Robin Schone

by The Lady's Tutor

  “You said the children were for me, but that is not true, is it, Edward? They were for you, so that you could gain popularity with the voters.”

  “The middle class prefers a candidate who has a family.”

  He had come to her bed to seed the grounds for his political career.

  “How many children does it take to please your voters?”

  He walked into her trap. “One will suffice.”

  Elizabeth’s voice in the dark was unnaturally calm. “The last time you came to my bed was when Richard was ill with diphtheria.”

  “The doctor said he was dying.”

  And he had been. Her four-year-old baby had burned with fever. But Elizabeth had refused to let him go. She had bathed him with toilet water and held him and sang to him until she fell into an exhausted stupor.

  Edward had carried her downstairs to her bed and joined her there. At the time, she had thought he made love to her to comfort her.

  “So you gave me another child to replace Richard. Just in case the doctor proved to be right and you lost favor with your voters.”

  “But Richard lived and I gave you Phillip, a bonus, if you like.” His voice in the darkness was so reasonable, the voice he used when answering a dissenter’s questions after a speech. “You have two sons, Elizabeth. No respectable woman could ask for more.”

  “What do you have, Edward?” Elizabeth asked in a brittle voice.

  “I will be prime minister.”

  While she continued living a life that was no life at all, wanting the love of a man.

  Raw rage pushed aside the hurt. “Where do you spend your nights, Edward, when you aren’t at home? Who is the woman you have been seen with?”

  “I have told you there is no woman. Politics is demanding. Your father has twice been prime minister now. I will do whatever I have to do to succeed him.”

  Anything but bed her.

  Elizabeth stared at the dull blackness of Edward’s hair and mustache, all that was visible against the white pillow.

  “This whining of yours is neither complimentary to you or pleasant for me. I will turn onto my side now so that you will not further humiliate yourself by displaying your naked body to me when you leave my bedroom. You have a busy day today; I expect you to attend the charity auction this evening and later the ball.”

  Suiting action to words, Edward rolled onto his side, away from her.

  Elizabeth could no longer feel the cold February air pressing around her. “I will not be a pawn, Edward.”

  “You already are, Elizabeth.”

  Tears burned the backs of her eyes. Defeat was an ugly emotion. It was far worse than the frustration she had lived with for the past sixteen years.

  She clumsily slid off the bed; her ankle twisted, a sharp, welcoming pain. One by one she picked up her discarded clothes, scooped up the reticule from the chest of drawers. The connecting door closed behind her with a final click.

  Inside her bedroom the curtains were closed, blocking out a world that rejected a woman’s need for sexual satisfaction.

  Great udder breasts.

  How dare he! How dare any person so humiliate another!

  Throwing the bundle of clothes as far and as hard as she could, she turned up the gas lamp by her bed. Standing naked in front of the cheval mirror, she studied herself with eyes unclouded by wishful fantasies or lustful desires. Ruthlessly, she appraised the heavy weight of her full breasts and the faint stretch marks that marred her rounded hips.

  A womanly figure, the Bastard Sheikh had said. Be proud of your body, he had added.

  The Perfumed Garden praised breasts and hips on a woman.

  What things can a man do with a full-breasted woman that he cannot do with a less generously endowed one?

  He can position his manhood between her breasts and press them together . . . so that he is buried between them . . . as if they were a vulva.

  Elizabeth threw her head back, eyes squeezed shut. Even as she trembled with rage and pain she remembered the feel of the artificial phallus and the mesmerizing pull of turquoise eyes.

  She had wanted him.

  A man with his experience would know that.

  The Bastard Sheikh was probably laughing at her. As was her husband.

  Dear God, Edward had turned onto his side away from her lest he get another glimpse of her “womanly” figure.

  Springing into action, she twirled around, breasts jiggling, and leapt toward the scattered clothes. She dug her reticule out from underneath the horsehair-stuffed bustle.

