Robin Schone Read online

  GABRIEL'S

  WOMAN

  Robin

  Schone

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  BRAVA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp. 850 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022

  Copyright © 2001 by Robin Schone

  All Kensington titles, imprints and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for

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  Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs.

  For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Special Sales Manager: Kensington Publishing Corp.,

  850 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022. Attn. Special Sales Department. Phone: 1-800-221-2647.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off. Brava Books and the B logo are trademarks of the Kensington

  Publishing Corp.

  ISBN 1-57566-698-7

  First Kensington Trade Paperback Printing: September 2001 10 9876543

  Printed in the United States of America

  Chapter

  1

  Gabriel knew the woman in the lusterless cloak.

  He knew her because he had once been her.

  Cold. Hungry.

  The perfect prey and the perfect predator.

  She came to kill an angel.

  She wouldn’t live to see the dawn.

  Jumbled voices spiraled upward on ribbons of yellow fog and gray smoke. Men in black dress coats and

  white waistcoats and women in shimmering gowns and winking jewels shifted inside a flickering maze of

  candlelit tables: standing, sitting; leaning back in Honduras mahogany chairs, slanting forward over white

  silk tablecloths.

  They did not know they were bait, the English ton who sought pleasure and the London whores who

  sought their wealth.

  They did not know that a woman stalked them; Gabriel’s body throbbed with knowledge.

  Of pleasure; of wealth.

  Of life; of death.

  By reopening the House of Gabriel—a tavern where every carnal desire could be satisfied—he invited

  both patrons and prostitutes.

  Sex and murder.

  White flame shot upward.

  Twenty feet below him, a man snared his gaze.

  A man whose hair was as dark as Gabriel’s was fair.

  A man with violet eyes instead of silver.

  His right cheek was pitted with shadow.

  Twenty-seven years of memories arced between them. Images of war-hungry France instead of

  winter-shrouded England; of two half-starved thirteen-year-old boys instead of two forty-year-old men in

  tailored black dress coats and white waistcoats.

  My two angels, the madame who had plucked them off a Paris street had said. A dark one, for the

  women. A fair one, for the men.

  She had trained them to be whores, and they had excelled at it; she had taught them the eighth deadly sin,

  and they had broken it.

  The flare of candle flame dimmed, abruptly recalling Gabriel to the pistol that weighted his left hand.

  Michael, the scarred angel had come to protect Gabriel, the untouchable angel.

  Revenge would not be possible without him.

  Without him there would be no need for revenge.

  The woman would die because a dark-haired angel lived.

  And loved.

  A pulse tattooed a relentless rhythm against the rosewood grip: men, women; pain, pleasure; life, death.

  The Adams revolver was equipped with a double-action lock: manual cocking for accuracy, self-cocking

  for rapid fire.

  He could manually cock the revolver.

  He could release the trigger in a single, precise shot.

  One bullet would kill Michael.

  One bullet would stop the twenty-nine-year-old cycle of death.

  Gabriel did not cock the revolver.

  He could not kill Michael.

  The second man had sent a woman to do the job Gabriel had failed to do six months earlier.

  A sharp report ricocheted down his spine.

  The woman halted on the edge of candlelight, Michael in her sight.

  Out of the corner of his right eye, Gabriel saw a waiter in a short black cloak and white waistcoat bend

  over, straighten with a white silk napkin. Immediately below Gabriel, two waiters inched closer to Michael.

  Their hands remained at their sides: they were not prepared to shoot a woman.

  Four tables over, a waiter poured champagne from a newly uncorked bottle, crystal glinting, liquid

  sparkling.

  Of the second man, there still was no sign. But he was down there, a chameleon in a black dress coat

  and white waistcoat. Disguised as a patron or a prostitute. Leaning back in a Honduras mahogany chair or

  slanting forward over a white silk tablecloth.

  Hard. Erect.

  Turgid with the heat of sex and the thrill of murder.

  Time slowed to the beat of Gabriel’s heart.

  The cloaked woman brought her arms forward and clasped a dull, dark object between her hands.

  A blue-plated pistol did not reflect light. Gabriel knew that because his own pistol was blue-plated.

  The thundering roar of sexual parley dimmed.

  Her head was concealed by the fold of a dark hood: Gabriel could not see her features.

  Regret knifed through him.

  For the men and women who had died; for the men and women who would die.

  For the woman below who was about to die.

  Perfect prey and perfect predator.

  Gabriel aimed at the pale blur of her face.

  At the same time a clear, feminine voice rang out: “I offer you my virginity, gentlemen.”

  Gabriel froze.

  The woman dressed like a streetwalker; she spoke like a well-bred woman.

  One by one the tons’ genteel guffaws and the prostitutes’ practiced titters died.

  Silk whispered. Candle flames fluttered.

  Uncertainty immobilized his waiters.

  Duty dictated they expel the woman in her cheap black cloak; experience warned them it was too late:

  she had attracted the attention of rich patrons.

