Robin Schone
Page 5
His hands were big and tan and measured far wider than did the breadth of her own two hands.
“Two handbreadths . . .” The Bastard Sheikh’s hand closest to her moved five inches forward. “Three handbreadths.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened.
Impossible. No woman could accommodate fifteen inches.
“Well, Mrs. Petre?”
She sat back. “Either Arab men have extremely large members or they have very small hands, Lord Safyre. Until we reach the chapter containing recipes for increasing a man’s ‘meritoriousness,’ I suggest we go on to the benefits of perfume.”
Reaching forward, she dipped the pen into the inkwell and prepared to write. “What perfumes are used in a harem?”
Rich, masculine laughter filled the library.
Elizabeth had never before seen or heard an adult give way to uninhibited laughter. Ladies tittered, gentlemen guffawed. Real laughter, she discovered, was infectious.
The Bastard Sheikh possessed a perfect set of molars.
She bit her lips to keep from succumbing to a sense of the ridiculous. For one unguarded moment her eyes locked with his, sharing with him the absurdity of their circumstances.
“Touché, taalibba.” His turquoise eyes continued to sparkle even after the laughter died. “I bow to your superior wit . . . this morning. Amber, musk, rose, orange flowers, jasmine—all those scents are popular among Arab women. What perfumes do you use?”
His voice was husky, intimate. It was not the voice of a man intent upon humiliating a woman.
Elizabeth’s head jerked back. “I regret to say that I am allergic to perfume. What is it that you called me . . . taalibba?”
The light in his eyes dulled, turning the color of polished turquoise to raw, uncut stone. “Taalibba is the Arabic word for student, Mrs. Petre.”
Absurdly, Elizabeth was filled with disappointment. Edward had never called her by an endearment, not once in their three-monthlong courtship and sixteen years of marriage.
She made a pretense of jotting the Arabic word down on her notes. “Is it necessary that a woman wear scent in order to . . . attract a man?”
“What if I said that it was?”
A large blob of black ink spread across the paper. “Then I will consult with the chemist to see if there is something that will stay my allergies for the duration of time it takes to please my husband.”
“There is no need to sacrifice your health.” The warmth as well as the laughter was gone from his voice. “A great sheikh, when giving his favorite daughter up in marriage, counseled her that water makes the best of perfumes. Are you allergic to flowers?”
“No.”
“Then crush flower petals against your skin—underneath your breasts and in the triangle of hair between your thighs. The combined scent of the flower and the wet heat of your body will be far more effective that anything you buy in a bottle.”
Perspiration beaded underneath Elizabeth’s breasts. She busily scribbled crush flowers underneath . . . The steel nib scratching across the surface of the paper momentarily drowned out the popping of burning wood and the hiss of flaming gas.
He had inferred that a man enjoyed the scent of a woman’s body.
She discreetly sniffed.
All she could smell was the benzene of her clean wool gown, the thick aroma of coffee, and the smoke of burning wood.
“Do you know what a climax is, Mrs. Petre?”
Her determined scribbling stopped abruptly. Embarrassment turned to shame, which in turn flared to bright red anger.
She would not let him humiliate her.
Elizabeth raised her head.
The turquoise eyes were waiting for hers.
“Yes, Lord Safyre, I know what a climax is.”
Eyes narrowed, he studied her as if she were an animal or an insect that he had never before encountered. “What is it?”
What is it?
She was momentarily speechless with shock.
Patently, he did not believe she possessed such knowledge.
That he should ask her to describe such an intensely personal experience was outrageous, but that he should think her a liar could not be endured.
Her lips tightened. “It is a . . . a peak of pleasure.”
“Have you experienced this peak of pleasure?”
She tilted her chin, and would have answered a resounding, defiant yes but for the sudden blaze of heat in his eyes.
“I hardly think that is any concern of yours.”
“You say you wish only to learn how to please your husband, Mrs. Petre,” he said harshly. “Do you not also want to learn how to enhance your own pleasure?”
