Robin Schone (28 page)

Gabriel understood the streets: he understood the men and the women who worked them.

He did not understand Victoria.

“Where’d ye be wantin’ to go?” the cabbie asked cautiously. “I need to be gittin’ back to th’ stables.”

“Not far,” Gabriel said pleasantly, aching from sex, aching for more sex. “I want to go to the Hundred

Guineas Club. I want you to slowly circle the block until I pound on the roof. When I pound on the roof, I

want you to stop. Another man will join me. He will then tell you where to take us.”

The cabbie did not have to ask directions to the Hundred Guineas Club. Like the House of Gabriel, it

was known wide and far.

“I’ll do it if I gits th’ gold boys up front,” the cabbie said craftily.

The horse nervously sidestepped, narrowly missed Gabriel’s foot.

Gabriel quickly calmed the sweaty horse, gloved hand firmly sweeping its neck. Remembering the feel of

Victoria’s pain, taking his fingers and then his cock; remembering her pleasure, taking the orgasms he

forced upon her and asking for more.

He knew what the cabbie thought: he thought Gabriel trolled for a male whore.

Unaccustomed anger shot through him; he tamped it down.

Thoughts did not kill; the second man did.

“I will give you one sovereign now and one when the ride is over,” Gabriel said easily.

Greed surpassed the cabbie’s moral scruples.

“ ‘Op in, guv’nor.”

The cab stank of stale cigar smoke, cheap gin, old perfume and sweat.

Gabriel stared out the window. Streetlights battled the fog, winning on one street, losing on another. Men,

women and children wove in and out of the yellow mist.

He thought of Victoria, walking the streets, alone. Living on the streets. Alone.

Quickly he squelched the image.

She would not live on the streets. Gabriel would make sure of that.

A stream of cabs clogged the street in front of the Hundred Guineas Club.

Gabriel pulled a heavy silver watch out of his pocket: it was not yet time.

The cab slowly circled the block four times. On the fifth circle a tall blond-haired woman wearing a

crimson velvet cloak stepped toward the cab stand.

Gabriel thrust his cane up, knob first, and sharply rapped on the roof three times.

The cab pulled over.

Scooting across the leather seat, Gabriel kicked the door open, keeping as far away from the window

facing the sidewalk as he could.

The woman hesitated.

Gabriel thrust the head of his cane through the open door, silver shining in the yellow fog.

The woman approached, paused to give the cabbie her address. The front of the cab dipped, wood

protesting; seconds later the woman sank into the seat, worn leather creaking, velvet rustling.

A
hip pressed Gabriel’s hip: he gritted his teeth. Cloying perfume drowned out the various other

stenches.

Leaning forward, the woman grasped the door handle. The darkness that closed around Gabriel had

nothing to do with the slamming door, and everything to do with the shoulder that suddenly rubbed his

shoulder.

There was no room to move, no space in which the side of the cab or another human body did not block

him.

The cab lurched forward.

Gabriel turned his head and stared at the blond head beside his while every muscle inside his body coiled

to kick open the door so that he could escape.

Back to Victoria. Back to the hope she promised.

“Did you discover anything?” he asked neutrally.

“Yes.”

The voice was not feminine; it was masculine.

Self-disgust resonated inside the cab.

A hand fisted inside Gabriel’s chest. He had done this to the man sitting beside him—he and the second

man.

“I told you that you did not have to do this, John,” Gabriel said quietly, fighting the sway of the cab and

the fear he had lived with for almost fifteen years.

“I have done nothing this night that I have not done thousands of times before,” John said tonelessly.

Ten years earlier, John had whored to survive; this night he had done it for Gabriel. John would never

forgive either Gabriel or himself.

Gabriel did not blame him.

Reaching up, John ripped the blond wig off his head.

“You did not have to take me in ten years ago.” John’s hair briefly shone gold in the light of a passing

street lamp; it was immediately dulled by shadowy fog. “I would still be there if it were not for you.”

They both knew better. John would not be a whore at the Hundred Guineas Club; he would be dead.

“I did not see Stephen,” he said instead.

“You are not supposed to see him.” John continued to stare at the cab door. “Stephen is surveying the

club, as you instructed.”

Whereas Gabriel had instructed John to play the whore.

John slowly turned his head; his eyes gleamed in the darkness. “They use feminine names. I could not

directly ask about Gerald Fitzjohn.”

John did not tell Gabriel anything that he did not already know. But Gabriel had information to relay to

John.

“Fitzjohn is dead,” Gabriel said remotely. And then, remembering Evan and Gaston’s horror, added, “He

was decapitated.”

John showed neither surprise nor horror. This night he had endured far worse than death. “A man said

that Geraldine had stood him up.”

Geraldine was the feminine version of Gerald.

Gabriel tensed.

Gerald Fitzjohn could go under the name Geraldine. But then again, he could use another name.

The cab rounded a corner. Gabriel grabbed the overhead strap. “What was the name of the man?”

“He called himself Francine.”

Francine ... Frances.

Viscount Riley bore the name of Frances. He was a crony of the Duke of Clarence, the heir to the

throne of England.

The royal duke signed in the club register with his mother’s name: Victoria.

“He said the night before that Lenora stood both Geraldine and himself up,” John continued

unemotionally, “and that he had not seen Lenora since.”

Lenora . . . Leonard.

Gabriel did not know offhand of a member of the
ton
or a parliament member who was named Leonard.

Did the second man?

Had the second man killed the man who called himself Lenora as he had killed Gerald Fitzjohn?

The questions rose with the throbbing pressure of John’s hip and shoulder.

Why had not someone followed Gabriel?

Why were the Thorntons still alive?

