She pushed away from the desk—she had to grab the edge of the marble top to keep from catapulting

into the wall. Gabriel’s chair had wheels. Shakily she stood up.

Was Gabriel inside his house, attending business?

A different man guarded the door. He had thick auburn hair that flowed down his back.

Victoria was momentarily taken aback at his exotic beauty.

Was he a e?

Stoically he returned her stare. “May I be of help, ma’am?”

There was no question of his origin: he was English through and through.

Victoria had never before seen anyone like him in England.

She wondered if Mr.—
Monsieur
Gaston had apprised him of the jar of cream she had requested.

Victoria did not doubt for one second that the emerald-eyed man before her was aware of the many

purposes for which it could be used.

She squared her shoulders. “I would like to see Mr.”—she would not be a hypocrite, no doubt every

person inside the House of Gabriel knew of her relationship with its proprietor—”I would like to see

Gabriel, please.”

There was neither approval nor condemnation inside his green eyes. “Mr. Gabriel is not here.”

Victoria’s stomach clenched.

He would come back.

The house was Gabriel’s home, whether he wanted to accept it or not. And the man before her was a

part of Gabriel’s family.

Victoria suddenly wanted to see Gabriel’s home and visit his family. “The House of Gabriel is very

beautiful.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I would enjoy seeing more of it.”

The guard’s expression did not alter. “That isn’t possible, ma’am.”

Victoria refused to be intimidated. “Why not?”

Men and women of wealth visited it every night.

“My instructions are to guard this door.”

“Your instructions are to protect me,” Victoria said firmly.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The knowledge of what had happened to one unprotected woman was foremost in both of their thoughts.

Victoria forcefully pushed aside the picture of crimson-stained gloves.

She tilted her chin in challenge. “Which are you instructed to do, sir, to guard this door or to guard me?”

“Both,” the auburn-haired guard said flatly.

The streets lurked inside his emerald-green eyes.

Family, Gaston had said.

. Thieves. Cutthroats.

While she had not engaged in the two latter activities, Victoria had certainly embarked on the first

profession.

“What is your name?” she asked politely.

The guard did not so much as blink at Victoria’s question. “Julien, ma’am.”

“Are there guests downstairs?”

“No, ma’am. The House of Gabriel doesn’t open its doors until nine o’clock.”

Victoria tucked away the knowledge that Gabriel’s house had been open only three hours when he had

purchased her ity.

“Monsieur Gaston said you are family,” Victoria said impulsively.

The guard blinked. She had surprised him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said in a voice that said nothing at all.

“My family and I are . . . estranged.” Victoria fleetingly thought of her father and her mother, both

members of the untitled aristocracy.
Your mother left your father, just as you did,
Gabriel had told her.

Just as he forced your brother to leave.
“You are very fortunate to be surrounded by people who care

about you.”

The emerald-green eyes remained distant. “I cannot let you leave this room, ma’am.”

“Do you not trust your family, sir?”

Victoria had trusted her family—once.

“Yes, ma’am,” the guard said reluctantly, “I trust them.”

Victoria pounced on Julien’s admission. “Then there is no danger if I leave this suite, is there?”

“That isn’t for me to determine, ma’am.”

Victoria glanced at his shoulder. He did not openly carry a pistol; he must wear it in a shoulder holster

underneath his coat, as did Gabriel.

He would not shoot her; but she was certain that he could stop her.

She remembered the strength of the man who had grabbed her on the street.

The man who would kill her.

“I am aware that I am in danger, sir.”

The guard’s expression remained impassive. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I do not wish to put myself into further jeopardy.”

“No, ma’am.”

Victoria had had more success in persuading recalcitrant charges to study than she was having with this

man Gabriel had assigned as a guard.

“You know that Gabriel purchased my ity.”

There was no way that he could
not
know, working in the House of Gabriel as he did.

The embarrassment burning up Victoria’s face was not mirrored by the guard’s face. “I am instructed

to guard you, ma’am, and I will do so.”

The electric light overhead drummed on Victoria’s head. “I want to know Gabriel.”

“You will not learn to know Mr. Gabriel through his house.”

How long ago it seemed since Victoria had followed Monsieur Gaston up the narrow steps behind the

guard.

“You are wrong, sir. Everything inside the House of Gabriel is a part of the man who built it.”

Victoria had gained the guard’s full attention.

“I want to please Gabriel,” Victoria said evenly. “I would like to visit the . .. the guest bedchambers to

see with what means other women please men.”

Objects she might not have noticed through the transparent mirrors.

The smirk she expected to see on the guard’s face did not appear.

Emotion nickered inside his emerald-green eyes; disappeared. “Perhaps, ma’am, it is not artificial aids

that Mr. Gabriel needs.”

“I will use whatever aids are available,” she said truthfully.

The guard glanced over her shoulders.

Victoria forcibly tamped down her frustration. She could not condemn an employee for his loyalty.

“How long have you been employed by Gabriel?” she asked politely.

He did not look at her. “Six years.”

Whereas Gaston had been employed fourteen years.

“Someone wants to kill him.”

The guard’s gaze snapped back to Victoria. “No one will harm him in the House of Gabriel.” Deadly

intent rang inside his voice. “We will protect him.”

Family.

“But he is not now in the House of Gabriel,” Victoria pointed out.

“No.” The frustration Victoria had earlier felt was reflected in the guard’s emerald-green eyes. “He is

not.”

Gabriel fought the love his family felt for him, just as he fought his need for a woman.

“Gabriel could die. If not today, then tomorrow.”

Just as she could die. If not today, then tomorrow.

She could die by the hand of the man who would kill Gabriel. Or she could die by the hand of the man

who had written the letters.

The guard did not respond.

“He is known as the untouchable angel,” Victoria desperately persisted.

Emerald-green eyes froze Victoria in her shoes. “We who are employed at the House of Gabriel know

what Mr. Gabriel is.”

And would not discuss him with an outsider.

Victoria felt the rebuff all the way down to the soles of her kid slippers.

“I think he deserves to be loved,” Victoria said quietly, hiding her pain. They both deserved to be loved

before it was too late. “I would like to love him. I would like you to help me.”

“I cannot help you, ma’am.” The emerald-green eyes nickered. “I would lose my position.”

But he wanted to
help her.

He wanted Gabriel to find love.

They all wanted Gabriel to find love.

“No one need ever know of this but you and I,” Victoria assured him.

“There are no secrets in this house, ma’am.”

“There are secrets in every house,” she corrected him.

There had been secrets in her father’s house, a man renowned for his sterling reputation.

“I do not have a key to Mr. Gabriel’s suite; if we leave, you cannot get back inside.”

Hope welled up inside Victoria. “Surely someone other than Gabriel must have a key.”

“Mr. Gaston does.”

Victoria crimped the silk of her skirt in her fist. “I will explain to Mr. Gaston the reason we need to

borrow his key.”

