The Lady's Tutor (2 page)

No doubt
Elizabeth Petre was more concerned over the potential loss of her husband’s
career than she was of losing his services in the bedroom.

“Women who
love their husbands do not ask strangers to teach them how to please a man,” he
said caustically.

“No,
cowards
who love their husbands do not ask strangers to teach them how to please a
man.
Cowards
sleep alone, night after night.
Cowards
accept the
fact that their husbands take their pleasure with another woman.
Cowards
do
nothing, not women.”

Cowards
echoed in the sudden
silence.

Short,
quick spurts of gray mist warmed Ramiel’s face—her breath. Long, even spurts of
gray mist mingled with hers in the winter-chilled air—his breath.

Elizabeth
Petre blinked rapidly.

For one
timeless moment Ramiel thought she batted her lashes in a gauche parody of
flirtation; then he saw the sheen of tears filming her eyes.

“I refuse
to be a coward.” She squared her shoulders. The motion elicited a creak of
whalebones—a corset too tightly laced. “Therefore once again I ask you to teach
me how to give a man pleasure.”

Blood
thrummed through Ramiel’s temples.

In many
ways Arab and English women did not differ
.

An Arab woman
wore
a veil. An English woman wore a corset.

An Arab
wife accepted her husband’s concubines with resignation. An English wife
accepted her husband’s mistresses by ignoring them.

A woman in
either culture did not baldly arrange sexual instruction from another man that
she might secure her husband’s interest.

An acrid
aroma stung Ramiel’s nostrils—it came from her cloak. She had freshly cleaned
the wool.

Women came
to him drenched in their musk—no woman had ever come to him smelling of
benzene.

Ramiel
wondered what color her hair was . .. and what she would do if he reached out
and plucked off her head the ugly black bonnet that hid it from his view.

He
abruptly stepped back. “And just how do you propose that I teach you to please
your husband if I do not bed you myself, Mrs. Petre?” he bit out.

Her eyes
remained steady, oblivious of the sexual curiosity that hummed through Ramiel’s
body. “The women who live in harems—do they learn how to please one man by
going to bed with another?”

For a
second, Ramiel was back in Arabia, twelve years old again. A blond-haired
concubine, the bored favorite of a vizier, had been curious to try the sheikh’s
uncircumcised infidel son. Ramiel, trapped between sleep and opium-scented
breasts, had thought she was a
houri,
a Muslim angel sent to give him a
taste of paradise.

The
concubine had been stoned the following day.

“An Arab
woman would be put to death if she did so,” Ramiel said flatly.

“But you
have been with these women—”

“I have
been with many women—”

She
ignored his curtness. “Therefore if it is possible for an Arab woman to learn
how to please a man without benefit of personal experience, I see no reason why
you, a man who has benefited from that training, cannot in turn instruct an
Englishwoman.”

Many
Englishwomen had asked Ramiel to demonstrate the sexual techniques Arab men use
to pleasure a woman; no woman had ever asked him to teach her the sexual
techniques that Arab women use to pleasure a man.

It was the
remnants of hard liquor and a night of even harder sex that prompted Ramiel’s
next question. Or perhaps it was Elizabeth Petre herself. And the stabbing
realization that no woman, either Eastern or Western, would risk for him what
this woman now risked for her husband. She imperiled her reputation and her
marriage to learn how to please a man sexually so that he would turn to her
instead of to a mistress.

What would
it take for a woman like her, a respectable woman, to want a man like him, a
man born in England who had adopted Arabia and now belonged to neither?

What
would it be like to have a woman willing to do anything to gain
my
love?

“If I
should undertake your tutoring, Mrs. Petre, what would you expect to learn?”

“Everything
that you have to teach me.”

Everything
vibrated in the chill
morning air.

Ramiel’s
gaze slammed into hers. “Yet you said that you have no desire to bed me,” he
said harshly.

Her face
remained composed, the face of a woman who is not interested in a man’s
passion—or her own. “I am assured that you possess enough knowledge for the
both of us.”

“No doubt.
But my knowledge is of women.” Suddenly, he was repelled by her innocence. “I
am not in the habit of seducing men.”

“But women
. . . they flirt with you, do they not?” she stubbornly persisted.

The
duchess’s naked body had gleamed with perspiration as she danced her need. She
possessed no subtleties . .. either out of bed or in it.

“Debutantes
flirt. The women I bed are not virgins.” He insolently perused Elizabeth Petre’s
voluminous black cloak that revealed neither a thrust of breasts nor a curve of
hips to entice a man. “They are experienced women who know what they want.”

“And what
is that, pray tell?”

“Pleasure,
Mrs. Petre.” He was deliberately crude and rude. “They want a woman’s pleasure.”

“And you
think, because I am older than these women, and my body is not perfect like
theirs ... do you think that I do not also want a woman’s pleasure, Lord
Safyre?”

Ramiel’s
gaze snapped back to hers.

An
electrical current of pure, unadulterated need shot through his body.

It came
from Elizabeth Petre.

Sensual
longings, sexual desires . . .

And still
her face was that blank, expressionless mask.

A virtuous
woman did not seek out a man to teach her how to please her husband.

A virtuous
woman did not admit to wanting physical gratification in her marriage.

Who was
Elizabeth Petre that she dared what other women did not?

“A man is
more than a series of pulleys and levers that need only be cranked in order for
him to receive gratification,” Ramiel exhorted sharply, keenly aware of the
cool perfection of her pale skin and the hot blood that pulsed in his groin. “His
satisfaction is dependent upon a woman’s ability to receive pleasure. If you
want the latter, he will receive the first.”

