Robin Schone (42 page)

letter with his solicitor. He was aware that he was dying, you see, and had made provisions. In the event

that he should die—shall we say, prematurely—he promised me a very impressive fortune if I killed the two

of you.”

“I have more money than my uncle ever did,” Michael stated, bribe implicit.

He would give his wealth for three lives.

It was Michael’s innocence that prompted him to make the offer.

Gabriel knew better.

Low laughter ruffled Victoria’s copper-tinted hair. “And of course, with Mademoiselle Aimes’s money

soon to be at your disposal, you would not miss it at all, would you,
mon cousin?”

The laughter bled from the second man’s voice and eyes. “My father taught me many valuable lessons,

Michael. I learned under his tutelage that a bullet can kill, but the death is not nearly as satisfying as that

death which comes from destroying the soul. Wealth simply cannot compare. I derived tremendous

satisfaction from you, Gabriel, far more than I did from the money my father paid me. I knew that the

desire I made you feel would eat at you, you who had never really felt desire. You have always been so

untouchable,
mon ange,
yet I touched you. And now this woman has touched you.

“What would it be like, I wonder, if Michael touched you? Would you grow hard, like you grew hard with

me? Would you cry out, like you cried out with me?

“You want to know why I’m giving you a choice, Gabriel? I’ll tell you why. There is a core inside you

that has never been touched, not by me, not by Michael, not by Mademoiselle Childers. I want to see what

it will take to break into that core. I want to see it now.

“The choice is yours, Gabriel. If you do not make a decision by the time I count to three, I will decide for

you. One ...”

Gabriel could sense movement; he couldn’t take his gaze off of Victoria and the end he had brought her

to.

“Two...”

She didn’t deserve to die for touching an angel.

He hadn’t deserved being raped because of his love for a violet-eyed boy.

Michael hadn’t deserved the uncle who had killed everyone he had ever loved.

“Three...”

Gabriel felt rather than saw Michael step toward him.

He stood beside Gabriel, as he had always stood beside him.

A half-starved thirteen-year-old boy who had shared his loaf of bread.

A twenty-six-year-old man who had refused to let him die.

A forty-year-old man who did not judge him, knowing what he was.

Violet eyes replaced blue eyes clouded with the knowledge of death.

Michael stood in front of him. He had made the decision that Gabriel could not.

“Gabriel,
mon ami’’
Michael said gently, brandy-scented breath a warm caress.

Scarred fingers cupped Gabriel’s cheeks; burned thumbs smeared scalding liquid from underneath

Gabriel’s eyes.

A dead man’s eyes.

But dead men didn’t cry.

“
Il est bien,
Gabriel,” Michael whispered, brandy-scented breath stoppering his lungs. “It’s all right, my

friend.”

Emotion nickered in Michael’s violet eyes: regret for the woman he would marry in two days’ time;

compassion for Gabriel and the choice he could not make: the love of a friend or the love of a woman.

A miniature face obliterated the regret, the compassion, the love.

Gabriel’s face. Michael’s eyes.

Petal-soft lips touched petal-soft lips.

The kiss of an angel.

Pain. Fear. Anger.

Sorrow.

The conflicting emotions welled up inside Victoria until there was no room for anything but rage.

She would not let that monster destroy Gabriel.

She would not let Gabriel die.

And he would die.

If Michael did to him what the second man—Yves—had done to him, he would die.

And there would be no way of ever again reaching the boy who had wanted to be an angel.

“No!” The scarf ate her protest.

Victoria threw her head back and slammed into the face of the man who held her. Bone impacting bone

cracked the air. At the same time Gabriel catapulted across the study and crashed into a pale blue

enameled wall.

Sharp pain sliced across Victoria’s cheek and exploded inside her head; “Michael!” filled her ears,

Gabriel’s cry.

It was filled with pain. Fear. Rage.

Desperation.

Michael turned, right hand raised; a revolver protruded from the fingers that were covered in angry red

welts.

The second man was not prepared for Michael. He reflexively raised his own revolver.

