Robin Schone (16 page)

The coldness that suddenly permeated Victoria had nothing to do with the lack of fire in the satinwood

fireplace or the wet hair that plastered her back.

Had the man who bid one hundred and five pounds and then one thousand pounds wanted her virginity

... or had he wanted her life?

“Did women also purchase Monsieur Gabriel’s . . . services?” Victoria asked compulsively.

The question came unbidden.

“Oui.”
Memory glowed inside Madame René’s eyes. “He and Monsieur Michel were the toast of

London.
Les deux anges.”

The two angels.

Michel in English was Michael.

Gabriel was God’s messenger,
Victoria had said.

Michael was his chosen,
Gabriel had countered.

Was he the man who had hurt Gabriel?

Had Michael been the man who had bid one hundred and five pounds and then one thousand pounds?. . .

“This Monsieur Michel. . . were he and Gabriel.. . rivals?”

“They were friends.”

“And now?”

“There are bonds, mademoiselle,” the modiste said cryptically, “that nothing can sever.”

Except death.

Victoria recoiled.

“You have seen me,
madame.”
Sharp irony laced Victoria’s voice. “You may now leave.”

Else she would expire from the cold and the strain of holding her arms at her sides instead of hiding

behind them as she had hidden behind wool dresses and other women’s children.

Madame René did not leave.

“You disappoint me, mademoiselle.”

Her chest ached—from the pressure of her arms. There was no reason why Victoria should care one

way or another about what the
couturiere
felt.

“I beg your pardon,” she said rigidly.

“I thought you were a brave woman.”

“History has often mistaken desperation for heroism.”

“It would take a brave woman to love a man such as Gabriel.”

What if I wanted more than your virginity?

Victoria didn’t have anything else to offer a man.

“Then it is as well that Monsieur Gabriel did not purchase me to love him,” she rejoined.

Madame René’s eyes narrowed. The diamond on her forefinger flashed disapproval.

“Monsieur Michel is named because of his ability to pleasure women.”

Victoria’s heart skipped a beat.

“How can a man be named because of his ability to pleasure women?” she countered politely.

“He is known as Michel des Anges.”

Michael of the angels.

“Angels do not engage in sexual congress,
madame.”

Madame René was not deterred by Victoria’s cynicism.

“We French refer to an orgasm as
voir les anges,
to see angels.”

Gabriel had referred to an orgasm as
la petite mort,
the little death.

The eye of the peacock feather and the modiste’s stare were equally unblinking. Both searching for...

what?

“Some women, mademoiselle,” the modiste said deliberately, “claim that Monsieur Gabriel’s expertise is

superior to that of his friend.”

The cold enveloping Victoria was chased away by blazing heat.

“Madame, you will forgive me, but I am not in the way of holding a conversation without clothing.”

Madame René shrugged. “We are women, mademoiselle. And Monsieur Gabriel is not offended by a

woman’s body.”

“Monsieur Gabriel has not been with a woman in some time.”

Now why had Victoria said that?

“Out.”

“I do not know how to seduce a man.”

I
do not k now how to seduce a man
reverberated inside the chill bedchamber.

Satisfaction shone in Madame René’s tawny eyes.

“Tournez autour,
mademoiselle,
et je vous montrerai comment seduire un home”

Victoria automatically translated the older woman’s French: Turn around .. . and I will show you how to

seduce a man.

Apprehension danced inside her stomach.

The older woman’s gaze silently dared Victoria to be a woman.

To love a man who spurned love.

Victoria turned around and gazed in the cheval mirror.

Silver eyes stared back at her.

Victoria had not heard Gabriel come into his bedchamber. But there he stood.

She had not felt Gabriel’s presence. Now she felt it in every part of her body: her breasts that were

passable, her hips and derriere that were not. . .

