Andrew and Edward always took the Petre carriage.
A spattering of laughter came from the church steps. She did not have to see or hear Andrew and Edward to know that they were charming the congregation. That, too, occurred every Sunday.
Knowing her role by rote, Elizabeth turned and mingled with the lingering church members. Andrew and Edward would not leave their public until there was no public to leave.
Later, in the carriage, Rebecca surprised Elizabeth by keeping up a light stream of gossip. And then, “Are you seeing a doctor, Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth turned her face to the window and watched the passing buildings. “No. Why should I?”
“You have not been yourself lately. Perhaps you need a tonic.”
Perhaps she just needed to be loved.
“Why did you never have more children, Mother?” she asked impulsively.
Silence greeted her question. Elizabeth turned away from the window.
Rebecca gripped her Bible. “I could not have any more children.”
Elizabeth felt a pang of remorse. “I’m sorry.”
“My mother, your grandmother, had one child, too. You are very fortunate in your two sons.”
Elizabeth had never known her grandmother; she had died years before Elizabeth was born.
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Rebecca if she thought Elizabeth was fortunate because she had two children as opposed to one, or if she was fortunate because her children were sons as opposed to daughters. Then it occurred to her that perhaps Rebecca’s mother might have preferred a son to a daughter. Unloved herself, perhaps Rebecca could not love her own daughter.
“Yes, I am,” Elizabeth said quietly.
The carriage jerked to a stop.
“I will see you on Tuesday, daughter. I expect you to be punctual.”
Elizabeth tamped down a spark of anger. “I expect I will be.”
A footman—the new footman, Elizabeth noted—wrenched open the coach door.
“Good day, Elizabeth.”
“Good day, Mother.”
Standing, back stooped, she held out her hand for the footman to help her down.
He stood rigidly at attention beside the coach, as if Elizabeth were a gunnery sergeant and he a foot soldier. She half expected him to salute.
A smile tugging at her lips, she stuck a foot out, down, found the step. No sooner had she attained the sidewalk than the carriage door closed smartly behind her.
“Thank you, Johnny.”
“My pleasure, ma’am.”
“Johnny . . .”
He continued staring straight ahead. “Ma’am?”
She had thought to instruct him on the proper behavior of a footman. She thought better of it. It was a kind thing he was doing, working in his cousin’s stead while Freddie took care of his mother.
“You have never before been a footman?”
“No, ma’am.”
“You are doing a fine job.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Elizabeth turned and walked up the two steps to the door of the town house. Sighing, she reached out to open the door herself.
Instantly, a white-gloved hand was there before hers. The heat of Johnny’s body caged her shoulder.
“You did a brave thing, ma’am, walking the horses in the fog.” Leaning forward, he pushed the front door open.
Suddenly, the sun was a little brighter. “Thank you, Johnny.”
Beadles waited in the foyer; he wrung his hands. “Mrs. Petre! Are you not well? Shall I ring up the doctor?”
The smile faded from her face. So much concern . . . from everyone but her husband.
“No, Beadles. I am not lunching with my mother because of correspondence I need to take care of. Please send up Emma.”
But once Elizabeth had changed clothing—there was nothing to do. She wrote letters to her sons. She thumbed through a book of poetry—English poetry. There was not a vulva or a meritorious member to be found.
Kisses, yes, but no tongues; sighs, but no climaxes; love, but no coition. Flower petals fell off in symbolical death, but nary a one of them unfurled to disclose a hidden bud.
A woman in Arabia . . . has the right to seek divorce if her husband will not satisfy her.
She threw the book at the wall.
A soft knock followed the explosive whop.
“Mrs. Petre.” The knock was repeated more insistently. “Mrs. Petre.”
Smoothing her hair, Elizabeth opened her bedroom door. “Yes, Beadles?”
“You have a caller, madam.” Bowing, Beadles extended a small silver tray.
