Robin Schone (29 page)

teeth.

Victoria still had no clothes.

The silk robe was in the bedroom, on the floor where she had dropped it. Feeling unexpectedly shy,

Victoria wrapped the damp bath towel about her body.

She should not have been surprised to find that Gabriel’s bedchamber was occupied: she was.

Victoria clutched the knotted towel between her breasts. At the same time, a brown-haired man looked

up. He looked to be in his midthirties, and did not appear at all chagrined to see a woman wearing nothing

but a towel.

She immediately recognized him as the man who had led her to Gabriel the night she had sold her

virginity.
Gaston,
Gabriel had called him.

Scrambled thoughts flitted through her head. He would know of the condoms that she had requested.

Would he now apprise the servants of her scrawniness?

Victoria took a fortifying breath. She had stood naked in front of Madame René without running for

cover; she could at least stand before Gaston covered in a towel without collapsing into hysterics.

“May I help you, sir?” she asked icily in the voice that had occasionally quelled rambunctious charges.

Gaston smiled, brown eyes warm.
“Mais non,
mademoiselle. I merely brought you these boxes.”

The white boxes he held out were stamped with red rose petals.

Victoria shrank back.

“Non, non,
mademoiselle,” Gaston said quickly. “I delivered these myself from Madame René. See?”

Gaston set the boxes onto the rumpled bed.

Heat surged through Victoria; it was not sexual in nature.

A large stain blotched the corner of the sheet where she had lain, body leaking her pleasure. A metal lid

lay on the satinwood night-stand; there was no mistaking the rolled sheaths that lay inside the small tin

beside it.

Gaston did not seem to notice. Or perhaps, employed in the House of Gabriel, he no longer paid attention

to the physical realities of sexual union. He lifted the lid off of a rectangular box.

Victoria steeled herself, remembering blood, remembering Dolly’s ha—

The box contained a black satin corset.

Apprehension turned into feminine curiosity.

“Voilà.”
Gaston turned to Victoria and flashed her a smile. He had perfect white teeth. “It is merely a

pretty corset, mademoiselle.”

The heat surging through Victoria’s body did not diminish at Gaston’s reassurance, a carryover from the

years spent pretending to be a paragon of virtue. It did not matter that her pleasure stained the sheets or

that an open tin of condoms sat on the nightstand. Men
did not
discuss—or flaunt—women’s underwear.

Gaston was impervious to the restrictions imposed by society. He proceeded to open each box,

describing the softness of silk chemises, holding up a pair of drawers adorned with blue ribbons so that she

could admire the paper-thin silk, proudly displaying garter belts, silk stockings, fine silk gloves, a bustle that

looked more like an apron than the wire cage Victoria had worn for years.

Approval glinted in Gaston’s brown eyes. “It is
très
fashionable— Monsieur Gabriel picked it out.”

While Victoria pondered the thought that Gabriel had personally chosen intimate apparel for her, Gaston

—like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat—held up a golden brown colored silk reception dress that

should have looked tawdry with its garniture of wine-colored velvet and lampas underskirt of cream with

green, yellow and dull red figures; it was beautiful.

She involuntarily reached out. Corded silk clung to her fingertips.

It was far softer than the cheap silk drawers she used to purchase—only not so cheap on a governess’s

salary.

“Mademoiselle will need help with her dress,” Gaston said with obvious anticipation.

Victoria snatched her hand back, abruptly, achingly aware of the towel that draped her body and the

bare flesh it did little to hide. She would
not
allow another man to see her naked. “I assure you, sir, I am

capable of dressing myself.”

Gaston really did have a disarming smile. She remembered the smile in Gabriel’s eyes when yesterday

she had reprimanded him over the number of boxes stacked on the couch.

And now he had picked out underwear for her.

“Non, non,
mademoiselle, you misunderstand me,” Gaston said hurriedly. “I do not offer my services;

Monsieur Gabriel employs maids. I will send one of them to you.”

