He cocked his head. “You did not enjoy the sheikh’s writings on ‘Concerning Women Who Deserve to Be Praised.’ ”
It was not a question.
“Indeed.” She forcefully peeled off her gloves. “The moral of the chapter is, after all, what every woman yearns to read.”
Especially a woman who showed every sign of losing her husband to his mistress.
The Bastard Sheikh poured coffee into a blue-veined demitasse cup. Steam rose like a curtain between them. He added a splash of water to the cup. “And that is?”
She reached into her reticule for her notes . . . and realized that she was looking forward to this, to channeling the anger that she had nurtured the day before and that now blossomed in the new day.
She deserved more from her husband than a casual remark about the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts.
After sifting through several pages of notes, Elizabeth found what she was looking for. “ ‘A man who falls in love with a woman imperils himself, and exposes himself to the greatest troubles.’ ”
“You do not agree with the sheikh, Mrs. Petre?”
“Do you, Lord Safyre?”
He offered her the cup and saucer, so very correct in this most incorrect schooling. “I believe nothing that is worth having comes easily.”
That was not the answer she wanted to hear. She snatched the saucer out of his hand and raised the cup to her lips.
“Blow on it, Mrs. Petre.”
Elizabeth blew on the brew. Once.
Hardly registering the scalding liquid, she took two sips.
“What did you think about the sheikh’s advice on the qualities that make a woman praiseworthy?”
Impervious to the dictates of polite manners, Elizabeth set the saucer onto the desk so hard that black coffee slopped over the rim of the cup. The rustle of paper filled the room as she flipped through her notes.
“ ‘In order that a woman may be relished by men, she must have a perfect waist, and must be plump and lusty. Her hair will be black, her forehead wide, she will have eyebrows of Ethiopian blackness, large black eyes, with the whites in them very limpid. With cheek of perfect oval, she will have an elegant nose and a graceful mouth; lips and tongue vermilion; her breath will be of pleasant odour, her throat long, her neck strong, her bust and her belly large . . .’ ”
She lowered her notes. “I think, Lord Safyre, that Arab men desire different attributes in their women than do English men.”
The turquoise eyes glittered with laughter. “We have already agreed that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, Mrs. Petre. However, it was not the sheikh’s description of a woman’s physical attributes that I was referring to.”
The hot anger coiled more tightly in the pit of Elizabeth’s stomach.
Her mother was scornful. Her husband was indifferent. She was not going to endure ridicule from her tutor.
“I take it, then, that you are referring to the sheikh’s edicts that a praiseworthy woman rarely speaks or laughs. She has no friends, ‘gives her confidence to nobody,’ and relies solely on her husband. ‘She takes nothing from anyone’ except her husband and her parents. She ‘has no faults to hide . . .’ She does not try to gain attention. She does what her husband wishes when he wishes and always with a smile. She assists him in his political and social affairs. She soothes his troubles that she might make his life more content even if it requires sacrificing her own contentment. She never expresses any emotion for fear he will be repulsed by her base, childish needs”
Elizabeth lifted her chin, refusing to let the stinging tears that welled in her eyes fall. “Is that what you were referring to, Lord Safyre?”
The Bastard Sheikh cradled his cup in the palms of his hands and rocked back in his chair. “You do not think that such a woman is praiseworthy?”
Her lips tightened mutinously. “I think that I would rather be a ‘meritorious’ man.”
He stared at her for long seconds before replying. “That is because you have not yet read one of the prescriptions for increasing a man’s ‘meritoriousness.’ ”
Elizabeth could not imagine anything worse than the life she had just described. She had spent sixteen years being a praiseworthy wife, holding her emotions in abeyance, always deferring to her husband. It might make a man’s life more pleasant, but it certainly did nothing to enhance the life of a woman.
“And that is?”
“Imagine washing a man’s genitals in warm water until he becomes pleasurably erect . . .”
He paused, studying her face.
