Robin Schone (21 page)

Puzzled, she picked it up.

It was a man’s cuff. Black ink slashed across it.

Victoria turned the cuff right side up.

The eternal hunger of a woman
slapped her in the face.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. Victoria dropped the cuff; at the same time she jerked upright.

The cuff spiraled downward. Warm breath tickled the back of her neck.

She pivoted around.

Gabriel stood only inches away from her. He smelled of cold air and London fog.

The eggs and ham and croissant Victoria had earlier devoured rose up into her throat.

“I met your former employer, Mademoiselle Childers.”

Met her former employer. ..

“The man who wrote that note on the cuff was not my employer,” she said stiffly.

“
Au contraire,
mademoiselle.” Gabriel’s breath smelled faintly of cinnamon. “Peter Thornton was very

much your employer.”

Was
her employer?

Did Gabriel infer that Peter Thornton was her former employer? Or that he was
the former
Peter

Thornton?

Had Gabriel killed him?

Victoria brought her hand up to her throat. Her pulse throbbed a warning against her fingers:
death,

danger, desire.
“How do you know that Peter Thornton is the name of my former employer?”

“I sent one of my men around to the various employment agencies.” The warmth of
Gabriel’s breath

was a sharp contrast to the coldness in his eyes. “He told them that he had interviewed a governess named

Victoria Childers whom he wished to employ, but he had misplaced her address. The West Agency found

your file. They did not have your current address, but they hoped that your former employer would.”

Admiration vied with Victoria’s resentment. “You are very thorough, sir.”

Frighteningly so.

The man who had written the letters could take lessons from him.

“Ignorance kills, mademoiselle,” Gabriel said softly. “So do secrets.”

He knew about her father. Her brother.

Victoria did not have any more secrets.

One thought rapidly followed the next.

Victoria had never seen Peter Thornton’s handwriting, but if it was not he who wrote the letters, who

did? At the same time it dawned on her that she had never before seen the handwriting of the silver-eyed,

silver-haired man before her.

Laissez le jeu commencer.

Let the play begin.

But who were the players?

Unexpected hurt squeezed Victoria’s chest.

Gabriel did not trust her. But she had trusted him.

She
would not
be afraid.

Dropping her hand, Victoria squared her shoulders; her breasts strained against the knotted silk. “And so

you once again believe that I am in league with this—this man whom you claim is after you.”

Hot breath seared her cheek.

“Aren’t you?” Gabriel asked lightly.

She tasted cinnamon.

Gabriel’s eyelashes were too long, too thick. His face too beautiful. Too remote.

The smell of burned wool lingered in the air.

Victoria wore the cover to his bed. Even if she had a safe place to
run to, she couldn’t. He had burned

her dress.

She was trapped. With only the truth as her savior.

Truth had not saved her position six months earlier.

“No.” Victoria gritted her teeth. “I am not.”

“The man who wrote the letters knew you wore silk drawers, mademoiselle.”

Peter Thornton had been the only man she knew who had had access to her bedchamber and intimate

apparel.

Who else would know—

“I sold all but one pair of my drawers on St. Giles Street.” Victoria did not look away from those

dangerous silver eyes. “Anyone who followed me could have went into the store after I did and purchased

whatever I’d sold.”

The thought that a stranger had dogged her footsteps did not comfort Victoria.

“It’s possible,” Gabriel admitted.

But not likely, his silver eyes said.

She would not beg. Cry.

She would not be hurt because an untouchable angel did not believe her.

Victoria notched her chin up higher. “I will not be a victim.”

The black of his pupils devoured the silver of his irises. “You already are, Victoria Childers.”

Awareness of her bare chest and shoulders above the pale blue silk spread and of her nakedness

underneath it inched over Victoria’s skin.

He was too close, the heat emanating from his body too hot.

How could he doubt her?

He had
talk ed
to her.... He had told her his needs. ...