The guard no longer looked stoic; he looked trapped. Torn between the loyalty to guard the door as he

was instructed and torn between his desire to bring his employer some happiness.

His face cleared as suddenly as it had clouded. “Follow me.”

Victoria smiled.

For a second, her smile was mirrored in the guard’s emerald-green eyes, and then he turned and

clomped down the brightly lit, narrow stairway. He halted at the foot of the stairs, hand curving around the

brass doorknob.

Victoria remembered the terrified woman who had followed Gaston up the stairs two nights earlier. That

woman had believed she could engage in one night of ual license and not be affected by it. It was not

the same woman who walked down the narrow stairs now to join the waiting guard.

The door opened into the saloon. A maid leaned over a white-silk-covered table inserting a beeswax

candlestick into the silver candleholder. Her graying hair was caught up in a black net. She halted at the

sight of Victoria.

Victoria had no doubt whatsoever that the maid knew who she was.

The maid smiled, lined face crinkling with warmth. “Evenin’, ma’am. Jules.”

She spoke with a broad Cockney accent.

The guard nodded, “Evening, Mira,” and hurriedly herded Victoria toward the plush red-carpeted stairs

that hugged the opposite wall.

The white enameled doors lining the first floor were plainly visible from the saloon. A maid in a large

mobcap pushed a wooden cart laden with linen and cleaning supplies down the upstairs hallway, her figure

striped from the surrounding banister.

Victoria slowly climbed the stairs, glancing down at the rows and rows of white-silk-covered tables,

twisting her head to view the darkly gleaming box where Gabriel had watched her, and from which he had

then bid on her.

Victoria had been told that sin was ugly; the House of Gabriel was as beautiful and elegant as its

proprietor.

The chandelier at the top of the stairs was electric; thousands of tiny crystals sparkled.

She had thought that the Opera House was the only public building to have electric lighting; she had been

wrong. All of Gabriel’s house was lit by electricity—the chandeliers, the wall sconces—all save for the

candlelit tables in the saloon.

Thick red carpet lined the L-shaped hallway at the top of the steps. At the end of the corridor that

veered to her right, a curved staircase leading upward to the second floor was lit by another chandelier.

The guard threw open the enameled door nearest the top of the saloon stairs: a gilded, ornate seven

numbered it.

The bedchamber had dark green carpeting; the bed was covered with a yellow silk spread. There were

no windows.

It was not intended to be seen from the outside. She had seen the bedchamber through the reflective

mirror the night before.

And there, directly confronting her, was the transparent mirror. It was gilt-framed, elegant as the room

was elegant. Innocuous in appearance as the room was not.

Victoria did not recognize the woman reflected inside the mirror.

The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

Was someone watching her?. . .

Only two pairs of eyes studied her: one pair belonged to the guard who stood beside her, not behind

half-silvered glass; the other pair of eyes belonged to Victoria herself, looking inside the transparent mirror

instead of through it.

It wasn’t a stranger Victoria looked at; she looked at herself.

The cream-colored lampas underskirt with its green, yellow, and dull red figures added substance to

Victoria’s hips while the short, golden brown corded silk mandarin collar that plunged into a deep, narrow

V subtly emphasized her neck and bosom.

Madame René was a genius.

Acutely aware of the transparent mirror and the watching guard who stood beside her—did Julien know

what lay behind the glass?— Victoria stepped into the bedchamber.

A squat white bottle sat on the nightstand alongside a silver tin of condoms. The lid was stamped with

the words
The House of Gabriel,
just as the one on the nightstand in Gabriel’s bedchamber.

Julien silently watched Victoria’s every move from the door. Whereas she could see his every move in

the mirror.

Turning her back toward the half-silvered glass, Victoria opened the top drawer. And found the

-shaped devices that Gabriel had told her about.
Godemichés,
he had called them.

 

They were ... very lifelike.

One was small, one was medium, and one—a giggle bubbled up inside , remembering the

Brothers Grimm fairy tale “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”—was just the right size.

Memory flashed through Victoria’s mind, a picture of her mother holding Daniel on her lap. He had been

four. Eight-year-old Victoria had sat at their feet while her mother had read a fairy tale to them.

She had possessed a musical voice, Victoria suddenly recalled. But Victoria could not remember the

fairy tale her mother had read, only the words,
I
k now it, said the angel, because. .. I k now my own

flower well.

 

Had her mother found happiness with another man? Victoria wondered.

Was she alive?

Or had loving a man killed her, too?

Victoria touched a hard leather phallus, recalling the length and the girth of Gabriel.

I
am just over nine and one-half inches long.

Her body clenched in remembered pleasure. She quickly drew back her hand.

The auburn-haired guard remained impervious. Clearly he would not be shocked by ... anything at all.

Victoria hurriedly closed the top drawer and opened the second drawer. It contained a variety of silk

scarves.

Victoria had seen firsthand the uses to which those silk scarves could be applied.

She imagined Gabriel securing her hands over her head and tying her feet spread-eagled to the wooden

bedposts at the foot of the bed.

She imagined securing Gabriel.

The woman in the red bedchamber had secured the man she had been with. Straddling his hips, she had

rode him astride like a man riding a horse.

There had been freedom in the woman’s abandon, and a childlike trust in the man’s .

Victoria had known neither freedom nor trust in her life.

Had Gabriel?

He had said there was no act he hadn’t performed. Had he ever tied up a woman for her pleasure?

Had he ever allowed himself to be tied up?

Immediately a picture of chains flashed through her mind.

Quietly closing the second drawer, Victoria opened the third and final drawer.

Knotted silk formed a whip. Beside it was a leather quirt.

There were brass hooks on the walls and the ceiling.

Anything.. . everything.

Victoria closed the final drawer.

The auburn-haired guard had been right. There was nothing here to help her please Gabriel.

Straightening, Victoria espied a small tin hidden between the white jar of cream and the silver tin filled

with condoms.

A smile broke over her face. It was a tin of peppermints.
Curiously Strong Peppermints
was stamped

on the metal, followed by the name ALTOIDS.

Picking up the small rectangular box, Victoria impulsively held it out so the guard could see it. “Someone

forgot their lozenges.”

“No one forgot them.” The guard’s face remained stoic, emerald-green eyes impassive. “They are for

the guests.”

Victoria’s smile died.

Mints for halitosis.

“That is very generous of Gabriel,” she said somberly, hand lowering. She moved to set the tin back onto

the nightstand.

“Take it.”

Victoria glanced up in surprise. The guard’s face was inscrutable.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Take the tin of Altoids with you. The peppermints are stronger than other brands. Eat a lozenge, and

take Mr. Gabriel into your mouth. It will please him.”

Victoria was surprised that the heat coursing through her body did not melt the peppermints.

The guard stepped back, spine impacting the door, clearly signaling it was time to leave.

