The Lover (22 page)

"You admire me, mademoiselle?" he asked softly, cup poised between the saucer and his beautiful, chiseled mouth.

A cold shiver raced down her spine.

Dimly she noted that he held his cup in his left hand.

"Admire you," she repeated firmly. "Many people in your circumstances would not have been so successful. You now own your own business. A very prosperous one, I am sure."

His silver eyes turned gunmetal gray. He returned his cup to the saucer. An answering clink of cups colliding with saucers surrounded them. "And you think that I should be proud of my establishment?"

Anne stirred her tea once, a quick turn of her wrist. "I am very grateful that there are establishments like yours." Carefully she set her teaspoon on the edge of her saucer. "Men and women are not supposed to require the services you provide. But obviously we do; otherwise you would not be in the business you are in. And that, monsieur, would be the shame."

Gabriel sat perfectly still. "Do you know why the waiter was so nervous, mademoiselle?"

"No, I do not."

"He frequents the House of Gabriel."

"I would think your prices are too steep for a waiter."

"He does not come to buy a woman's services."

Anne tried to contain her surprise. Forcibly she restrained herself from turning and looking for the fair-haired young man who had waited upon them. He was hardly more than a boy. "Women purchase his services?"

Gabriel leaned across the table, his gaze pinning her. Hot steam framed his face. His silvery eyes were arctic. "
Men
purchase his services."

It took several seconds for the significance of his words to register.

She instinctively resisted what he was implying.

The look in his eyes did not allow her the luxury of resistance.

He wanted to shock her.

He wanted her to be repulsed.

Swallowing both shock and repulsion, she managed, "Does he enjoy it?"

"Perhaps. Some do."

Lifting her cup, her little finger crooked at the prerequisite angle, she took a sip of tea.

Anne was used to translucent bone china. The stoneware was thicker; unfamiliar. The scalding liquid inside brought tears to her eyes.

She resolutely replaced the cup into the saucer. "If he does not, why does he do it?"

"Do you know the price of a loaf of bread?"

Her silence was answer enough.

"A quartern loaf costs seven pence. Do you know what a room rents for?"

Anne's lips tightened.

She knew what cab fare cost: sixpence a mile. She knew the cost of a pair of silk stockings: five shillings.

She did not know what it cost simply to survive.

"What would you choose, mademoiselle, given the choice of starving in the streets or sleeping at night in a bed with a full belly?"

She saw the emaciated street sweeper in her mind's eye. He had pushed her in front of an oncoming carriage for a silver shilling.

He could just as easily have received a copper penny for his efforts.

Never had she wanted for food, clothes, a bed—
security
.

"But the waiter has a job," she protested.

"It pays twelve shillings a week. Rich men pay fortunes for certain young men."

Sudden understanding cut through her. "For beautiful young men."

"Yes."

For
fair-headed
, beautiful young men, she did not need to add.

Men like Gabriel.

If she damned the boy's actions, she damned her own. She damned Michel. And she damned the man sitting across from her.

She would not be a hypocrite.

Her reticule contained a diaphragm and a tin of French letters, both testament to her lack of respectability.

Anne stiffened her spine, her unconfined breasts further proof of her lapsing morals. "Then I hope that the waiter will someday possess enough money so that he will no longer feel compelled to engage in activities he finds unpleasant. And I hope that he will then find someone who will give him pleasure. To make up for everything he endured."

Gabriel's cold alabaster skin paled. He pushed back his chair and stood up. "It is time to leave, mademoiselle. We are late."

Gabriel was not at the night house. No one there had seen him since midnight.

Michael flung open the rain-shrouded door to his town house.

Raoul jumped around in surprise, a pair of small scissors in his right hand and a withered purple bud in his left. His swarthy face paled. "Monsieur!"

Michael strode past him toward the veined marble stairs. He did not bother closing the front door behind him; he would be leaving soon enough.

Footsteps hurried after him.

"Monsieur! The water! Monsieur! The mud!" The butler's distress rolled over Michael; it did not affect him. Everything was dispensable: the town house, Raoul,
Anne
. "Monsieur—Monsieur Gabriel is in the library!"

Michael halted.

Gabriel. In the library.

The cold rage burning inside him found an outlet.

Noiselessly he pivoted. Raoul raced ahead of him to open the library door.

Gold gleamed in the gray light. The embossed leather books had not been damaged by the flames or smoke. They alone remained familiar.

The library door closed behind him with a gentle swish. A hard click followed, metal notching metal.