“And whose victim am I, sir?” Victoria challenged. “You say there is a man who would hurt me; I have

not seen this man. You claim you will protect me; it is you who are threatening me. Whose victim am I?”

Her hurt was briefly reflected inside his gaze. It was replaced by cold calculation.

“A man is terrorizing you, mademoiselle.” Cinnamon-flavored heat feathered her lips. “Yet you won’t

give me his name. Why is that?”

“I don’t know his name,” Victoria repeated stubbornly. There was no disguising the desperation in her

voice.

“You said it was Thornton.”

“Yes,” she bit out.

“Why didn’t you give me his name?”

She licked her lips, tasting cinnamon, tasting Gabriel’s breath. “Because I was afraid.”

She was
still
afraid.

“Of what, mademoiselle?”

Both his voice and his breath were a caress. The coldness inside his eyes froze her eyelashes.

“I was afraid that you would find him,” Victoria said.

“But I did find him.”

“I was afraid you would talk to him.”

“I did talk to him.”

Black specks dotted Victoria’ s vision. “I was afraid he would tell you who I am.”

“I know who you are.”

“You do not know who I am!” she lashed out.

He did not blink an eyelash at her outburst—an outburst that proved anew Victoria was not the woman

she had always thought herself to be.

Calm. Rational.

Above the desires of the flesh.

Dark knowledge glimmered inside Gabriel’s eyes. “I know you, Victoria.”

He had seen her naked body, his eyes said.

Gabriel knew the size of her breasts, the narrowness of her hips, the curve of her buttocks. But he did

not know
her.

“What do you know of me?”

“I know that you enjoy the feel of silk against your skin.” His gaze flicked over her naked shoulders,

toyed with the silk tucked between her breasts. “I know that you’re courageous. I know that you’re loyal.”

His eyelashes lifted, silver gaze pinning hers. “I know that you’re going to get me killed.”

Victoria’s breath caught in her throat—or perhaps it was his breath that snagged inside her throat. “I

would never hurt you.”

“I know that, too.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because of your eyes.” Gabriel’s eyes darkened, silver becoming gray. “You’re here because of your

eyes.”

She must not have heard him correctly. “I beg your pardon?”

“Madame René told you that Michael and I are friends.”

It took a second for Victoria’s thoughts to switch from one subject to another.

“Yes. She said that there are bonds between you that could never be broken.”

Except through death . . .

“When we were thirteen, a madame in Paris took us in.” The past crowded Gabriel’s gaze. “She trained

us to be whores.”

Six months earlier Victoria would have been horrified. In the last six months she had seen far younger

boys and girls on the streets pandering their flesh.

“Michael.” Victoria carefully phrased her next question, afraid of upsetting the precarious balance that

flowed afresh between them. “Was he also trained to please ... men?”

Gabriel’s face remained impassive.
“Non.”

Victoria tried to imagine the sort of friendship that would grow between two boys trained so differently.

“Do not pity me, mademoiselle,” Gabriel said sharply.

“I do not.” Victoria’s throat tightened. “I think you are fortunate to have a friend like Michael.”

A friend who would understand the boy Gabriel had been and the man he had grown up to be.

A muscle ticked inside Gabriel’s left cheek. “You are here because you have Michael’s eyes.”

Victoria blinked in confusion. “Your friend has blue eyes?”

“Michael has hungry eyes, mademoiselle. The color doesn’t matter.”

Hungry eyes . . .

Heat coursed through Victoria. “I do not..
.flirt
. . .
”

She
had not
invited the last six months . . .

“You want to be loved, mademoiselle.”

The five years Victoria had lived under her father’s care after her mother had left crashed down on top

of her. He had forbade emotional expression, physical contact, endearments.

A woman’s need to love, he had repeatedly said, was a woman’s sin.

“And is that so wrong?” Victoria asked, her voice echoing a young girl’s cry. “Is it a sin to need love?”

