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

with calm deliberation. “

Perhaps they will lose patience with you and concentrate on her.”

And another woman would fall victim to the pattern. Dismissal without a reference. Dying a little every

day with poverty and despair.

Receiving letters promising pleasure and safety.

“Very well,” Victoria said decisively. “I will help you.”

“Merci, mademoiselle.”

Without warning, Gabriel stepped back.

“Trust, mademoiselle.” The warm cinnamon breath was replaced with the acrid odor of burnt wool. “We

must both trust.”

Victoria would not allow him to lie to her. “Yet you do not trust me, sir.”

A drop of London fog glittered on his shoulder. “Perhaps it is myself that I do not trust.”

“Don’t.”

The objection was out before Victoria could stop it.

An ember popped in the fireplace.

“Don’t what?” Gabriel asked softly.

“Don’t seduce me with an illusion of trust.”

Victoria wanted to believe that the beautiful man in front of her found her attractive. She wanted to

believe that she could trust an untouchable angel.

She wanted to believe that he would not seduce her with words merely to gain her trust.

Victoria knew better than to believe simply because she wanted to.

“You think the man who wrote the letters can lead you to the man you want.” She held his gaze with

resolve. “Perhaps he can. I have told you I will help you, so please don’t lie to me.”

“I do not lie.”

He did not like having his drawers pilfered; he did not like being called a liar. . .

“There are many different types of lies, sir.” Victoria tilted her chin in challenge. “Omission is as much a

lie as prevarication.”

“I always pay my debts, mademoiselle.”

It was not the response she had expected.

“Do you think that you owe me a debt?” Victoria swallowed. “And that you can repay it by telling me

what you believe I want to hear?”

“Yes,” he said. “I believe I owe you a debt, Victoria Childers.”

“Why?”

“I loved a man, mademoiselle. If I had not loved him, you would not be here.”

Michael. The chosen angel.

“You loved him ... as a friend?”

“I loved him as a brother.”

Victoria had loved David as a brother. Her father had twisted her innocent love and defiled it.

“There is no sin in love,” she protested involuntarily.

“No, mademoiselle, there is no sin in love,” Gabriel said unflinchingly. “The sin is in loving.”

A man such as he should not feel so much pain.

A woman such as she should not care.

“I wish I had never read the letters,” Victoria said quietly. “I wish I had never learned that aspect of my

character.”

Gabriel did not move; he suddenly felt miles away. “You wish that you did not desire an angel?”

There was no hiding from the truth.

“No.” For better or for worse, Victoria did desire Gabriel. “No, I do not wish that.”

She did not have the courage to ask Gabriel if he regretted bidding on her.

“Madame René delivered some clothes to you,” Gabriel said abruptly, silver eyes guarded.

Clothes.

Madame René.

Victoria took a deep breath.

It had been a scant few hours since Victoria had stood naked before Gabriel while Madame René

measured her. It seemed like a few years had passed.

Gabriel was prepared for her to reject his clothes. His person. His past.

Choices . ..

“Did you bring these clothes up with you?” Victoria asked briskly.

“No.”

She stared. “Then how do you know they are here?”

“Gaston told me they had arrived when I returned. I told him to bring them up. I heard the door open and

close a few minutes ago.”

And had not told her.

Gabriel’s omission did not curtail a spark of anticipation. Grasping handfuls of silk in both hands, Victoria

preceded him out of the bedroom.

An assortment of white boxes were piled high on the pale blue leather couch—three long dress boxes,

shorter rectangular boxes, three hat boxes. Four shoe boxes. The boxes were all stamped with rose petals.

Victoria had not had a new dress in over a year. She had never owned a custom-made dress.

It was unseemly to take frivolous pleasure in expensive clothing when there were so many on the streets

who had so little.

“There are too many boxes,” she said repressively.

“Madame René has assured me that women never have too many clothes.”

Was that a smile in Gabriel’s voice?

Victoria quickly glanced up—she had seen cynicism twist his mouth, but she had never seen him smile.

And he did not now. But there was a smile in his eyes.

Beautiful silver eyes .. .

“I will pay you back,” she said hurriedly.

His voice was a light caress. “Perhaps, mademoiselle, seeing your pleasure is payment enough.”

Her stomach somersaulted. “Are you flirting with me, sir?”

“No, mademoiselle.” The smile left his eyes. “I do not flirt.”

“But you know how?” she asked breathlessly.

“Yes, I know how.”

To flirt. To kiss. To give pleasure.

But he did not know how to receive pleasure.

“What shall I open first?” she asked. And knew that she sounded like a child at Christmas.

Faint memories stirred. Of a loving voice and warm laughter . ..

Sounds familiar to an eleven-year-old girl, not to a thirty-four-year-old woman.

The memories were gone as quickly as they had come.

Gabriel gestured toward the couch. “Whichever box you prefer, mademoiselle.”

Victoria tentatively sat down; leather squeaked, silk swished. Carefully she picked up a rose

petal-imprinted box.

It was surprisingly heavy.

She curiously lifted the lid.

It was a box full of gloves—wool gloves, leather gloves, white silk gloves, long silk evening gloves. They

were stained with red.

Someone had spilled ink on them.

Victoria frowned.

Two of the black leather gloves had mannequin hands stuffed inside them, as if they had been plucked

out of a showcase.

Slowly it dawned on Victoria that the hands inside the black leather gloves were not carved out of wood:

they were made out of flesh and bones.

The hands were human hands. And the red ink that stained the gloves was human blood.

Chapter

13

“Dear God,”