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

her. Body. Soul.

Her fists clenched in the mangled covers.

She had not touched his body, but she had touched an angel.

Victoria did not know if Gabriel would forgive her.

She squeezed her eyelids shut and stared at darkness, listening to the soft click of his boots, crossing the

bedroom floor, entering the bathroom...

Her body counted the passing minutes. She felt hollow inside, as if he had created a tunnel inside her.

The faint sound of plumbing vibrated in the air: Gabriel had flushed the toilet. A soft click penetrated the

stillness, a door opening.

She could feel his stare; it was as palpable as the throb deep inside her womb.

“Mary Thornton cooperated,” he said flatly. Tension throbbed inside his voice. “The man who wrote the

letters is Mitchell Delaney.”

She would not cry.

The darkness behind her eyelids writhed. “I do not know a Mitchell Delaney.”

“He knows you, mademoiselle.”

“My name is Victoria,” Victoria said. And she enjoyed the way Gabriel said it, the “V” a soft caress.

Yes, the man who wrote the letters knew that she wore silk drawers instead of wool. He knew that

women had the same sexual needs as did men.

He did not know the woman who was Victoria Childers. But Gabriel knew her.

He had touched the very heart of her soul.

Gabriel turned around and walked away.

Chapter

17

Gabriel walked the streets, turning, twisting, slipping through an alley, waiting on the other side, breath

misting the yellow fog, heartbeat measuring the silence, silver sword raised in welcome.

No one followed him.

He wished someone had.

Gabriel wanted to kill.

Gabriel wanted to escape the scent and the feel of Victoria.

Gabriel wanted to deny the pleasure she had given him.

I see you, Gabriel. When I come, I see you.

For a second—with the head of his cock pulsing against the mouth of her womb—he had almost

believed that he had a soul.

Forcibly, Gabriel concentrated on the night.

No one had followed him to the Thornton town house, either by day or by night. Yet someone had

watched Madame René enter his house.

Someone had intercepted the boxes of clothing she had sent to Victoria.

A dull clip-clop interrupted Gabriel’s thoughts, the hooves of a solitary horse. Heartbeat accelerating, he

eased back inside the mouth of the alley.

Approaching light materialized into carriage lamps. A hansom cab rattled by.

The driver could be headed to the stables. Or the driver could be following Gabriel.

It disappeared into the fog.

Gabriel maneuvered three more streets. Several more hansom cabs meandered through the early

morning fog. He hailed the third one by stepping out in front of the passing horse and grabbing the leather

halter.

The horse shied; the cabbie cursed.

“Git yer ‘ands off me ‘orse, ye—”

“I will give you two gold sovereigns if you take me up,” Gabriel said softly.

The average cab fare was sixpence per mile; a sovereign was equivalent to two hundred and forty

pence. Gabriel did not have to clearly see the cabbie’s face in order to see the calculation in his eyes: he

would have to travel eighty miles to earn two sovereigns.

Gabriel understood the streets: he understood the men and the women who worked them.

He did not understand Victoria.

“Where’d ye be wantin’ to go?” the cabbie asked cautiously. “I need to be gittin’ back to th’ stables.”

“Not far,” Gabriel said pleasantly, aching from sex, aching for more sex. “I want to go to the Hundred

Guineas Club. I want you to slowly circle the block until I pound on the roof. When I pound on the roof, I

want you to stop. Another man will join me. He will then tell you where to take us.”

The cabbie did not have to ask directions to the Hundred Guineas Club. Like the House of Gabriel, it

was known wide and far.

“I’ll do it if I gits th’ gold boys up front,” the cabbie said craftily.

The horse nervously sidestepped, narrowly missed Gabriel’s foot.

Gabriel quickly calmed the sweaty horse, gloved hand firmly sweeping its neck. Remembering the feel of

Victoria’s pain, taking his fingers and then his cock; remembering her pleasure, taking the orgasms he

forced upon her and asking for more.

He knew what the cabbie thought: he thought Gabriel trolled for a male whore.

Unaccustomed anger shot through him; he tamped it down.

Thoughts did not kill; the second man did.

“I will give you one sovereign now and one when the ride is over,” Gabriel said easily.

Greed surpassed the cabbie’s moral scruples.

“ ‘Op in, guv’nor.”

The cab stank of stale cigar smoke, cheap gin, old perfume and sweat.

Gabriel stared out the window. Streetlights battled the fog, winning on one street, losing on another. Men,

women and children wove in and out of the yellow mist.

He thought of Victoria, walking the streets, alone. Living on the streets. Alone.

Quickly he squelched the image.

She would not live on the streets. Gabriel would make sure of that.

A stream of cabs clogged the street in front of the Hundred Guineas Club.

Gabriel pulled a heavy silver watch out of his pocket: it was not yet time.

The cab slowly circled the block four times. On the fifth circle a tall blond-haired woman wearing a

crimson velvet cloak stepped toward the cab stand.

Gabriel thrust his cane up, knob first, and sharply rapped on the roof three times.

The cab pulled over.

Scooting across the leather seat, Gabriel kicked the door open, keeping as far away from the window

facing the sidewalk as he could.

The woman hesitated.

Gabriel