Three people watched Victoria: Madame René, cobalt blue dress and flaming red hair topped by a hat

with a bobbing peacock feather; Victoria, water-blackened hair glued to her naked body, and Gabriel,

alabaster face dark with shadow, white shirt open at the throat.

Madame René waited to see just how brave Victoria was.

Victoria waited to be struck down with mortification.

What did Gabriel wait for?

“Lift your arms, mademoiselle, so that I may take your measurement.”

Madame René’s voice came from a long distance. Her intentions were all too clear.

She wanted Victoria to posture before Gabriel.

She wanted Victoria to seduce a man who was renown for seduction—a man who had not touched a

woman in
fourteen years, eight months, two week s and six days.

Victoria thought of the years she had lived in other women’s houses caring for other women’s children,

paid by other women’s husbands.

She had no home, no children, no husband.

Gabriel’s home was a tavern, he employed prostitutes who were less fortunate than he, and he had no

one to hold him.

The dark-haired woman in the cheval mirror lifted her arms; Victoria the woman felt her breasts lift and

her nipples harden.

Passable breasts,
the modiste had said.

The silver eyes in the mirror tested Victoria’s breasts, gauging their roundness, their fullness.

Their desirability.

Did he, too, find them passable?

Madame René stepped forward. Cobalt blue-covered arms reached around Victoria’s chest.

Encircling her.

Touching her.

The measuring tape cinched her breasts while heat and light scaled up and down her skin.

Victoria’s heightened awareness was reflected inside Gabriel’s eyes.

How long had he stood in the doorway—listening, watching? Victoria wondered breathlessly.

Why hadn’t he made his presence known?

Why hadn’t he protested at being the topic of discussion?

Victoria took a calming breath.

She had never been brave.

Perhaps with this man Victoria could be what she had never before been.

“Madame René. You said if Mr. Gabriel had taken me, that my mouth and my breasts and my”—

Victoria faltered, gained courage from the sudden stillness in those watching silver eyes—“my sex lips

would be swollen.”

The measuring tape dropped; Victoria’s nipples popped up. The scratch of a lead pencil scribbling on

paper raced up and down her spine.

“Have you seen ... women ... like this . . . naked . .. after they spent the night with him?”

The body-warmed metal tab dug into Victoria’s left armpit.

The silver gaze inside the mirror focused on Victoria’s left armpit.

“I have, mademoiselle.”

The tape extended to Victoria’s wrist, smoothed by deft fingers.

The silver gaze followed Madame Rent’s hand.

The breasts of the naked woman in the mirror rose and fell; Victoria’s lungs alternately inflated and

deflated.

“Is he ... was he ... gentle with the women?” Victoria asked.

She did not recognize her voice.

It was husky with desire.

Or perhaps it was fear that made it husky.

Both tape and metal tab dropped.

The silver gaze snapped up to Victoria’s waiting eyes.

“
Un prostitute,
mademoiselle,” Madame René said, voice unnaturally businesslike in this most

unbusinesslike situation, “is as gentle or as rough as a patron wishes.”

More hurried scribbling.

Victoria felt rather than saw Madame René circle behind her back to her right side; all of her attention

was directed on those silver eyes.

The hard tab dug into her right armpit.

The silver eyes bore into Victoria’s tender skin and the dark tuft of hair that resided there.

Victoria licked her lips—lips that were rough and chapped.

Reality jarred through her.

What was she doing?. . .

“Surely a woman ... a woman does not enjoy it when a man is rough with her,” Victoria said unevenly,

breath rasping her throat.

The silver gaze prodded the pulse that rapidly beat at the base of her neck.

“When aroused, mademoiselle, we do not want gentleness.” One second the tab was digging into

Victoria’s skin—almost painful, but not quite—the next second it was replaced by chill relief. “An

experienced man—or woman—knows when
une petite
pain will heighten the pleasure.”

Pain. Pleasure.

There is always pain in pleasure, mademoiselle.

“And Monsieur Gabriel... he knows when a little pain will heighten a woman’s . . . pleasure?” Victoria

asked.

