Robin Schone

WOMAN

Robin

Schone

KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

BRAVA BOOKS are published by

Kensington Publishing Corp. 850 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022

Copyright © 2001 by Robin Schone

All Kensington titles, imprints and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for

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Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs.

For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Special Sales Manager: Kensington Publishing Corp.,

850 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022. Attn. Special Sales Department. Phone: 1-800-221-2647.

Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off. Brava Books and the B logo are trademarks of the Kensington

Publishing Corp.

ISBN 1-57566-698-7

First Kensington Trade Paperback Printing: September 2001 10 9876543

Printed in the United States of America

Gabriel knew the woman in the lusterless cloak.

He knew her because he had once been her.

Cold. Hungry.

The perfect prey and the perfect predator.

She came to kill an angel.

She wouldn’t live to see the dawn.

Jumbled voices spiraled upward on ribbons of yellow fog and gray smoke. Men in black dress coats and

white waistcoats and women in shimmering gowns and winking jewels shifted inside a flickering maze of

candlelit tables: standing, sitting; leaning back in Honduras mahogany chairs, slanting forward over white

silk tablecloths.

They did not know they were bait, the English ton who sought pleasure and the London whores who

sought their wealth.

They did not know that a woman stalked them; Gabriel’s body throbbed with knowledge.

Of pleasure; of wealth.

Of life; of death.

By reopening the House of Gabriel—a tavern where every carnal desire could be satisfied—he invited

both patrons and prostitutes.

Sex and murder.

White flame shot upward.

Twenty feet below him, a man snared his gaze.

A man whose hair was as dark as Gabriel’s was fair.

A man with violet eyes instead of silver.

His right cheek was pitted with shadow.

Twenty-seven years of memories arced between them. Images of war-hungry France instead of

winter-shrouded England; of two half-starved thirteen-year-old boys instead of two forty-year-old men in

tailored black dress coats and white waistcoats.

My two angels,
the madame who had plucked them off a Paris street had said.
A dark one, for the

women. A fair one, for the men.

She had trained them to be whores, and they had excelled at it; she had taught them the eighth deadly sin,

and they had broken it.

The flare of candle flame dimmed, abruptly recalling Gabriel to the pistol that weighted his left hand.

Michael, the scarred angel had come to protect Gabriel, the untouchable angel.

Revenge would not be possible without him.

Without him there would be no need for revenge.

The woman would die because a dark-haired angel lived.

And loved.

A pulse tattooed a relentless rhythm against the rosewood grip:
men,
women;
pain,
pleasure;
life,
death.

The Adams revolver was equipped with a double-action lock: manual cocking for accuracy, self-cocking

for rapid fire.

He could manually cock the revolver.

He could release the trigger in a single, precise shot.

One bullet would kill Michael.

One bullet would stop the twenty-nine-year-old cycle of death.

Gabriel did not cock the revolver.

He could not kill Michael.

The second man had sent a woman to do the job Gabriel had failed to do six months earlier.

A sharp report ricocheted down his spine.

The woman halted on the edge of candlelight, Michael in her sight.

Out of the corner of his right eye, Gabriel saw a waiter in a short black cloak and white waistcoat bend

over, straighten with a white silk napkin. Immediately below Gabriel, two waiters inched closer to Michael.

Their hands remained at their sides: they were not prepared to shoot a woman.

Four tables over, a waiter poured champagne from a newly uncorked bottle, crystal glinting, liquid

sparkling.

Of the second man, there still was no sign. But he was down there, a chameleon in a black dress coat

and white waistcoat. Disguised as a patron or a prostitute. Leaning back in a Honduras mahogany chair or

slanting forward over a white silk tablecloth.

Hard. Erect.

Turgid with the heat of sex and the thrill of murder.

Time slowed to the beat of Gabriel’s heart.

The cloaked woman brought her arms forward and clasped a dull, dark object between her hands.

A blue-plated pistol did not reflect light. Gabriel knew that because his own pistol was blue-plated.

The thundering roar of sexual parley dimmed.

Her head was concealed by the fold of a dark hood: Gabriel could not see her features.

Regret knifed through him.

For the men and women who had died; for the men and women who would die.

For the woman below who was about to die.

Perfect prey and perfect predator.

Gabriel aimed at the pale blur of her face.

At the same time a clear, feminine voice rang out: “I offer you my virginity, gentlemen.”

Gabriel froze.

The woman dressed like a streetwalker; she spoke like a well-bred woman.

One by one the tons’ genteel guffaws and the prostitutes’ practiced titters died.

Silk whispered. Candle flames fluttered.

Uncertainty immobilized his waiters.

Duty dictated they expel the woman in her cheap black cloak; experience warned them it was too late:

she had attracted the attention of rich patrons.

Virgin flesh was prime produce.

The waiters would not interfere.

“The man who tenders the highest bid shall possess their reward this very night,” she continued in a

clarion voice, hands still, body poised, death just a bullet away. “Shall we start at one hundred and five

pounds?”

One hundred and five pounds
tumbled through the fog and the smoke.

On London streets a maidenhead—whether real or manufactured—sold for five pounds, not
one

hundred and five.