A card lay on it. The right-hand corner was bent, signifying whoever it was waited to be received.
Curious, Elizabeth picked it up. Countess Devington was printed in dark, ornate scroll.
The Bastard Sheikh’s mother.
Her head jerked up. “I am not receiving callers, Beadles.”
“Very well, madam.”
Elizabeth closed the door and leaned against the wood. How dare she call uninvited. She had abandoned her son at an age when he most needed a mother’s love.
The wood between her shoulders vibrated.
Elizabeth’s heart skipped a beat. Surely the countess would not be so brazen as to—
“Mrs. Petre.”
Beadles.
She cautiously opened the door.
Beadles bowed again; his dignified demeanor was marred by the labored sound of his breathing from climbing the stairs twice in such rapid succession. A folded piece of paper lay on the silver tray. “The countess bade me give this note to you, madam.”
The countess’s handwriting was bold, the message plain.
You may have the pleasure of my company now or the pleasure of my son’s company later.
Elizabeth’s lips sealed in a tight line. She knew. So much for siba. Elizabeth should be incapable of feeling any more pain from a man’s betrayal: She wasn’t.
“Please show the countess to the drawing room, Beadles. Have Cook prepare a tray.”
Countess Devington stood in front of the white marble fireplace in the drawing room, warming herself. She wore an elegant dark crimson day dress and a smart black velvet hat jauntily perched on her golden blond head.
Gray eyes snagged Elizabeth’s in the mirror above the mantel. “I see by your expression that you realize I am aware of your liaison with my son.”
Elizabeth felt all the blood drain from her head. The countess was as blunt as was the Bastard Sheikh. “Yes.”
The countess turned in a graceful swirl. Her gray eyes warmed with understanding. “Please do not be angry with Ramiel. It was Muhamed who told me, not my son.”
“There was no need for this visit, Countess Devington. My so-called liaison with your son is over,” Elizabeth said frigidly.
The countess tilted her head to one side so that her hat sat perfectly straight. “You do not understand why I sent Ramiel to Arabia to be with his father.”
A tide of hot mortification flooded Elizabeth’s face. “That is none of my concern, surely.”
The countess peeled off slender tan gloves. “Elizabeth—I may call you by your first name, may I not?—my parents sent me to a finishing school in Italy when I was sixteen. I was abducted one day when I wandered away from a class tour. My abductor put me aboard a ship that was filled with other blond women—blond women are highly sought after in Arabia, you see. In Turkey we were put on a slave block and stripped naked so that men could see us and even examine us, as a horse is examined before purchase. One by one we were sold. The Turk who bought me raped me brutally. But I was fortunate. Because the Turk got tired of raping me and sold me to a Syrian trader.”
Elizabeth stared, speechless.
“The Syrian taught me how to survive in a country where women are worth less than a good horse. Eventually, he sold me to a young sheikh. I learned to love that sheikh with all my heart, and I took from him the thing that an Arab values most—I took his son. When Ramiel
turned twelve, I could no longer deprive either him or his father of each other’s company. It was not out of convenience that I sent my son away, but out of love.”
“But—his father gave him a harem when he was thirteen!” Elizabeth blurted out.
“It is certainly not an English tradition, but I assure you, in the court of Safyre it is what fathers do for their sons.”
“And yet you sent him there, knowing the type of education he would receive.”
“As you deliberately sought out my son, knowing the type of education he had received.”
Elizabeth’s chin shot up. Her mouth opened to object; instead, she acknowledged the truth. “Yes.”
“I cannot cast stones, Elizabeth, because I would not trade one single moment I spent with my sheikh for a lifetime of English virtue. I am very glad that Ramiel was spared the hypocrisy of becoming a man in a country that denigrates one of the true pleasures of life. Now that we have that out in the open, may I sit down, please?”
Elizabeth should be shocked. She should be outraged. Instead, she wondered what it would be like to be loved as the countess had so obviously loved. Openly. Wholly.
