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

the holster. His middle finger automatically curled around the trigger.

“I could kill you,” Gabriel said provocatively.

Gabriel had waited almost fifteen years to do so.

The second man made no move either to defend himself or to fire the first shot. “But you won’t, Gabriel,

will you? By the time the bullet reaches me, Mademoiselle Childers will be dead.”

The invisible hand wrapped about Gabriel’s heart fisted.

“You think that her life is worth more to me than your death?” Gabriel asked, outwardly indifferent.

“Shall we find out, Gabriel?” Bright crimson blood dribbled down Victoria’s cheek, the knife cutting

instead of nicking. “Shall we show Michael and Mademoiselle Childers how little the touch of a woman

means to you?”

Victoria’s pain took Gabriel’s breath away.

If he admitted how deeply Victoria had affected him, she was dead. If he denied it, she was dead.

The second man smiled smugly. “I thought so. It took Dolly three months to find a woman for you, mon

ange. I would have preferred that Mademoiselle Childers had pale blue eyes and mousy brown hair—you

were quite taken with Michael’s woman, were you not?”— out of the corner of his eye Gabriel saw

Michael stiffen at mention of Anne Aimes—”but the darker blue of Mademoiselle Childers’s eyes is rather

splendid, and her hair quite magnificent when properly cleaned. She’s intelligent—you would quickly be

bored with a woman who was not—so that was a prerequisite. And her eyes, regardless of their color,

fairly beg you to fuck her, don’t they? That was far more important than their color. It was necessary,

Gabriel, to find you a woman who hungered for a man’s touch. But you also needed a woman who had just

enough knowledge of the streets to make her sympathetic to your past, but not so much that she would

become inured to the story of a beggar boy who wanted to be an angel.”

Victoria defensively stiffened at Yves’s words; Gabriel prayed she would remain still.

He wouldn’t let her die. But he couldn’t stop the second man from killing her.

He wouldn’t let Michael die. But he didn’t know if he could stop his death, either.

“How do you know that I’m fond of Michael’s woman?” Gabriel challenged, buying Victoria time, buying

Michael time. Knowing that his time had run out.

Yves briefly nuzzled Victoria’s hair; Victoria’s gaze remained locked onto Gabriel. “She smells of you,

Gabriel. Your soap. Your desire.”

Gabriel’s finger tightened around the trigger. All it would take was one bullet...

Would Victoria die before or after the second man?

Yves lifted his head. “I know you had a yen for Mademoiselle Aimes, Gabriel, because I followed you. I

followed you when you watched over Michael; I followed you when you took Mademoiselle Aimes to that

cheap pastry shop. I was in my father’s house when you killed him. Now, Michael sensed me that night,

didn’t you, Michael?”

Prey and predator.

Gabriel did not have to see Michael’s scars to know they would be white with tension. “I didn’t know it

was you.”

“No, of course not, how could you, mon cousin?” Yves reasoned. “You didn’t know I existed. Gabriel

couldn’t very well tell you, now could he? You thought it was because my father hired a man to rape

Gabriel that he hated you; it wasn’t. My father actually hired me to kill Gabriel; that would have hurt you,

Michael, and that really was all that my father lived for, to hurt you. Understandably. After all, he was

crippled because of you. However, I couldn’t resist Gabriel, so perfect, so beautiful, so hungry for love. It

was I who raped him, Michael. Gabriel hated you because every time he looked at you, he saw me. And he

remembered that he begged me . .. n’arêtte pas... not to stop.

“Now empty the cartridge chamber, Gabriel, mon ange, and gently toss the pistol in my direction or I will

proceed to carve the letter ‘b’ on Mademoiselle Childers’s cheek—’b’ because I made you beg.”

Blue eyes locked with silver eyes as Victoria digested the past of the man whom she had sought to

redeem.

Gabriel couldn’t breathe.

He had thought the truth would kill him, and it had.

Gabriel emptied the chamber; bullets rained onto the carpet.

“Toss the gun at my feet.”

Gabriel’s fingers clenched about the rosewood grip.

“Gently, Gabriel.”

Fresh blood dripped down Victoria’s cheek. Her eyes were stricken with the knowledge of the weapon

that she had become.

Or perhaps she was stricken because of the man that he was.

Gabriel tossed the pistol; it bounced on the carpet, slid past the silver-handled cane, the white and red tin

of mints, disappeared underneath the desk.

“What do you want?” he asked tightly.

What could he possibly want from two angels to have made such elaborate plans?

“I want you to tell Michael why you hate him,” Yves said.

The tension stretching between Gabriel’s shoulders tightened.

He could not tell Michael. Even to save him, Gabriel could not tell him.

He could not tell the boy he had loved as a brother that Gabriel’s body had betrayed him. He could not

tell Michael that he had looked into Yves’s violet eyes—Michael’s eyes—and