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

of air was his answer. It was followed by quick denial. “You don’t believe that.”

“Don’t I?”

Gabriel no longer knew what he believed.

I think you are far more vulnerable than you want to think you are, Michael had told him. And yes,

I believe my uncle k new that.

But did the second man know it?

“No, you do not,” Victoria said emphatically.

The fear and the desire and the anger pulsing through Gabriel’s veins found an outlet.

He did not want to want this woman. But he did.

And yes, his desire did make him vulnerable.

“Then tell me, mademoiselle,” he said ruthlessly, “what I am supposed to think about a man—a wealthy

man, a man of reputation—who allows his only daughter to sell herself so that she might have food and

shelter.”

And never once caring if she were killed or hurt.

Emotion flickered inside Victoria’s blue eyes—eyes that had seen too much, felt too much, wanted too

much. “He does not know that I am here.”

“Are you so certain of that?” Gabriel bit out.

“Yes, I am certain of that.” Her knuckles clamping the pale blue silk coverlet about her breasts

whitened. “My father has no use of a daughter.”

The registrar had listed a son, Daniel Childers. Victoria had a brother four years younger than herself.

In a society that passed wealth and title through male progeny, it was not uncommon for men to favor

sons over daughters.

Gabriel wanted to spare Victoria; he could not.

Secrets killed.

Men. Women.

Whores.

“Why is that, Mademoiselle Childers?” he challenged. The stench of burning wool stung his nostrils. “

Why would a father allow his daughter to become a prostitute?”

Pain lanced through Gabriel—it came from Victoria.

She did not glance away. “Because my father believes that women are whores, sir.”

Victoria had been a governess for eighteen years, she had said. She had become a governess at the age

of sixteen.

Either her father had driven her out, or Victoria, in order to escape her father’s rule, had chosen to live

the life of a servant rather than that of the lady she had been born.

There was an alternative reason: Gabriel did not want to think about that.

He had to think about it.

“He married a woman, mademoiselle,” Gabriel goaded her.

“And she was a whore,” Victoria returned, chapped lips drawn, chin high.

The registrars had mentioned nothing more than names and ranks.

“Your mother belongs to the untitled aristocracy,” Gabriel said sharply.

“My father believes that women are born into sin.” The bleakness darkening Victoria’s eyes weighted

Gabriel’s shoulders. “And he was right. My mother left him when I was eleven. For another man. I am like

my mother. I am a whore.”

Emotion killed. So why couldn’t he block this woman’s emotions?

Gabriel offered Victoria the only comfort he could. “You are not a whore, mademoiselle.”

“If I were not a whore, why did”—Victoria swallowed, holding on to the last of her secrets, her

employer’s name—”why did he have me dismissed from my post? Why did he write me those letters?

Why did I read them? Over and over I read them. Why?”

The second man called to Gabriel.

He was out there, waiting for Gabriel to find him.

For the first time, he had left a trail to follow.

Gabriel couldn’t leave Victoria alone. Not like this.

“We all want, Victoria.”

The words were ripped out of Gabriel’s chest.

Victoria stilled, cloaked in pale blue silk.

His woman, sent to him by the second man.

“When I was a boy, I wanted a bed to sleep in.”

The madame had given it to him.

“When I became a whore, I wanted to be successful.”

So that he need never go hungry again.

The madame had made it possible.

“When I became a man, I wanted to experience a woman’s passion. Just once I wanted to feel the

pleasure that I gave.”

Time slipped.

Gabriel remembered silky wet flesh weeping for release.

He remembered the taste of a woman; he remembered the scent of a woman.

Silk rustled; it immediately dispelled the memory of other women. It did not dispel the memory of his

desire.

After all these years, it still had not died.

Gabriel focused on Victoria’s eyes, Victoria’s body. Victoria’s scent that permeated the room,

overpowered now by the stench of burning wool, but there nevertheless.

“Did you?” she asked softly.

“No.”

The truth.

Gabriel had never lost himself in a woman’s pleasure.

The truth should no longer be capable of hurting; so why did it?

“You asked Madame René how to seduce a man,” Gabriel said remotely. “I’ll tell you. When he’s

hungry, feed him. When he hurts, offer him hope. When he has nowhere to go, give him a bed to sleep in.

In order to seduce, one must be able to create the illusion of trust.

“The man who wrote the letters made you dependent on him: you were hungry; he told you he

would feed you. You were afraid; he told you he would comfort you. And when you had nowhere to

sleep, he said he would share his bed with you.

“You’re not a whore. When one has nothing to lose and everything to gain, Victoria, it’s very easy

to succumb to sex.”

The acrid sting of burning wool had brought tears to Victoria’s eyes.

He should not have burned the dress.

He should not have tried to comfort Victoria; there