Elizabeth was suddenly, fiercely glad that she had studied so diligently. While she could not match his sexual knowledge, she could certainly hold her own when it came to matching wits.
A small, triumphant smile stretched her lips. “Surely, Lord Safyre, you cannot have forgotten the words of the sheikh. The parts of a woman are not endowed ‘with any pleasurable or satisfactory feeling until the same has been penetrated by the instrument of the male.’ Therefore by pleasing her husband a woman must please herself.”
And Edward, she thought bleakly, was most pleased when she made no demands on him at all.
He had not even bothered to crack open her bedroom door to check on her when he had come home earlier that morning.
But she did not want to think about her past failure as a woman. Satisfaction must exist in the marriage bed. All she had to do was . . . learn how to obtain it.
“Do you become aroused by kisses, Lord Safyre?” she asked impulsively.
“Does your husband?”
A coldness settled inside Elizabeth.
Edward had never kissed her.
No, that was not strictly true. After the minister had pronounced them husband and wife, Edward had briefly pressed his lips against hers.
Elizabeth glanced down at the little silver watch pinned to the bodice of her dress. It was ten minutes after five.
Leaning over, she laid the heavy gold pen onto his desk. “I will not discuss my husband with you or anyone else, Lord Safyre.” With more haste than grace, she rolled up the sheath of notes and thrust them into her reticule. “I believe our lesson is over.”
And she had survived with her pride if not her modesty intact.
She should feel relieved. She did not.
“Very well, Mrs. Petre.” The Bastard Sheikh stood up, eyes once again mocking. “I will see you at four-thirty tomorrow morning.”
The breath caught in Elizabeth’s throat.
Striving to hide the sudden burst of gladness that there would be another lesson, she slowly rose to her feet. “Four-thirty tomorrow morning.”
He picked up the small leather book from the desk and offered it to her. “Chapter Two, Mrs. Petre.”
Nodding her head, she accepted the book and turned without comment toward the door.
“Rule number two. Tomorrow morning and every morning thereafter you will leave your bonnet at the front door—as you will leave your cloak.”
Anger rushed up her spine. She had obeyed the men in her life for thirty-three years—she was not going to obey this stranger.
“And what if I do not?”
“Then our agreement is over.”
Her heart skipped a beat, kicked into a chest-thudding rhythm. Which agreement was he referring to? The lessons . . . or his word as a gentleman of both the East and the West that he would not discuss them with anyone?
“I take it you do not care for bonnets any more than you do corsets,” she said frigidly.
The laughter was back in his voice. “You take it correctly.”
“What do you care for, Lord Safyre?”
“A woman, Mrs. Petre. A warm, wet, wanton woman who is not afraid of her sexuality or ashamed of satisfying her needs.”
The smell of benzene lingered in the library.
Ramiel picked up the pen Elizabeth Petre had used to
take her notes. “Which of the two are you, Mrs. Petre?” he murmured, lightly stroking the soft, body-warmed metal. “A woman who is afraid of her sexuality . . . or a woman who is ashamed of satisfying her needs?”
She had small hands. Clutched between her slender fingers, the thick, heavy pen had looked like a primitive gold phallus. The wife of the Chancellor of the Exchequer would need both hands to fully encompass a man of Ramiel’s size.
Memory jolted his entire body.
I do not understand how a woman can move without hindering the actions of the man.
After her stark comments yesterday morning, he should have been prepared for her honesty. He had not been. She had succeeded in surprising him yet again.
How could such a naive woman generate so much sexual tension?
“El Ibn.”
Ramiel’s fingers convulsively clenched around the gold pen. Body instinctively preparing for defense, he raised his head.
Muhamed stood behind the burgundy leather chair that Elizabeth Petre had only moments earlier vacated. A black, hooded cloak covered the butler’s turban and white cotton thobs.
Turquoise eyes locked with eyes so dark, they appeared to be black.
Cornish eyes.
A cynical smile curled Ramiel’s lips.
