Gabriel's Fate Read online

  “Miss Madrigal,” Patterson said, sweeping a low bow.

  Sophie’s nose wrinkled at this show of bravado, and she made an effort to smooth it out. “Mr. Patterson, is it?”

  He rose from his bow like a courtier, and gave another, smaller bow, to Aunt Juniper. “It is indeed, ma’am.”

  Silence. Sophie glanced at Gabriel, who was frowning at the newcomer. Juniper smiled at Mr. Patterson, her innocent heart seeing nothing but a friendly Tucson resident come to pay his respects at this odd hour of the night. Sophie had a feeling she knew why Patterson was here, but she hoped she was wrong. She waited.

  “Er,” Patterson said into the silence, “I knew you were going to be finished around this time, and I—well, I thought you might consider spending part of the evening with me, Miss Madrigal.”

  Taken slightly aback by this bold approach—as a rule, these unprincipled brutes sidled up to a proposition, taking their time about it, trying to pretend they weren’t after one thing. Sophie said, “I—beg your pardon?”

  “Oh,” said Juniper, with one of her ingenuous smiles, “do you know each other, Sophie? I didn’t realize. Well, do have a good time.” She tripped lightly off, serenely oblivious to what seemed obvious to Sophie were Patterson’s sinister motives. Well, she could pretend oblivion, too.

  She tilted her head slightly to one side. “I don’t believe I understand, Mr. Patterson. Do you and your wife—” She emphasized that word. “—Wish to consult with me some more? I believe I gave you a rather thorough reading earlier in the evening, and I’m a little tired now.”

  “Consult with you?” Patterson gave a hearty laugh that sounded a bit strained to Sophie’s keen ears. “Don’t be silly, my dear Miss Madrigal.”

  Silly, was she? Irritated, she stiffened. “What, exactly, do you want from me, then, Mr. Patterson?” She wanted him to say it. Right here. In front of Gabriel Caine and God Almighty. She wanted Gabriel to know what she had to endure in her life. And this was nothing compared to what she’d already endured.

  “Come, come, my dear. You’re a lovely woman. I’m sure you do more than merely tell fortunes for your keep.” He winked at her.

  Before Sophie could concoct a suitably cutting response to this salacious piece of nonsense, Mr. Patterson was suddenly jerked around, rattling Sophie into a start of surprise. Then a fist struck him, square on the chin, and sent him toppling over. Sophie had to jump aside or be flattened by his falling body.

  “Get up,” Gabriel growled, standing over Patterson like an avenging angel, his hands bunched into fists the size and general shape of hams. “Get up, you bastard, so I can finish killing you.”

  Pressing a hand to her thumping heart, Sophie said, “Good Lord, you hit him.”

  “I’m going to hit him again.”

  “No, please don’t. Just come away.”

  “Dammit, Sophie, that man can’t say things like that to you. I won’t let him.”

  From the floor of the hotel lobby, Mr. Patterson groaned. Sophie glanced at Dmitri, who shrugged philosophically, then returned his attention to the prostrate Patterson.

  Sophie took Gabriel’s arm. It felt like iron under her hand.”Please, Gabriel, come away. Don’t make any more of a scene.”

  “Me?” Gabriel whirled and stared furiously at Sophie. “Did you hear what that man said to you?”

  “Of course, I heard him!” She was getting peeved. “I’ve heard it before, and I’ll most assuredly hear it again. You don’t seem to realize that people in my line of work are fair game to predatory fiends like this man.” In case Gabriel wondered which man she was talking about, she nudged Patterson with the toe of her boot. Hard. He groaned again.

  “But that’s not fair!” Gabriel looked appalled.

  A bitter sense of gratification twisted in Sophie’s heart.”You finally figured that out for yourself, did you?”

  “Here, what’s going on here?”

  Apparently drawn by the loud voices, the night clerk rushed up to Gabriel, Dmitri, and Sophie. He gaped at Mr. Patterson, then leaned over and tried to help him rise, patting his coat sleeves and front as he did so, as if attempting to remove a film of dust. “Here, sir, please, what happened?”

  “Don’t waste your time on him,” Gabriel said roughly. “He made an improper suggestion to Miss Madrigal, and I hit him. And I’ll do it again, too.”