“Do you know of a man named Mitchell Delaney?” Gabriel asked, control slowly eroding from the

cloying smell of perfume and the closeness of John and the pleasure that continued to throb inside his groin.

Victoria’s pleasure.

What did the second man plan? For Michael? For Gabriel?

For Victoria?

“No.” John shifted in the darkness; he created as much space between them as he could, whether

because he could not bear the touch of another man after the night or to give Gabriel a reprieve, Gabriel did

not know. “Does he belong to the club?”

“I don’t know,” Gabriel said. The carriage wheels echoed his apprehension.

Gabriel was not a fool.

There were men who were more adept at hunting than he.

The men who guarded Michael and Anne
could
be bribed or killed.

A man
could
have followed Gabriel without his knowledge.

Any moment, now, the cab would stop.

Men
could
be waiting in front of John’s door. Men
could
kill John and take Gabriel.

The cab jerked to a halt.

John stuffed on his wig; his thigh and hip and elbow and shoulder unavoidably crowded Gabriel’s thigh

and hip and arm and shoulder.

“The woman who owns the flat does not know what I am,” he said stiffly by way of apology. “I would

rather she think a woman came to visit me.”

“You know the landlady?” Gabriel asked, hoping for John’s sake that he knew her carnally.

Hoping for John’s sake that he could find the solace the second man had deprived Gabriel of.

“She’s a widow. We occasionally take comfort in each other.”

“Take comfort in her tonight, John.”

John did not respond. Leaning forward, he pushed open the cab door and stood up.

Back bowed, he abruptly spoke: “It is said you have not had a woman in almost fifteen years.”

“So it is said,” Gabriel agreed.

A brief smile quirked his lips. What did his employees think now that Victoria had requested a tin of

condoms?

“Who will you take comfort in tonight, Gabriel?” John asked.

Gabriel could not block the images of Victoria that flashed before his eyes. Victoria watching the male

whore and the woman through the transparent mirror. Victoria offering to let Gabriel touch her.

Victoria’s breasts flushed with pleasure as her stomach tightened in preparation for orgasm and her

splayed legs pushed up for more: more fingers, more Gabriel.

“There is no comfort for some men,” he said shortly.

Yet Gabriel had been comforted.

The thought of the second man sent a chill down his spine. If he touched him now ...

“I did what I did tonight willingly, Gabriel.” Flickering gaslight silhouetted John’s head. “Do not blame

yourself.”

Gabriel wondered exactly how far John had gone to help him. He offered the only solace he could. “I

will increase your salary.”

“There’s no need.” Gabriel could not see John’s expression; he did not need to. “When you have the

man you seek, I’m buying a farm. I discovered tonight that in the last ten years you gave me back my

humanity. For that, I thank you.”

And for asking him to pose as the whore he used to be inside the club he used to work, John would

never forgive Gabriel.

Gabriel had given John his humanity back, only to snatch it away.

The cab dipped; the door closed.

Gabriel was alone, as he preferred to be alone. There was no reason for the darkness to press on his

chest.

There was no reason
to
feel the loss of an employee.

Gabriel purposefully helped men and women who had no other choice but to steal or whore to find

occupations better suited to their needs. He would promote another man from within his ranks and hire a

replacement.

He should be glad at John’s departure: Gabriel wasn’t.

The second man was systematically destroying Gabriel’s new life, just as he had destroyed his old one.

But he had given him a woman. And Gabriel still did not know
why.

Victoria blindly watched Gabriel open the armoire, seeing in her mind’s eye what she heard. Silence

popped inside her ears. A drawer opened, closed. A second drawer opened, closed. A third drawer

opened.

She envisioned the contents of each drawer.

She had seen his underclothes, touched his wool drawers—fine wool as soft as silk—watched a gun and

a knife sink into his pile of starched white linen shirts.

The third drawer closed.

Victoria saw Gabriel leave in the whispered closure of a door.

She wondered what time it was.

She wondered when Gabriel would forgive her. And instantly realized he would not forgive her until he

forgave himself.

Victoria had wondered what she would feel like after losing her virginity; now she knew. She felt empty.

She opened her eyes and stared at the black pit that was the ceiling: in her mind’s eye she saw again the

brilliance of white enameled paint and the sweat that had poured down Gabriel’s face like tears.

Victoria had known Gabriel’s touch. She would never be complete without it.

Swinging her legs over the bed, she sat up.

She winced.

It felt like she had been reamed out with a stovepipe.

It felt like her heart was being ripped out of her chest.

She had not asked for this . . . the letters. The pain.

The pleasure.

Victoria stepped into the bathroom. And remembered ...

I’m cold. I don’t think I’ll ever be warm again.

Gabriel had warmed her, first with a robe, and then with his finger, his lips, his tongue, his
bitte.

Victoria stepped into the copper tub. And remembered ...

The Liver Spray . .. It is not positioned to message the liver.

No.

Is the spray stimulating for men?

Not to the extent that it is for women.

Victoria showered in stinging hot water. And remembered ...

I
remember the first time I saw a woman lik e this.

What did you think , when you saw her?. . .

I thought that if a man had a soul, it existed inside a woman.

Victoria soaped herself. And remembered ... every place Gabriel had touched her. Her lips. Her tongue.

Her cheek. Her breasts.

Her clitoris ...

Victoria’s clitoris throbbed in memory.

Did Gabriel throb in memory?

Her vulva was swollen; it radiated heat. He had called her vagina a
portail.

I lik e the way you say my name.

How is that?

As if I have a soul.

Victoria quickly rinsed the soap away and toweled herself dry.

Gabriel’s brush possessed neither dark nor pale hair. All evidence of their joining destroyed.

His toothbrush was damp. Averting her gaze from the dark-haired woman in the mirror, she brushed her