Elizabeth returned his stare. Not for the life of her would she admit that she had never imagined washing a man’s genitals, either in warm or cold water. Furthermore, it was hard to imagine a man growing pleasurably erect when one had no idea of what a man looked like . . . erect.
“Now imagine taking a piece of soft leather that is spread with hot pitch and slapping it onto the man’s unsuspecting member.”
Shock raced across Elizabeth’s face; it was chased by incredulity.
Hot pitch was hot pitch. And while she had never seen a man’s erect member, she was quite certain that it was as sensitive as was a woman’s genitals.
“According to the prescription, the man’s member rears its head, trembling with passion. When the pitch cools and the man is again in a state of repose, the operation must be repeated several times in order to increase his ‘meritoriousness.’ ”
. . . The man’s member rears its head, trembling with passion shimmered in the air between them.
A flash of heat rippled through Elizabeth’s body.
“Does a man tremble with passion, Lord Safyre?”
“Not wrapped in hot pitch, he doesn’t,” the Bastard Sheikh murmured dryly.
Edward had looked so distant yesterday, so above the dictates of the flesh, so unlike a man who would tremble, whether it be in passion or the result of any other emotion.
Was it a facade? Did men project the qualities they thought women wanted to see in them?
“Does a man tremble with passion?” she repeated, enunciating the words slowly, carefully, needing to know, needing to hope.
He leaned forward in his chair, a sharp crack of protesting wood. His hair and eyes blazed in the lamplight. “When sexually excited . . . yes, Mrs. Petre, a man trembles with passion.”
She instinctively glanced down at his hands, still cradling his cup. They were large and muscular and rock steady.
“Just as a woman trembles in her passion.” His voice was a dark rasp.
Elizabeth recoiled. Absolutely, that was not the voice of a tutor to his student.
His dusky brown fingers tightened, knuckles whitening. Suddenly, he brought the demitasse cup to his lips and neatly downed its contents. The dull impact of china on wood echoed in the stillness.
“Tobacco is enjoyed by both men and women in Arabia,” he said abruptly. “Would you care for a smoke, Mrs. Petre?”
A smoke?
Only women of ill repute smoked.
“Perhaps another time, Lord Safyre,” she said repressively.
The skin over his cheekbones stretched taut. “Men are excited by words. If you want to learn how to please your husband, perhaps you should memorize, or at least take note of, some of the Arabic love poems in The Perfumed Garden.”
It was a direct challenge.
Elizabeth’s hazel eyes shifted, stared at a point over his golden head. “ ‘Full of vigor and life,’ ” she quoted softly, “ ‘it bores into my vagina, / And it works about there in action constant and splendid. / First from the front to the back, and then from the right to the left; / Now it is crammed hard in by vigorous pressure, / Now it rubs its head on the orifice of my vagina. / And he strokes my back, my stomach, my sides, / Kisses my cheeks, and anon begins to suck at my lips.’ ”
She shifted her focus back onto Ramiel. “Like that, Lord Safyre?”
His gaze snared hers. “Exactly like that.”
Liquid heat spread th
rough her stomach. She was suddenly, breathtakingly conscious of the rhythmical rise and fall of her uncorseted breasts and the stiff caress of her linen chemise and lined wool bodice.
“In the poem . . . earlier on,” she said daringly. “What does it mean, that a man’s member has a head like a brazier?”
The turquoise eyes narrowed. “It means that it is red with desire and hot for a woman.”
Elizabeth felt as if the air had been sucked out of her lungs. “Does a man . . . enjoy it when a woman . . . puts him inside of her?”
“ ‘When he sees me in heat he quickly comes to me,’ ” he recited huskily. “ ‘Then he opens my thighs and kisses my belly, And puts his tool in my hand to make it knock at my door.’
“When a woman wraps her fingers around a man’s member, she holds his very life in her hand. She can hurt him . . . or she can give him indescribable ecstasy. When she guides him to her vagina and pushes the head of him against her, there is a moment of resistance, the threat of rejection, then her body opens up and swallows him in hot welcome and yes, Mrs. Petre, it is enjoyable. More, it is a moment of bonding. By taking control, a woman demonstrates to her man that she accepts him for who and what he is. By relinquishing control, the man tells his woman that he trusts her implicitly.”