  A bit curious as to how the night clerk would respond to this—Sophie had seen him eyeing her lasciviously more than once—she shifted her red velvet bag and traveling kit so that their weight was distributed more evenly, and waited. She wasn’t surprised at what she heard.

  “You mean Mr. Patterson here—uh—he—”

  “Dammit, he made an improper advance toward Miss Madrigal,” Gabriel shouted.

  Mercy sakes. A man had never stood as Sophie’s champion before. She wasn’t sure what to make of it. Especially as the champion in this instance was Gabriel Caine. It was all vaguely interesting. Even flattering, she guessed.

  “She’s a little tart.” Patterson now stood, albeit unsteadily, and he leaned heavily on the night clerk’s shoulder. “I figured she wouldn’t mind.” He uttered a small shriek when Gabriel drew his fist back to punch him again.

  The night clerk forestalled more violence by jerking Patterson aside. Gabriel’s swing clipped the suited man on the shoulder and staggered him, but he didn’t go down again.

  “Please, sir, desist,” the night clerk said sternly. “This is no way to behave in a respectable hotel.”

  “There was nothing,” Gabriel said in measured, dangerous tones, “respectable about what that man said to Miss Madrigal.”

  “Well, now,” the clerk said, equivocating for all he was worth, “I reckon he got the wrong idear or something.” He gave Sophie a look that spoke clearly of his own idea about her morals. “She’s a—well, she reads palms and such, sir. You can’t blame agent for—”

  “You stupid, skinny, idiotic son of a bitch.” Gabriel took a step toward the night clerk, who drew back instantly and looked scared to death. “After I kill him, I’ll kill you. You bastard son of a two-headed cow, this woman is a lady, and you will treat her as one, or I’ll teach you a lesson in manners you’ll never forget. Do you understand me?”

  By this time, Gabriel was nose to nose with the night clerk, who was trying to use Patterson’s body as a shield. Patterson muttered sourly, “I think my jaw’s broken.”

  Gabriel turned to him. “Glad to hear it. Let me take you home and tell your wife how you managed to have such a terrible accident. I think she deserves to know what kind of a bastard she’s married to.”

  “What? What?” Now it was Patterson who looked terrified.

  Sophie could hardly believe it, but she was actually enjoying this show. She walked over to Gabriel and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. “I think you’ve made your point, Mr. Caine. These fellows are clearly stupid, ungentlemanly specimens, and I don’t believe you need waste any more time on them.” In her most lordly manner, she spoke to Dmitri.”Will you please carry my things up to my room, Dmitri?”

  The little Russian gave a majestic bow, retrieved the velvet bag and traveling kit from Sophie, saluted Gabriel as if Gabriel were a general at least, and did as Sophie had bade him. Sophie watched him for a moment, then turned to the tableau of men that seemed to be frozen in place in the hotel lobby.

  She eyed Patterson with distaste. “You,” she said, “are contemptible. You have a fine wife who thinks far more of you than you deserve. You deserve that Mr. Caine take you home in your present condition and tell your wife exactly what you did.”

  “But—but—but—”

  Gabriel reached out a hand, grabbed Patterson by the front of his coat and shook him. “Shut up.”

  Patterson shut up.

  “However,” Sophie went on, thinking what a perfectly timed pair she and Gabriel were tonight, “your wife would be hurt if he did that, so I recommend against it. Your wife unquestionably has enough to put
up with, without having your infamous misdeeds thrown in her face.”

  “I guess that makes sense.” Gabriel spoke reluctantly, as if he’d relished the opportunity to show Patterson up for the snake he was.

  “And as for you . . .” Sophie turned abruptly to the hotel clerk, who seemed to shrink. “I have put up with your waggling eyebrows and offensive leers for entirely too long.”

  “What did he do?” Gabriel’s roar rattled the globes on the oil lamps in the lobby.

  “He has treated me with the utmost disrespect, actually.”

  “Why, you scrawny son of a bitch, I’ll kill you.” Releasing Patterson’s coat front, Gabriel grabbed the night clerk, who really was scrawny, by the front of his shirt and lifted him right up from the floor. Sophie was impressed. She’d like to see Gabriel’s muscles for herself but, unfortunately, they were covered by his clothes at the moment.