  The book lied. The Bastard Sheikh lied. There was no satisfaction for a thirty-three-year-old woman who showed the first strands of silver in her hair and the effects of two children on her body.

  Slamming open the roll-back top of her desk, she grabbed pen, ink, and paper.

  Her writing was scrawled as opposed to the neat, precise lines that her governess had forced her to practice all during her childhood. As the notes she had left on the Bastard Sheikh’s desk had no doubt been scrawled, forty ways to love. Damn all of them.

  Ramiel reread the note.

  Thank you for the loan of your book. While interesting, it has not proved to be practical.

  Best regards

  The words that Elizabeth had spoken only hours earlier flooded his head, poignant words, pain-filled words. I was seventeen years old and I was going to have a baby and I wanted to see what had made me that way. But the leaf would not budge.

  Ramiel felt like a fist squeezed his heart.

  Dust motes danced in the watery noonday sunlight. He had slept for four hours, dreaming of Elizabeth’s mouth, her breasts, her naked need.

  He crumpled up the note.

  Muhamed waited in the doorway of the bedroom. He was not disturbed at the sight of Ramiel’s nudity. “It is for the best, El Ibn.”

  Ramiel’s eyes glittered. “Do you read my correspondence, Muhamed?”

  The Cornishman’s turbaned head snapped back. “You know I do not.”

  “Then how the bloody hell do you know what’s in it?” Ramiel lashed out.

  “The book, El Ibn. She has returned the book.”

  Ramiel stared at the plainly wrapped package in Muhamed’s hands.

  The Perfumed Garden of the Sheikh Nefzaoui. An Arabic celebration of love and folly, sex and humanity, the absurd and the sacred.

  “How do you know what book she sent?”

  “Because I know, El Ibn. You hunger for a woman to take the Arab in you. The paper lying on your desk Friday morning contained information from the sheikh’s book. The handwriting was not yours.”

  Conflicting emotions slashed at Ramiel’s gut. Anger, that Muhamed had read words that only Ramiel should have seen. Pain, that Elizabeth thought so little of him that she terminated their lessons with a note rather than face-to-face.

  Why had she returned the book?

  He uncrumpled the ball of paper he had reduced her note to.

  It smelled faintly of her, the natural sweetness of a woman’s flesh; overriding it was the fresh scent of ink and vellum. The words ran together, as if she had written with great speed.

  Or under great duress.

  Ramiel reread the last part of her note: While interesting, it has not proved to be practical. And realized what he had inadvertently pushed her into doing.

  She had tried to appease the passion he had deliberately aroused in her by seducing her husband.

  What had she done to entice Edward Petre? Had she done to him the things that Ramiel wanted her to do to him? Had she taken him into her hands and pumped and squeezed him? Had she taken him into her mouth?

  Perhaps Edward would have liked that, Ramiel thought on a surge of jealousy. With his eyes closed, Elizabeth’s mouth would feel no different from the mouth of a man.

  Ela’na. Damn. Elizabeth was inexperienced. Uncertain. Vulnerable. She would not understand that it was her sex and not her body that failed to please her husband.

  The fist wrapped aro
und Ramiel’s heart convulsively clenched. She had touched him . . . With her words, her passion, her curiosity, her honesty, her saliva-slick finger. How could she go to another man?

  What had Edward Petre done to her that she would so abruptly end their lessons?

  Ramiel snared Muhamed’s gaze. “Where is Petre now?”

  “At the Queen’s Hall.”

  “Why?”

  “There is an auction for a charity.”

  “Where will he be tonight?”

  “The auction will be followed by a ball.”

  And where Edward Petre politicked . . . Elizabeth would follow.

  Ramiel may have lost the right to be loved nine years ago, but he would not lose Elizabeth. Women begged him to bed them in the dark of night and spurned him in the light of day and it had not mattered until she had shown him that an Englishwoman needed an Arab bastard for more than raw sex.

  If she truly desired to terminate their relationship, she would do it to his face. Tonight.