Sudden recall smashed through Gabriel’s consciousness: of a French
maison de rendezvous
instead of

an English night house; of a woman in luxurious purple satin instead of a woman in a dark, worn cloak.

Twenty-seven years ago the
madame
had sold his virginity for two thousand, six hundred and sixty-four

francs.

One hundred and five English pounds were equivalent to two thousand, six hundred and sixty-four French

francs.

The woman could only have gotten her information from two men: Michael or the second man.

Gabriel did not doubt for one moment from which of the two she had gained her knowledge.

He manually cocked the revolver with his thumb.

“ ’Ere now!” Malice unveiled a female prostitute’s Cockney origins. “Ain’t no fish bladder worth one ’

undred five pounds, dearie!”

Light and shadow jittered in a burst of masculine and feminine laughter.

The cloaked woman did not laugh.

Did the second man?

Did he train a revolver on Michael while Gabriel aimed his pistol at the woman, or did the cloaked

woman slowly squeeze the trigger of a gun through her reticule, unaware of her fate?

Had the woman come to kill an angel... or had she come to distract one?

“I assure you, madam,” the woman coolly returned, “my maidenhead does not come from a fishmonger.

I am indeed a virgin.”

It was possible.

Circumstances forced chaste, educated women out onto the streets, just as it did gay, uneducated ones.

It was of no consequence.

A weapon wielded by a virgin was just as deadly as one wielded by a streetwalker.

Curved metal cradled Gabriel’s middle finger.

“Then remove the cloak, girl, and show us what you’re selling,” Lord James Ward Hunt, earl of Goulburn

and home secretary, crudely challenged.

Gabriel did not spare him a glance.

In the candlelight, the man’s greased hair shone like black oil.

Shadow turned red into black.

The woman’s blood would shine like the home secretary’s hair.

“I see no reason to exhibit myself, sir,” the cloaked woman calmly rejoined. “It is not my body that is of

value, but my virginity.”

Shock halted the remaindering snickers.

Whores desiring purchase did not refuse to show their wares.

Gabriel knew that because he had been a whore for over twelve years.

Dressing. Undressing.

Enticing. Seducing.

Sex had seemed a small price to pay for food and shoes and a bed to sleep in. In the beginning.

In the end he had fucked merely to prove that he wasn’t the whore he had been trained to be.

The second man had proved him wrong.

“By jove, she’s got bottom!” Gabriel focused on the woman instead of the newly elected parliament

member who spoke. “I’ll give you twenty pounds, eh, what?”

“A woman’s virginity is her dowry,” the cloaked woman said evenly, body turning away from Michael

toward the parliament member. The change of position revealed the dark object she clutched: it was a

reticule, not a weapon. “Is that all that a woman’s maidenhead is worth to you, sir? Twenty pounds? Would

you sell your daughter—or sister—so cheaply in marriage?”

Disapproval turned the tide of masculine interest.

Male or female, prostitutes did not compare their worth to those of the
ton.

No matter how high of a price their flesh commanded.

Trilling laughter sliced through the candlelit darkness.

An English gentleman and a London prostitute climbed up the plush red-carpeted stairs that edged the

saloon, black coattails flapping, bustled silk gown sashaying.

They had reached an agreement while sipping vintage champagne; their flesh would seal the bargain in

an upstairs bedroom.

Gabriel’s body coiled to fire the Adams revolver while the heat and the scent and the sound and the sight

of men with women squeezed his testicles.

Gabriel did not fear for his own death this night.

That would come later.

Watching Michael die would be his punishment; death would be his reward.

For the pain,
for the pleasure...

“I will give you one hundred and five pounds, mademoiselle, for your... innocence,” volunteered a silky,

masculine voice.

Electric awareness tightened Gabriel’s scalp.

When he had last heard that voice, it had spoken fluid French instead of clipped English. There was no

mistaking who it belonged to: the second man had bid on the cloaked woman.

Black and white movement slashed through his peripheral vision.

Gabriel’s head reflexively snapped toward his right, heart pounding, left hand steady, the waiting over.

A man in a black dress coat leaned across a white silk tablecloth. Blue and orange fire flared between a

blunt cigar and a tapered candle. Gray hair shone in the dual play of light, disappeared in a wreath of

smoke.

He was not the man who had bid one hundred and five pounds.

He was not the man whom Gabriel would kill or be killed by.

A distant
bong
penetrated the wood, the glass, the throbbing sexuality and the pending death that the

House of Gabriel was built from: Big Ben announced one hour, two, three . . .

“I bid one hundred and twenty-five pounds.”

A balding pate shone like a gibbous moon above gleaming gold studs.

“I bid one hundred and fifty pounds.”

Teardrops of fire ricocheted off crystal and glinted off dark hair.

“Mein Got.”
Baron Strathgar shouted from the middle of the saloon. His round face was dark from

alcohol, his German accent heavy with excitement. “I bid two hundred pounds.”

The feel of Michael’s keen alertness squeezed Gabriel’s chest while the second man’s anticipation fisted

inside his stomach.

Low murmurs rose to a dull cacophony, the sound of two hundred voices raised in conjecture.

An auction had never taken place in the House of Gabriel. Yet one did now.

Men did not pledge two hundred pounds to pierce a woman’s hymen. Yet Strathgar just had.