  The night clerk’s feet pumped wildly in the air, and he gurgled as he fought for air. Gabriel drew his face right smack up to his own. “If I ever hear of you doing such a thing again, you won’t have to worry about making any plans for your worthless future.” He shook the clerk, whose limbs reminded Sophie of those of a puppet that had been let to dangle helplessly in a high wind.

  “Guhgh,” the night clerk said. He’d begun to turn purple. Sophie didn’t intervene. The no-good reptile deserved at least this.

  “Do you understand me?”

  Frantically, the clerk nodded. His eyes began to bulge.

  “Good.” Gabriel dropped him and he fell to the carpeted floor like a sack of sand.

  Patterson had backed up a way. His nose was bleeding, and his jaw had begun to swell enormously. Sophie was pleased. He’d have some quick explaining to do to his wife when he went home this evening. The stinking rat.

  “Get out of here,” Gabriel said, his voice like steel. “Both of you.” Patterson glanced wildly around, searching, Sophie presumed, for the hat that had fallen off of his head when Gabriel hit him. She walked over to where she saw it lying crown up on the carpet next to a chair, and deliberately stepped on it. Right smack in the middle.

  “Oh, dear,” she said, and stooped to pick it up. “I do believe I crushed your hat, Mr. Patterson. Perhaps your wife can fix it.” Smiling sweetly, she took it over to him, noticing as she did so that he backed up as she walked forward. He was afraid of her. How satisfying. She held out the crumpled article, and he snatched it out of her hand.

  Then he turned and headed for the door, saying as he went, “You’re both crazy. You’re a couple of lunatics.”

  Sophie sighed, feeling more satisfaction after a night’s work than she generally felt. She turned to see the end of the hotel clerk.

  “Your turn,” Gabriel was telling him.

  The skinny man looked petrified. “But—but—I got a job here. I can’t leave.”

  Gabriel took a step toward him. “Oh, yes, you can.”

  Sophie decided intervention in this instance would be to her advantage. After all, she didn’t want the hotel to be robbed or anything because two men had mistaken her for a trollop. She walked up to Gabriel and laid a hand on his arm. Tingling warmth ran up her arm from her fingertips where she touched him to her head. This took her slightly aback, but she continued. She already knew that they were psychically linked somehow. The problem was not to show it. Therefore, she said calmly, “The idiot is right, Mr. Caine. He does have a job to perform. And, if he doesn’t do it very well, I don’t suppose it’s up to us to send him packing. I’m sure the owner of this establishment will discover one day that that this fellow is a fool.”

  Gabriel had been glowering ferociously at the night clerk. He turned his glower on Sophie. “But you said—”

  “I know what I said. I said he leered at me. He did. That, however, is an aspect of my profession that I have become accustomed to. Men often behave as base creatures. He’s merely more base than most.”

  The night clerk stammered, “I—I—didn’t mean—I mean—”

  “Oh, do be quiet,” Sophie said, her voice dripping disgust.”I know exactly what you meant, and so does Mr. Caine. You’re a contemptible animal, and I don’t want to listen to you anymore.”

  “Well,” said Gabriel, and Sophie noticed that the muscles in his arms relaxed slightly. “If you really think it’s better to let the ass go.”

  “I do.” She nodded.

  “It goes against the grain.” Gabriel released him.

  The night clerk clambered to his feet and scampered to the registration desk, where he proceeded to try to hide.

  Sophie was left with Gabriel, alone, in the hotel lobby. She looked up at him and smiled. He looked down at her and smiled.

  “Thank you, Gabriel. That was very dashing and noble of you.”

  He shrugged. “They made me mad, is all.” A frown creased his brow. “Do you have to put up with that sort of thing very often?”

  “All the time, I fear.”

  He shook his head. “You need a business manager.”

  “Nonsense. I can take care of us.” Because she didn’t want him to think his offices went unappreciated, she added, “Although, I truly do appreciate your stepping in tonight. It’s rather nice to have a champion.”

  His breathing was heavy, and he still looked angry. Sophie had to admit—to herself—that she’d been genuinely impressed, both by his quickness to act and by his boldness. She’d often felt like belting rude men, but she’d never done it. She felt more charitable toward Gabriel Caine than she had since she’d met him—even more than when they’d shared that incredible kiss. After all, she was only human; she knew she had needs that she tried to suppress most of the time.

  But his stepping in to prevent the odious Mr. Patterson’s advances had touched her heart.