A moment of bonding.
Edward had come to Elizabeth in a darkened room. Underneath stifling bedcovers and tangled nightclothes a fumbling caress had preceded a slight prick of discomfort and their moment had been over. There had been no acceptance or loss of control. Only silence broken by the creak of the bedsprings.
She jerked her head down, away from those hypnotizing eyes, and rummaged through her notes.
A woman did not memorize erotic poetry unless it stimulated her. Sexually. As the Bastard Sheikh must know.
As he no doubt knew that words affected a woman as strongly as they did a man.
My God, what he must think of her!
She squirmed with embarrassment and something far more shameful, creasing the paper in her search. Where is that passage—
“Or would you have me memorize this poem?” She stridently read, “ ‘Oh, men! listen to what I say on the subject of woman . . . her malice is boundless . . . As long as she is with you in bed, you have her love, / But a woman’s love is not enduring, believe me.’ ”
Elizabeth cringed at the jarring note of cynicism in her voice.
“How long can a woman comfortably go without coition, Mrs. Petre?”
The sheath of papers crackled between her clenched fingers.
Twelve years, five months, one week, and three days.
That was how long it had been since Edward had visited her bed. But not one day of it had been comfortable.
“A woman is not like a man. She does not need . . . that particular kind of comfort.”
A piece of wood dropped in the fireplace, underscoring her lie. Sparks snapped, fire flamed.
“How long, Mrs. Petre?” he repeated relentlessly, as if he knew exactly how long it had been since Edward had visited her bed.
Squaring her shoulders, she raised her head. “The Perfumed Garden claims that a wellborn woman can comfortably remain celibate for six months.”
She could see the next question shaping his lips: How long have you been celibate, Mrs. Petre? Masking haste with haughtiness, she intercepted. “How long can a man comfortably remain celibate, Lord Safyre?”
The ruthless intensity in the Bastard Sheikh’s eyes eased. He leaned back in his chair. “Celibacy is never comfortable for a man, Mrs. Petre.”
She did not have to ask him when he had last been with a woman. Any more than she had to ask her husband where he spent his nights.
“And why is that?” she lashed out. “Why cannot a man suffer celibacy in comfort, as a woman is expected to?”
“Perhaps, Mrs. Petre, because women endure their suffering in silence and men do not,” he responded quietly.
The air was suddenly too thick, the conversation too intense. “Do you recommend a diet of white bread and egg yolks ‘fried in fat and swimming in honey’ to give a man stamina?” she abruptly asked.
Warm, rich, masculine peals of laughter suddenly cocooned her.
Elizabeth blinked.
The hard, chiseled face of the Bastard Sheikh had transformed into one of an uninhibited little boy. A very jolly little boy.
Her lips quivered. She wanted to share his laughter even though she knew it was directed at her.
Finally, “No, Mrs. Petre, I do not.”
“Do you speak from experience, Lord Safyre?”
All signs of laughter disappeared and once again his face was dark and hard and cynical. “There is very little I have not tried.”
No man should look so bleak . . . or alone.
Not even a Bastard Sheik.
Elizabeth wanted to incite more laughter.
“I take it, then, that you tried the poultice of hot pitch,” she said tartly.
Ramiel winced. “Then you take it wrongly. There is a difference between adolescent ego and infantile lunacy.”
“Then what, pray tell, was the sheikh’s purpose in including such a recipe if it is injurious?”
“The Perfumed Garden is over three hundred years old. Times change, people change, but the need for sexual satisfaction does not.”
“For men,” she said firmly.
“And for women,” he adjured. “I will share with you some information that is not contained in the English translation here. In Arabia, there are three things that men are petitioned not to take lightly: the training of a horse, shooting with a bow and arrow, and, lastly, making love to one’s wife.”
“In that order?” she asked stiffly, reality a sharp slap in the face.
