Robin Schone (8 page)

“No, she will not trouble you again,” he agreed evenly.

Victoria sighed with relief. “There you are—”

“She will not trouble you again, mademoiselle, because she is dead. Or soon will be.”

Dolly had promised to accompany Victoria to the House of Gabriel; Victoria had waited until Big Ben

had announced the quarter hour to twelve.

She had not shown up.

Nausea closed Victoria’s throat.

“How do you know that?” she managed.

The silver-eyed man pivoted; between one blink and the next he faced Victoria and held out the white

silk cloth that had earlier concealed his pistol.

“I know because of this, mademoiselle.”

Victoria instinctively reached out; the white cloth dropped into her hand. She blankly examined the

square of silk, a napkin, surely—

“Turn it over.”

Black ink stained the opposite side of the white silk cloth. Slowly the black blots took form.

They were letters. Bold, black, masculine letters.

A note was scrawled across the silk.

Victoria read the short missive. Once. Twice. Thrice. Each time she lingered over the last sentence:

You have set the stage,
mon ange,
now I bring you a woman. A leading actress, if you will.
Laissez

le jeu commencer.

Let the play begin.. . .

With a calmness she was far from feeling, she carefully folded the napkin and held it out.

Gabriel did not accept it.

Victoria’s hand clumsily dropped to her side; the silk crumpled between her fisting fingers. “My... The

woman who gave me the tablets did not write this.”

Even if Dolly could write—and in such a bold, masculine script— she would not be able to quote from

Shakespeare.

“No, she did not.”

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

Victoria had identified the quote in the note, by both author and play. Surely he did not think ... ?

“I am a governess,” she exhorted defensively.

“Yes.”

His response was not promising.

“My position requires a certain knowledge of Mr. Shakespeare’s works.”

He silently watched her flounder.

“I do not. . .”
Know the man who wrote the note.
Victoria licked her lips. “What does it mean, you

have ‘set the stage’? Who did you set the stage for?”

“A man, mademoiselle.”

“The man who wrote this note.”

“Yes.”

“And you think that this man, that—that it is because of
him
that I am here.”

“Yes.”

“That’s absurd. How could he possibly know—”

Her breath snagged inside her throat.

Six months earlier the husband of her employer had accused Victoria of flirting with him.

Victoria had not.

Her employer had not been interested in the truth. She had dismissed Victoria without so much as a

reference.

Three months later the letters had started coming, morning missives slipped underneath the door of her

rented room. Letters claiming that someone was watching her. That someone was waiting for her.

Letters that described in detail the pleasures she would soon experience.

From a man’s lips. A man’s hands.

A man’s—

“It’s not possible,” Victoria said abruptly.

She knew who wrote the letters: they came from her former employer’s husband. His handwriting did

not match that on the silk napkin.

Unlike the man who had written on the silk napkin, the husband of Victoria’s former employer did not

frequent places such as the House of Gabriel. If he did, he would have paid for a woman instead of taking

away Victoria’s reputation and career.

Merely so that he could possess her virginity.

“I will have my reticule now, if you please.”

“Soon, mademoiselle.”

After
he had read the letters, he did not need to say.

“I assure you, sir, I possess no letters which match the handwriting on this napkin.”

“Then you have nothing to fear.”

The electric light scorched her skin.

“I was not aware of your existence prior to tonight,” Victoria reasoned.

“So you said.”

“I have no intention of injuring you.”

“Nor I you.”

“What would be the purpose of this man sending me to you?” Victoria burst out.

She did not know either the man who called himself Gabriel or the man who supposedly sought to kill

her.

It was not
rational.

Lowering his lashes, Gabriel dropped the letters back inside her reticule. Slowly, he raised his eyelashes.

The expression inside his silver gaze snagged her breath: she stared at fear.

If
he
was afraid .. .

“I do not know, mademoiselle.” Instantly the fear vanished from his gaze. He dropped her reticule back

into the chair. “Your tray will soon be here. Would you care to refresh yourself?”

No.

“Yes, thank you.”

Perhaps there was a window in the lavatory by which she could escape.

Silently, he turned.

Victoria resisted the urge to reclaim her reticule.

If she picked it up, he would take it from her.

She did not know what she would do if he used force: scream. Faint.

Fight back.

What Victoria had thought was a satinwood cabinet turned out to be a door.

A door that opened into stark blackness.

Victoria’s heart thumped against her ribs.

Light slashed across a bare wooden floor, glinted off a brass bed. The smell of beeswax polish and clean

linen enveloped her.

Crushing the silk napkin in her right hand and her cloak in her left, Victoria followed him into the scented

darkness.

His footsteps were soft, unobtrusive; Victoria’s were loud, invasive.

There were no windows in the bedroom.

The soft snick of a door opening was deafening over the roar of Victoria’s heartbeat. Bright light

abruptly blinded her.

Gabriel glided back into the shadows, silver hair shining. “You may join me when you are finished,

mademoiselle.”

Victoria resolutely stepped forward.

The door closed, shutting her inside. Immediately she noticed a large copper bathtub encased in

satinwood—tub, front end. A copper-lined hood sealed the three sides.

Victoria had seen combination bathtubs and showers displayed in the Crystal Palace—crafted out of

mahogany or walnut wood rather than the more precious satinwood—but she had never before worked in a

household furnished with the luxury apparatus.

The hood was seven and one-half feet tall. It was quite impressive.

On the opposite side of the door a satinwood cistern hung over an ivory-tinted porcelain toilet. A box of

tissues sat on top of the narrow cabinet that hid the connection of the flush pipe to the toilet.