Victoria had dressed herself ever since leaving her father’s house.

“Thank you, but that is not necessary.”

“Mais out,
it is necessary, mademoiselle,” Gaston adjured. “Monsieur Gabriel has instructed that we

care for your every need.”

There was no stopping the blistering heat that surged into Victoria’s cheeks. “I assure you, sir, my every

need has been attended to.”

“C’est très bon
—it is good that you have come.” The knowing gleam inside Gaston’s brown eyes was

unmistakable. “Monsieur Gabriel, he has been alone too long.”

Gabriel had referred to an orgasm as
come.
Surely Gaston did not—

“He will not allow me to touch him,” Victoria said.

She bit her lips—too late, the words rang out.

Gaston’s brown eyes did not condemn her. “But he has touched you,
n’est-ce pas?

There was no mistaking the evidence of his touch.

Her lips were swollen, her eyes shadowed.

“Yes.” Victoria squared her shoulders. “He has touched me.”

Gaston slowly refolded the dress. “Monsieur Gabriel has not touched a woman—or a man—in all the

time I have been with him, mademoiselle.”

Victoria’s throat tightened. “How long have you been with him?”

The brown-haired Frenchman neatly tucked the beautiful golden-brown dress back into the box. “I have

been with Monsieur Gabriel for fourteen years.”

“You are his friend?”

The rose-petal stamped lid closed over the crimson silk dress.

“We at
le
Maison de Gabriel—the House of Gabriel—are not his friends, mademoiselle.”

Victoria’s eyes widened in surprise.

Dress safely boxed, Gaston’s thick dark lashes slowly lifted. Victoria looked into Gabriel’s eyes, brown

instead of silver.

“We are his family,” Gaston said flatly. “In this house we are all family to each other.”

Gaston, too, had survived the streets.

“Are you a ...
une prostitute?”
she asked impulsively.

Gaston’s gaze did not waver.
“Out,
mademoiselle, I was
une prostituee,
if there were clients who

wanted me. When there were not, I was—as you English say, a pickpocket and a cutthroat.”

A cutthroat. . .

Victoria took a deep breath. “I take it you are no longer engaged in your former occupations.”

Suddenly the cold flatness of the streets left Gaston’s eyes. They twinkled engagingly.
“Non,

mademoiselle, I am no longer engaged as a pickpocket or a cutthtroat. Monsieur Gabriel would not like it if

we stole from or killed his clients. I manage Monsieur Gabriel and his house.”

And the employees who worked in the House of Gabriel.

A family of prostitutes, thieves and cutthroats.

Victoria squared her shoulders. “I am relieved to hear that, sir.”

“Pas du tout
—not at all, mademoiselle.” There was admiration as well as humor in Gaston’s brown

eyes. “Your breakfast is in the study. You may eat it now or wait until a maid has helped you to dress.”

As a governess, Victoria had eaten with the servants. She was not used to being fussed over. The

lingering heat of embarrassment dissipated at the novelty of being pampered.

“Truly, monsieur, I do not need the services of a maid. But thank you. I will enjoy breakfast—and the

clothes. They are very beautiful.”

Gaston looked pleased at her praise. “If there is anything you need, you must feel free to ask.”

She needed to heal an angel. There was only one way to do so.

Victoria looked into Gaston’s kind brown eyes and asked for what she needed.

For what Gabriel needed.

A shadow covered Victoria. Gabriel’s image lay heavily on her eyelids, her breasts, her stomach, her

thighs.

Instantly, she awakened, heart pounding, breath catching.

The bathroom door gently swung closed. A thin line of white light flooded the crack between floor and

door.

Gabriel had returned.

Throwing back the bedcovers, she slid out from between the linen sheets.

Her nipples hardened. From cold, she told herself.

And knew that it was from fear.

Victoria was not looking forward to the part she must play this night, but she would play it. She would

free an angel.

Orange and blue flames licked blackened wood.

The fire was dying from lack of care.

