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

“Get the pen out of your frock,”

Gabriel ordered. “I ca-ca-can’t. My co-co-coat is buttoned.” “Unbutton it.”

“I ca-ca-can’t with th’ pistol in my cheek, sir.”

Cynicism twisted Gabriel’s mouth.

“You would be surprised at what a man can do, Thornton.” A man could kill. Or a man could grant life.

“Unbutton your coat.”

The man fumbled with the buttons. Some seconds later his coat fell open.

“Now reach inside your frock. Slowly.”

Thornton reached inside his frock. Slowly.

Gabriel’s thumb cocked the hammer of his revolver, a deadly click that echoed in the fog.

If Thornton produced a pistol, he was a dead man, the click said.

Sweat dripped down Thornton’s cheek, glistened on the blue-plated muzzle. He carefully pulled out a

thick bronze fountain pen.

It uncontrollably waved back and forth.

Had Victoria trembled in her fear? he wondered.

“I want you to write something,” Gabriel said brusquely.

It was time to find out who the real letter writer was.

“I do not—I do not ‘ave any paper.”

“Remove your left cuff.”

Gabriel stepped back far enough to allow Thornton to bring his hands in front of him.

He read Thornton’s intentions before the man had time to carry them out: he was going to run.

“Do you know what a bullet does to a man’s face at this range?” Gabriel asked softly.

Thornton ripped off his left cuff.

Carefully, Gabriel eased back the pistol. A round white pressure spot indented the man’s right cheek.

“If you yell, I will kill you,” he said clearly. “If you run, I will kill you. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.” Thornton breathed in short quips of air. “Yes, I understand you, sir.”

“Bon. I want you to write on the cuff.”

“What? What do you want me to write? I’ll write anything you want. Anything. Just tell me what to

write ...”

Gabriel quickly thought. “Write, ‘The eternal hunger of a woman.’ ”

There was no recognition on Thornton’s face, only the fear of dying and the willingness to do anything at

all to escape death.

Using his mouth to uncap the fountain pen and his left palm as a desktop, Thornton hurriedly scribbled

the words down on the stiff white cuff, breath steaming the air.

Finished, he looked up eagerly, a child waiting for approval.

“Hold up the cuff so I can read it,” Gabriel ordered.

Thornton held up the cuff, bronze cap plugging his mouth, hand visibly shaking, cuff weaving back and

forth, black script dancing.

Gabriel snatched the cuff out of Thornton’s hand.

The black script did not match that in Victoria’s letters.

His guts knotted with realization.

Thornton was not the man who had written Victoria Childers’s letters.

Chapter

12

A stiff white cloth floated down onto the linen sheet that Victoria tucked underneath the mattress.

Puzzled, she picked it up.

It was a man’s cuff. Black ink slashed across it.

Victoria turned the cuff right side up.

The eternal hunger of a woman slapped her in the face.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. Victoria dropped the cuff; at the same time she jerked upright.

The cuff spiraled downward. Warm breath tickled the back of her neck.

She pivoted around.

Gabriel stood only inches away from her. He smelled of cold air and London fog.

The eggs and ham and croissant Victoria had earlier devoured rose up into her throat.

“I met your former employer, Mademoiselle Childers.”

Met her former employer. ..

“The man who wrote that note on the cuff was not my employer,” she said stiffly.

“Au contraire, mademoiselle.” Gabriel’s breath smelled faintly of cinnamon. “Peter Thornton was very

much your employer.”

Was her employer?

Did Gabriel infer that Peter Thornton was her former employer? Or that he was the former Peter

Thornton?

Had Gabriel killed him?

Victoria brought her hand up to her throat. Her pulse throbbed a warning against her fingers: death,

danger, desire. “How do you know that Peter Thornton is the name of my former employer?”

“I sent one of my men around to the various employment agencies.” The warmth of Gabriel’s breath

was a sharp contrast to the coldness in his eyes. “He told them that he had interviewed a governess named

Victoria Childers whom he wished to employ, but he had misplaced her address. The West Agency found

your file. They did not have your current address, but they hoped that your former employer would.”

Admiration vied with Victoria’s resentment. “You are very thorough, sir.”

Frighteningly so.

The man who had written the letters could take lessons from him.

“Ignorance kills, mademoiselle,” Gabriel said softly. “So do secrets.”

He knew about her father. Her brother.

Victoria did not have any more secrets.

One thought rapidly followed the next.

Victoria had never seen Peter Thornton’s handwriting, but if it was not he who wrote the letters, who

did? At the same time it dawned on her that she had never before seen the handwriting of the silver-eyed,

silver-haired man before her.

Laissez le jeu commencer.

Let the play begin.

But who were the players?

Unexpected hurt squeezed Victoria’s chest.

Gabriel did not trust her. But she had trusted him.

She would not be afraid.

Dropping her hand, Victoria squared her shoulders; her breasts strained against the knotted silk. “And so

you once again believe that I am in league with this—this man whom you claim is after you.”

Hot breath seared her cheek.

“Aren’t you?” Gabriel asked lightly.

She tasted cinnamon.

Gabriel’s eyelashes were too long, too thick. His face too beautiful. Too remote.

The smell of burned wool lingered in the air.

Victoria wore the cover to his bed. Even if she had a safe place to run to, she couldn’t. He had burned

her dress.

She was trapped. With only the truth as her savior.

Truth had not saved her position six months earlier.

“No.” Victoria gritted her teeth. “I am not.”

“The man who wrote the letters knew you wore