Etiquette taught that personal tissues were to be hidden from sight at all times, lest one be reminded of

what they were used for.

Obviously the man called Gabriel did not adhere to polite niceties.

It was difficult to remember the time when she would have been offended at such a sight.

At the opposite end of the bathroom a woman with a pale face framed by dark, lusterless hair watched

her.

Victoria’s spark of pleasure at seeing the combination bath and shower quickly died.

The woman she saw was her reflection in the mirror over a gold-veined, white-marble washstand.

One realization followed another: there were no windows in the water closet.

Victoria was trapped.

Gabriel flipped the electric switch, brass plate cold, wooden knob smooth. Light exploded overhead.

A plain satinwood armoire monopolized the inner wall of the chamber; a brass bed hugged the outer

wall. It was covered with a pale blue silk spread.

The French madame had preferred fussiness over simplicity; opulence over elegance.

Perfume over cleanliness.

She would not approve of his house. Did Victoria?

Taking a safety match from the obsidian urn adorning the satinwood mantelpiece, he hunkered down and

lit the bed of kindling underneath the layered sticks of wood. Blue and yellow flames leaped to life.

He held the burning match for long seconds, remembering the years he had lived without food. Shelter.

Safety.

Will you beg me, mademoiselle?

No. No, I will not beg you.

And she had not.

Victoria had not begged for food. For money.

She had not begged for her life.

She had not begged him to satisfy the desire she so obviously felt for an untouchable angel.

Instead, she, a virgin, had threatened to seduce him, a man who for twelve years had been the seducer.

Victoria would have taken him into her mouth. She would have taken him every way that Gabriel had

ever taken a man or a woman.

She would still take him, knowing what he was.

His cock throbbed, remembering the fresh scent of her desire. It did not slow the thoughts racing

through his head.

Six months ago Victoria had been discharged from her position.

Six months ago Gabriel had killed the first man.

. . .
Now I bring you a woman.

A woman who had lived long enough on the streets to understand the rules of survival but who had yet to

be destroyed by the knowledge.

A woman who did not judge his past.

We do what we must to survive.

Heat licked his skin.

Gabriel glanced down at the match between his thumb and middle finger.

Blue fire skimmed blackened wood.

Victoria’s eyes were the same vivid, guileless blue as the fire that burned.

Did the second man hope to distract him with sexual dalliance?

Victoria feared what he would find in her letters.

She had lied about her name. Did she lie about the second man?

Immediately Gabriel remembered the shocked hurt in her eyes when he had told her what corrosive

sublimate did to a woman.

A whore would have killed her, and Victoria had still protected her.

Exactly how far would she go to protect a lover? he wondered.

Where had the second man found her?

How had he found her?

Why
had he found her?

Tossing the match into the fireplace, Gabriel stood up.

A Colt derringer and a bowie knife occupied the top drawer of the satinwood nightstand.

Instruments of death.

She had come to him with no weapons; she would find no weapons in his suite. Death would come from

the second man or it would come from Gabriel: it would not come from a woman.

Scooping up the derringer and knife, he silently padded across the room that for the next few days,

weeks or months would serve as Victoria’s bedchamber.

The aroma of freshly brewed tea drifted through the gaping bedroom door.

Gabriel halted.

It was not Gaston who waited for him inside his study.

Michael perched on the edge of the black-marble-topped desk, head bowed, black hair shining with

blue highlights. Beside him, a large silver tray abutted his hip; gray steam curled out of a silver teapot. He

held a small, brown earthenware pot in one hand and a small crustless sandwich in the other.

Both hands were a solid mass of angry red welts. Fingers. Palms. Backs.

Even as Gabriel watched, Michael dipped the sandwich into the earthenware pot.

It came out covered with chocolate.

The throbbing inside Gabriel’s groin spread to his left hand, his right hand, the first gripping the bowie

knife, the second holding the Colt derringer.

He was not prepared to
deal with Michael. Not when the scent of Victoria’s desire lingered in his

nostrils and the sound of the second man’s voice rang inside his ears.

It did not matter.

Gabriel’s desire; Victoria’s desire.

Death.

Laissez le jeu commencer.
Let the play begin.

Gabriel had set the stage; now he must perform his role.

Silently he padded forward and closed the bedchamber door behind him.

Michael outwardly appeared intent upon his sandwich: he was not. Michael was aware of Gabriel’s

presence.

Just as he had been aware of the second man in the saloon.

“I told Gaston to evict you, Michael,” Gabriel said neutrally.

Michael slowly raised his head, violet eyes coldly calculating. The puckered burns that scored his hands

edged his right cheek, a stark contrast to the perfection of his features.

“Did you truly think that I would leave without seeing you, Gabriel?” he queried softly.

Michael’s voice had not changed in the six months since Gabriel had last heard it. It was pitched low,

sultry and seductive, the voice of a man who has made his fortune through whoring.

No, Gabriel had not expected Michael to walk away from him. But he had wanted him to.

After all these years he still wanted to protect the dark-haired angel with the hungry violet eyes.

Gabriel’s gaze glanced off of Michael and settled on the chocolate covered sandwich.

A sharp pang constricted his chest.

Twenty-seven years earlier Michael had been unable to stomach the smell of chocolate, let alone the

taste.

“When did you acquire an appetite for
chocolat, mon frere?”
he asked neutrally.

Gabriel knew that his voice bore the same knowledgeable cadence as did Michael’s: they had both been

trained to entice, to seduce, to gratify.

“Six months ago,” Michael said. And popped the chocolate coated sandwich into his mouth.