Flickering motion danced in the corner of his eye: fire.

Michael turned on a rush of pure energy.

Gabriel stood facing the fireplace, his blond hair a silver halo in the glimmering dance of light and shadow.

A less perceptive man would not have noticed the slight stiffening of his back.

A less perceptive man would inhabit hell in flesh as well as in spirit.

"Where's Anne?"

Michael's voice was soft. It penetrated the four corners of the library.

Slowly Gabriel turned, his face serene. God's messenger boy.

He casually held a silver-handled cane.

It had been made by the same artisan who had fashioned Michael's cane.

Silently they surveyed one another while the pattering rain and the burning coals closed around them.

Front to back. Back to front.

There was no place to hide. No place to run.

Judgment Day had come.

"She's upstairs, changing into dry clothes," Gabriel said finally.

His voice was equally soft. It, too, filled the library.

Michael was not fooled.

"You didn't post any of your men."

Orange and blue flames outlined Gabriel's legs. Dangerous. Unpredictable. "No."

"But
you
stood watch, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Waiting for Anne."

"Yes."

He had waited. Watched. And followed.

Agony ripped through Michael.

Goddamn him.

Gabriel was his only friend. And he had betrayed him.

Not to the man. But to his woman.

"Why?"

Gabriel did not pretend to misunderstand him.

"I wanted to see what it was that you were willing to die for."

Michael could feel his hackles rise. Memories of moonlight and dogs flitted through his mind—strays fighting over a bone, territory—
a woman
.

"You were so sure that I would let her leave my side?" he taunted.

"You can't watch her every minute." Gabriel was not drawn by Michael's anger. "You know that, or you wouldn't want my men to protect her."

Yes, Gabriel would wait for that one lone minute, Michael thought savagely. Endlessly. Tirelessly. Until Anne left the town house unescorted.

And she had.

His hands clenched into fists.

He knew he couldn't watch over her all the time.
But he didn't want to know it
.

He wanted to think that he could protect her.

He needed to believe that he could protect her.

There had to exist one small factor in his life that he could control.

"Where did she go?"

Gabriel shrugged. "London proper."

Shopping?

"How did you persuade her to come back with you?"

"A beggar pushed her in front of a hack."

And rescued her for a reward.

But beggars weren't always quick enough to save their victims.

For a second he couldn't breathe.

Anne could have died, and he would not have been able to stop it. He would not even have known about it—until it was too late.

It was already too late.

He gritted his teeth. "What did you tell her?"

"I asked her if she would like to test my expertise in bed."

A coal exploded in the fireplace.

"You son of a bitch."

Michael had felt many things for Gabriel throughout the years they had been together. He had never felt hatred.

Until now.

He hated his games.

He hated his perfect, unmarred skin.

Gabriel lightly fingered the silver handle of his cane that, when twisted, became the hilt of a sword. "Don't you want to know what she said, Michael?"

Was Anne changing clothes… or packing to go?

"Do I?" he asked tightly.

"She said she saw you when she made her debut."

Once. Eighteen years ago. At a ball.

A vivid image of Olivia Hendall-Grayson, Countess Raleigh—Michael's first English procuress—flashed before his eyes. She liked beautiful young men. So did her husband.

The same memories were reflected in Gabriel's eyes.

Different women. Different men.

Years of pleasure. Years of pain.

A smile twisted Gabriel's lips. "Don't you want to know what I asked her then, Michael?"

Michael, too, had learned the art of patience.

"What did you ask, Gabriel?"

"I asked her which of us she would prefer if it had been me she had seen first."

The rage and the pain caught in Michael's chest.

In all the twenty-seven years they had been together, Gabriel had never once talked about the choices that had been taken from them or the choices they themselves had made.

"What did she say?" he asked softly.

"You, Michael. She would have chosen you. Because of your eyes."

Bitter irony twisted Michael's lips.

He had flirted with English society for thirteen years and no one had recognized his eyes.

"I told her how you became a whore."

The burning coals snapped and popped behind Gabriel. Behind Michael a sheet of rain pelted the bay window.

"And did you tell her how much I loved it?"

Gabriel's stare did not falter. "Yes."

"Did you tell her what you are, Gabriel?"

"She knows."

The breath whistled out of Michael's lungs. "You brought her back to me. Why?"

"She believes I should take pride in my house." Shadow darkened Gabriel's face. "That men and women require its services."

Michael stilled.

Anne had pulled away from him rather than suffer his touch in public.

He fought down a black wave of jealousy.

