Robin Schone (15 page)

And then she turned her face up into the summer shower until she used up all of the water in the mixing

chamber.

For a few brief moments she recaptured the joy that comes with innocence. And then that, too, was

gone.

Her joy.

Her innocence.

Victoria opened her eyes and stared at the copper-skinned woman with dark, slicked-back hair.

The copper panels were beaded with water, like a window pelted by rain.

Silver water slowly streamed down the copper-skinned woman’s body in slow, sinuous rivulets; her

features were blurred, surreal, unashamedly sensuous.

Woman before the condemnation of man.

It was strangely empowering, gazing at the copper-skinned woman. The illusion of power did not

dissipate when Victoria stepped out of the copper grotto.

The pale blue towel draped over the wooden rail beside the bathtub was soft, thick, luxurious.

Victoria used Gabriel’s towel.

The mirror above the marble basin was fogged with steam. There was no pale-skinned, dark-haired

reflection to replace the copper image inside the shower.

Victoria Childers, for a few moments, did not exist.

A silver-blond hair was trapped between the teeth of an ivory comb.

A sharp pang stabbed through her chest.
You don’t want me,
she had accused

Gabriel.

You would be surprised at what I want, mademoiselle,
he had replied.

Victoria used Gabriel’s comb. Considerably more strands of water-blackened hair joined the single

silver-blond strand.

Scalding tears stung her eyes.

Determinedly clinging to the illusion of control, Victoria opened the top drawer underneath the marble

wash basin. She gazed at an ivory-handled toothbrush.

Gabriel’s toothbrush.

Her own wooden toothbrush was inside her reticule, with the letters and her small, snaggle-toothed

comb.

There had been two pots
au chocolat
on the dinner tray the night before. Had he returned after

Victoria had retired?

Had he eaten the pot
au chocolati

Exactly what had the man done to Gabriel that he would not touch a woman?

Rummaging through the satinwood drawer, Victoria found another toothbrush: it was identical to Gabriel

’s ivory-handled one. It appeared to be unused.

She used it. And then she used Gabriel’s tooth glass beside the water basin to rinse out her mouth.

Victoria was clean as she had not been in many months. It was exhilarating.

Her drawers were still damp. There was nothing to do but to wait for them to dry. And to don a dress

that was not clean, no matter how hard Victoria worked to keep it so.

Suddenly shivering from the cold and the slick wet hair clinging to her back and her buttocks, she opened

the bathroom door.

It was not night.

Bright electric light flooded the bedchamber.

A small woman with flaming red hair stood by the valet chair where Victoria had draped her dress the

night before. A small blue hat with a jaunty peacock feather perched on top of the petite woman’s elegantly

coifed hair. Behind her, a petite woman with flaming red hair and a matching blue hat and peacock feather

was reflected inside the cheval mirror.

Both images disdainfully held Victoria’s brown wool dress away from them—as if afraid of vermin. The

slender back of the red-haired woman was stiff; the expression on her rouged and wrinkled face was one

of disgust.

No sooner had the intruder’s presence registered in Victoria’s brain, than the older woman glanced up.

They stared at each other in silence: one through shocked eyes, the other through critical ones.

The red-haired woman summed Victoria up like the men and women who had witnessed her auction.

Shock gave way to rousing anger.

The woman had no right to judge Victoria—either her actions or her clothing.

A pearl collar gleamed about her throat. The sale of that pearl collar would feed every single homeless

person in London.

Victoria had the choice of hiding inside the bathroom or hiding behind her hands.

Or of taking back what was hers.

Pride.

Dignity.

Her dress.

She strode toward the older woman and jerked the brown wool dress out of unresisting hands.

The woman was short, no more than five feet tall; Victoria had to bend her head to gaze down at her

from her own height of five feet eight inches.

Clutching the dress against her breasts so that brown wool concealed her body shoulder to feet, Victoria

stepped back, dignity regained.

“I’m afraid you have come to the wrong bedchamber, madam,” she said frigidly.

“Madame”
the older woman imperiously corrected her. “I am Madame René.”

She spoke as if she were French royalty, or at the very least, as if Victoria should recognize her name.

Nevertheless,
madame”
Victoria bit out, “you are in my bedchamber. Be so good as to leave.”

“This
chambre de coucher,
mademoiselle, belongs to Monsieur Gabriel, not you. We are not in the habit

of making house visits.
Vite .
.. there is no time to waste. I have clients waiting for me.”

Clients . ..
men?... waiting
for her?

Was the older woman
a. prostitute?

Hands far stronger than Victoria’s yanked the wool away from her.

For a second Victoria wondered if Gabriel had sneaked up behind her and grabbed the dress. But there

were only the two of them inside the bedchamber: an elegant, petite old woman of indeterminate age

dressed in the height of fashion, and a thirty-four-year-old woman who wore nothing more than clinging

wet hair.

The woman who called herself Madame René circled around Victoria.

Victoria pivoted, intent upon reclaiming her dress.

Two warm hands cupped her breasts, simultaneously lifting them up and squeezing them together.

“You have passable breasts, mademoiselle”—instantly, Victoria’s breasts sprang free. Madame René

reached inside a side pocket and retrieved a rolled-up tape. She pulled a short strip out, stretched it taut

between small, slender hands. A pigeon egg-sized diamond ring flashed on the forefinger of her right hand

—”but you have no hips or derriere. We will design dresses to emphasize your bosom,
oui?.
And then we

will add padding to the hips and the derriere.”

Victoria gaped down at the woman. Men mauled women’s breasts; women did
not
maul other women.

The wool dress lay on the floor between them.

Victoria forgot about dignity.

She had stood naked in front of Gabriel; she
would
not parade around nude in front of a woman who

manhandled her breasts.