She wondered what it would be like to be able to accept one’s sexuality without guilt.
“I am sorry for your misfortunes, Countess Devington,” Elizabeth said quietly. “Please sit down.”
A blinding smile lit the countess’s face.
Elizabeth blinked.
The countess was a beautiful woman, but it was a mature beauty. That smile made her look as if she were sixteen again, young and innocent. It did not belong to a woman who had been brutally raped and sold into slavery any more than it belonged to a woman who by her own admission had given herself to a man outside wedlock and borne his illegitimate son.
She sat across from Elizabeth with a sigh of silk and a whiff of tantalizing perfume—Elizabeth had never smelled anything like it. It smelled as if an orange had drowned in a bowl of vanilla.
The countess confided with ease, “Ramiel would not be happy if he knew that I was here.”
“Then I am afraid I do not understand,” Elizabeth said carefully, not wanting to like this woman but finding that she did. “You said that if I did not see you today, your son would call later.”
“You threatened to revoke Ramiel’s citizenship if Muhamed did not let you into his house.”
“I have told your son I never intended such an action,” Elizabeth disclaimed stiffly.
“Nor did I intend to threaten you with my son.”
Hazel and gray eyes locked unflinchingly. “I made a mistake, Countess Devington. I am sorry for it. I never intended to cause your son harm. I do not know what Muhamed told you, but I can assure you that our association is over.”
The gray eyes darkened. “Perhaps you will best understand Muhamed’s position when I tell you that he, too, had been sold to the Syrian trader. He was a very handsome boy who had been abused by his former owner. I am not at liberty to disclose exactly what had been done to him, but suffice it to say that perhaps Muhamed has his reasons for disliking women. If the Syrian trader and I had not nursed him back to health, he would have died like so many European boys sold into slavery do. Upon gaining my freedom, I returned to England; Muhamed chose to stay. When I sent Ramiel to his father, Muhamed watched out for him. Try to remember that Ramiel is the son that Muhamed never had and perhaps you will better understand his position.”
Muhamed—European! The Bastard Sheikh had deliberately allowed Elizabeth to assume differently.
“It is not up to me to understand your son’s servants, Countess Devington.”
“You think I am interfering.”
The countess was full of surprises. “Yes.”
“You have not yet been to my son’s bed.”
Elizabeth was mortified. “Of course not.”
“But you would like to.”
“Countess Devington, I am a married woman—”
“It is rumored among certain circles that your husband takes a mistress because you are a cold, frigid wife who cares more about advancing his career than about warming his bed.”
The blatant unfairness of such a statement took Elizabeth’s breath away. She could only stare and hope that the pain that ripped through her body did not show on her face.
“What exactly is the purpose of this visit, Countess Devington?”
The countess smiled sympathetically. “Rumors are cruel.”
Pain gave way to fury. “That rumor is totally unjustified! I went to your son to learn how to give my husband pleasure—”
Her teeth snapped together.
An emotion that Elizabeth could not define sparkled in the countess’s gray eyes. “You went to my son to get him to teach you how to give a man pleasure?”
She had not backed down in front of the Bastard Sheikh; she would not back down in front of his mother. “Yes.”
“And did he . . . teach you this art?”
Bleakness rolled over Elizabeth in cold gray waves. “Perhaps some women are not meant to give a man pleasure,” she said evenly. “Perhaps they are meant to be companions and mothers instead of lovers.”
Warm understanding filled the countess’s gray eyes, as if she knew that her son’s tutelage had failed to elicit the desired results. Elizabeth wondered if everyone in London knew that Edward had rejected her.
Common sense immediately asserted itself.
According to the countess, everyone in London thought that she was a frigid bitch who would rather campaign until her throat was hoarse and her eyes burned from lack of sleep than offer her body in a loving embrace.
A short knock interrupted Elizabeth’s bleak thoughts; the drawing room door swung open. Beadles wheeled in the tea cart.
