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

had never taken place in the House of Gabriel. Yet one did now.

Men did not pledge two hundred pounds to pierce a woman’s hymen. Yet Strathgar just had.

Gabriel prepared for the next bid.

Watching.

Waiting.

Remembering...

. . . Reading the name Gabriel for the first time, printed by Michael while they waited for day to turn into

night.

... Writing his first word, Michael, practicing the script in-between the women who purchased a

dark-haired boy and the men who purchased him.

Wondering...

. .. When the need for sex would die and he would stop throbbing with what he could never have.

. . . Why he could not forget a woman’s benediction: that he find a woman to give him pleasure. To

mak e up for everything he endured.

The waiting ended with a flurry of motion.

Scooting back his Honduras mahogany chair, the German baron rose to claim his prize.

“I will give you five hundred pounds.”

Strathgar halted mid-stand.

The gray-haired man had bid.

Gabriel’s gaze glanced off the back of the gray-haired man, leaped over the blond-haired woman who sat

across from him, and settled on the man at the table behind them.

The back of his hair was so black that it glinted with blue highlights.

Gabriel did not need to see his irises to know their color: he saw them every time he closed his eyes to

sleep.

Suddenly the saloon came alive with masculine speculation and feminine spite.

A bid for five hundred pounds had been placed on the cloaked woman. Every male patron determined to

have her.

Jangled voices called out in rapid succession: “Five hundred twenty-five pounds.” “Five hundred

seventy-five pounds.” “Six hundred pounds.” “Six hundred fifty pounds.” “Seven hundred pounds ...”

An internal snick cut through the uproar, a door opening. Light slashed the darkness, the end

approaching.

One man halted two feet behind him; from twenty feet below him, Michael pinned his gaze.

“One thousand pounds,” scraped across Gabriel’s too tightly drawn skin.

It came from the second man.

Stunned incredulity washed over the saloon.

Only two whores had ever commanded that high a fee. Michel des Anges—Michael of the Angels, a

man named for his ability to bring women to orgasm—and the man who for the last twenty-seven years had

been known only as Gabriel.

Gabriel, the whore.

Gabriel, the proprietor.

Gabriel, the untouchable angel.

Sputtering candlelight dimmed the comprehension that flowed across Michael’s face: he realized that the

second man had twice bid.

But did he recognize his voice? Gabriel wondered.

He aimed the Adams revolver at hair that was so black it glinted blue.

Would Michael recognize the second man’s features after a bullet entered the back of his head and

exited through his face?

“Monsieur.” The man behind Gabriel did not step closer— Gaston had been in Gabriel’s employ too long

to make that mistake. “Monsieur, he has come, just as you said he would.”

Everyone who worked for Gabriel knew to expect the second man. It was why he had rebuilt the House

of Gabriel, to lure him with sex ... murder.

Michael.

Gabriel.

But they didn’t know what he looked like.

They didn’t know what he smelled like.

They couldn’t feel him, as Gabriel felt him, a cancer that devoured hope and despair, love and hatred.

“How do you know that he is here, Gaston?” he asked neutrally, pistol unwavering.

“He wrote un message for you, monsieur.”

Gaston spoke with a native French accent.

Michael spoke French like a Frenchman, yet he was English.

Gabriel spoke English like an Englishman, yet he was French.

He did not know from what country the second man came. Gabriel had killed the only man who could tell

him.

It did not matter. It was not necessary to know a man’s nationality in order to kill him.

Gabriel squeezed the trigger . ..

The gray-haired man suddenly stood up, body shielding the second man. He assisted the blond-haired

woman to her feet.

She stood taller than the gray-haired man, elegant as only a successful prostitute can be. Diamonds

sparkled at her neck and ears. Fog and smoke twined about her hair—hair that was almost as fair as

Gabriel’s.

It dawned on Gabriel that he had seen the gray-haired man and blond-haired woman before. But where?

“When did he give this message to you, Gaston?” he asked shortly.

The second man had bribed his two doormen, else the woman would never have been allowed entrance.

The House of Gabriel did not cater to the destitute.

He wondered if the second man had also bribed his manager.

And knew it was all too possible.

Every man and woman inside his house had a price.

They would not be in Gabriel’s employment if they did not.

The gray-haired man and blond-haired woman unhurriedly wound through the candlelit tables. A trail of

gray smoke followed them.

The cloaked woman remained statue-still. Untouched by the danger that crackled around her.

“A waiter picked the message up off the floor,” Gaston said stiffly, hurt by Gabriel’s unspoken suspicion.

“It is written on une serviette.”

An image of a waiter leaning over and straightening with a napkin in his hand flashed through Gabriel’s

mind’s eye.

His flesh crawled with sudden apprehension.

The waiter had not been near the man with the blue-black hair.

He wanted to pull the trigger.

He wanted to kill the second man.

He wanted the cleansing finality of death.

Gabriel did not pull the trigger.

Instead, he watched the gray-haired man. He watched the blond-haired woman.

He watched the pair pause at the exit.

Behind Gabriel, Gaston tensely waited. Below Gabriel, the blond-haired woman