Victoria dove for her dress.

A small, leather-shod foot kicked the dress away. It skidded across mirror-shiny wood.

“You are in my charge now, mademoiselle.” Years of authority rang in the older woman’s voice. “I will

not abide a woman of mine to dress in rags.”

In my charge... a woman of mine.

Did Gabriel think to find Victoria a new position by training her to be a prostitute?

Acutely aware of her dangling breasts that were mirrored by the polished wooden floor, Victoria

straightened. An icy rivulet of water trickled down the crevice between her buttocks.

She clenched her chapped hands into fists.

“Madame René, I am not in need of a bawd.”

The older woman drew herself to her full height. “I am a
couturiere,
mademoiselle.”

A modiste.

Gabriel had said his house was not a brothel. Why would a modiste visit it?

“Madame, obviously there has been a mistake.” Victoria’s nipples stabbed the air between them. “I did

not send for a ... a
couturiere.”

The bright tawny eyes narrowed with speculation.

“C’est vrai,”
she said.

“What is true?” Victoria asked sharply, arms digging into her sides rather than moving to cover
up

private places as they seemed to independently want to do.

“Monsieur Gabriel, he cannot—how do you English say it—get erect for a woman.”

A picture of Gabriel’s black silk trousers as he stood over her the night before flashed before Victoria’s

eyes. It was followed by the echo of her words,
his words.

It had hurt him to tell her the truth. But he had.

How dare this woman judge him?

The surge of anger was stemmed by the sharp acuity behind the woman’s tawny stare.

There was only one reason that the autocratic woman would be here.
This
chambre de coucher...

belongs to Monsieur Gabriel,
she had said.

“Monsieur Gabriel sent for you,” Victoria shrewdly asserted.

The older woman perched her head to one side. “He sent for one of my seamstresses,
oui.”

But he had not directly sent for Madame René.

“And so you yourself came because you wanted to see the woman whom he bid on
,”
Victoria surmised.

“All of London wants to see the woman whom Monsieur Gabriel bid on, mademoiselle.”

So they could judge him. As he had already judged himself.

“You have accomplished your goal, Madame René,” Victoria bit out. “Now please leave. You may

inform your clients that Mr. Gabriel has no difficulty in getting erect for a woman.”

And that Victoria had a passable bosom but no hips or
derriere.

Inquisitiveness shone in the older woman’s tawny eyes. “You are angry.”

Victoria did not deny it.

“I do not enjoy gossip, madame.”

Lies had lost Victoria her job. And now possibly they would cost her her life.

“Gossip cannot hurt someone who has no name, mademoiselle,” Madame René said dismissively.

Victoria had long ago accustomed herself to such snobbery.

“But Mr. Gabriel
does
have a name,” she said pointedly.

The modiste, with her head cocked to the side, all at once reminded Victoria of a bright, inquisitive bird .

. . of prey.

“And you think that he would be hurt by this gossip?” Madame René asked curiously.

“ I should think, madame,” Victoria’s voice did not invite further conversation, “that any man would be

distressed at having his private life bandied about.”

“Mais
Monsieur Gabriel is not just any man,
est-il?”

“No, he is not,” Victoria agreed coldly, voice matching the temperature of her naked skin. “If he were,

he would not still be alive.”

Madame René straightened her head; the peacock feather waved.

“No, he would not,” the modiste briskly concurred.

Victoria blinked.

For one fleeting second approval shone in the older woman’s tawny eyes; immediately it was replaced

with smug condescension.

“You are fortunate, mademoiselle. Monsieur Gabriel is
très riche.
Not just anyone can afford my

dresses.”

Dresses. . .

Gabriel had hired a seamstress to make her dresses.

Victoria pictured a feminine, frivolous concoction of silk and satin.

The stab of desire to own a new dress was a physical pain.

Immediately the image was supplanted by the brown wool gown crumpled on the floor.

She did not want charity.

“I do not need additional dresses, thank you, Madame René,” Victoria said coolly. “If you will pardon

me .. .”

The tawny eyes glittered craftily. “If you send me away, mademoiselle, you will only increase

speculation about Monsieur Gabriel’s abilities.”

Victoria hardened her heart against the modiste’s manipulation.

Blackmail was the price of sin, Gabriel had said.

“Are you blackmailing me, Madame René?”

“You are still a virgin, mademoiselle,” the modiste pronounced.

The muscles inside Victoria’s vagina clenched.

“You are mistaken,
madame.”

“Mademoiselle, had Monsieur Gabriel taken you, your eyes would shine with satisfaction and your mouth

and your breasts and your sex lips would be swollen. I assure you, he has not touched you.”

Sex lips
reverberated inside Victoria’s ears. She felt the peal of
swollen
all the way between her thighs.

Victoria instinctively squeezed her legs together; her arms compressed her ribs.

“And you will, of course, report these observations,” she said cuttingly.

“He was
un prostituee,
mademoiselle.” For men rather than women, she did not need to add. “I am aware

of what Monsieur Gabriel was,” Victoria icily retorted. “But are you aware of what he is now?” the

modiste inquired. How much longer must she stand before this woman with her every flaw visible

underneath the harsh electric light?

“He is the proprietor of this house,” she said stiffly.

“He is the untouchable angel, mademoiselle,” Madame René corrected her. “And he employs our kind.

Not all of us are successful.”

Our k ind.

Victoria instinctively glanced at the pearl collar that concealed the modiste’s throat.

“But you were successful,” she said impetuously.

“Oui,
I was
très
successful. Most prostitutes, mademoiselle, die from disease or poverty. You have

seen poverty; it is in your eyes. Very few men—
or
women—pay the amount of money that you were paid

last night.”

But Gabriel had not bid two thousand pounds so that he might engage in sexual congress with her.