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

the woman who followed

behind a boy that was only marginally taller than Andy.

Peter had fetched Mademoiselle Aimes.

Andy slipped out of his chair and skipped toward them. Immediately he raced up the stairs, the woman

and the taller boy in hot pursuit.

Tears burned Victoria’s eyes, the outsider without a family. Without thinking, she reached over and

plucked up the finger-smeared glass that Andy had vacated. There was a swallow of gin left inside it.

Victoria swallowed the clear liquor.

Tears flooded her eyes; for long seconds she couldn’t breathe. Immediately a soft glow infused the

saloon.

Neither the soft glow nor the burning ball of liquor stopped the loneliness. Nor did they stop the thoughts

that flitted around and around inside her head.

She wondered what the older woman who had purchased a younger man’s expertise did.

She wondered if Michael lived.

She wondered if Yves had broken the bond that linked two angels.

Faces a mask in the flickering light and shadow, two men in crimson silk sashes and short black cloaks

stepped through the doorway leading to Gabriel’s suite. They carried the satinwood door between them;

auburn hair trailed over the edge.

Julien, who had approved of Gabriel’s house and who had been posted to protect Victoria but who had

died himself.

Gaston and another man—a waiter, judging by his crimson sash and short black coat—carried a

man-sized bundle between them.

Victoria did not have to ask what was inside it.

Immediately following Gaston came two more waiters; they, too, carried a man-sized bundle between

them.

Men and women raced up and down the guest stairs, Gabriel’s private stairs, traffic gradually slowing,

finally stopping altogether while Victoria sat and watched, as she had sat and watched other people live

their lives these past eighteen years.

Hours passed. Victoria knew that because the guttering candles spat and sputtered.

She reviewed her life.

Out of the memories of her father’s cold judgment came her mother’s voice.

A mother who had loved her two children. A mother who had read them fairy tales.

A mother who had withered and died without the love she needed.

I k now it, said the angel, because. . . I k now my own flower well.

Victoria slowly stood up and climbed the plush red-carpeted stairs, silk and satin rustling, skirt tail

dragging.

The room to which Michael had been moved was unmistakable: pails of crimson-stained water and a pile

of bloody sheets sat outside the door. The number seven gleamed gold against the white enameled door.

Victoria had visited the room just hours earlier.

Could she have stopped Julien’s death if she had told him and Gaston what she had briefly glimpsed

inside the transparent mirror?

She would never know.

Quietly Victoria turned the gilded doorknob.

The acrid smell of carbolic acid burned her nostrils.

A dark-haired man and a woman with pale brown hair were reflected inside the transparent mirror on

the opposite wall. He lay supine underneath a yellow silk spread, she sat beside the bed in a green-velvet

armchair, hatless, hair twisted in an elegant chignon, her peacock blue gown a blatant cry of Madame René

’s artistry.

Victoria judged the woman to be in her middle thirties, thirty-five or thirty-six to Victoria’s thirty-four

years.

Pale blue eyes abruptly met shock-dulled blue eyes.

Mademoiselle Aimes unblinkingly studied the standing woman who wore a corded golden brown silk

dress embellished with wine-colored velvet and green, yellow and red figured lampas, also of Madame

René’s artistry.

“She said I had passable legs, but that my breasts were too small and my waist too thick.”

Victoria blinked. Michael’s woman spoke like a lady: voice low, husky, cultured. English as Victoria was

English.

“Madame René said that my breasts were passable, but that my hips and my derriere are too scrawny,”

Victoria quietly returned. “She said padding would alleviate the problem.”

The pale blue eyes in the mirror alertly watched Victoria. “But Gabriel did not find you lacking.”

“No, Gabriel did not find me lacking.” Victoria rapidly blinked away the gritty exhaustion that blurred her

vision. “Is”—what did she call the man on the bed, Michel or Michael? He was the Earl of Granville. Did

she address him as Mr. or Lord?—“is he going to be all right?”

Victoria blinked again at the blinding beauty that became the woman’s unassuming face. “Yes. Thank

you. The doctor gave him a sleeping draught. In the morning I will take him home. Thank you for saving his

life.”

“How do you know?...” Victoria involuntarily glanced at Michael’s sleeping face. The scars ridging his

right cheek were smooth in repose, as they had been when in Gabriel’s study, unconscious instead of

sleeping.

“Gabriel told me,” Anne Aimes said calmly.

Gabriel had talked to Miss Aimes, but he had not talked to Victoria.

She would not be hurt.

“I couldn’t let him die,” Victoria said truthfully.

Relief nickered inside the woman’s pale blue eyes. “Michael and Gabriel are very special.”

“Yes.”

There was no question inside Victoria’s mind at all that they were indeed two very special men.

“My name is Anne,” the woman proffered.

Michael slept undisturbed.

“My name is Victoria.”

Was Gabriel sleeping?

Or was he hurting because of a past that he