Victoria staggered, crashed forward in a puddle of silk, scarf-bound hands automatically reaching out to

catch herself.

Like dominoes the second man tumbled backward over the desk, black coattails flying; his fall was

punctuated by the sharp report of Michael’s pistol.

Michael lurched, as if he had been kicked in the chest. A second shot exploded Gabriel’s world.

Victoria saw the crimson rose blossom on the white waistcoat of the man who was known as Michel des

Anges.

Michael, the dark-haired angel, had taken a bullet for Gabriel, the fair-haired angel.

Victoria, as if caught inside a magic lantern that moved one frame at a time, lifted herself up off the

maroon carpet.

Gabriel, too, was caught inside the magic lantern. He ran, one foot at a time, feet dragging through the

plush wool bog that sucked at Victoria’s body. And then he was catching Michael. Holding Michael. Falling

beneath the weight of Michael’s body. Calling out Michael’s name while bright crimson red blood dyed

Michael’s white silk waistcoat and shirt.

Michael did not respond.

Rage overwhelmed Victoria.

It could not end this way.
She would not let it end this way.

Victoria fought silk and more silk to stand up. Her bound hands would not turn. Using the thumb and

forefinger of her right hand, chin stabbing her left wrist, she dug the silk scarf out of her mouth.

There was no time to savor the flow of saliva that soothed her parched mouth. The blood that dribbled

down her cheek was a vivid reminder of what could still happen if the man—Yves—lived.

Victoria darted around the desk. The drawer that he had earlier forced open yielded Gabriel’s derringer.

She would kill him. If he was not dead she would kill him.

She would kill him for the love Michael had borne a silver-haired angel.

She would kill him for the grief that had felled Gabriel and sucked the very oxygen from the air.

Hands trembling, Victoria pointed the snub-barreled derringer at the man on the floor.

Glazed violet eyes blindly stared up at the ceiling. A thin line of crimson oozed from the nose she had

broken.

He was dead.

And Gabriel... Gabriel cradled Michael, silver hair comingling with black hair. He rocked Michael back

and forth in a silent litany of grief.

Victoria dropped the derringer. “Gabriel,” she croaked.

He did not hear her.

Yves had wanted to strip away the inner core that had allowed Gabriel to survive poverty, prostitution,

and rape: he had succeeded.

Victoria knelt beside Gabriel.

Michael’s face was pale underneath the olive tint of his skin, the ridged scars edging his right cheek lax.

Thick black lashes darkened his cheeks.

Victoria reached out, wanting to hold Gabriel, to love Gabriel, to comfort Gabriel. “Gabriel. . .”

A crimson fountain caught her attention.

Blood pumped out of Michael’s chest.

Victoria the governess kicked in.

Blood did not pump out of a corpse. Pumping blood required a pumping heart.

“He’s alive, Gabriel!” Victoria grabbed Gabriel’s hand and pressed it against Michael’s chest to stop the

bleeding. “Gabriel, help me.”

Hot blood bubbled up through their fingers.

Gabriel lifted his head, his life flowing through his and Victoria’s fingers; his eyes were black with shock.

“Don’t,” he said flatly, voice remote, eyes dead. “Let me hold him.”

Victoria would
not
cry for an angel. Not now.

“Keep your hand over his chest, Gabriel,” she said furiously. “He’s alive. If you move your hand away,

he’ll die. Now hold your bloody bleedin’ hand there!”

The street cant worked.

Gabriel’s silver eyes focused: on Victoria ... on Michael.

On the blood bubbling up through their fingers.

On life instead of death.

“I’ll be back with a doctor,” she said.

The door would not open.

Victoria pushed with a strength she had not known she possessed; it opened.

Dark liquid pooled on the top of the landing, dripped down the wooden stairs.

Blood.

Julien’s blood.

Bile rose inside her throat; she convulsively swallowed.

There was nothing she could do to help Julien; there was something she could yet do to help a fallen

angel.

Victoria stepped in blood, slipped on blood, reached the bottom stairs. The door there was already open.