  And then he would convince her otherwise.

  Chapter 13

  Blazing chandeliers spotlighted a sea of black tails and jewel-colored gowns. Silk, tulle, and velvet fabrics wafted benzene, heavy perfume, and unwashed musk. Elizabeth swayed, light-headed from lack of oxygen and sleep.

  “As you are aware, the benefits of this auction will feed and clothe homeless women and children whose brave, heroic husbands and sons lost their lives in Africa, fighting to advance the freedom of our great Commonwealth.”

  An enthusiastic round of applause filled the prime minister’s strategic pause. Elizabeth concentrated on the man standing on the dais in front of the musicians, who patiently waited with their instruments, instead of the suffocating mass of bodies pressing in and around her.

  Andrew Walters’s hair was more silver than auburn; his hazel eyes were bright with the charm he never failed to exercise in front of the public. She had only to look at him and see what she herself would look like in twenty-seven years.

  With practiced ease he held small, slender hands up for silence. “In reward for your charitable contributions we have arranged a buffet and dancing. But first, let me digress for a moment. As you know, my daughter has presented me with two fine grandsons—future prime ministers.”

  Masculine guffaws and feminine titters rippled around Elizabeth.

  “Now, now, no laughter. They are young now, but they will grow into their positions. And that, of course, brings me to my son-in-law. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you your next prime minister, Edward Petre, Chancellor of the Exchequer!”

  The applause was thunderous. Edward lightly jumped up onto the dais beside Andrew and threw both arms up into the air.

  Elizabeth had never seen him so handsome. His pale face was flushed; his eyes glowed. It was as if the events of the morning had never happened.

  “My father-in-law is precipitate. He will be prime minister for many more years yet. However, it is my greatest ambition to follow in his footsteps. When the time comes, God willing, I only hope I will be worthy of being your prime minister.”

  More applause, Edward skillfully leading it, building it, quieting it.

  “And now I would like to thank the two women in my life. One gave me my wife and the other gave me two sons, whom I will train to follow in my footsteps as Andrew Walters has trained me to follow in his. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mrs. Rebecca Walters, my mother-in-law, and Mrs. Elizabeth Petre, my wife. Without their hard work and devotion, the auction today and the forthcoming dance would not be possible!”

  Elizabeth’s stomach churned. Edward was a liar and a hypocrite—he cared nothing for his two sons. She could not do it. He could not expect her to get up there and speak on his behalf after what he had said to her.

  But in the end she had no choice. Well-meaning hands pushed her forward. Rebecca stepped up to Andrew’s left; Elizabeth reluctantly stepped up between Andrew and Edward, every word, every move, masterminded to gain political support.

  Rebecca delivered her speech, the meaning the same with the words slightly altered for greater spontaneity, that her greatest pleasure was derived from being her husband’s helpmate and that she looked forward to many more years of community service. Polite applause obligingly followed.

  Elizabeth licked lips suddenly more dry than rice powder and glanced down at the hundred or so pairs of eyes expectantly staring up at her. Every line she had rehearsed faded from her memory. She laughed, a brittle, nervous laugh that could not be mistaken for anything but what it was. “Well . . . my family is a difficult act to follow.”

  A few guffaws, then a few titters.

  “I am not certain that my two sons are aware of their appointed status as future prime ministers, but I will certainly tell them. Perhaps the dean will be more lenient when next they do poorly on an exam, knowing that he is harboring England’s future.”

  More guffaws, even more titters, scattered applause. Elizabeth could feel warning waves of disapproval emanating from her father and her husband. Or perhaps it was heat emanating from the blazing chandeliers.

  She should say that she thought Edward will make a wonderful prime minister when the time came and that it was her greatest pleasure being his helpmate. She could not. “Thank you for your support. And thank you for your generous contributions.”