Muhamed looked Arab but in fact was not. Ramiel looked English but in fact was not.
Elizabeth Petre, like so many of her people, saw only what she was prepared to see.
“What is it, Muhamed?”
“The husband did not leave the house yesterday morning. Only the woman—Mrs. Petre. She drove away in a carriage before ten. I do not know where. Later that evening, while she was gone, the husband came home for dinner. He left—”
“You said he did not leave the house,” Ramiel interrupted sharply. “Yet you say he came home for dinner.”
Muhamed’s face, still strong and muscular at the age of fifty-three, remained impassive. “I do not know the reason for this.”
Ramiel did.
Edward Petre had spent the night with his mistress. As no doubt Elizabeth Petre had known he did.
Where had she gone yesterday morning, to leave her house before the fashionable hour?
Shopping?
Visiting?
Running?
No, Elizabeth Petre would not run. Either from her husband’s infidelity or from an agreement with a bastard sheikh.
“Where did the husband go after dinner?”
“The Parliament building. He stayed there until two in the morning. Then he returned home. He is there now.”
As Elizabeth would shortly be.
Did she and her husband keep separate bedrooms . . . or did they share the same bed?
Immediately, Ramiel repulsed the idea of Elizabeth sharing a bed with another man. She would not be able to sneak out of the house if she did.
But that did not mean she could not join her husband in his bed.
Anger fisted inside his gut.
Elizabeth Petre knew what a climax was.
Had she learned that from her husband? Did he penetrate her cold English reserve underneath the covers of respectability and give her a “peak” of pleasure?
“You did not discover the identity of Edward Petre’s mistress,” Ramiel said flatly.
Muhamed’s black eyes glittered. “No.”
“Yet you have left his house unattended. I instructed you to follow him until you discovered who the mistress is.”
“I thought it wise to return, El Ibn.”
Ramiel was not fooled by Muhamed’s stoicism. Disapproval radiated from his dark Cornish eyes.
“Explain.”
“Mrs. Petre is trouble.”
She had not looked like trouble, perched on the edge of the burgundy chair awkwardly balancing her reticule, her gloves, and her notes. Her pale face framed by the ugly black bonnet had been the picture of propriety. Until he had explained that a man pounds and grinds his body into that of a woman as if he were a “pestle.” Then her clear hazel eyes had blazed with fire. Her full breasts had swelled inside the wool of her dress, sensitive, so sensitive.
To words.
To the soft abrasion of clothing rubbing unfettered flesh.
With each breath she had drawn, her nipples had grown harder and harder.
It was not her body that she attempted to restrain in whalebone. It was her desires.
What kind of a man was Edward Petre, that he would forsake honest passion for paid pleasure?
Ramiel steepled his hands underneath his chin, his thoughts and a sudden rampant hunger hidden behind hard implacability. “Perhaps. But she is my trouble.”
“Have you forgotten, El Ibn?”
Every time Muhamed called him El Ibn, Ramiel remembered.
Sometimes he forgot . . . when he had sex. Elizabeth Petre made him forget by words alone.
How long had it been since Ramiel lusted for a woman . . . and not for forgetfulness?
How long had it been since he had laughed?
“I have not forgotten, eunuch,” Ramiel countered coldly, deliberately.
Muhamed’s head snapped backward.
Ramiel instantly regretted his words. Muhamed had not asked for his burden any more than Ramiel had asked for his.
He wondered how the servant survived, unable to escape his past, however briefly, inside a woman’s body. Ramiel, at least, had that luxury. Entire minutes where nothing mattered but the sound of wet, pounding flesh and the silky heat of a woman’s flesh gripping him, milking him until she took the pain and left only the memories.
Praise Allah and please God, let him find a woman who could accept what he could not.
“Go,” Ramiel commanded softly, reining in the ever-prevalent anger and self-disgust. “Hire whomever you need. I don’t care how much it costs. I want to know everything that Edward Petre does. Every place that he visits. Every person he talks to. Every woman he’s ever fucked. If he pisses, I want to know about it. And I do not expect you to fail me again.”