Victoria wholeheartedly agreed.

Grabbing the Altoids, she turned around and glanced at the half-silvered glass that when seen by a guest

was merely a mirror.

The dark-haired woman reflected inside it was elegant instead of ragged, slender instead of scrawny.

Her face was as red as the wine-colored velvet garnering her gown.

The auburn-haired guard was profiled in the mirror, black coat a stark contrast to the golden-brown of

Victoria’s gown. And then they were gone, the auburn-haired guard in his black coat and the dark-haired

woman in her golden brown gown. In their place stood a lone man with black hair.

Victoria’s eyes widened. Only to see an auburn-haired man in a black coat standing in profile behind a

dark-haired woman wearing a golden brown dress.

The guard and Victoria.

Victoria blinked.

“It’s time to go,” Julien said.

Victoria could not wait to escape the elegant bedchamber.

Standing in the doorway, heart pounding, she cast a quick glance over her shoulder at the half-silvered

glass.

It was a mirror, not a transparent window.

“I saw you staring in the bottom drawer.”

Victoria started, head snapping forward and up.

Emerald-green eyes stared down into hers. “You are not used to houses such as this.”

There was no need to deny what must be blatantly obvious. “No,” Victoria admitted. “I am not used to

houses such as these.”

“In brothels whip thongs and cat-o’-nine-tails are used instead of knotted silk and quirts.”

Victoria did not have to ask Julien how he had gained his knowledge: it was imprinted in his

emerald-green eyes.

“The House of Gabriel is not a brothel,” Victoria said.

“No, ma’am, it is not.” Grim memories filled Julien’s eyes. “The House of Gabriel is safer than a

brothel. For both patron and e.”

Victoria was arrested. Gabriel may think the House of Gabriel a place of sin, but—

“You approve of Mr. Gabriel’s house,” she said curiously.

“Yes,” the auburn-haired guard said baldly.

Warmth filled Victoria’s smile. “So do I, Mr. Jules. Shall we find Monsieur Gaston?”

They did not have to search for Gaston. He waited for them at the foot of the steps.

In his eyes was the look of the street man he had once been.

I
will lose my position,
Julien had said.

Gaston opened his mouth—

“It is entirely my fault, Monsieur Gaston. I wished to visit one of the guest rooms so that I”—Victoria

took a deep breath, there was no help for it—“might see if there was a device there that might assist me in

pleasing Monsieur Gabriel.”

Gaston’s mouth audibly snapped shut. He quickly recovered from his shock.

“I hope mademoiselle was not.. . surprised ... at the devices there.”

“Au contraire,
sir.” Victoria held up the tin of peppermints. “Mr. Jules very kindly recommended that I

try these.”

The crimson heat pulsing inside Victoria’s cheeks tinged Gaston’s cheeks.
“Merci,
mademoiselle. We

will not mention this incident to Monsieur Gabriel lest we spoil the surprise of your gift.”

Victoria’s auburn-haired guard marginally relaxed.

Victoria smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Gaston.”

“You must not tire yourself, mademoiselle. See mademoiselle back to Monsieur Gabriel’s suite, Jules.”

The suite.

The door leading to the gallery of transparent windows was in Gabriel’s study.

Victoria opened to tell Gaston and Jules about the man she had seen through the transparent

mirror.

She closed .

What had she seen, really? Just a brief image . . . with black hair.

Her hair, under the right conditions, looked black.

. The aberration inside the mirror could only have been a trick of light.

“Thank you, Mr. Gaston You are quite right”—Victoria would need all of her strength for the night—”I

must not tire myself out.”

Gaston preceded Victoria up the private stairs leading to Gabriel’s suite. Jules followed behind Victoria.

She was sandwiched between two able men.

So why didn’t she feel safe?

At the top of the stairs Gaston produced a shiny brass key and unlocked the door.

Victoria stepped inside, feet sinking in the plush maroon carpeting.

Gabriel’s study was empty.

How silly of her to hope that Gabriel had returned.

Gaston crossed the carpet to the black-marble-topped desk and swept up the silver tray bearing her

half-empty plates.

“Mademoiselle should eat more. Perhaps the food was not to your liking.”

Victoria stiffened. Surely he was not mocking her thinness.

“The food was excellent. Pray conduct my compliments to the cook. I will eat with Gabriel when he

returns.”

Gaston paused at the door, tray expertly balanced on one hand. “Mademoiselle.”

Victoria braced herself. “Yes?”

Gaston did not face her. “The Altoids work most effectively when they are allowed to slowly dissolve in

the mouth while at the same time tasting a man’s
bite.
This is best accomplished by holding a lozenge inside

your cheek rather than on your tongue.”

The door softly closed.

Victoria held her hands to her cheeks. The tin and her hands quickly warmed; they did not cool off her

face.

“Mademoiselle.”

For a second Victoria thought Gaston called through the door.

He did not.

Heart slamming against her ribs, Victoria swirled about.

A black-haired man stood only inches away from her. He held a blue silk scarf between long, elegant

hands.

“Hello, Mademoiselle Childers.” Warm breath fanned her face. “It’s so good to meet you again.”

Chapter
23

“Mr.
Delaney is not at home,” the frozen-faced butler informed Gabriel.

“But Mrs. Thornton told me he was here.” Gabriel smiled disarmingly; behind his charm he plotted how

to best disarm the butler. He was a few years older than Gabriel and slightly shorter, but he was heavier

and larger boned. Behind the butler Gabriel could see that a staircase adjoined the foyer; a polished wooden

banister and a narrow green carpet climbed upward out of sight. There was no one on the stairs or in the

gas-lit hallway dissecting the town house. “I’m certain he would want to see me.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” There was no regret in the butler’s voice. “Mr. Delaney is not at home.”

He could be telling the truth. Or he could be lying.

His face was severely marked from smallpox. Many households would not hire a man with a face such

as his.

A butler such as he would tolerate many idiosyncrasies in an employer. Perhaps he even benefited from

Delaney’s hobby of preying on destitute governesses.

There were women, even , who would not bed a man who was disfigured.

Perhaps Delaney provided the butler with his castoff governesses.

Yellow fog wafted through the open door.

“This is a matter of urgency,” Gabriel said pleasantly. Leaning on his cane to hold it upright, he

unscrewed the silver knob by slowly rotating the palm of his left hand. “If you will tell me where I may find

Mr. Delaney, much unpleasantness can be avoided.”

It was the only warning Gabriel would give.

“I do not know where Mr. Delaney is.” The butler was impervious to danger. “If you will leave your

card, I will give it to him.”

Gabriel’s smile did not alter. Reaching up with his right hand as if to
pick off a piece of lint from his wool

coat, he grabbed instead the butler’s throat. At the same time the short sword and the hollow cane

separated.

He shoved the butler back inside the foyer.

Delaney could be upstairs, or he could be downstairs.

