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

man who called himself Gabriel.

His scent had lulled her to sleep the night before. Or was it still night?

She strained to hear ...

His breathing.

His presence.

His thoughts.

There was no sense of him.

This is a night house, mademoiselle... The walls are designed to afford privacy.

Heat flooded Victoria’s body.

The thoughts she had expressed and the questions she had asked the beautiful silver-eyed, silver-haired

man the night before flowed through her like an open tap.

Have you ever begged a woman for sexual release?. . .

No, mademoiselle, I have never begged a woman for release.

Has a woman ever begged you for release?

Yes.

Did you enjoy it?

Yes.

Did you . .. cry out. .. with your pleasure?

No, mademoiselle, I did not cry out with pleasure.

Did these women who begged you for release do so before or after you yourself. . . begged. . .for

release?

. . . It has been fourteen years, eight months, two week s and six days since I begged for release,

mademoiselle. I have not touched a woman since.

The darkness pressed on Victoria’s chest.

She had counted the days, weeks and months since she had been discharged from her position. The

losses and the indignities she had suffered paled in comparison to what Gabriel had experienced.

He denied the needs of his flesh, because of an act he had had no control over. And he had counted

every minute, every hour of each passing year.

Immediately Victoria remembered the streetwalker called Dolly and the folded paper she had pressed

into Victoria’s hand. For protection, she had assured Victoria.

A masculine voice laid bare the lie.

Did your friend tell you what this is?

Victoria tried to push aside the truth.

It is corrosive sublimate, mademoiselle. Did your friend tell you how to administer the tablets?

The truth would not be pushed aside.

One tablet causes violent convulsions, often followed by death. Two tablets inserted into your

vagina, mademoiselle, would most certainly bring about your death.

The pressure weighting her chest became an anvil—it dropped straight down to her lower abdomen.

Victoria threw back the bedcovers and stood up.

The wooden floor was icy against her bare feet; the air embracing her nakedness, chill.

There were no embers inside the fireplace to provide light. Heat.

Safety.

Gabriel, admitted proprietor, whore and murderer, could barge through the door at any moment and turn

on the light.

I was wet with desire. Because I did want you— a stranger— to touch me.

The shame that had refused to come when she uttered her confession remained curiously absent.

Victoria forcefully turned off the tap of memories.

She could not afford to feel fear. Hope.

Desire.

The eternal hunger of a woman.

Holding out her arms straight in front of her, Victoria walked into black space—and then she walked into

a black wall.

The sharp slap of flesh impacting wood exploded the pulse-pounding silence.

Not a wall. . . She had run full-body into the armoire.

Victoria froze, heart palpitating.

Had he heard her?

What if he investigated the noise?

She was naked, without even a pair of stockings to hide behind.

Her dress—where was it?

The bathroom—where was it?

Sliding her hands in rhythm with her feet, Victoria found the side of the armoire, the adjoining wall. . .

She skimmed the wall with the fingers on her left hand, right hand thrust forward to ward off attacking

furniture.

Or an attacking man.

Her fingers stubbed a wooden frame, plunged into empty space.

She had found the bathroom.

Reaching through the open doorway, Victoria lightly swept the wall with her fingertips, circling, circling

... slick enameled paint... icy metal. . .

A wooden switch.

Light blinded her. Materializing out of the glare appeared gleaming copper, the combination bath and

shower... a marble monolith, the wash basin . .. and a naked woman shrouded in dark, tangled hair.

Victoria’s gaze skidded away from her mirrored image above the marble basin.

Age-yellowed silk limply covered a wooden towel rack; shapeless flesh-colored tubes hung beside it.

Last night she had washed her drawers and her stockings before retiring, as she did every night.

Had he entered the bedroom and the bathroom while she slept?

Had he seen what no man had a right to see—a woman’s futile attempt to remain genteel when gentility

was not an option?

Her gaze unerringly returned to the mirror.

The naked, dark-haired woman within boldly stared back at Victoria.

White breasts peeked through twin streamers of dark, snarled hair—a woman stripped of earthy

possessions and prideful vanity.

I k now you, Victoria Childers, the man who wrote the letters claimed.

But Victoria did not know the woman in the mirror.

She did not know the woman who had undressed in front of a perfect stranger and felt no shame.

Her breasts jutted out from her chest, a proclamation of her sex.

A symbol of weakness and vulnerability.

The sin of a woman.

Desire is apart of all of us, mademoiselle.

Victoria remembered the members of the ton who had watched her auction off her virginity.

Men who served in parliament; women who ruled society.

Had they found the passion they sought?

A pale, slender hand rose up in the mirror.

You want to be k issed... a familiar masculine voice murmured provocatively.

The woman in the mirror touched reddened lips.

Chapped skin pricked Victoria’s fingertips; electric sensation jolted through her.

No man had ever kissed her lips.

Men did not kiss women on the streets; they merely coupled with them.

Now she understood why.

The streetwalkers possessed drawn, chapped lips—like Victoria’s lips.

Six months earlier they had been plump and soft.

Had