportunity to make

enough money, our first time out, to escape the gutters.”

John had escaped the gutters long before Gabriel had found him.

“Take your severance pay and buy some land, John,” Gabriel said quietly.

“It’s too late.”

Gabriel thought about Michael. He thought about Anne.

He thought about their upcoming nuptials.

Gabriel’s people, Michael dubbed his employees, immigrants and homeless people all.

A picture of the gray-haired man flashed before Gabriel’s mind’s eye. It was followed by images of the

Hundred Guineas Club.

John had escaped the gutters to work inside the homosexual club.

No, he could never go back to being a simple country boy.

“Do you trust Stephen, John?” he asked impulsively.

Hating the plans that were formulating inside his mind. Knowing there was no alternative.

Gabriel would not allow his house to be turned into a killing field, not if he could stop it.

John’s back stiffened. “I trust everyone here, sir.”

Another sin.

Whores could not afford to trust.

Love.

Hope.

“Do you trust me?” Gabriel asked softly.

“Yes.”

In the end, Victoria Childers had also trusted him.

She had eaten his food and now she slept in his bed. Believing she was his guest.

She was not.

Victoria was as much a prisoner as Gabriel was.

“Should I trust you?” Gabriel queried gently.

“I did what I thought was right,” John said stiltedly.

And he would do so again.

Perfect prey.

The dawn closed around Gabriel.

He must choose. To let go of John and Stephen—because they did what they thought was right.

Or to keep them—knowing that their humanity would cause more death.

The second man could have bribed them.

If they were guilty, the second man would kill them.

If they were innocent, Gabriel’s dismissal would kill them.

It would be a far worse death than that which the second man would minister.

All of London would know they had been discharged. No one would hire the untouchable angel’s rejects.

John and Stephen would return to whoring.

A far, far better fate than that which would be theirs if Gabriel asked them to stay.

No one had a right to ask a man to do what Gabriel would ask them to do.

“They did not deserve dismissal, monsieur.” Gabriel stared at the wine-stained tablecloth: a woman’s

delicate profile emerged, nose straight, brow sweeping, chin firm.

Victoria did not believe that she was beautiful: she was.

Gabriel had only ever seen her type of beauty in one other person, and she would soon belong to

Michael.

“You warned them that a man would try to kill Monsieur Michel; you did not warn them against a

woman,” Gaston stiffly protested. “John and Stephen planned