Victoria had been dying ever since her mother had left her with a cold, unloving father. Gabriel had died

a little every time he gave pleasure but did not receive it in return.

The squat white jar on the satinwood nightstand was a pale blur in the feeble light.

It was all the light Victoria needed.

She reached out, fingers grasping—

Metal.

The silver tin of condoms.

Letting go of the metal, she grasped the glass jar that Gaston had earlier delivered. Fingers trembling,

Victoria unscrewed the lid and carefully laid it on the nightstand.

Metal impacting metal shot down her spine.

Victoria had placed the lid on top of the small tin. She could only hope that her decision was better

planned than her coordination.

The smooth wooden floor was cold, hard. Her breasts—passable breasts, Madame René had said;

symbols of a woman’s sin, her father had claimed—stabbed the air.

Gabriel had seen Victoria’s breasts; she had not seen him.

Gabriel had touched Victoria; Victoria had not touched Gabriel.

Yet.

God help her if she did, Gabriel had said. Because he couldn’t.

Or wouldn’t.

Victoria opened the bathroom door.

She could sense Gabriel’s awareness the moment she stepped inside.

A long, elegant hand reached out from the depths of the shower and turned a cock. Water sprayed in the

silence; steam billowed out of the wood casing.

Strangling the glass jar of lubricant she had asked Gaston for, Victoria stepped forward.

Gabriel’s face was turned up into the shower spray, hair sleek and dark. Water sluiced down his

muscled back, tight buttocks, and long, long legs.

He was beautiful. Far, far more beautiful than any other man she had ever seen.

Gabriel knew Victoria had entered the bathroom. He knew Victoria watched him.

He knew what Victoria intended to do.

Slowly he lowered his head. Water-darkened hair hugged the back of his head, shaped the nape of his

neck.

“I will kill you if you touch me, Victoria.”

Gabriel’s voice was distant; tension penetrated the water and the building steam.

“I would not be here, Gabriel, if you did not want me to touch you,” Victoria returned calmly. And knew

that it was true.

The man who was responsible for being at the House of Gabriel had known Gabriel’s needs. He had

provided Victoria to fulfill them.

“My name is not Gabriel.”

Victoria steeled herself for the truths she would learn this night. “What is it, then?”

“Garçon. Con. Fumier.”

Victoria knew that
garçon
was the French word for boy.
Con
and
fumier
were not a part of her

French vocabulary. Any more than had been
portail,
a woman’s vagina, and
godemiché,
a leather phallus.

“We are not responsible for what other people call us,” she returned evenly.

“Do you know what
con
is, mademoiselle?”

Gabriel’s voice echoed hollowly in the copper grotto over the steady spray of water.

“No,” Victoria said truthfully.

“It’s bastard. Do you know what
fumier
means?”

“No.” But she had no doubt that Gabriel was going to instruct her. “I do not.”

“Fumier
means a piece of shit. Gutters are filled with sewage; I was born in a gutter. I lived in a gutter.

A nameless bastard. It wasn’t whoring that made me what I am,” Gabriel said into the thickening steam

while the water washed over him, “it was living.”

The price of survival.

“There is no sin in living, Gabriel.”

No sin in living. No sin in loving.

Victoria knew that it would take far more than words to convince Gabriel of the truth of her statement.

“I once saw a stained glass window in a cathedral. There were two angels in it; I didn’t know they were

angels. One had dark hair, the other had fair hair. An old woman sat on the church steps, what you English

would call a crawler, a woman who begs from beggars. I asked her who
les deux hommes
—the two men

—were. She said they were angels. She said the fair-haired angel was Gabriel, God’s messenger. Michael,

the dark-haired angel, was God’s chosen. She said there was no hunger in heaven, and that angels didn’t

beg. Michael and Gabriel, she said, were God’s favorite angels.”

Steam billowed out of the copper grotto, clogged inside Victoria’s nose and chest.

“When I saw Michael in Calais, he was a half-starved boy with hungry eyes who wouldn’t beg and didn’