Or he could be out, as the butler claimed.

Gabriel would soon find out.

The butler was no Peter Thornton. The butler struck out.

Gabriel could not block the first hit; it impacted his jaw. He slammed the butler against a wall of family

photos.

Glass cracked, splattered; a silver-framed picture fell to the floor. Glass crunched underneath the butler’

s foot.

Gabriel dug the tip of the short sword into the butler’s throat just above his bobbing Adam’s apple; below

the sword point, Gabriel squeezed his throat between black leather encased fingers.

Three nights ago he would not have touched the man; now he would touch anyone, do anything, to keep

Victoria safe.

Pupils dilating with fear, the butler stilled. Heavy breathing superimposed the echo of shattered lives.

“As I said,” Gabriel purred, “Much unpleasantness can be avoided.”

Muffled footsteps sped down the carpeted stairs.

“What is the meaning of this?”

Gabriel froze.

The voice coming from above him was neither servile nor
masculine.

Gabriel did not take his gaze off of the butler.

“Ring for help, Mrs. Collins!” Sweat poured off the butler’s forehead; blood beaded on Gabriel’s black

leather glove. “Please!”

The butler would not beg an accomplice to ring for the police; he would plead for more immediate

assistance.

Gabriel could hold the butler or he could stop the woman. He could not do both at the same time.

He gambled.

“Mrs. Collins, if you move, I will pierce this man’s windpipe,” Gabriel swiftly rejoined. “It will be many

minutes before he dies, but I assure you, he will die. You can prevent his death.”

And her own, he did not need to add.

Gabriel could feel the woman’s indecision. She wanted to help the butler; pulsing just as strongly through

her veins was the instinct to survive.

The woman neither aided the butler nor ran, immobilized by her fear.

It was obvious she had never before encountered violence or death.

Gabriel played on her innocence. “If you help me, Mrs. Collins, no one need die.”

“I... what...” Her voice shook. “What do you want? My jewels are... I am a guest. This is my brother’s

home. I only have my pearls and—”

“Where is Mitchell Delaney, Mrs. Collins?” Gabriel interrupted.

The butler’s muscles bunched.

Gabriel’s fingers tightened around his throat, at the same time he pressed the tip of the sword into his

throat with deadly intent.

“Make no mistake, I
will
kill you,” he murmured brutally. And then more loudly, voice kinder, gentler. “I

don’t want your jewels, Mrs. Collins. I simply want to speak to your brother.”

And then he wanted to kill him.

“Mitch ... my brother is not at home.”

Mrs. Collins’s voice held the ring of truth.

The butler wheezed for air.

“Who are you?” Mrs. Collins ordered, imperiousness winning over fear. “I demand that you release

Keanon.”

Gabriel did not want to have to hurt the woman. But he would.

“Do you have a governess, Mrs. Collins?” he asked, intently watching the butler.

The pockmarks stood out on his livid face.

Keanon was afraid. He knew about Mitchell Delaney’s collection of governesses.

“Yes, of course, but I hardly see what that has to do with—”

“Your brother likes governesses.” Gabriel pressed the sword tip more deeply into Keanon’s throat, blood

spurted; at the same time he loosened his fingers from around the butler’s windpipe. “Tell her how Delaney

likes governesses, Keanon.”

The butler read his death inside Gabriel’s gaze.

“He ...” Keanon croaked; blood dripped down his throat. “I didn’t have anything to do with it, Mrs.

Collins.”

Not good enough.

“Tell Mrs. Collins exactly what it is that you didn’t have anything to do with,” Gabriel softly ordered.

The butler hesitated: he was afraid Delaney would dismiss him or he was afraid Delaney would kill him.

The more immediate threat to his life won out.

“Mr. Delaney, he ... he has a special place prepared in the attic.” Crimson red stained the butler’s

starched white shirt collar. “He brings women there . . .”

“My brother is a bachelor.” Moral outrage spiced Mrs. Collins’s voice. “It is none of our business what

women he brings into his home.”

Victoria had spent eighteen years at the mercy of women such as Mrs. Collins, women who hid behind

their virtue in order to be comfortable with their lives and their men.

Never again.

“Your brother terrorized my woman,
madame”
Gabriel said softly. “It
is
my business.”

The butler’s eyes widened in shock. The women whom he and his employer preyed upon were not

supposed to have men to protect them. To care for them.

To love them.

The approaching clip-clop of a lone horse’s hooves sounded out over the butler’s labored breathing. All

Delaney’s sister would have to do was scream .. .

“If my brother is guilty of nefarious practices, these women should have informed the police.”

Mrs. Collins continued to hide behind her wealth and her virtue.

The governesses were poor; Delaney was rich.

No bobby would arrest him.

“Do you love your brother, Mrs. Collins?” Gabriel asked impersonally.

The lone horse was even with the house; the faint grind of carriage wheels sang out through the evening

fog.

“Of course I love my brother!” Mrs. Collins exclaimed. “It is a virtuous woman’s duty to love her

family.”
No matter their faults.

But she wouldn’t admit that, let alone confess it.

Gabriel wondered how Victoria, at the age of sixteen, had gained the courage to walk away from her

father.

The grinding echo of the carriage was obliterated by fog and distance; the horse’s hooves faded to a

dying echo.

“Then you don’t want your brother to be killed,” Gabriel said flatly.

“Of course not,” Delaney’s sister said on a loud intake of air. Unaware of the passing carriage that

could have been her salvation.

“But he is going to be killed—”

Mrs. Collins gasped; yellow fog curled around the butler’s livid face.

“—if I do not reach him before another man does.”

Gabriel lied. Or perhaps he did not lie.

He did not know if Delaney worked with the second man. Gabriel would not know until he found

Delaney.

Either way he was a dead man.

“My brother did not... he did not tell me where he went.”

Mrs. Collins spoke the truth again.

Knowledge glittered inside the butler’s eyes. Pale green ringed his dilated pupils.

“You know where he is, Keanon,” Gabriel said silkily.

The twin rings of pale green vanished; the butler’s eyes transformed into two black holes of fear.

“I don’t know,” he gasped.

Was Delaney a killer? Gabriel speculated. Who was Keanon more afraid of, Gabriel or Delaney?

“You do, Keanon,” Gabriel crooned. “But if you don’t, then there really is no reason why I shouldn’t kill

you, is there?”

“I don’t know!” Shrillness laced the butler’s voice.

Only cartilage separated the tip of Gabriel’s sword and the butler’s windpipe.

“Take a deep breath, Keanon,” Gabriel said gently. “It’s going to be your last.”

The last of Keanon’s loyalty dissipated in a surge of terror.

“He said he was going to get the governess!” the butler babbled. “That’s all I know! I swear, that’s all I

know!”

Ice raced through Gabriel’s veins.

Victoria was at Gabriel’s house. But did Delaney know that?

