Robin Schone (43 page)

“Yes.” Satisfaction rang inside Victoria’s voice. “Mr. Michel killed him.”

“If ye take one, ye take ‘em both.” Mira’s sapphire blue eyes were unnaturally canny. “Cain’t turn yer

nose up at Mr. Michel’s scars.”

Victoria bit back a nervous laugh.

Hysteria.

Immediately she pictured Julien, his beautiful auburn hair gleaming in the glare of the overhead hallway

light while his blood turned thick and black on the steps.

All desire to laugh died. “I assure you, Miss Mira, I do not turn my nose up at Mr. Michel’s scars.”

Mira grunted. “Best you sit down, then, an’ wait till Mr. Gabriel takes care o’ things.”

A protest rose up in Victoria’s throat.
Gabriel might not be able to tak e care of “things” this time.

She swallowed it.

“I am so sorry that Jules died.” Victoria swallowed a hiccup. “I liked him.”

Mira’s lined face softened. “Aye, we all liked Mr. Jules. Sit yerself down afore ye fall down, Ms.

Victoria. Ye don’t look like th’ bubbly type. I’ll git ye a drop o’ gin.”

Victoria sat down and numbly waited.

The waiting was no better in the candlelit saloon than it had been inside Gabriel’s suite ablaze with

electric light.

Three lives had ended this night. How many had died in the past because of the Earl of Granville and his

son?

She tried to tell herself they had been insane.

There had been no insanity in the violet eyes of the man who had deliberately pitted two angels against

one another.

Burning pain sliced through Victoria’s right cheek. She jerked her head back, heartbeat slamming against

her ribs.

Sapphire blue eyes peered down at Victoria. Mira held a red-stained washcloth. “ ‘Old still. Mr. Gabriel

wouldn’ like it none if we didn’ take care o’ ‘is woman.”

“My name is Victoria,” Victoria said quietly. “Victoria Childers.”

The maid with the wrinkled face and ageless eyes did not recognize the name Childers. And why should

she?

Childers was a common name.

It was only when a “Mr.” or a “Sir” or an “Honorable” or a “Lord” preceded a name that it took on

significance.

My name is Gabriel,
reverberated inside her ears.

Gabriel had never pretended to be anything other than what he was. And Michael denied his claim to the

world he had been born into.

“Don’t need no last name in the ‘Ouse o’ Gabriel.” Mira dipped the washcloth into the water; steam rose

from the gray metal basin. “Don’t most o’ us ‘ave one.”

Mira was an unusual name for a woman born on the streets. Had she named herself?

“The cut ain’t deep on yer cheek, won’t be needin’ no stitches.” A stream of water cascaded into the

metal pan. Mira held out the washcloth. “ ‘Ere ye be, Miss. Victoria, wash yer ‘ands now while I dab a

little o’ somethin’ on yer cheek so it don’t fester.”

Dipping her fingers into the tall glass filled with clear liquor, Mira dabbed gin onto her cheek.

Biting back a gasp, Victoria concentrated on removing the blood from her fingers instead of the pain that

sliced through skin and bone.

The gin hurt far, far worse than had the wound.

“Ye drinks yer gin there, now.” The washcloth was plucked from between Victoria’s fingers. Crimson

dyed the water inside the gray metal pan. “I gots t’ ‘eat water fer Mr. Michel an’ the doc.”

The candles flickered and flamed while Victoria waited alone, the glass of gin sitting untouched before

her. A lifetime passed before Andy returned; a tall, thin man wearing a black wool coat, a tall black bowler

hat and carrying a black leather bag trailed after him.

The
docteur.

The man with the black leather bag disappeared inside the door leading up to Gabriel’s suite; Andy sidled

close to Victoria, young-old eyes peering up into her face. He pointed to the glass of gin. “Ye drinkin’ this?”

“No.” Victoria numbly pushed it toward him. If gin increased the pain of external wounds, she didn’t

want to know what it did to internal wounds.

Two lifetimes passed before the guards appeared: they carried Michael on a satinwood door. Without a

word they climbed up the plush red carpeted stairs that edged the far wall into a blaze of electric light. The

doctor followed them.

Andy sat across from Victoria, sipping the gin. “They wouldn’t be takin’ ‘im up, if he wus dead,” he said

kindly. But to cheer up whom?

Three lifetimes passed before Gabriel appeared.

Victoria stood up, heart in her throat.

Gabriel didn’t meet her gaze. He followed Michael and the doctor upstairs.

Victoria sat back down, feet primly together. A lady by birth if not by nature.

The men in their crimson silk sashes and short black coats silently descended the guest stairs, carrying

with them the satinwood door. They disappeared through the entrance to
Gabriel’s suite.

A cold blast of air sent the candle flames dancing.

Victoria glanced up. She didn’t need an introduction to know the name of 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 could not change?

The pale blue eyes accessed Victoria. “Gabriel purchased your virginity.”

Heat burned Victoria’s cheeks at the unexpected confrontation. She squared her shoulders, prepared for

condemnation. “Yes.”

“I purchased Michael to take my virginity.”

Victoria stared. Surely she could not have heard Anne Aimes correctly.

Taking a deep breath, Victoria carefully asked, “Did he?”

“All three.” Anne’s gaze did not waver. “So you see, we none of us can judge the other. We are all of us

here because we need physical intimacy.”

The echo of
all three
was replaced by
we are all of us here because we need physical intimacy.

“Yes.” The second man—Yves—had chosen her because of her need for physical intimacy. “Where did

you meet... Michael?”

“Here.” Soft husky laughter permeated the bedroom. “Well, not here. I rendezvoused with Michael at

Gabriel’s previous house. I always wondered what the bedrooms were like there.”

Anne Aimes had surprised Victoria again. “You didn’t know?”

“No.” Annie sounded slightly disappointed. “Michael took me to his town house.”

Black hair flashed inside the mirror where Victoria’s face should be, was instantly gone. Truly her

imagination.

Or was it?

Would she ever again feel comfortable in front of a mirror?

“The mirrors aren’t. .. mirrors,” Victoria said. And immediately bit her lip.

Anne curiously studied the full-length gilded mirror. “Really.”

“They’re called transparent mirrors. As long as the light is brighter on one side, a person can look

through the mirror and . . . watch.”

The lingering image of black hair was suddenly replaced by an image of an older woman with a younger

man. Equal in their passion.

Anne’s eyes widened. “Have you .. . watched?”

Victoria would not lie. “Once.” And then, defensively, “I do not find physical intimacy repellent.”

“Neither do I, Victoria.” There was no censure in Anne’s eyes. “Michael and I are getting married. He

would be ... hurt, if Gabriel did not attend.”

Anne Aimes . . . and Michael.

Did Gabriel know they were getting married?

How much did Anne know of the night’s events?

How much did she know about Gabriel?

“I can’t promise what Gabriel will do or not do,” Victoria said truthfully.

She could not guarantee that Gabriel still wanted her. All she could do was hope.

Anne abruptly stood up. The oak nightstand was her goal.

Victoria joined her. She towered over Anne by three inches.

Silver and gold shone in Anne’s hair. She held up the silver tin of condoms. “There is a better

prophylactic than condoms.”