Robin Schone (7 page)

mademoiselle, you would not be here.”

The callous dismissal of her life momentarily took her breath away.

“You don’t want me,” Victoria said compulsively, gripping her wool cloak as if a lifeline.

“You would be surprised at what I want,” he returned cryptically.

Watching. Waiting.

As if she were the one who were dangerous and not he.

“You never intended to lie with me,” Victoria recklessly accused him.

“No,” he agreed. Light and darkness glimmered inside his silver eyes. “I did not intend to lie with you.”

“You bade me undress,” she said.
Knowing that you would not tak e me,
she did not need to add.

He had seen her pitiful, makeshift garters and sagging stockings and threadbare drawers and worn

shoes.

His silver eyes remained cold. Impervious.

“Why?” Victoria’s cry bounced off the ceiling, skirted the pale blue enameled walls. “Why did you lie to

me?”

Why had he seduced her with images of entwined bodies dripping with sweat in the aftermath of shared

pleasure?

Why had he told her he found her desirable?

“I needed to know,” he said simply.

Before, she had mistaken the fleeting shadows inside his eyes as regret; she did not make that mistake

again.

“What did you need to know? How far a virgin would go in order to gain money?” Victoria fought to

keep the shrillness of fear out of her voice. “You have sold your body. I assure you, sir, I would have gone

a lot farther than standing over you with my breasts in your face.”

Her jaws snapped shut, hearing the echo of her words.

The pale blue enameled walls shrank until she could feel them pressing against her back, her chest, her

sides.

She would have taken him into her mouth.

She would have taken him into any and all of her orifices.

And he k new it.

It was patently clear that her virginity possessed no value to him. But it was all she had left.

He knew that, too.

“I needed to know if you possessed a weapon, mademoiselle,” he merely said.

“You bade me remove my drawers”—she gulped air—”to see if I concealed a weapon inside them?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you think I would hide this weapon—inside my
vagina?”

“It is possible.”

Victoria stared at him.

“What a dangerous sex we women are, to be sure. And how very fortunate.” The bubble of laughter

that was trapped inside her chest inched up into her throat. She remembered the older brother of a past

charge who had devoured penny dreadful novels depicting the American frontier. “We do not need a

holster, we have our vaginas ready for the draw.”

The laughter traveling up her throat was not reflected inside his eyes.

“Men, too, have cavities, mademoiselle,” he said flatly.

The bubble of laughter burst.

Victoria remembered ...
Empétarder.. . to receive something through the back .

Humiliation burned her cheeks. “I hardly think a woman’s—or a man’s—orifices are designed to

accommodate pistols, sir.”

“Knives are just as deadly, mademoiselle. And pistols come in varying sizes and designs.”

Yes, it was quite fashionable for women to wear necklaces or even earrings of miniaturized pistols with

moving parts.

“Do you feel it necessary to search all the women whom you purchase?” she asked tightly.

“I do not purchase women for sex.”

Did he purchase women to k ill?

“Then I am at a loss as to why you bid on me.”

“You have something that I want.”

“You have said you do not want my virginity.”

“I want the name of the man—or woman—who sent you to me.”

Irritation pushed aside her fear. “I told you that no one sent me to the House of Gabriel.”

Victoria had freely chosen to sell herself.

“Then tell me the name of the woman who gave you the corrosive sublimate.”

There was solid steel behind the silk of his cultured voice.

“And if I do?”

“I will find this person.”

“And if l do not?”

“That person will die.”

She would
not
give way to hysteria.

“And when you find this person? What would you do to her?”

“Whatever is necessary to gain the information I need.”

He would hurt her.

He would—

Victoria’s eyes widened in sudden comprehension. “You believe that my . . . friend”—she stumbled

over the word—”deliberately sent me here. To you.”

He did not respond.

He did not need to respond.

“You believe I came here to harm you,” she said incredulously.

His silver gaze did not waver from hers.

“May I remind you, sir, that it was
you
who bid on
me.
Why did you bid on me if you believed I would

cause you an injury?”

“If I had not bid on you, mademoiselle, you would die a far worse death than any caused by corrosive

sublimate.”

Victoria remembered the man who had met her opening price.
I will give you one hundred and jive

pounds, mademoiselle, for your... innocence.

A cold chill raced down her spine.

Had he intended to purchase her virginity, or her life?

She determinedly swallowed the rising panic that fizzled inside her like seltzer water. “And now?”

“You may still die.”

“You threatened to shoot me, sir.” She convulsively squeezed the cloak. “I will take my chances with

this other man.”

His refusal was clear in his eyes.

Victoria could not get enough oxygen into her lungs. “Please let me go.”

“Are you begging me, mademoiselle?”

She recoiled. “No.”

Never.

His eyelids drooped; jagged shadows marred his marble-smooth cheek. Holding wide the mouth of her

reticule, he reached inside.

Victoria’s stomach knotted, knowing what he would find. “Let me have my reticule back.”

He brought out a bundle of letters.

Every word written within them was imprinted on Victoria’s brain. Her skin crawled, first hot, then cold.

He gazed at her through dark lashes. “You have a male admirer, mademoiselle.”

No admirer had written those letters.

Victoria’s horror that Gabriel read the letters outweighed her fear. She closed the distance between

them and held out her hand. “I do not give you leave to read those letters, sir. Please return them. They are

private.”

“I did not ask your leave”—fully raising his eyelids, he stared down at her and said her name deliberately

—”Victoria.”

He stood four inches taller than she. Victoria had never before felt so small or helpless.

“Let me go,” she repeated.

“I can’t do that.”

Desperation prodded her.