Candlelight flames lit the labyrinth of tables, silver candlesticks gleaming, yellow flame dancing. A waiter

wearing a short black coat paused at sight of her, the crimson sash around his waist bloodred against the

white of his waistcoat, match hovering over an unlit candle.

Victoria recognized him: he was the black-haired guard who had taken her breakfast tray two days

earlier.

“Jeremy!” he shouted. “David! Patrick! Charlie!
A moi!

To me.

Suddenly men were racing toward Victoria, hands reaching inside their short black coats; they raced past

Victoria, blue-plated pistols drawn.

She incongruously wondered what they would think when they saw the second man.

What had Julien thought when he stared into violet eyes?

He had called out in surprise, “Mr. Michel,” when Yves had opened the door, and then there had been a

gurgle of watery breath and a dull thud of body impacting wood. Yves had shut the door, smiling in triumph.

“What is it?”

Gaston suddenly stood in front of Victoria, knife drawn, blade winking in the candlelight.

A cutthroat instead of a manager.

Victoria shrank back.

Gaston grasped her bound hands and cut through the silk knotted about them.

She licked her lips. “They’re dead.”

Gaston’s brown eyes widened. “Messieurs Gabriel and Michel?”

“No. Julien.” Tears filled her eyes. “Julien and ... two other men. But not. . . Gabriel. Michel is hurt.”

For Gabriel’s sake, Michael could not die. “He needs a doctor.”

“Andy!” Victoria noticed a young boy peering over a table. He could have been five, or he could have

been fifteen—some of the children born on the streets never gained full growth. “Bring
Docteur
Francois.

Tell Peter to fetch Mademoiselle Aimes.”

Mademoiselle Aimes. Michael’s woman. The woman whom Gabriel had liked and whom the second

man had tried to find a look-alike for.

Instead, he had found Victoria.

Andy skipped away to do Gaston’s bidding.

With difficulty Victoria pushed aside the pain and horror of the last few hours. “The police should be

summoned—”

“There will be no police, mademoiselle.” Gaston’s face was shuttered. “Mira, take Mademoiselle

Childers to the kitchen. Pierre will care for your wound, mademoiselle.”

And then Gaston was gone.

Mira stared at Victoria with hard, bright eyes, the friendly warmth that had been in her eyes just hours

earlier replaced with the knowledge of cold and hunger and death.

Victoria wondered where Mira had come from—the kitchen? She had not been in the saloon, and then

she was there. There was no doubt inside Victoria’s mind that she had once lived on the streets.

Had she been a beggar, a prostitute, a thief, a cutthroat? And then, incongruously, she wondered how old

Mira was. Her face was set with wrinkles that could have come from age or they could have come from

deprivation. Only her eyes—the color of perfect blue sapphires—were bright and vivid.

“I didn’t”—Victoria swallowed,
hurt him,
she had wanted to say, but she knew that she had hurt Gabriel

merely by coming to his house; she had hurt Julien by not mentioning what she had seen in the transparent

mirror—“I have to go to Gabriel. He needs me.”

And she knew that she lied.

Gabriel did not need Victoria; he needed a miracle.

“Mr. Gabriel’s not ‘urt?” Mira asked sharply.

“No, he’s not hurt.” Hurt was not a word Victoria would use to describe Gabriel. “Mr.—Jules is dead.”

Tears scalded her eyes. “I couldn’t call out to him.”

The second man had stuffed the scarf into her mouth at the same time he had grabbed Victoria, knocking

the tin of mints out of her hand.

Julien had loved Gabriel. And now he was dead.

Sorrow dulled Mira’s brilliant sapphire blue eyes. “Aye, we knew there be trouble. Ye’d best come wi’

me, then. Ye ain’t lookin’ so good.”

“I’m”—Victoria bit her lip—“I’m quite all right, thank you.”

Victoria wondered if anything would ever be all right again.

Would Michael?

Would Gabriel?

“Is ‘e dead?”

Victoria’s stomach surged at the bloodthirstiness in the woman’s eyes that were suddenly clear and

bright. “I beg your pardon?”

“Th’ man Mr. Gabriel was needin’ to kill—is ‘e dead?”