“Whores can’t afford to love.”

“Why not? Why should anybody be deprived of simple affection?”

Cinnamon-flavored regret flickered inside Gabriel’s eyes, silver to gray, gray to silver. “I am not capable

of loving a woman, mademoiselle.”

Victoria stood to her full height. “I did not ask for your love, sir.”

“I have shared with you more than I have ever shared with anybody else—”

“Thank you—”

“—but trust comes at a price.”

It always came back to one man.

Victoria could not keep the anger out of her voice. “I do not know who the man is that you seek.”

“I know that.”

Then why did he keep questioning her?

“I don’t know who wrote the letters.”

Cinnamon burst over her cheek and her lips. “Then tell me something that you do know, mademoiselle.”

Victoria did not know how to love a man. She did not know how to
seduce
a man.

“I cannot imagine knowing anything that would be of interest to you, sir,” she said. “I am a governess,

not a—a—”

Victoria floundered.

“Whore?” Gabriel supplied cynically.

“I did not say that,” she retorted.

“You defended me to Madame René,” he said unexpectedly. Wariness tinged his voice, shadowed his

eyes. “Why?”

Why had Victoria defended a man who had by turns seduced her and threatened her?

“Because you want,” Victoria said.

Despite his past. Or because of it.

Gabriel did not deny his wants.

Regret glimmered inside his eyes. “If you could, mademoiselle, would you help me?”

Help an untouchable angel...

“Yes.”

Victoria would help him.

“You have information that I need.”

There he went again—

Victoria opened her mouth.

“I want to know the interior layout of the Thornton house,” Gabriel said.

Her mouth snapped shut. “What?”

“I want to know what room Mrs. Peter Thornton sleeps in,” he said, as if it were the most common thing

in the world for a man to ask a woman whom he had praised for courage and loyalty to give him

information about another woman’s sleeping quarters. “Regardless of whether you give me that information

or not, I will seek her out. With that information, however, I will be less likely to accidentally surprise

someone.”

And k ill them.

“Did you ...
injure
Mr. Thornton?” Victoria asked compulsively.

“He is alive, mademoiselle.”

For now.

Seduction.

The illusion of trust.

Victoria’s mouth tightened. “You are seducing me into providing you private information.”

“No, mademoiselle, I am asking you to trust me. As I trust you.”

Every breath Victoria drew was warmed by Gabriel’s breath.

“Why do you wish to visit Mrs. Thornton in her bedchamber? Why not take tea with her?” Victoria

reasoned. “I’m certain she would find you quite charming.”

Victoria was horrified to hear the jealousy in her voice.

Mrs. Thornton was a beautiful woman. Her pale blond hair was glossy with health, her lips and her

hands were not chapped from cold or exposure.

“She employed you,” Gabriel said enigmatically.

“Yes,” Victoria said curtly. “It is not unusual for the woman of the house to oversee the employment of

”—Victoria had long ago become used to referring to herself as a servant, so why did she balk now?—“

servants.”

“What is the average stay for a governess?”

Victoria frowned. “That depends upon the needs of a household and the competence of a governess.”

“Mrs. Thornton employs—and discharges—two and three governesses a year.” Gabriel paused,

monitoring her reaction.
“Every
year.”

Two and three governesses ...
Every year.

Gabriel could not be suggesting what Victoria thought he was.

“That’s ... Her children are spoiled.” Penelope, the eldest, loved to tattle; no doubt it had cost many

servants their position. “Governesses often seek other employment.”

Gabriel’s gaze was relentless; his breath was warmly enticing. “You did not seek other employment,

mademoiselle.”

And how did he know that?

“I was making inquiries.”

The truth.

“Did Mrs. Thornton know that you were making inquiries?”

“I...” Victoria remembered Mrs. Thornton barging into her bedroom unannounced one evening shortly

before dismissing her. Victoria had been poring over a newspaper. “Perhaps.”