The Lady's Tutor (5 page)

He lifted his chin and stared over her head. “I don’t want to tell
you, Mother.”

Elizabeth was suddenly filled with foreboding.

Children, regardless of their age, repeated the same gossip as did
their parents. If she had overheard rumors concerning Edward’s extramarital
relationship, it was quite probable that her children had too.

“Did Master Bernard say something about your father, Phillip?”

He blinked, gaze still fixed over her head.

Obviously, the blink meant yes.

Why had she been such a complaisant wife? None of this need have
happened, not to her husband, not to her, and not to her children.

“Phillip.”

Her son gazed at her in mute appeal, well acquainted with that
particular tone of voice.

Elizabeth’s heart ached for him.

Save for the color of his hair, Phillip looked so like his father,
the same dark brown eyes and patrician nose . . . yet there was nothing at all
of Edward inside him.

Elizabeth could not imagine Edward with a black eye. Not even at
Phillip’s age.

She patted the sofa beside her. “I brought you something.”

His dark brown eye regarded her warily. “What?”

“A box of Cadbury chocolates.”

Bribery achieved what all the mother’s love in the world could not
have accomplished. Phillip darted toward the basket sitting by her feet.

“You shouldn’t reward violent behavior, Mother.”

The reproving voice belonged to neither a boy nor a man, but
someone in between the two stages of life.

Elizabeth turned to her elder son with unfeigned pleasure. “And
you should not allow your little brother to pick on boys who are twice his—”

Her mouth dropped open in shock. “Richard!”

He was pale and gaunt and nearly unrecognizable as the boy who had
daily hounded her between terms for a new safety bicycle. Even his hair,
midnight black like his father’s, was dull and lifeless.

She stood up and reached for his forehead. “Richard, are you ill?”

He suffered her touch. “I’m fine now.”

“Why didn’t the dean contact me?”

“It was nothing, Mother, just the sniffles.”

“Are you eating properly?”

“Mother.”

“Would you like to come home for a rest?”

He recoiled from her hand. “No.”

“Would you like a box of toffees?” she asked tartly.

A reluctant smile tugged at his lips. “I wouldn’t object to it,
no.”

“Then come join us and we’ll feast. I had Cook prepare a picnic
basket.”

Phillip had already invaded the basket and discovered inside the
hidden treasures. Solemnly, he handed the box of toffees to Richard.

It was as if the two boys were sealing a pact.

In between gulps of apple cider and bites of sliced roast beef,
rich Stilton cheese, pickled vegetables, and crumpets smothered with strawberry
jam, Richard bragged about his studies while Phillip bragged about his tricks
to escape studying. All too soon their time together was over.

Elizabeth packed away the last of the plates and utensils into the
basket—the remaining food she folded into two napkins. “Richard, eat. Phillip,
no more fights. And now I do not care whose dignity I offend, I am claiming a
hug from each of you.”

Phillip, as if all along he had been waiting for permission,
barreled into her and pressed his face into her midriff. “I love you, Mum.”

Elizabeth was overcome by a fierce surge of protectiveness. ‘Mum’
had been Phillip’s special name for her ever since he had overheard a maid call
the queen “Queen Mum.”

Richard towered over Elizabeth by five inches. He surprised her by
wrapping his arms about her and burying his face into her neck the way he had
when he was a toddler. Warm, moist breath tickled her skin. “Same for me, Mum.”

Elizabeth breathed deeply of his skin; it smelled of soap and
perspiration and his own unique scent. Manhood was stealing Richard from her,
but he still smelled like her little boy.

She blinked back prickly hot tears. “Your father and I love you
too.”

Silence greeted her declaration. As if by unspoken agreement,
Richard and Phillip stepped back out of her arms.

Elizabeth vowed then and there that she would do anything to unite
her family.

The train ride back to London was agonizingly long and slow. The
monotonous swaying should have lulled her to sleep; it didn’t.

She thought of Edward and his empty bed. She thought of her sons
and their silent withdrawal at the mention of their father. She thought of the
Bastard Sheikh and the perfume he had been drenched in.

And no matter how she tried to envision it, she could not imagine
Edward ever taking the pleasure in his mistress that the Bastard Sheikh had
obviously taken in his.

The coachman was waiting for her at the station. Her husband was
not waiting for her at home.

Politely but firmly refusing first the butler’s and then her
abigail’s insistence that she take a light supper, Elizabeth prepared for bed.
The moment Emma closed the door to her bedchamber, Elizabeth retrieved the book
from her desk.

It smelled of leather and fresh ink, as if it had but recently
been printed. Carefully, she flipped over to the title page and read the stark
black print on rich white vellum paper.

THE PERFUMED
GARDEN OF THE SHEIKH NEFZA-OUI;
A manual of Arabian Erotology (XVI Century):
Revised and Corrected Translation. Cosmopoli: MDCCCLXXXVI: for the Kama Shastra
Society of London and Benares, and for Private circulation only.
(Pagination:
xvi + 256).

Erotology.

Elizabeth had never encountered such a word.

The printing date was 1886—the book
was
fresh off the
press.

Impatiently,
she rifled past the table of contents, stopped when she flipped to the
Introduction. Her gaze seemed to leap by its own accord to the opening
paragraphs.

Praise be given to God, who has placed man’s greatest pleasure in
the natural parts of woman, and has destined the natural parts of man to afford
the greatest enjoyment to woman.

He has not endowed the parts of woman with any pleasurable or
satisfactory feeling until the same have been penetrated by the instrument of
the male; and likewise the sexual organs of man know neither rest nor quietness
until they have entered those of the female.