  She was sure this wasn’t a good thing, but she had a hard time caring at the moment. She held her hand out to him.”Thank you very much, Gabriel. I never would have expected such a thing from you.”

  He grimaced. “I’m sure that’s true. That’s because you don’t know me.”

  Oh, yes, she did. She considered it prudent not to say so. He finally took her hand so that she could shake it with proper gratitude. Then he didn’t let it go. Sophie frowned up at him. She was about to say something cutting, about him being cut of the same cloth as Patterson and the nonsensical hotel clerk, when he spoke first.

  “You really don’t know me, Sophie. Not really. But you will one of these days. I promise.”

  Since she’d already decided on a prudent course of action—which definitely didn’t include getting to know Gabriel Caine any better—Sophie decided to stick to it. She only murmured, “We’ll see. But I truly do appreciate what you did tonight.”

  “Let me see you to your room.”

  “Thank you, but it’s only at the top of the staircase. I’m sure I shan’t be molested on the way.” She gave him her most superior glare to put him off, knowing as she did so that it probably wouldn’t work.

  It worked to a degree. He grinned as if he didn’t care how superior she pretended to be and said, “Maybe not, but I’m going to wait here until I know you’re safe.”

  The excitement of the past several minutes had disguised her fatigue, but it hit her now, full force. So she didn’t protest, but only bowed her head, giving him leave, and said, “Very well.” She added, “Thank you,” again to be polite. Lord, she wanted her bed.

  She felt his gaze drilling into her back as she walked up the stairs. It felt like infinitesimal pinpricks of light or, perhaps, fire, penetrating her clothes, whalebone and all, and dancing with tiny burning feet against her skin. How heavenly it would be to undress, climb into a soft, warm bed, and be engulfed by those strong arms of his. To feel the sensation of their unity all over her body.

  But that sort of thing wasn’t in the cards, Tarot or otherwise, for Sophie Madrigal, and she knew it. With a soft “humph” of derision for herself, she turned at the top of the staircase and gave a little wave in
Gabriel’s direction. He stood directly at the foot of the stairs, looking up at her, his beautiful eyes hot and powerful and compelling. As she turned, Sophie put the hand she’d waved at him with against her cheek, and felt hot moisture.

  Good God, she was crying. She must be more tired than she knew. Noiselessly, she walked down the hallway to the room she shared with Juniper. As she passed Dmitri’s room she heard a soft “Psst.”

  Turning, she saw Dmitri’s door ajar about an inch. When she glanced down, she saw the small Russian’s nose protruding from the crack at the level of his face. Glancing back to make sure Gabriel hadn’t followed her up the stairs, motivated by some misguided knightly impulse—she’d acquitted him of vile motives this evening, although she reserved the right to think ill of him later—she stooped so that she could hear what Dmitri wanted to say.

  He didn’t say much, but handed her a slip of paper. Then he whispered, “Mr. Huffy, he come by.”

  “Oh.” Her heart stumbled once, then raced. “Did you speak to him?”

  She saw the little man nod. “I go and make tickets for train tomorrow morning.”

  “My goodness.” Lord, she appreciated Dmitri. He was so efficient. “Thank you so much, Dmitri.”

  Dmitri opened the door a fraction of an inch wider.”Tomorrow. Noon. Train go.”

  She thought about asking where the tickets were going to take them, but imagined the information would be printed on the note he’d handed her. She whispered, “Thank you, Dmitri. You’re a wonder.”

  He nodded once, backed up a step, and closed his door. She almost ran the last few steps to her own room. As soon as she set foot inside it, she unfolded the note. Blast, it was too dark to read the bloody thing.

  In her excitement about the note, she’d forgotten all about Tybalt, but he hadn’t forgotten her. She’d no sooner taken a step away from the door than he whined at her, and she realized her single-mindedness had led her to ignore him. And he didn’t deserve to be ignored. He was like Joshua—naïve and perfect and precious and unschooled in the arts of deception or fraud.

  So she spent a good minute or two greeting her happy pug, who licked and slurped her and made her smile. How wonderful dogs were. They were always so happy to see one, no matter how horrid a human being one was. At last Tybalt waddled back over to his own fuzzy rug on the floor at the foot of her bed, turned around twice, dug furiously for a second, and sank down with a deep, puggy sigh.