Robin Schone Gabriel's Woman (best pdf ebook reader for android .txt) 📖

desire.

And there had been nothing Gabriel could do to stop it.

“I want you to tell Michael that you stole the name of an angel.”

Gabriel blindly stared into black-fringed violet eyes.

“I want you to tell Michael whose name you cried out when you came, Gabriel.”

Gabriel remembered . .. crying out for the innocence that had been his for a brief time when Michael had

shared the loaf of stolen bread.

A harsh voice grated, “Don’t.”

In that one word Michael conveyed the knowledge and the pain that Gabriel had tried to hide from him

for almost fifteen years.

Violet eyes appraised violet eyes. “You love Gabriel, Michael.”

Michael did not flinch from the innuendo in his voice. Gabriel did. “I have always loved him.”

“Gabriel killed my father for you, Michael.” Silver light glanced off the serrated bowie knife; blue light

glanced off the second man’s hair. “What would you do for him?”

There was no pretense inside Michael’s eyes or voice. “I would do anything for Gabriel.”

“Would you kiss him, Michael?”

“Yes.”

“Would you suck his cock?”

Michael didn’t hesitate. “To save him, yes.”

“Kiss him, Michael, like a lover, and I’ll let the woman live. Suck his cock, and I’ll let all of you live.”

Time froze: Gabriel’s breath. The crackling flame inside the fireplace.

Gabriel finally understood.

. . . Now I bring you a woman. A leading actress, if you will.

Laissez le jeu commencer.

Let the play begin.

“There is another choice, Gabriel.”

Gabriel knew what the man who went by the name Yves was going to say.

“Tell me to kill Mademoiselle Childers, and I will let Michael live,” the second man said lightly. Death

glittered inside his violet eyes. “Or tell me to kill Michael, and I will let Mademoiselle Childers live.”

Gabriel had not known that he had a soul; he did. “Why?” was wrenched from the very depths of him.

“Why?” the second man asked mockingly. “My father fucked an Algerian whore in 1849. Nineteen

years later a man approached me in a brothel and asked if I would like to travel to England and meet my

father.”

Michael and Gabriel had come to England in 1868.

“He said my father needed me.” The blue-plated pistol barrel toying with the wine-colored velvet bow on

Victoria’s shoulder was suddenly, dangerously still. “He said my father was rich. He said my father would

make me rich.

“I came to England. I discovered my father had always known of my existence. He reputedly sent for

me because an agent had reported that I looked like him. I didn’t know that you existed, Michael; I didn’t

know that it was because I looked like you that my father sent for me. I learned how to speak English. I

learned how to be a gentleman. I learned how to be you, Michael. So that I might better destroy you.

Slowly. Systematically.

“But when I saw les deux anges, the two angels who were the toast of both England and France, it was

you, Gabriel, whom I was most intrigued by. You were what I was: a homeless beggar—although I, at

least, had been given a name by my whore of a mother—a thief, a killer, a whore. But you didn’t enjoy the

wealth and the sex, yet you pursued it.

“I wondered why.

“In France I located women you had serviced, Michael. I learned to kiss the way you kissed. I learned to

fuck the way you fucked. I learned that because I wanted to see what it would take to destroy a fair-haired

angel. My father thought it was a splendid plan; he thought he could use you in the future, Gabriel. He

believed to the end that I had succeeded in destroying the—shall we say, brotherhood—that had grown

between two whores. Of course, you proved him wrong, didn’t you, Gabriel? As Madame René said, some

bonds can’t be destroyed.

“My father sent me back to Algiers with a handsome settlement. He summoned me again six months

ago. You were to kill Michael, Gabriel, and I was to kill you. Or perhaps not. Perhaps my father would

have turned me over to you. That was what he promised, was it not?” Yves shrugged, a sketch of

movement; the serrated knife blade skidded across Victoria’s bloody cheek. “C’est la vie. My father left a

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.