Or did he plan to collect her at the cheap room that had been her home?

“How does he know where she is?” Gabriel gritted.

“I don’t know! I don’t know! I swear to God I don’t know!”

So many people who
didn’t k now.

“Are there women up in the attic now, Keanon?”

“No! No! Not now.”

But the attic was prepared for a woman.

It was prepared for Victoria.

“Do you watch while he the women?” Gabriel asked softly. Time ticking, pulses beating.

“Mrs. Thornton—she watches!”

There were women as well as men who derived pleasure out of another’s subjugation. Gabriel could

very easily imagine Mary Thornton as being one of those women.

“Does Delaney give the women to you when they finish with them?” he asked.

“No—” Keanon thought better of lying. “Yes. But I don’t hurt them. I swear I don’t hurt them.”

Sweat poured down the butler’s pockmarked face; ice spread up Gabriel’s spine.

Wounds healed; memories did not.

But perhaps the governesses were deprived even of those...

“Do you kill the women for Delaney and Mary Thornton?”

“No, no!” The butler’s bulging eyes rolled round in their sockets. “Mr. Delaney gives them money to live

in the country. I put them on the train. I swear it. I can tell you where they bought tickets to ...”

Keanon’s head slammed against the wall; a half dozen silver-and-glass picture frames crashed to the

floor.

Gabriel stared down at the photograph of a man who stood by a tree; he had an arm about a woman.

He stood in shadow, she in light.

His features were blurred; his hair looked black in the shadow. The woman’s features were clear; her

hair was hidden underneath a straw hat.

Was the man in the photograph Mitchell Delaney?

Did Delaney have black hair?

Was
Delaney
the second man?

Pivoting, Gabriel gazed up.

Delaney’s sister stood on the eighth step.

She was the woman in the photograph, an icon of English motherhood. In her early thirties, she had pale

brown hair secured on top of her head in a loose knot. Her white blouse and dark green wool skirt were

expertly tailored to square her shoulders, flatter an artificially narrowed waist, and to maximize full hips.

There was nothing artificial about her shocked expression.

Mrs. Collins had just learned that every family has a secret. The skeleton in her closet was her brother.

Gabriel turned his back and walked out of Delaney’s house.

He remembered Victoria and the slick of her tongue as she shared with him the taste of his seed.

He remembered the letters that Delaney had written, seductive missives promising pleasure and protection.

The handwriting had not belonged to the same man who had written on the silk napkin. But the writing

on the napkin may not have belonged to the second man.

Gerald Fitzjohn had sat at his table.

Gerald Fitzjohn could have written the note on the silk napkin.

It did not matter.

Delaney. The second man.

A man was going to get the governess.

A man was going to get Victoria.
Tonight.

Twin lamps shone through the yellow fog.

Gabriel sharply called out to the passing hansom cab.

The ride through the fog-shrouded streets was endless.
He said he was going to get the governess,

the cab wheels sang.

I
wanted your touch . . . Does that warrant my death?

Gabriel jumped out of the cab the moment it stopped.

“Hey, guv’nor!” the cabby shouted. “Ye owes me two shillin’s!”

Gabriel did not stop to pay the cabby.

Eight distant bongs dully penetrated the blanket of fog, Big Ben announcing the hour. The house doors

opened in another hour.

Using his private key, Gabriel quickly let himself inside. Yellow tendrils of fog writhed in the darkness.

He followed the wafting trail of beeswax polish, roast lamb and danger.

The crystal chandelier at the top of the guest stairs forged jagged shadows in the dark cavern that was

the saloon. White silk tablecloths shone like sleeping ghosts. A single candle illuminated a black-haired man

who sat at a back table. A black wool coat framed a satinwood chair; a black silk dress coat framed the

man’s white waistcoat. He tilted a brandy snifter, long scarred fingers cradling the warmed crystal, both

human flesh and glass tempered by fire.

Gabriel felt all the old emotions that Victoria had briefly stemmed rise to the surface.

Love. Hate.

The desire to be an angel. The need to protect an angel.

The knowledge that he could never be an angel, beggar that he was.

With emotion came the memories of hunger that hollowed the stomach, cold that numbed the skin.

Poverty that eroded social barriers. Lust that never burned.

had been Michael’s salvation; a violet-eyed, black-haired boy had been Gabriel’s deliverance.

Silently Gabriel crossed the thick wool carpet, crimson dye blackened by flickering darkness.

A feminine giggle drifted up the kitchen steps, a housemaid flirting with a waiter.

Michael sat alone, as he had sat alone on the dock in Calais.

Regret washed over Gabriel for the twenty-seven years that yawned between two thirteen-year-old

boys and two forty-year-old men. He paused outside the circle of the single candle flame. “I thought I told

you not to come here again, Michael.”

His voice was a hollow echo inside the cavernous saloon. A reminder of other houses, other saloons.

In another hour the House of Gabriel would be overflowing with patrons and es. Tobacco smoke

and expensive perfume would camouflage the aroma of beeswax polish and roast lamb and turn the smells

of a home into that of a tavern.

Briefly, Gabriel envisioned Michael’s country estate and town house. They smelled of roses, lilacs and

hyacinth, living floral scents to camouflage a past riddled with death.

Michael swallowed a sip of brandy before lowering the crystal snifter. “You didn’t read the newspaper

today, Gabriel.”

“Forgive me,
man vieux,”
Gabriel said ironically. “I have been busy.”

Downstairs his people were finishing off their supper, some preparing to end the day, some preparing to

start it.

Was Victoria still sleeping?

Would she welcome him back to her bed?

How did Delaney plan to take her?

Violet eyes calmly assessed Gabriel. “You were in a fight.”

“The streets are dangerous,” Gabriel evaded. His cheek throbbed from the butler’s fist. He lightly

gripped the silver handle to the cane that was no cane. “There is always someone trying to take that which

does not belong to them.”

Amber brandy sloshed the sides of the crystal snifter; scarring had not impeded the adeptness of

Michael’s hands or his ability to please women. “Who is he, Gabriel?”

Fear leaped inside Gabriel like a caged animal.

Michael would not stop until he had the truth.

The second man would not stop until two angels were dead.

But there was only one angel among them: Michael.

Victoria was the only living person who knew that truth.

Both Michael and Gabriel’s lives were in her hands.

“He’s the second man who me, Michael,” Gabriel replied, playing the game, dying a little with

each passing second.

If he went upstairs to Victoria now, Michael would follow him, and the truth would come out.

Gabriel couldn’t kill Michael, but the truth would kill Gabriel.

A masculine laugh wafted up from the kitchens.

Amber brandy swirled and swirled inside the crystal snifter. “She touched you, Gabriel.”

Gabriel remembered Victoria’s wet hair glued to her body, Victoria’s clear blue eyes glowing with

passion, Victoria’s smile at the French euphemisms for a man’s .