This was a side of his spinster he had not seen—perhaps would never see.

"Why did she say that?" he asked dispassionately.

"I took her to a pastry shop. Timothy works there."

Timothy, like Gabriel, had been borne homeless. English rather than French. A nameless bastard in any language. Gabriel had found him a job, that he might learn a trade other than whoring.

Had Anne been shocked? Repulsed?

Her own life had cheated her of choices. Did she understand that life also cheated others of choices?

When it was time, which of the two needs would she remember ?

The need for sex?

Or the need for vengeance?

"I wasn't going to bring her back to you, Michael."

Michael had not expected him to. "I know."

"Do you know what else she said?"

Michael no longer knew what to expect.

"She said that she hopes Timothy will someday find someone who will give him pleasure. To make up for everything he has endured."

Emotion coiled inside Michael's gut.

Regret; for the internal scars that did not heal. Relief; that Anne had seen the worst Gabriel could offer. And had accepted the wounded world of two worn-out whores.

"It's over, Gabriel," Michael said quietly. "I know you've killed. I know who you killed. And I know why."

"How do you know who I've killed?"

There was only polite interest in Gabriel's voice. The air between them quickened with tension.

"I know because I saw what he did to you. I would have killed him myself if you had not," Michael returned evenly. "Sell the house. Start a new life."

"Are you suggesting we engage in a
menage a trots, mon frère
?" Gabriel mocked.

Michael did not have to answer. He dropped the veils of pretense and for one moment allowed the man he was to openly surface.

He wanted. He needed.

He would not share his spinster.

Not even with Gabriel.

"Go to her, Michael." The mockery left Gabriel's eyes. He suddenly looked tired, his perfect skin drawn like fine parchment. "No one will hurt her tonight."

"And you know this because you are… God's messenger?" Michael asked, his eyes narrowed, wanting to believe.

Knowing that everything had a price.

Gabriel was as close to a brother as he had ever had. There was nothing the man could give him that he did not already have.

Was there?

"I know it because I'm your friend, Michael."

There was no warmth in Gabriel's silver eyes. No sign of friendship.

The words were enough.

They had to be.

He had not been able to kill Anne. His spinster.

He did not know if he would be able to kill Gabriel. His friend.

Michael turned and opened the library door. Raoul was in the foyer, pruning the potted hyacinth. A maid in a white cap with a white pinafore pinned to her black dress energetically mopped the floor. Anne was upstairs… doing what?

Something cold and wet slithered down his cheek.

He stared at the mirror-shiny oak floor. And realized he had tracked in mud and rain.

His hair was plastered to his head. His shirt underneath his open coat stuck to his body.

Anne had accepted Gabriel.

He wanted her to accept
him
. To cry out the name Diane had refused to utter: Michael.

He wanted to touch her. To reassure himself that she was safe.

For one more night.

Anne was not in his bedchamber.

The sweet perfume of the roses on the nightstand weighted the air. Rose petal-stamped boxes were piled on the yellow silk-upholstered chaise lounge.

Rose petals were Madame Rene's trademark. A symbol of fading youth and fallen virtue.

The first of Anne's new clothes had arrived while he was out. While she was out.

There were so many things he wanted to do for her. To do
to
her.

Where was she?

Steam drifted out from underneath the bathroom door.

Michael thrust it open.

The breath was knocked out of his lungs at the sight of Anne. Even as it registered in his mind that she stood naked, left foot resting on the toilet seat, head bowed, spine curved, right hand disappearing between her splayed thighs, she lurched upright, her neck twisting around in alarm.

Startled awareness shone in her eyes. Crimson embarrassment followed. It painted her face; her neck.

Clearly she had not expected anyone to interrupt her.

Gurgling water from the draining bathtub filled the silence.

Had she been aroused by Gabriel's beauty? he wondered, waiting for the pain to strike even as his body readied to satisfy her.

"I…" Anne licked her lips, her pink tongue pale in comparison to the bright red that blotched her cheeks. "I was positioning my diaphragm."

He remembered her questions after she had given him the gift of fellatio: asking if he had ever ejaculated inside a woman's vagina without benefit of a French letter.
Asking if there were other means of protection that could be used to prevent conception
.

The pain struck him with the force of the carriage that could so easily have killed her.

She had not gone shopping; she had visited a physician.

"You want to take my sperm into your body?" he asked hoarsely.

"Yes."

Michael's heart skipped a beat. She could have died. All for the sake of feeling a whore's naked flesh.
A whore's seed
. "Shall I assist you?"