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

white blouse and dark green wool skirt were

expertly tailored to square her shoulders, flatter an artificially narrowed waist, and to maximize full hips.

There was nothing artificial about her shocked expression.

Mrs. Collins had just learned that every family has a secret. The skeleton in her closet was her brother.

Gabriel turned his back and walked out of Delaney’s house.

He remembered Victoria and the slick lick of her tongue as she shared with him the taste of his seed.

He remembered the letters that Delaney had written, seductive missives promising pleasure and protection.

The handwriting had not belonged to the same man who had written on the silk napkin. But the writing

on the napkin may not have belonged to the second man.

Gerald Fitzjohn had sat at his table.

Gerald Fitzjohn could have written the note on the silk napkin.

It did not matter.

Delaney. The second man.

A man was going to get the governess.

A man was going to get Victoria. Tonight.

Twin lamps shone through the yellow fog.

Gabriel sharply called out to the passing hansom cab.

The ride through the fog-shrouded streets was endless. He said he was going to get the governess,

the cab wheels sang.

I wanted your touch . . . Does that warrant my death?

Gabriel jumped out of the cab the moment it stopped.

“Hey, guv’nor!” the cabby shouted. “Ye owes me two shillin’s!”

Gabriel did not stop to pay the cabby.

Eight distant bongs dully penetrated the blanket of fog, Big Ben announcing the hour. The house doors

opened in another hour.

Using his private key, Gabriel quickly let himself inside. Yellow tendrils of fog writhed in the darkness.

He followed the wafting trail of beeswax polish, roast lamb and danger.

The crystal chandelier at the top of the guest stairs forged jagged shadows in the dark cavern that was

the saloon. White silk tablecloths shone like sleeping ghosts. A single candle illuminated a black-haired man

who sat at a back table. A black wool coat framed a satinwood chair; a black silk dress coat framed the

man’s white waistcoat. He tilted a brandy snifter, long scarred fingers cradling the warmed crystal, both

human flesh and glass tempered by fire.

Gabriel felt all the old emotions that Victoria had briefly stemmed rise to the surface.

Love. Hate.

The desire to be an angel. The need to protect an angel.

The knowledge that he could never be an angel, beggar that he was.

With emotion came the memories of hunger that hollowed the stomach, cold that numbed the skin.

Poverty that eroded social barriers. Lust that never burned.

Sex had been Michael’s salvation; a violet-eyed, black-haired boy had been Gabriel’s deliverance.

Silently Gabriel crossed the thick wool carpet, crimson dye blackened by flickering darkness.

A feminine giggle drifted up the kitchen steps, a housemaid flirting with a waiter.

Michael sat alone, as he had sat alone on the dock in Calais.

Regret washed over Gabriel for the twenty-seven years that yawned between two thirteen-year-old

boys and two forty-year-old men. He paused outside the circle of the single candle flame. “I thought I told

you not to come here again, Michael.”

His voice was a hollow echo inside the cavernous saloon. A reminder of other houses, other saloons.

In another hour the House of Gabriel would be overflowing with patrons and prostitutes. Tobacco smoke

and expensive perfume would camouflage the aroma of beeswax polish and roast lamb and turn the smells

of a home into that of a tavern.

Briefly, Gabriel envisioned Michael’s country estate and town house. They smelled of roses, lilacs and

hyacinth, living floral scents to camouflage a past riddled with death.

Michael swallowed a sip of brandy before lowering the crystal snifter. “You didn’t read the newspaper

today, Gabriel.”

“Forgive me, man vieux,” Gabriel said ironically. “I have been busy.”

Downstairs his people were finishing off their supper, some preparing to end the day, some preparing to

start it.

Was Victoria still sleeping?

Would she welcome him back to her bed?

How did Delaney plan to take her?

Violet eyes calmly assessed Gabriel. “You were in a fight.”

“The streets are dangerous,” Gabriel evaded. His cheek throbbed from the butler’s fist. He lightly

gripped the silver handle to the cane that was no cane. “There is always someone trying to take that which

does not belong to them.”

Amber brandy sloshed the sides of the crystal snifter; scarring had not impeded the adeptness of

Michael’s hands or his ability to please women. “Who is he, Gabriel?”

Fear leaped inside Gabriel like a caged animal.

Michael would not stop until he had the truth.

The second man would not stop until two angels were dead.

But there was only one angel among them: Michael.

Victoria was the only living person who knew that truth.

Both Michael and Gabriel’s lives were in her hands.

“He’s the second man who raped me, Michael,” Gabriel replied, playing the game, dying a little with

each passing second.

If he went upstairs to Victoria now, Michael would follow him, and the truth would come out.

Gabriel couldn’t kill Michael, but the truth would kill Gabriel.

A masculine laugh wafted up from the kitchens.

Amber brandy swirled and swirled inside the crystal snifter. “She touched you, Gabriel.”

Gabriel remembered Victoria’s wet hair glued to her body, Victoria’s clear blue eyes glowing with

passion, Victoria’s smile at the French euphemisms for a man’s testicles.

Victoria’s hand reaching out to take his.

“She touched me, Michael,” Gabriel said neutrally.

He would kill for the pleasure of Victoria’s touch.

Yellow fire spat upward.

Michael’s eyes glinted violet in the flare of light. “An article on the front page of The