  Virgin flesh was prime produce.

  The waiters would not interfere.

  “The man who tenders the highest bid shall possess their reward this very night,” she continued in a

  clarion voice, hands still, body poised, death just a bullet away. “Shall we start at one hundred and five

  pounds?”

  One hundred and five pounds tumbled through the fog and the smoke.

  On London streets a maidenhead—whether real or manufactured—sold for five pounds, not one

  hundred and five.

  Sudden recall smashed through Gabriel’s consciousness: of a French maison de rendezvous instead of

  an English night house; of a woman in luxurious purple satin instead of a woman in a dark, worn cloak.

  Twenty-seven years ago the madame had sold his virginity for two thousand, six hundred and sixty-four

  francs.

  One hundred and five English pounds were equivalent to two thousand, six hundred and sixty-four French

  francs.

  The woman could only have gotten her information from two men: Michael or the second man.

  Gabriel did not doubt for one moment from which of the two she had gained her knowledge.

  He manually cocked the revolver with his thumb.

  “
’Ere now!” Malice unveiled a female prostitute’s Cockney origins. “Ain’t no fish bladder worth one ’

  undred five pounds, dearie!”

  Light and shadow jittered in a burst of masculine and feminine laughter.

  The cloaked woman did not laugh.

  Did the second man?

  Did he train a revolver on Michael while Gabriel aimed his pistol at the woman, or did the cloaked

  woman slowly squeeze the trigger of a gun through her reticule, unaware of her fate?

  Had the woman come to kill an angel... or had she come to distract one?

  “I assure you, madam,” the woman coolly returned, “my maidenhead does not come from a fishmonger.

  I am indeed a virgin.”

  It was possible.

  Circumstances forced chaste, educated women out onto the streets, just as it did gay, uneducated ones.

  It was of no consequence.

  A weapon wielded by a virgin was just as deadly as one wielded by a streetwalker.

  Curved metal cradled Gabriel’s middle finger.

  “Then remove the cloak, girl, and show us what you’re selling,” Lord James Ward Hunt, earl of Goulburn

  and home secretary, crudely challenged.

  Gabriel did not spare him a glance.

  In the candlelight, the man’s greased hair shone like black oil.

  Shadow turned red into black.

  The woman’s blood would shine like the home secretary’s hair.

  “I see no reason to exhibit myself, sir,” the cloaked woman calmly rejoined. “It is not my body that is of

  value, but my virginity.”

  Shock halted the remaindering snickers.

  Whores desiring purchase did not refuse to show their wares.

  Gabriel knew that because he had been a whore for over twelve years.

  Dressing. Undressing.

  Enticing. Seducing.

  Sex had seemed a small price to pay for food and shoes and a bed to sleep in. In the beginning.

  In the end he had fucked merely to prove that he wasn’t the whore he had been trained to be.

  The second man had proved him wrong.

  “By jove, she’s got bottom!” Gabriel focused on the woman instead of the newly elected parliament

  member who spoke. “I’ll give you twenty pounds, eh, what?”

  “A woman’s virginity is her dowry,” the cloaked woman said evenly, body turning away from Michael

  toward the parliament member. The change of position revealed the dark object she clutched: it was a

  reticule, not a weapon. “Is that all that a woman’s maidenhead is worth to you, sir? Twenty pounds? Would

  you sell your daughter—or sister—so cheaply in marriage?”

  Disapproval turned the tide of masculine interest.

  Male or female, prostitutes did not compare their worth to those of the ton.

  No matter how high of a price their flesh commanded.

  Trilling laughter sliced through the candlelit darkness.

  An English gentleman and a London prostitute climbed up the plush red-carpeted stairs that edged the

  saloon, black coattails flapping, bustled silk gown sashaying.

  They had reached an agreement while sipping vintage champagne; their flesh would seal the bargain in

  an upstairs bedroom.

  Gabriel’s body coiled to fire the Adams revolver while the heat and the scent and the sound and the sight

  of men with women squeezed his testicles.

  Gabriel did not fear for his own death this night.

  That would come later.

  Watching Michael die would be his punishment; death would be his reward.

  For the pain, for the pleasure...

  “I will give you one hundred and five pounds, mademoiselle, for your... innocence,” volunteered a silky,

  masculine voice.

  Electric awareness tightened Gabriel’s scalp.

  When he had last heard that voice, it had spoken fluid French instead of clipped English. There was no

  mistaking who it belonged to: the second man had bid on the cloaked woman.

  Black and white movement slashed through his peripheral vision.

  Gabriel’s head reflexively snapped toward his right, heart pounding, left hand steady, the waiting over.

  A man in a black dress coat leaned across a white silk tablecloth. Blue and orange fire flared between a

  blunt cigar and a tapered candle. Gray hair shone in the dual play of light, disappeared in a wreath of

  smoke.

  He was not the man who had bid one hundred and five pounds.