Body as taut as the scimitar that he carried underneath the loose folds of the cloak and his thobs, Muhamed bowed out of the library.
Ramiel glanced down at the empty cup by his elbow, then at the full cup of black brew that Elizabeth Petre had hastily set down after sipping the scalding Turkish coffee.
Muhamed was right. A woman like Elizabeth Petre could cause a man like him a great deal of trouble.
Here, in England, he would be prepared.
“Muhamed.”
The Cornishman froze at the sound of Ramiel’s voice, hand reaching to close the library door.
“I do not repeat the mistakes I have made in the past.”
Chapter 4
The jarring clang of silver hitting silver jerked Elizabeth out from underneath the Bastard Sheikh’s naked body. A thick, cloying aroma invaded the air.
What do you care for, Lord Safyre?
A woman, Mrs. Petre. A warm, wet, wanton woman who is not afraid of her sexuality or ashamed of satisfying her needs.
Elizabeth’s eyes snapped open.
Emma’s round, pleasant face was wreathed in steam; she bent over the nightstand by the bed, stirring a silver spoon around and around in a porcelain cup. A small silver pot sat beside the cup and saucer on a silver tray.
The cloying aroma filling the air was not the sugary smell of Turkish coffee, Elizabeth vaguely realized. It was the sweet smell of chocolate.
“If you are ill, Elizabeth, you should have sent a note around to my house.”
Elizabeth blinked.
Her mother’s face stepped into view. It was framed by a black silk bonnet. Emerald-green eyes berated Elizabeth as they had when she was a child and failed to meet her parents’ expectations.
Elizabeth came fully awake, heart pounding.
She knows about the Bastard Sheikh was her first thought. It was immediately followed by How could she?
The previous morning had been awkward, but this morning Elizabeth had arrived back
home at five thirty-five, a quarter of an hour before the servants arose. No one could possibly know about her two visits with the Bastard Sheikh.
But why else would her mother be here unless—
You should have sent a note around to my house pierced the fog of sleep and the mind-numbing start of fear.
Elizabeth’s gaze flew to the window.
Today was Tuesday.
Her mother and she always went shopping on Tuesday mornings. Then they took lunch.
Judging by the gray winter light streaming through the curtains, it was fast approaching noon.
Hot blood flooded Elizabeth’s cheeks.
Emma and her mother had stood over her and watched her while she dreamed that the Bastard Sheikh worked her body as if his virile member were indeed a pestle and she was a stubborn herb that needed to be thoroughly pounded and ground into submission.
Hez, taalibba, he had whispered, alternately thrusting hard and deep then side to side. Swing your hips for me . . .
She squeezed her eyelids together, acutely aware of the harsh flavor of the Turkish coffee that lingered in her mouth and the frustrated desire that continued to pulse deep inside her. If only Emma had delayed pouring the hot chocolate.
A surge of resentment flared up inside Elizabeth. Her mother did not belong in her bedroom any more than the Bastard Sheikh belonged in her dreams.
Opening her eyes, she rolled over onto her back and summoned a smile. “Good morning, Mother. I am afraid I have overslept. If you will wait in the drawing room, I will dress and join you. Emma, please escort my mother downstairs and ring for tea.”
“Very good, ma’am.”
Her abigail stepped backward; her mother stepped forward.
“Your cheeks are flushed, daughter. If you are ill, there is no need to get up. I apologize if I intrude on your rest, but I was worried. Monday you canceled all of your appointments, and now this. You know that your father is grooming Edward to stand for prime minister when he retires. You have to seed the ground for him, just as I do for your father.”
The smile froze on Elizabeth’s face. Rebecca Walters was worried . . . because Elizabeth had failed to fulfill her obligations.
The only memories that stood out in Elizabeth’s childhood were of her mother “seeding” the ground for her father. Every spare moment, every spark of energy, every deed of charity, had been dedicated to a political cause.