Victoria’s hand reaching out to take his.

“She touched me, Michael,” Gabriel said neutrally.

He would kill for the pleasure of Victoria’s touch.

Yellow fire spat upward.

Michael’s eyes glinted violet in the flare of light. “An article on the front page of
The Times
detailed a

suicide and a murder.”

Gabriel did not have to
ask who the victims had been. The second man had dispatched the Thorntons.

Locks were easily picked.

Either Delaney or the second man could have entered the house while the servants were otherwise

occupied.

“There are always articles detailing murders and suicides in the papers,” Gabriel fenced. “If there weren

’t, people wouldn’t buy them.”

“Sir Neville Jamieson was shot through the head.”

Surprise raced down Gabriel’s spine. Neville Jamieson was a squire in his late sixties. He had never

visited Gabriel’s house.

Gabriel shrugged, pretending an indifference he did not feel. “That is unfortunate.”

Michael continued swirling brandy inside his snifter, violet eyes assessing, crystal glinting, amber liquor

sloshing. “He owns an estate in Dover.”

Gabriel froze.

Twenty-nine years earlier the nightmare had started in Dover. Two years later Michael had run away

and stowed on the boat that had docked in Calais.

If Michael had not run away, Gabriel would never have met him. If he had not met Michael, Gabriel

would never have met the second man. And he would have died from starvation and disease, or he would

have died from a knife or a bludgeon.

Gabriel owed everything to Michael.

“I don’t know Neville Jamieson,” Gabriel said truthfully.

Michael’s violet eyes were alert, seeking to pierce Gabriel’s shell. “Jamieson was an associate of my

uncle’s.”

An associate. . .

“How do you know that?” Gabriel asked sharply, aloofness pierced.

“Anne read the paper.” Candlelight flickering, amber swirled, violet glinted. “Anne told me.”

Anne Aimes’s estate was in Dover, as had been that of Michael’s uncle. She would know.

Gabriel struggled to piece together the play the second man had set into motion.

He had killed a Dover squire. But why?

“Who was the man who reportedly killed Jamieson?” Gabriel asked tautly.

“Leonard Forester.”

Leonard Forester was the name of the architect who had redesigned the House of Gabriel.

The fear coursing through Gabriel’s veins knotted his stomach.

The paper was wrong. Forester hadn’t committed suicide; he had been murdered.

The two men were both connected to the second man.
But how?

“Why did he kill Jamieson?”

“Leonard Forester is an architect,” Michael said, watching Gabriel for a reaction. Both men tied to his

past. “Jamieson owns the firm where Forester is employed.”

Gabriel remembered .. . the watching eyes that had awoken him. The scent that had lingered in his suite.

John’s report on what he had learned at the Hundred Guineas Club....
Lenora stood both Geraldine

and himself up, and that he had not seen Lenora since.

Lenora ...
Leonard.

Leonard Forester had rebuilt the House of Gabriel. He had built a secret passage for the second man.

And now he was dead.

The second man
had
been inside his suite earlier that day.

Delaney. The second man.

It didn’t matter by what name he called himself. He was inside the House of Gabriel.

He had Victoria.

Gabriel raced through the tables, pushing aside a chair, table tilting, silver candleholder flying.

“Gabriel!”

Michael’s voice echoed dully inside Gabriel’s ears, no time to worry about the truth.

He took the narrow stairs three at a time.

Julien was slumped in front of the satinwood door, auburn hair spilling around him like a silk scarf.

Crimson blood dripped over the wooden lip of the landing.

His throat had been slit.

Gabriel knew what Julien had last seen: he could feel the lingering surprise that survived death like the

residue of erased chalk on a board.

Julien had not expected to die inside the House of Gabriel; he had not expected to be killed by a man

whom he thought was a friend.

There was no time for regrets now.

Later.

Later
Gabriel would mourn the death of another homeless brother. But not now.

Victoria needed him.

Gabriel fumbled in the pocket of his trousers for the key to the door—
merde
—where was the ing

key? Vaguely he was aware of footsteps pounding up the stairs behind him.

It was too late to protect Michael.

Too late to save Julien . .. Julien who had trusted too much and paid with the skin off his back.

Now he was dead.

Another casualty in a twenty-nine-year-old nightmare.

Finding the brass key, Gabriel it home. The door was impeded by the bulk of Julien’s body; Gabriel

wrenched it open, dragging Julien forward in a slick slide of blood. He squeezed through the opening crack.

Chalk gritted underneath the soles of his boots. More white nodules were scattered over the maroon

carpet.

It was not that which held his attention.

The mystery of Delaney and the second man was a mystery no more.

Chapter
24

“Gabriel.” The second man perched on the black-marble-topped desk, black hair blue in the light of

the chandelier, violet eyes gleaming. A familiar smile spread over his face.
“Mon ange.”

My angel
grated across Gabriel’s skin.

The second man’s voice bore the same knowledgeable cadence as did that of Michael and Gabriel: the

voice of a man who had been trained to entice, to seduce, to gratify.

Victoria stood between his splayed legs, golden brown silk dress with its wine-colored velvet lapels and

cream-colored panels splashed with green, yellow and dull-red dye a sharp contrast to the stark black silk of

a dress coat and trousers.

A fist clenched inside Gabriel’s guts, recognizing Madame René’s creation. It squeezed his chest, seeing

the blue silk scarf that gagged and the green silk scarf knotted about her hands.

The second man caressed her cheek with a serrated Bowie knife.

It was Gabriel’s knife.

A knife whose sole purpose was to kill.

No doubt it had killed Julien.

A blue-plated pistol barrel toyed with the wine-colored velvet bow on Victoria’s left shoulder; long,

tapered fingers lightly grasped the double-action Colt revolver. It was cocked to fire a single bullet.

The violet gaze slipped past Gabriel.

“Michael.” The second man’s smile widened. “How nice of you to join us.”

Michael’s and Victoria’s shock was palpable.

In looking at the second man, Michael gazed at himself as he had been before scarred by fire; in looking

at Michael, Victoria realized that the man who held her was not the man named for his ability to please

women.

Gabriel was neither surprised nor shocked at the man’s visage. There should be satisfaction in

confronting him again: there was not.

“Close the door,
s’il vous plait”
the second man invited, pleased with the reaction of his audience. “We

do not want Mademoiselle Childers to catch her death.”

Amusement at his cleverness sparkled inside the violet eyes.

It would not be cold air that would kill Victoria. If Michael ran for help, the second man warned, he

would kill the woman who had touched Gabriel.
Now.

With a knife. Or a single bullet.

And there would be nothing that Gabriel could do to stop it.

The soft snick of a closing door bolted down Gabriel’s spine.