  He was not the man whom Gabriel would kill or be killed by.

  A distant bong penetrated the wood, the glass, the throbbing sexuality and the pending death that the

  House of Gabriel was built from: Big Ben announced one hour, two, three . . .

  “I bid one hundred and twenty-five pounds.”

  A balding pate shone like a gibbous moon above gleaming gold studs.

  “I bid one hundred and fifty pounds.”

  Teardrops of fire ricocheted off crystal and glinted off dark hair.

  “Mein Got.” Baron Strathgar shouted from the middle of the saloon. His round face was dark from

  alcohol, his German accent heavy with excitement. “I bid two hundred pounds.”

  The feel of Michael’s keen alertness squeezed Gabriel’s chest while the second man’s anticipation fisted

  inside his stomach.

  Low murmurs rose to a dull cacophony, the sound of two hundred voices raised in conjecture.

  An auction had never taken place in the House of Gabriel. Yet one did now.

  Men did not pledge two hundred pounds to pierce a woman’s hymen. Yet Strathgar just had.

  Gabriel prepared for the next bid.

  Watching.

  Waiting.

  Remembering...

  . . . Reading the name Gabriel for the first time, printed by Michael while they waited for day to turn into

  night.

  ... Writing his first word, Michael, practicing the script in-between the women who purchased a

  dark-haired boy and the men who purchased him.

  Wondering...

  . .. When the need for sex would die and he would stop throbbing with what he could never have.

  . . . Why he could not forget a woman’s benediction: that he find a woman to give him pleasure. To

  mak e up for everything he endured.

  The waiting ended with a flurry of motion.

  Scooting back his Honduras mahogany chair, the German baron rose to claim his prize.

  “I will give you five hundred pounds.”

  Strathgar halted mid-stand.

  The gray-haired man had bid.

  Gabriel’s gaze glanced off the back of the gray-haired man, leaped over the blond-haired woman who sat

  across from him, and settled on the man at the table behind them.

  The back of his hair was so black that it glinted with blue highlights.

  Gabriel did not need to see his irises to know their color: he saw them every time he closed his eyes to

  sleep.

  Suddenly the saloon came alive with masculine speculation and feminine spite.

  A bid for five hundred pounds had been placed on the cloaked woman. Every male patron determined to

  have her.

  Jangled voices called out in rapid succession: “Five hundred twenty-five pounds.” “Five hundred

  seventy-five pounds.” “Six hundred pounds.” “Six hundred fifty pounds.” “Seven hundred pounds ...”

  An internal snick cut through the uproar, a door opening. Light slashed the darkness, the end

  approaching.

  One man halted two feet behind him; from twenty feet below him, Michael pinned his gaze.

  “One thousand pounds,” scraped across Gabriel’s too tightly drawn skin.

  It came from the second man.
>
  Stunned incredulity washed over the saloon.

  Only two whores had ever commanded that high a fee. Michel des Anges—Michael of the Angels, a

  man named for his ability to bring women to orgasm—and the man who for the last twenty-seven years had

  been known only as Gabriel.

  Gabriel, the whore.

  Gabriel, the proprietor.

  Gabriel, the untouchable angel.

  Sputtering candlelight dimmed the comprehension that flowed across Michael’s face: he realized that the

  second man had twice bid.

  But did he recognize his voice? Gabriel wondered.

  He aimed the Adams revolver at hair that was so black it glinted blue.

  Would Michael recognize the second man’s features after a bullet entered the back of his head and

  exited through his face?

  “Monsieur.” The man behind Gabriel did not step closer— Gaston had been in Gabriel’s employ too long

  to make that mistake. “Monsieur, he has come, just as you said he would.”

  Everyone who worked for Gabriel knew to expect the second man. It was why he had rebuilt the House

  of Gabriel, to lure him with sex ... murder.

  Michael.

  Gabriel.

  But they didn’t know what he looked like.

  They didn’t know what he smelled like.

  They couldn’t feel him, as Gabriel felt him, a cancer that devoured hope and despair, love and hatred.

  “How do you know that he is here, Gaston?” he asked neutrally, pistol unwavering.

  “He wrote un message for you, monsieur.”

  Gaston spoke with a native French accent.

  Michael spoke French like a Frenchman, yet he was English.

  Gabriel spoke English like an Englishman, yet he was French.

  He did not know from what country the second man came. Gabriel had killed the only man who could tell

  him.

  It did not matter. It was not necessary to know a man’s nationality in order to kill him.

  Gabriel squeezed the trigger . ..

  The gray-haired man suddenly stood up, body shielding the second man. He assisted the blond-haired

  woman to her feet.

  She stood taller than the gray-haired man, elegant as only a successful prostitute can be. Diamonds

  sparkled at her neck and ears. Fog and smoke twined about her hair—hair that was almost as fair as

  Gabriel’s.

  It dawned on Gabriel that he had seen the gray-haired man and blond-haired woman before. But where?