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

myself into further jeopardy.”

“No, ma’am.”

Victoria had had more success in persuading recalcitrant charges to study than she was having with this

man Gabriel had assigned as a guard.

“You know that Gabriel purchased my virginity.”

There was no way that he could not know, working in the House of Gabriel as he did.

The embarrassment burning up Victoria’s face was not mirrored by the guard’s face. “I am instructed

to guard you, ma’am, and I will do so.”

The electric light overhead drummed on Victoria’s head. “I want to know Gabriel.”

“You will not learn to know Mr. Gabriel through his house.”

How long ago it seemed since Victoria had followed Monsieur Gaston up the narrow steps behind the

guard.

“You are wrong, sir. Everything inside the House of Gabriel is a part of the man who built it.”

Victoria had gained the guard’s full attention.

“I want to please Gabriel,” Victoria said evenly. “I would like to visit the . .. the guest bedchambers to

see with what means other women please men.”

Objects she might not have noticed through the transparent mirrors.

The smirk she expected to see on the guard’s face did not appear.

Emotion nickered inside his emerald-green eyes; disappeared. “Perhaps, ma’am, it is not artificial aids

that Mr. Gabriel needs.”

“I will use whatever aids are available,” she said truthfully.

The guard glanced over her shoulders.

Victoria forcibly tamped down her frustration. She could not condemn an employee for his loyalty.

“How long have you been employed by Gabriel?” she asked politely.

He did not look at her. “Six years.”

Whereas Gaston had been employed fourteen years.

“Someone wants to kill him.”

The guard’s gaze snapped back to Victoria. “No one will harm him in the House of Gabriel.” Deadly

intent rang inside his voice. “We will protect him.”

Family.

“But he is not now in the House of Gabriel,” Victoria pointed out.

“No.” The frustration Victoria had earlier felt was reflected in the guard’s emerald-green eyes. “He is

not.”

Gabriel fought the love his family felt for him, just as he fought his need for a woman.

“Gabriel could die. If not today, then tomorrow.”

Just as she could die. If not today, then tomorrow.

She could die by the hand of the man who would kill Gabriel. Or she could die by the hand of the man

who had written the letters.

The guard did not respond.

“He is known as the untouchable angel,” Victoria desperately persisted.

Emerald-green eyes froze Victoria in her shoes. “We who are employed at the House of Gabriel know

what Mr. Gabriel is.”

And would not discuss him with an outsider.

Victoria felt the rebuff all the way down to the soles of her kid slippers.

“I think he deserves to be loved,” Victoria said quietly, hiding her pain. They both deserved to be loved

before it was too late. “I would like to love him. I would like you to help me.”

“I cannot help you, ma’am.” The emerald-green eyes nickered. “I would lose my position.”

But he wanted to help her.

He wanted Gabriel to find love.

They all wanted Gabriel to find love.

“No one need ever know of this but you and I,” Victoria assured him.

“There are no secrets in this house, ma’am.”

“There are secrets in every house,” she corrected him.

There had been secrets in her father’s house, a man renowned for his sterling reputation.

“I do not have a key to Mr. Gabriel’s suite; if we leave, you cannot get back inside.”

Hope welled up inside Victoria. “Surely someone other than Gabriel must have a key.”

“Mr. Gaston does.”

Victoria crimped the silk of her skirt in her fist. “I will explain to Mr. Gaston the reason we need to

borrow his key.”

The guard no longer looked stoic; he looked trapped. Torn between the loyalty to guard the door as he

was instructed and torn between his desire to bring his employer some happiness.

His face cleared as suddenly as it had clouded. “Follow me.”

Victoria smiled.

For a second, her smile was mirrored in the guard’s emerald-green eyes, and then he turned and

clomped down the brightly lit, narrow stairway. He halted at the foot of the stairs, hand curving around the

brass doorknob.

Victoria remembered the terrified woman who had followed Gaston up the stairs two nights earlier. That

woman had believed she could engage in one night of sexual license and not be affected by it. It was not

the same woman who walked down the narrow stairs now to join the waiting guard.

The door opened into the saloon. A maid leaned over a white-silk-covered table inserting a beeswax

candlestick into the silver candleholder. Her graying hair was caught up in a black net. She halted at the

sight of Victoria.

Victoria had no doubt whatsoever that the maid knew who she was.

The maid smiled, lined face crinkling with warmth. “Evenin’, ma’am. Jules.”

She spoke with a broad Cockney accent.

The guard nodded, “Evening, Mira,” and hurriedly herded Victoria toward the plush red-carpeted stairs

that hugged the opposite wall.

The white enameled doors lining the first floor were plainly visible from the saloon. A maid in a large

mobcap pushed a wooden cart laden with linen and cleaning supplies down the upstairs hallway, her figure

striped from the surrounding banister.

Victoria slowly climbed the stairs, glancing down at the rows and rows of white-silk-covered tables,

twisting her head to view the darkly gleaming box where Gabriel had watched her, and from which he had

then bid on her.

Victoria had been told that sin was ugly; the House of Gabriel was as beautiful and elegant as