  Edward’s fingers, covered in a white silk glove, closed painfully around Elizabeth’s right hand. Her father’s fingers, equally cold through his glove, trapped her left hand. Her mother’s right hand, she knew from experience rather than from sight, would be clasped in Andrew’s left hand, a family united in the eyes of the voting public. Elizabeth and Rebecca curtsied; Edward and Andrew bowed.

  She wondered what the voters would say if they knew their trusted Chancellor of the Exchequer had cold-bloodedly begat a family for their benefit. She wondered if her parents had begat her for the same reason. And did not doubt for one second that they had done so.

  Straightening, she realized this was the first time she had curtsied to a crowd and not feared she would trip on the hem of her gown. The small sense of satisfaction that the thought gave her froze beneath the steady regard of turquoise eyes.

  Panic thudded to life inside her chest. Panic . . . and the memory of a hard leather phallus cupped in strong, tanned fingers.

  Elizabeth did what she had always feared she would do, held off balance with either hand clasped: She stumbled. Immediately, the chain of hands snapped; the prime minister stepped down the dais to shake hands with the applauding voters while Edward unobtrusively righted Elizabeth.

  Her clumsiness had been so gracefully camouflaged that the whole thing might have been deliberately choreographed. No one knew that she had stumbled save for her father, her husband . . . and the Bastard Sheikh.

  “Are you all right, Elizabeth?” Edward’s voice was warmly solicitous; his brown eyes were the color of the Thames River frozen mid-current.

  Elizabeth stepped away from him. “Fine, thank you, Edward. Please do not let me keep you from your voters.”

  He smiled. “I won’t.”

  The musicians behind her restlessly shuffled; they were eager to start the music and get the evening over with. So was Elizabeth. Holding the hem of her gown out of danger’s way, she stepped off the small wooden platform.

  The crowd of middle-class voters surged away from the dais. The Bastard Sheikh was nowhere to be seen.

  Had she imagined him?

  “I expected better from you, Elizabeth.”

  The sound of a tuning violin sliced across her bare shoulders. Elizabeth whirled around.

  The Bastard Sheikh stood so close, her breasts brushed against the lapels of his black dress jacket.

  Heat raced through her blood. “What are you doing here?”

  Hot breath fanned her upturned face. The dark face above hers was shuttered, the gold of his hair a shining halo. “I came for you.”

  Elizabeth’s breath caught in her chest. This mornin
g he had said that he had not had a woman in six days.

  For a second he sounded as if—

  Nonsense. Her own husband did not want her.

  “I take it you received my package. If I damaged the book in any way, I will be happy to reimburse you.”

  The turquoise eyes were as hard as the stone they took their color from. “What did you do to your husband?”

  A scale of piano keys introduced a popular waltz. A tide of heat surged behind her, men and women taking their positions on the dance floor.

  He could not know what had happened between her and Edward. No one knew of her humiliation save for her . . . and her husband.

  Her lips were cold and stiff. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “You left my home in heat. And you went to your husband to satisfy your desire. How far did you go before he turned you away?”

  Udders. Heat.

  Edward likened her to a cow, and the Bastard Sheikh talked of her passion as if she were a dog.

  That morning with her husband had been a tragic farce. This was a nightmare. Not only did the Bastard Sheikh realize how strong had been her passion when she handled the artificial phallus, but he knew that her husband had rejected her because of that passion.

  She smiled as if they talked about the auction, the dance, the music, anything but the animal he had compared her to and which Edward had made her feel. “I do not know what you are talking about, Lord Safyre. If you will excuse me, I really must see if the buffet needs to be replenished.”

  She turned away, still smiling.

  He turned with her. “Then I will accompany you. And you will tell me which of the things I taught you that you tried out on your husband.”

  Elizabeth kept walking, smiling at a large contributor there, making certain not to discriminate against the less wealthy couple who could not afford large donations.

  “Did you kiss him?”

  “Excuse me,” she murmured as she pressed through an elderly couple who smelled of mothballs.

  “Did you take his tongue inside your mouth?”

  She wondered how much longer she could continue smiling.