“Thank you, Beadles. That will be all.”
“Very good, madam.”
Elizabeth resolutely poured tea. “Cream, Countess Devington?”
“Lemon will be fine, thank you.”
“Biscuits?”
“Please.”
Elizabeth dutifully passed the platter. Long white fingers made a healthy selection.
The countess must be one of those women who could eat biscuits all day long and not gain a pound, Elizabeth thought resentfully. “You still did not tell me why you are here.”
“Because I wanted to learn more about the woman who blackmailed my son.”
Elizabeth’s chin jutted up in denial.
“And who then had the kindness to dance with him.”
She cringed, remembering Lord Inchcape’s rudeness. “It was not a kindness, Countess Devington. It was an honor.”
“Many disagree with you.”
“That is their opinion.”
Little finger crooked, the countess brought the rose-patterned china cup to her lips and delicately sipped. She lowered the cup to the saucer. “I think you underestimate Ramiel’s teaching abilities as well as your own natural talents. But that is between you and my son. Now, tell me about yourself. I have read so much about you in the newspapers.”
Elizabeth felt like Alice, a character in one of Phillip’s favorite storybooks. Only it was not the Mad Hatter who took tea with her, it was the Bastard Sheikh’s mother.
Ramiel’s name was not mentioned again. Elizabeth did not know if she was relieved or disappointed. By the time they drank three cups of tea and devoured the platter of biscuits, Elizabeth felt as if she had known the countess all her life. When the countess pulled on her gloves, Elizabeth was genuinely sorry to see her leave.
Impulsively she offered, “Come visit again, please. I have enjoyed our time together so much.”
The countess smiled, that lovely warm smile of hers that embraced the good and the bad, the innocent and the forbidden. “I will. But in return you must promise to come take tea with me.”
Reality was a harsh intrusion. “I cannot do that.”
“Life is a trial of decisions, Elizabeth. You cannot be ruled by the opinions of others.”
&nb
sp; “I am quite capable of making my own decisions,” Elizabeth stiffly protested. “I simply do not think it would be wise to chance meeting your son.”
The countess sighed, as if she were disappointed by Elizabeth’s answer. “You are so young, Elizabeth.”
“I am thirty-three years old, madam.” A woman in her prime. “I assure you I am not young.”
“I am fifty-seven years old; I assure you, to me you are young. How old were you when you married?”
“Seventeen.”
“So you know nothing of men.”
“I will remind you, Countess, that my husband, in addition to being the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is a man.”
The countess nodded. “So Muhamed is wrong,” she murmured.
“About what?”
The countess’s smile was kind. “If you ever need anyone, Elizabeth, even if it is just to talk, my door will always be open to you.”
“I had tea with Elizabeth Petre, Ramiel.”
Ramiel abruptly focused on his mother. “Did Mrs. Petre invite you, Ummee?”
“No.”
“Then you invited yourself.” Ramiel’s voice was flat; it did not tolerate interference. “Why?”
The countess was not deterred by his abruptness. “You asked me to take you to Isabelle’s ball and gain an introduction for you to the wife of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Of course I was curious about her. Rightfully so, as it happens. Elizabeth told me that she came to you and asked you to teach her how to give her husband pleasure.”
“Ela’na!” Ramiel swore.
The tips of his ears burned. He did not know what embarrassed him the more, that his mother had knowledge of his position as Elizabeth’s tutor or that he was still capable of being embarrassed—twice now in nearly as many days.
The countess raised her eyebrows; her gray eyes sparkled with mischievous laughter. “It is nice to know that I can still surprise you, Ramiel.”
“Then you were in good company; Elizabeth, too, is full of surprises,” he said dryly.
“She does not know.”
Ramiel did not pretend to misunderstand. “No.”
“And you cannot tell her.”
“No.”
“She will be hurt.”
Yes, Elizabeth would be hurt. By so many things.
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