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

deep breath. There really was no need for

self-consciousness—there was nothing she could do to shock anyone in the House of Gabriel. “Please tell

Pierre that I would appreciate it if my next meal is served with a tin of condoms. . . .”

Chapter

11

The London air was damp and chill. Yellow fog embraced the city.

Gabriel idly swung the silver cane.

It was hunting time.

He knew the address he sought; he just did not know if the man he wanted would be there.

Gabriel found the town house without mishap. It faced the park.

Childish voices permeated the yellow gloom that blanketed London. The children played London Bridge;

their nannies caught up on gossip.

No one would notice two men strolling in the fog. And if they did, no one would be able to identify them.

“Shoeblack fer a penny, guv’nor,” a gruff voice offered.

Gabriel stared down into six-year-old eyes that looked like they were sixty-six. He let the shoeblack

shine his shoes.

He did not think of his shoes. He did not think of the man he sought.

Gabriel thought of Victoria.

She thought to save an angel.

Gabriel was not an angel.

How does a woman love a man? ...

Michael loved Gabriel. His love had destroyed Gabriel’s life.

Gaston claimed Gabriel’s employees loved him. Their love allowed Gabriel to destroy their lives.

No woman had ever loved Gabriel.

He prayed no woman ever did.

The shoeblack sat back on his haunches so Gabriel could inspect his work. Blue glinted in his young-old

eyes.

The man who used your desire against you was at fault, sir, not you.

Gabriel jerked his foot off the box and tossed the shoeblack a florin.

The door to the town house opened.

A woman with two young girls—ages eight and ten—stepped out. The woman was dressed in a drab

cloak and bonnet; the two girls wore matching fur hats and muffs.

The governess looped a hand through an arm of each of her charges.

Victoria had said not all children were lovable. Had she been fond of the two girls? he fleetingly

wondered.

Would she be fond of a bastard’s children?

Gabriel waited to see if the two girls and their governess went inside the park.

They did.

The governess shielded the two girls from Gabriel as she herded them through the gate. Fog quickly

shrouded them.

A muffin boy hawked his wares.

Victoria had not eaten her breakfast while he was there. Had she eaten after he left?

Gabriel bought a cinnamon muffin. No sooner had he finished it than the town house door opened again.

It was the man Gabriel sought.

He carried a standard mahogany cane in his right hand.

The silver-knobbed cane in Gabriel’s left hand was a reminder that nothing was what it seemed.

Gabriel pushed away from the park gate. Idly he crossed the street, deftly stepping over a steaming pile

of manure as he wove around a lumbering omnibus and a mule-drawn wagon. He gained the sidewalk.

The man leisurely walked down the steps and turned north, in the opposite direction of the park.

One pair of footsteps rang out in the coiling fog. It was joined by Gabriel’s footsteps.

Transferring his cane to his right hand, Gabriel reached inside his coat and pulled out the Adams revolver

from the shoulder holster; he kept it hidden underneath his derby jacket.

The man walked a little faster.

A bobby stood on the corner of the street ahead. Fast approaching the man and Gabriel was a hansom

cab.

The man raised his arm to hail it.

Gabriel had no choice but to act quickly.

“Sir. Sir!” Gabriel matched his footsteps to those of the man. Keeping his voice soft and unthreatening,

he asked, “Are you Mr. Thornton?”

The man paused and peered at Gabriel cautiously, arm still raised. He was dressed conservatively, a

middle-aged man with a pale, narrow, freckled face.

He did not look like a man who would terrorize a woman. Whereas Gabriel knew he looked exactly the

type of man he was: a man who had killed and would kill again.

“I am,” the man said nervously.

His first mistake.

Neither a lone man—nor a lone woman—should ever admit their name to a stranger on a street.

Gabriel ruthlessly took advantage of the man’s innocence.

“Your daughter Penelope has met with an accident, sir. The governess, a Miss Abercarthy”—the

woman at the employment agency whom David had questioned had been most eager to tell the handsome

man whatever he wanted to know—”asked that I fetch you.”

The man dropped his arm. The cabby’s nag clip-clopped on by.

“Penelope!” Surprise lit the man’s face. “Why, whatever has happened to her? Where is she?”

Gabriel did not have to lie.

“She’s in the park,” he said. Waiting to see if he would have to use force.

The man willingly turned toward the park.

There was a lull in traffic. Gabriel crossed the road easily, quickly, as if in a hurry to return to an

accident.

The man hurriedly followed him. Together they stepped through the open gate to the park.

“Where is she?” the man asked anxiously.

Children’s voices continued their play. “London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down

...” overflowed the foggy park.

“Over here,” Gabriel said, stepping toward a thicker patch of fog toward the outline of a tree, away

from the playing children.

Thornton heedlessly walked into Gabriel’s trap.

Gabriel slammed the knob of his cane into the man’s chest.

He catapulted into the tree, breath escaping his chest in an audible whoosh. His hat toppled forward,

blinding one