“I believe introductions are in order.” The second man spoke with charming courtesy; he had spoken

with the same beguiling courtesy when Gabriel had been chained, unable to fight either himself or the man

who looked like Michael but who had none of Michael’s humanity. “Gabriel, no doubt you recognize

Delaney; he bears a marked resemblance to his sister, does he not? Mademoiselle Childers, may I present

to you Michel des Anges, the man named for his ability to please women. Michael, allow me to introduce

you to Mademoiselle Childers, the woman who sold her ity to Gabriel. Delaney, no doubt you’ve heard

of Gabriel and Michel,
les deux anges;
they really are quite beautiful, aren’t they? Although Michael is

unfortunately scarred now.”

The book-lined study shrank to a narrow attic room, gold-embossed leather to dull gray chains.

Deianey’s gaze nervously darted from man to man, woman to man, a pearl-handled pistol clenched inside

his right fist. His hair was black and greasy with macassar oil; his narrow mustache curled in a perpetual

smile. Unlike the second man, he hadn’t expected two angels.

Behind him, Gabriel could feel Michael’s circling thoughts. He knew the exact moment when Michael

realized the second man’s identity.

“You have guessed who my father is,
mon cousin,”
the second man said with unfeigned delight.

“William Sturges Bourne,” Michael said flatly.

The Earl of Granville.

Gabriel had killed him six months earlier.

“Your
uncle,”
the second man agreed smugly.

Michael’s uncle had been the first man; the son of his uncle— Michael’s cousin—was the second man.

The uncle had destroyed Michael’s life, then he had sent his son to destroy Gabriel’s life. All because of

the innocent love two thirteen-year-old boys had borne one another.

Violet eyes clashed with violet eyes.

“I do not claim William Sturges Bourne as a relative,” Michael said contemptuously.

A log collapsed in the fireplace; sparks shot up the chimney.

The smile did not fade from the face that was a slightly younger, unscarred rendition of Michael’s. “And

yet you have inherited his title, the Earl of Granville.”

A title Michael had not claimed.

Gabriel’s fingers tightened about the silver knob of his cane.

Violet eyes suddenly pinned Gabriel. “Drop the cane, Gabriel, or I will carve your initials into

Mademoiselle Childers’s cheek. A ‘g’ for
garçon.
A ‘c’ for
con.
An ‘f’ for
fumier.”

Boy. Bastard. Piece of .

Victoria’s gaze sought Gabriel’s.

Thoughts flowed between them: the pounding of water, the slap of driving flesh. The echo of Gabriel’s

confession.

The knowledge that the second man had heard their every discussion and witnessed their every intimacy.

Her cries of pain, her cries of pleasure.

The needs of a male .

He had demanded that she share the light of her pleasure, and he had brought her to this.

A dark line of blood welled on Victoria’s cheek, a small warning nick of the Bowie knife.

Victoria held perfectly still, unable to escape the consequences of touching an angel.

The second man would give no other warning.

Gabriel had promised he would give up his life in order to keep her alive. And he would.

He dropped the cane.

“Very good,
mon ange.”
The second man smiled, white teeth flashing. “Now kick it across the room

toward me.”

Gabriel kicked the cane toward the black-marble-topped desk; it collided with a small red and white tin

stamped with ALTOIDS, struck a satinwood leg.

It dawned on Gabriel that the gritty substance underneath the sole of his boot and the white nodules

scattered over the maroon carpeting were mints.

Anger pricked the hair on the back of his neck.

“You said you wouldn’t hurt her, Yves,” Delaney burst out; glaring light glinted off his greasy hair. “You

said you would kill Gabriel, and then we would take her. You didn’t tell me there would be another man.

This is not what we planned.”

Yves.

It could be the second man’s name. Or it could be an assumed name.

It didn’t matter.

After fourteen years, eight months, three weeks and one day Gabriel could associate a name other than

Michael to his face.

“Delaney, you must learn to be more considerate, old chap,” Yves said, gaze never leaving Gabriel’s.

The serrated knife caressed instead of cut, smearing a line of crimson blood across Victoria’s paper-white

cheek. “Gabriel quite likes Mademoiselle Childers, don’t you, Gabriel?”

A pulse throbbed at the base of Victoria’s throat; the V of her bodice revealed a hint of shadow, the

valley between her s.

The Adams revolver weighted Gabriel’s shoulder.

He remembered the taste of her cry as he brought her to just scant hours earlier.

“Yes,” he said in an emotionless voice that belonged to neither a boy who had wanted to be an angel nor

a man who had wanted to be a part of a woman. “I like Victoria.”

Laughter crinkled the violet eyes. “Gabriel, you think I brought the mints. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but

they belong to Mademoiselle Childers. I believe she intended to use them on you, but dropped them in her

excitement when she saw me. It was quite amusing,
mon ange,
watching the two of you, a governess who

had never touched a man sparring with a who was afraid to be touched. You were both so very

eager to be seduced.

Relief coursed through Gabriel, that Victoria had not been forced to perform . It was followed by

anger.

For the first time in almost fifteen years, he had taken what he wanted. Now it was time to pay the price.

“You said he couldn’t a woman,” Delaney protested, pearl-handled pistol belligerently pointed at

Gabriel. Clearly he was not a stranger to the weapon; he expertly held it between short, effeminate fingers.

“You said she would still be a .”

a woman
raced up Gabriel’s spine; it was chased by
still be a .

Would Victoria be safe if she were still a ?

“Now, now, old chap.” Yves did not spare Delaney a glance. “Think how much more amusing it will be

to an angel’s woman. Although, Mademoiselle Childers, I do apologize: I sincerely doubt if Delaney

here is quite
l’etalon
—the stallion—that our two angels here are.”

Delaney glared at Gabriel, his mouth petulant underneath the perpetually smiling mustache.

He was a jealous man, and he was a frightened man.

Both emotions were useful.

“How long have you lived within my walls?” Gabriel asked of the second man.

“Forester was quite clever, was he not?” Yves preened; his violet eyes were cold and calculating. “I do

not like the English climate, but I confess, watching you plan to entrap me these last months has provided no

end of entertainment. Come now, Gabriel, did you not feel my presence just once?”

Yes.

Gabriel had felt his presence every waking and sleeping moment for the last fourteen years, eight

months, three weeks and one day.

He had felt it when he woke this day.

Gabriel glanced away from the violet eyes, needing to know...

“Who wrote the letters, Delaney?”

Delaney’s chest swelled with pride. “Mary and I. It is a part of our game.”

A game to systematically destroy women’s lives.

“Why are you here?”

Delaney’s pride gave way to apprehension. He nervously shifted his feet.

Michael stepped sideways, synchronizing his footsteps to those of Delaney’s.

Did he realize the truth yet?

“I came to collect what is mine,” Delaney said with the aggression that comes with fear.

“But who suggested you come here tonight, Delaney?” Gabriel prodded, planting the seeds of dissent. “

Was it you, or Yves?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

But it mattered very much when a man was a pawn and didn’t realize it. Such men did not survive in

games of power.