“He knows, mademoiselle.”

The silver eyes neither confirmed nor denied Madame René’s assertion.

Victoria’s throat inexplicably tightened.

Had the man who raped Gabriel also known when pain could bring pleasure?

“You may lower your arms, mademoiselle.”

Victoria lowered her arms.

The silver eyes in the mirror measured the shift of her breasts.

Suddenly, Madame René stepped between the woman in the mirror and the woman who was Victoria,

and then the elegant, red-haired modiste disappeared.

A swish of silk was followed by a soft thud.

Victoria stared down.

Madame René knelt on her knees before Victoria. Her face was on a level with the tightly curled hair

that marked the juncture of Victoria’s thighs.

The peacock feather danced.

“Spread your legs, mademoiselle.”

Victoria gazed into silver eyes and found the courage she needed: she spread her legs.

Frigid air invaded her.

Something more substantial than air feathered her stomach—the peacock feather. At the same time, a

metal tab imprinted the juncture of her right thigh—close, too close to the feminine flesh that was suddenly,

painfully swollen.

Victoria involuntarily started.

Warm fingers firmly held the metal tab in position. Or perhaps it was the silver eyes in the mirror which

held it in position.

Gabriel’s gaze burned ... Victoria’s mouth, Victoria’s breasts, Victoria’s
sex lips.

“What type of—forcefully Victoria concentrated on forming a sentence instead of on drowning inside

those silver eyes and the debilitating heat they engendered—”of woman did Monsieur Gabriel prefer?” she

asked, sandwiched between the man behind her and the woman who knelt on the floor before her.

“Monsieur Gabriel prefers”—deft fingers lightly traced the measuring tape down Victoria’s inner thigh

—she sucked in cold air— down the curve of her calf, pressed her ankle— “what any man prefers,

mademoiselle,” Madame René said in a deceptively distracted voice.

Madame René was not distracted either by the measurement she was taking or the conversation in

which she was engaging. She knew
exactly
what she was doing. To Victoria.

To Gabriel.

The encroaching fingers abruptly withdrew—from the juncture of Victoria’s thigh . . . from the inner

curve of her ankle. The scratch of a pencil scribbling across paper grated across her skin.

The silver eyes inside the mirror dared Victoria to continue.

How far will you carry this game, mademoiselle?
he had asked.

Farther than this, Victoria thought.

“And what is it that men prefer, Madame René?” Victoria asked unsteadily.

The hurried scribbling stopped; it continued to echo inside Victoria’s ears.

A metal tab dug into the juncture of her left leg. It was icy.

“Men want to be wanted”—the silver eyes in the mirror followed Madame René’s busy fingers: they

mapped Victoria’s inner thigh, the curve of her calf—“for who they are as well as for their sex. Men,

mademoiselle, want to be loved. Just as we women want to be loved,
out?”

Madame René rose as quickly as she had dropped down.

“Maintenant,
pull your hair up off of your back,
s’il vous plait.”

Victoria slowly lifted her arms, high, higher, at the same time reaching back with her hands and piling her

hair up on top of her head.

It was cold and heavy and wet.

Her breasts were cold and heavy and swollen.

The eyes watching her were cold and deadly and intense.

He was the proprietor, they said. He was a whore, they warned. He was a killer, they threatened.

Victoria saw an untouchable angel.

“How does a woman love a man,
madame?

Tape stretched across Victoria’s shoulder blades.

“Does she kiss him, to show him that she desires him?”

Electricity sparked the air.

“Does she suckle his nipples, to give him pleasure?” Madame René’s fingers pressed the metal tab on

Victoria’s left shoulder, the measuring tape on her right.

“Does she take him into her body to show him that neither she nor he need be alone?”

Madame René’s fingers withdrew.

“A man’s body is not so different from that of a woman, mademoiselle. They desire the same attention

that we ourselves crave.”