“You have known hunger,” she said rashly.

“There are many types of hunger, mademoiselle.”

Hunger of the body. Hunger of the soul.

Hunger of the flesh.

Victoria skittered away from the latter.

He must not read those letters.

“You have lived on the streets.”

“I was born in a gutter in Calais.”

Calais, France, was directly across the English Channel.

Had his body been sold in France or in England? she wondered. And then,
Were the streets of France

safer than those in England?

“I do not know what crime it is you think I have perpetrated, sir,” she said in her most reasonable

governess voice. “But London streets will exact a far harsher punishment than you. I am asking you one

more time: please let me go.”

He cocked his head. The coldness inside his eyes took Victoria’s breath away. “You are afraid of what

I will find in the letters.”

She was afraid of what
she
had found in the letters.

“You do not want me,” Victoria repeated.

“But I do, mademoiselle,” he returned, silver eyes devoid of desire.

No, he did not want her, but he knew that she wanted him.

Had he known when he stroked the leather wrinkle that she had felt his touch inside her body? she

fleetingly wondered.

Immediately she dismissed the notion.

Of course he had known. Every move—every word he spoke— was calculated.

“If you wanted me, sir, you would have taken me.”

A familiar stillness settled over Gabriel.

Victoria’s face was reflected inside his pupils, two pale orbs surrounded by blackness.

“I cannot take you, mademoiselle,” he said finally.

“Why?”

Why
rebounded off the pale blue enameled walls.

“Because if I take you, you will die.”

You will die
raced down her spine.

“I may die if I stay with you; I may die if I leave you.” It was not Victoria who spoke, surely, yet it was

her voice that rang inside her ears. “It seems to me, sir, that if I am going to die, I would rather it not be as

a virgin.”

Her brazen words hovered over them.

His eyes burned.

How could silver ice burn? Victoria wondered in that part of her brain that was still capable of

wondering.

“I will not let you die,” he said.

“But you have already said that you cannot guarantee that,” Victoria riposted.

He did not respond.

“If you compel me to stay, sir, I will seduce you,” Victoria asserted, pure bravado. She had no notion of

how to seduce a man.

“Then you will pay the consequences, mademoiselle.” The black of his pupils swallowed the silver of his

irises. “As will I.”

Darkness closed around her.

“Why do you think I would harm you?” Victoria asked. And could not hide the desperation in her voice.

“Why are you afraid for me to read your letters?” he countered.

“Perhaps, sir, because we both share the same fear.”

Silver outlined the black of his pupils.

“What is it that you think I am afraid of, mademoiselle?” he asked politely.

Death lurked in his eyes, his voice.

Victoria had not killed, but this man had. She did not doubt for one second that he would do so again.

“I think that you are afraid of being touched by the opposite sex, sir.” Victoria clutched her cloak,

inhaling fog, inhaling damp, inhaling the acrid aroma of her fear.

“You think I am afraid of being touched by the opposite sex,” he repeated softly, tasting the words for

flavor. “You think I am afraid of being touched by women. Are you afraid of being touched by women,

mademoiselle?”

Touched by women
... as he had been touched by men?

Victoria swallowed. “No, I am not afraid of being touched by women.”

“Then what are you afraid of, mademoiselle, that we share the same fear?”

“I am afraid of being touched by a man,” Victoria said forcefully.

The light rimming his pupils shone brighter than the chandelier above them, a stark, dangerous circle of

pure silver.

“I am afraid that I will like being touched by a man,” she continued determinedly.

Victoria’s heart drummed inside her ears, admitting the truth she had hidden for so long. A truth the

letters had forced her to recognize.

“I am afraid that I am a whore in fact as well as in deed.”

Victoria’s voice reverberated between them. The silver-eyed, silver-haired man seemed riveted by her

words:
afraid of being touched. . . afraid that I will lik e being touched. . . afraid that I am a whore

in fact as well as in deed.

Or perhaps Victoria was riveted by the fact that she had uttered such words.

The shame that should arise from her confession did not come.

Victoria tilted her chin, daring him to judge her, he who had sold his body. As she had sold her body.

“The letters inside my reticule made me realize what I am. I
was
wet with desire. Because I
did want

you—a stranger—to touch me.”

Pain ripped through her chest.

“It is not the selling of one’s body that makes one a whore, is it?” she said lightly; her voice was not

light. “It is the enjoyment one derives from the sexual touch. I wanted your touch; therefore, I am a whore.

“I did not think that I would be affected in such a way this night.” Victoria blinked back sudden tears. “

But I am. Does that warrant my death?”

Seconds spanned a lifetime. Only Gabriel’s eyes were alive. Silver beacons shining with need.

To touch ... to be touched. To hold ... to be held.

A log collapsed, reality intruding.

He did not want to touch or be touched by her. And he most certainly did not want her to hold him.

“I can’t let you go, mademoiselle.”

Regret touched his voice, his face. And then it was gone.

His need. His regret.

The longing to touch. To hold.

Once again the man who stood before her was a living, breathing statue, beauty unmarred by emotion.

“Gabriel was God’s messenger,” Victoria said impulsively.

“Yes. Michael was his chosen,” he returned, silver irises eating the black of his pupils.

Victoria braced herself. “What are you going to do with me?”

“I will try to save you.”

But she could yet die.

“I hardly think the woman who gave me the—the contraceptive tablets constitutes a dire threat,”

Victoria said bracingly. “She merely hoped to rob me. I will not now gain enough money for her to trouble

herself over.”

Nor would Victoria gain enough money to escape.

Hunger. Cold.

The man who had written the letters.