“You’ll never have Mademoiselle Childers,” Gabriel said gently.

Victoria had been chosen for Gabriel.

“And who’s going to stop me?” Delaney sneered. “You are not in a position to stop your betters, my

good man.”

“I will stop you,” the second man said suddenly. “Your role is over, Delaney. You have played it aptly;

now it is time to take your bow.”

“I say_”

Between one heartbeat and the next, the second man swung his arm away from Victoria’s shoulder,

sighted the Colt revolver, and pulled the trigger.

Delaney slammed against the open door behind him; a round hole appeared in his forehead. At the same

time the explosion of gunfire ripped through the air.

A look of supreme surprise suffused Delaney’s face; his mouth beneath the smiling mustache was a

round O. He crumpled to the floor.

The stench of evacuation was immediate.

Victoria’s pupils dilated in black shock.

“Michael, if you take one more step, I will have to decide who to kill next,” the second man said

pleasantly “That is not a part of the play.”

Michael paused.

“What is a part of the play?” Gabriel asked carefully.

Every pulse inside his body beat a warning.

Yves had brought Delaney to show Gabriel that he had written the letters and not Yves; when Delaney

had no longer served a purpose, Yves had dispatched him.

Yves had sent Victoria to Gabriel; at what point would she no longer serve a purpose?

“Soon,
mon ange”
Yves murmured. “But first you will give me the Adams revolver you are wearing

underneath your jacket.”

Gabriel instinctively reached inside his overcoat and the wool day coat underneath; the silk lining

caressed his knuckles.

The of the rosewood pistol was a familiar grip. The weight a comforting burden.

He slipped it out of the holster. His middle finger automatically curled around the trigger.

“I could kill you,” Gabriel said provocatively.

Gabriel had waited almost fifteen years to do so.

The second man made no move either to defend himself or to fire the first shot. “But you won’t, Gabriel,

will you? By the time the bullet reaches me, Mademoiselle Childers will be dead.”

The invisible hand wrapped about Gabriel’s heart fisted.

“You think that her life is worth more to me than your death?” Gabriel asked, outwardly indifferent.

“Shall we find out, Gabriel?” Bright crimson blood dribbled down Victoria’s cheek, the knife cutting

instead of nicking. “Shall we show Michael and Mademoiselle Childers how little the touch of a woman

means to you?”

Victoria’s pain took Gabriel’s breath away.

If he admitted how deeply Victoria had affected him, she was dead. If he denied it, she was dead.

The second man smiled smugly. “I thought so. It took Dolly three months to find a woman for you,
mon

ange.
I would have preferred that Mademoiselle Childers had pale blue eyes and mousy brown hair—you

were quite taken with Michael’s woman, were you not?”— out of the corner of his eye Gabriel saw

Michael stiffen at mention of Anne Aimes—”but the darker blue of Mademoiselle Childers’s eyes is rather

splendid, and her hair quite magnificent when properly cleaned. She’s intelligent—you would quickly be

bored with a woman who was not—so that was a prerequisite. And her eyes, regardless of their color,

fairly beg you to her, don’t they? That was far more important than their color. It was necessary,

Gabriel, to find you a woman who hungered for a man’s touch. But you also needed a woman who had just

enough knowledge of the streets to make her sympathetic to your past, but not so much that she would

become inured to the story of a beggar boy who wanted to be an angel.”

Victoria defensively stiffened at Yves’s words; Gabriel prayed she would remain still.

He wouldn’t let her die. But he couldn’t stop the second man from killing her.

He wouldn’t let Michael die. But he didn’t know if he could stop his death, either.

“How do you know that I’m fond of Michael’s woman?” Gabriel challenged, buying Victoria time, buying

Michael time. Knowing that his time had run out.

Yves briefly nuzzled Victoria’s hair; Victoria’s gaze remained locked onto Gabriel. “She smells of you,

Gabriel. Your soap. Your desire.”

Gabriel’s finger tightened around the trigger. All it would take was one bullet...

Would Victoria die before or after the second man?

Yves lifted his head. “I know you had a yen for Mademoiselle Aimes, Gabriel, because I followed you. I

followed you when you watched over Michael; I followed you when you took Mademoiselle Aimes to that

cheap pastry shop. I was in my father’s house when you killed him. Now, Michael sensed me that night,

didn’t you, Michael?”

Prey and predator.

Gabriel did not have to see Michael’s scars to know they would be white with tension. “I didn’t know it

was you.”

“No, of course not, how could you,
mon cousin?”
Yves reasoned. “You didn’t know I existed. Gabriel

couldn’t very well tell you, now could he? You thought it was because my father hired a man to

Gabriel that he hated you; it wasn’t. My father actually hired me to kill Gabriel; that would have hurt you,

Michael, and that really was all that my father lived for, to hurt you. Understandably. After all, he was

crippled because of you. However, I couldn’t resist Gabriel, so perfect, so beautiful, so hungry for love. It

was I who him, Michael. Gabriel hated you because every time he looked at you, he saw me. And he

remembered that he begged me . ..
n’arêtte pas...
not to stop.

“Now empty the cartridge chamber, Gabriel,
mon ange,
and gently toss the pistol in my direction or I will

proceed to carve the letter ‘b’ on Mademoiselle Childers’s cheek—’b’ because I made you beg.”

Blue eyes locked with silver eyes as Victoria digested the past of the man whom she had sought to

redeem.

Gabriel couldn’t breathe.

He had thought the truth would kill him, and it had.

Gabriel emptied the chamber; bullets rained onto the carpet.

“Toss the gun at my feet.”

Gabriel’s fingers clenched about the rosewood grip.

“Gently, Gabriel.”

Fresh blood dripped down Victoria’s cheek. Her eyes were stricken with the knowledge of the weapon

that she had become.

Or perhaps she was stricken because of the man that he was.

Gabriel tossed the pistol; it bounced on the carpet, slid past the silver-handled cane, the white and red tin

of mints, disappeared underneath the desk.

“What do you want?” he asked tightly.

What could he possibly want from two angels to have made such elaborate plans?

“I want you to tell Michael why you hate him,” Yves said.

The tension stretching between Gabriel’s shoulders tightened.

He could not tell Michael. Even to save him, Gabriel could not tell him.

He could not tell the boy he had loved as a brother that Gabriel’s body had betrayed him. He could not

tell Michael that he had looked into Yves’s violet eyes—Michael’s eyes—and had been made to
feel

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 his ?”

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

“Kiss him, Michael, like a lover, and I’ll let the woman live. his , 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 ed an Algerian 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 of a mother—a thief, a killer, a . But you didn’t enjoy the

wealth and the , 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

the way you ed. 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 . 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. 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 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.

Chapter
25

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 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 .

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 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, ion,

and : 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 ; 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 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 e, 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 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?”