A
sharp stab of longing shot up between her thighs. It was followed by the memory
of the Bastard Sheikh’s mocking turquoise eyes.

And she had no doubt whatsoever that he had agreed to tutor her so
that he might humiliate her.

A man like him would never forgive a woman for forcing her way
into his home by threat of blackmail.

A man like him would never understand that a woman whose hair
showed the first silvery strands of age and whose body showed the effects of
two children ached with the same needs as did young, beautiful women unburdened
by virtue.

Grimly, she sat down at the desk and retrieved pen and paper from
the top drawer.

He need never know the extent of her yearning for the woman’s
pleasure that he had taunted her with. All the Bastard Sheikh ever need know
was that she wanted sexual instruction to keep her husband satisfied.

he outdoor gas lamp shone like a beacon. A tinny whicker
penetrated the morning fog—the horse hitched to the hack that waited for her
across the street.

Fingers trembling, Elizabeth reached for the brass knocker. It was
cold and wet and hard, unadorned reality dangling between the jaws of a lion.

Every nerve inside her body screamed for her to stop.

A respectable woman did not appear in public without wearing a
corset.

A respectable woman did not read sixteenth-century erotology.

A respectable woman did not seek sexual instruction but she did
and
she knew that
nothing
was going to stop her now.

The muffled rap of brass impacting brass ripped through the fog.
Immediately, the door swung open.

Elizabeth braced herself, but it was not the hostile Arab butler
in his flowing white robe who greeted her. A demure-faced girl in traditional
English-servant garb of white pinafore and cap curtsied, as if a woman visiting
the Bastard Sheikh without a chaperone at four-thirty in the morning was an
everyday occurrence.

And perhaps it was, Elizabeth thought grimly, stepping inside.

“Good morning, ma’am. Beastly outside, it is. M’lord, he said to
take you to him directly. If I may have your cloak, please?”

Elizabeth clutched her reticule underneath the heavy black wool.
Her breasts without support of a corset felt heavy and full, her nipples stiff
and abraded. “That won’t be necessary.”

For a second the maid looked as if she were on the verge of
protesting; curtsying again, she murmured, “Very good, ma’am. Follow me,
please.”

The mahogany walls of the hall were inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
The bright overhead light created a latticework of wood and shell, shadow and
light. Man-sized porcelain vases guarded the bottom of a circular staircase. A
bright yellow and red Oriental carpet marched up the steps and disappeared into
darkness.

No doubt the Bastard Sheikh had ordered the hall lights turned
high so that she could see the folly of her desperate attempt to bribe him
twenty-four hours earlier.

It worked.

What a fool she had been, to think that she could sway the Bastard
Sheikh with money. Obviously, the wealth of his sexual expertise was surpassed
only by his material possessions.

If—as she suspected—this morning meeting arose out of his desire
to humiliate her, it would be her one and only lesson. Whatever knowledge she
gained would come only through sheer determination and an absolute disregard of
English sensibility.

The introduction and the first chapter in
The Perfumed Garden
of the Sheikh Nefzaoui
had contained much that she did not understand. She
was determined to learn at least that much.

The maid softly scratched on the library door before swinging it
open.

The scene that awaited Elizabeth was not the one she had
anticipated. She had expected the library to be blazing with cold, sterile
light as it had the morning before.

It was not.

The Bastard Sheikh sat in a tweed morning coat behind a massive
mahogany desk, head bent over a book, golden hair gleaming in the gas
lamplight. Yellow and orange flames danced in the beautifully crafted mahogany
fireplace immediately to his left. Hot steam rose from a demitasse cup by his
right elbow—coffee, the rich aroma
filled the air. A silver tray with a matching silver pot
perched on the edge of the desk.

His very Englishness sent off a fresh peal of alarm inside her
head.

Sex was mysterious and exotic and foreign. If he dressed in Arab
garb—as his servant yesterday had worn—she could sit across from him and study
with equanimity the art of erotic love. Discussing it with a man who could
easily preside over her dinner table took sexual gratification out of the
philosophical realm and became the forbidden fruit that she had been denied for
sixteen years.

The maid softly cleared her throat. “Excuse me, m’lord. I’ve
brought the lady to you. Shall I get you anything else?”

Either the Bastard Sheikh did not hear the maid—or he ignored her.

Or perhaps he ignored Elizabeth, to demonstrate how unimportant
she was to a man like him.

She suddenly felt like her English rose garden, old and out of
season. As he no doubt planned that she should feel.

She drew her shoulders back. . . and wondered if her plants felt
as naked and vulnerable without their leaves as she did without her corset.

Long, interminable heartbeats passed before he closed the book
with a snap and raised his head. “Thank you, Lucy. Please take Mrs. Petre’s
cloak and bring another cup and saucer.”

Elizabeth felt the blood drain out of her face. Dimly, she was
aware of the maid dropping a curtsy, then the heavy cloak slipped off her
shoulders and the library door clicked loudly in the silence.

The Bastard Sheikh—and yes, Elizabeth thought as shock gave way to
fury, he
was
a bastard—stood up and waved a hand toward a burgundy
leather chair drawn up in front of his desk. “Please take a seat, Mrs. Petre.”

Elizabeth had never felt so angry—or so betrayed. She had expected
him to try to humiliate her.
She had not expected him to lie.

“Siba,
Lord
Safyre.” She compressed her lips to stop their trembling. “You assured me that
an Arab man does not compromise a woman.”

He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise, a slash of golden brown
several shades darker than the leonine gold of his hair. “And you think I have?”