She
stiffened her spine with another telltale creak of her corset. Anger flickered
in her eyes—or perhaps it was a flare of light from the overhead chandelier.

“I have
two children, sir. I am fully aware that a man does not consist of pulleys and
levers. Furthermore, if my husband’s satisfaction depended upon a woman’s
desire, then he would not have left my bed. For the last time, Lord Safyre,
will you or will you not teach me how to give a man pleasure?”

Ramiel’s
body tightened.

Elizabeth
Petre offered him a man’s ultimate fantasy. A woman whom he could teach every
sex act he had ever wanted a woman to do ... with him . . .
to
him.

“I will
pay you,” she offered stiffly.

He studied
her through the shield of his lashes, trying to see behind the emotionless mask
that was her face. “How will you pay me, Mrs. Petre?”

There was
no mistaking his coarse suggestiveness.

“With
English currency.”

Nor was
there any mistaking her deliberate obtuseness.

He cast a
telling glance about the library, at the ceiling-to-floor shelves filled with
leather-bound books, at the priceless silk-screen panels that dotted the
remaining three walls, at the credenza inlaid with mother-of-pearl, at the
carved mahogany fireplace that was a masterpiece of English craftsmanship.

“That is
one of the benefits of having a sheikh for a father. I have no need of your
money,” he replied with feigned disinterest, all the while wondering just how
far she would go in her quest for sexual knowledge—and how far he would go in
his quest for oblivion. “Or that of anybody else, for that matter.”

Her gaze
did not waver from his.

She would
blackmail. . . but she would not beg.

“Do you
know what you are asking, Mrs. Petre?” he asked softly.

“Yes.”

Ignorance
shone in her clear hazel eyes.

Elizabeth
Petre thought that a woman like herself, a woman who is older and whose body is
not “perfect,” a woman who is respectably married with two children, could hold
no appeal to a man like himself. She did not understand the driving power a man’s
curiosity could become or the powerful attraction a woman’s desire could
ignite.

Ramiel
knew these things only too well. Just as he realized that mutual need could
bind a man and a woman together more surely than vows spoken in a church or a
mosque.

A dull
sulfuric glow penetrated the bay windows. Somewhere above the yellow fog that
heralded another London morning shone sunlight and the beginning of a new day.

Pivoting
sharply, he crossed the Oriental carpet and reached to pluck from the
ceiling-high wall of books a small leather-bound volume.

The
Perfumed Garden of the Sheikh Nefzaoui.

In Arabic
it was titled
Al Raud al atir wa nuzhat al Khatir
—
The Scented Garden
for the Soul’s Delectation.
More popularly it was translated as
The
Perfumed Garden for the Soul’s Recreation.

Ramiel had
memorized it as assiduously as boys in England memorize Greek and Latin
primers. But whereas the primers prepared English boys to read Greek and Latin
scholars,
The Perfumed Garden
had prepared Ramiel to satisfy a woman.

It also
gave excellent advice for a woman who wished to learn how to satisfy a man.

Without
giving himself time to reconsider his action, he returned to the bay window and
offered her the book. “Tomorrow morning, Mrs. Petre. Here. In my library.”
Muhamed had said she had arrived at— “Five sharp.”

A small,
slender hand gloved in black kid sprang out of the heavy concealing folds of
her wool cloak. The book, some five by eight inches in measurement, was grasped
snugly between thumb and fingers. “I do not understand.”

“You want
me to tutor you, madam; therefore, I shall tutor you. Lessons begin tomorrow
morning. There is your textbook. Read the introduction and the first chapter.”

She
lowered her head; the upturned veil blocked the overhead light so that her
expression was hidden in shadow.
“The Perfumed Garden of the
...” She did
not attempt to pronounce the rest of the title,
Sheikh Nefzaoui.
“I take
it this is not a book on how to cultivate flowers.”

His lips
twitched with sudden amusement. “No, Mrs. Petre, it is not.”

“Surely
there is no need to start lessons so soon. I will need time to assimilate what
I read—”

Ramiel did
not want to give her time to assimilate.

He wanted
to shock her.

He wanted
to titillate her.

He wanted to
peel away the drab black wool and her cold English reserve and find the woman
underneath.

“You asked
me to tutor you, Mrs. Petre. If I am to do so, you will
follow my instructions.
Excluding the preface and introduction, there are twenty-one chapters in
The
Perfumed Garden;
tomorrow we will review the introduction and the first
chapter. The morning after we will discuss the second, et cetera, until we
finish your schooling. If you prefer more time to ponder your lessons, you will
have to find another tutor.”

The
distant slam of an attic door echoed through the walls; as if on cue, the dull
clang of metal followed, an iron skillet sharply contacting an iron stove as
below stairs the cook started breakfast for the rising servants.

The book
and her gloved hand disappeared inside the black wool of her cloak. Her corset
audibly protested the abrupt motion. “Five o’clock is too late; we will have to
start at four-thirty.”

He cared
little what time they conducted the lessons; his only interest was how much a
woman like her would learn from a man like him. “As you will.”

Her neck
was slender, as had been her hand. The shoes peeking out from underneath the
concealing cloak were narrow.

What did
she seek to restrain so tightly within the confines of the creaking
whalebone—flesh ... or desire?

“Every
school has rules, Mrs. Petre. Rule number one is this: You will not wear a
corset while you are in my house.”

Her fine
white skin turned ruby red.

He
wondered if she turned that same fiery color when she was sexually excited.