Fourth place, third place, it mattered little: A woman still did not come first. Either in Arabia or England.
“You think a wife merits greater importance in the scheme of a man’s life?” he asked lightly.
“Yes,” she retorted defiantly.
“So do I, Mrs. Petre.”
Elizabeth’s anger dissipated. A sudden image of a man’s member rearing red and hot while he trembled with passion flashed before her eyes.
“Do you have the entire book memorized, Lord Safyre?”
“Yes.”
She stared, surprised. “Why?”
A wry smile twisted his lips. “My father. He would not give me a woman until I learned how to please her.”
“Your father wanted you to learn how to please a woman . . . by learning not to trust one?”
He glanced down, reached out a long, brown finger to lightly caress the blue-veined porcelain cup. “My father wanted me to learn that a woman is capable of the same kind of sexual satisfaction as is a man. He also wanted me to learn that there are good women and that there are untrustworthy women”—expression hardening, he looked up—“just as there are good men and there are bad men.”
She tried to picture him as a golden-haired boy, poring over a manual of erotology, then practicing what he had learned on a beautiful blond-haired concubine.
“But you were only thirteen years old,” she blurted out.
“Would you keep your two sons boys forever, Mrs. Petre?”
Elizabeth froze. “I will not discuss my sons with you, Lord Safyre.”
The mockery was back in his face. “And you will not discuss your husband with me.”
“That is correct.”
“Then what will you discuss with me, Mrs. Petre?”
Sex.
Love.
A bonding of flesh that is more than sacrifice or duty.
“Do you agree that the Contagious Diseases Acts should be repealed?”
Dear Lord, that was not what she had intended upon asking him.
“No.”
Nor did his answer surprise her.
“Because you frequent that type of woman.”
“I do not pick up women off the streets, Mrs. Petre.” His voice was raw instead of ras
py, angry instead of seductive. “I am a man of means if not one of respectability. The women I bed will not be affected by a parliamentary act.”
She bit her lip, wanting to apologize but not even certain what it was that she should apologize for.
“Why did you agree to tutor me? You must know that I would not have gone to my husband.”
Dark lashes veiled his eyes. He resumed the idle caressing of the cup, his fingertips lazily stroking and soothing. “Why did you chose me to tutor you?”
“Because I needed your knowledge.”
He lifted his lashes. “Perhaps you have something that I need too.”
Elizabeth’s heart fluttered inside her chest. She gathered together her notes and stuffed them into her reticule. It was not necessary to consult the silver watch pinned to her bodice to know that it was time to leave. “I think this lesson is over.”
“I think you are correct,” he agreed, his expression inscrutable. “Some of the chapters in The Perfumed Garden consist of a few pages only. Therefore, tomorrow we will discuss chapters three, four, and five. I advise you to pay particular attention to Chapter Four. It is entitled ‘Relating to the Act of Generation.’ ”
Clutching her gloves and reticule, Elizabeth stood.
Polite manners decreed that he also stand.
He did not.
She looked down at his head, golden in the light. Then she stared at his fingers, dusky brown against the blue-veined porcelain.
Elizabeth remembered the span of his two hands. And wondered at his size.
She pivoted, almost fell over the chair.
“Mrs. Petre.”
Back stiffening, she waited for rule number three. No doubt it would be totally objectionable and humiliating.
“Ma’a e-salemma, taalibba.”
Her throat tightened. He claimed that the word was not an endearment, so why did it touch a place deep inside of her that desperately ached to be touched?
“Ma’a e-salemma, Lord Safyre.”
Chapter 6
Ramiel studied the four-year-old newspaper. It contained a grim photograph of Edward Petre, recently appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, and wife, Elizabeth, with two sons, Richard, age eleven, and Phillip, age seven.
A current newspaper contained a lone picture of Edward. He had short, dark hair worn with a side part. As was the fashion, he possessed a thick, droopy mustache. Women would consider him handsome, Ramiel thought dispassionately, while men would be impressed with his self-confidence.
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