The Lady's Tutor (52 page)

She did
not want to feel any more pain.
But it was there, waiting, like night waited for the day to end.

“You want
references,” Elizabeth said carefully, neutrally, “yet you all knew that Tommie
was going to hurt me.”

 “No, ma’am.
It was Mr. Petre who had Tommie follow you. It was Mrs. Walters who wanted him
to frighten you. So you would stay at home.”

And
endure. . .
what her
mother and her grandmother had endured.

What
crimes had Emma and the other servants committed that they would be put into a
correctional institution?

Did it
matter?

Elizabeth
did not know who was at fault anymore. Herself, for refusing to see what should
have been obvious. Her servants, for
being ex-criminals afraid of losing their employment. The
Bastard Sheikh, for not being what she had wanted him to be.

No one
was what they seemed.

“Very
well. Have them visit here on the morrow. I will give them references. You,
too, if you wish.”

Emma
curtsied. “Thank you, ma’am.”

Elizabeth
suddenly felt as if a great burden had been lifted off her shoulders. The
servants had not spied on her; at least, not the ones whom she had been on more
intimate terms with. They had even, in the abigail’s case, supported her lies.

“Emma,”
she said impulsively.

“Mrs.
Petre?”

“I am glad
that you found someone to care for.”

Emma
lowered her head. “Johnny ... he isn’t what you thought he was.”

“No.”
Johnny had certainly not been a footman.

“He was
hired to spy on Mr. Petre.”

The sooty
mist metamorphosed into full rain. Icy water stung Elizabeth’s face. “By Lord
Safyre,” she said flatly.

Emma
lifted her head, anxiously peered into Elizabeth’s face. “He busted up Mr.
Petre’s hand, ma’am.” Unbidden, an image of Edward’s bandaged hand resting
above a nest of golden blond pubic hair flashed through Elizabeth’s mind. “When
I told him who I thought had blown out your lamp . . . Well, he cares for you.
You were a good mistress. You deserve happiness.” Putting her hands up to
shield her bonnet, Emma darted down the stoop. A masculine arm swung the
carriage door wide for the maid to enter.

You
were a good abigail,
Elizabeth
thought. And a brave woman to choose love with a stranger.

What
does it take to make you feel?

I feel,
taalibba.

Ramiel had
hired a man to spy on her husband—a man who had ultimately saved her life. He
had provided the same safety measures for her sons at Eton.

So many
secrets.

I know
you hurt, Elizabeth. Let me make it better for you. Let me love you.

Elizabeth
turned her back on the past. The butler opened the rain-splashed door even
before the muffled thud of brass impacting brass was swallowed by the steady
downfall of dirty water.

She handed
him her dripping cloak and bonnet, black as had been those of Emma. “Where is
the countess, Anthony?”

“She is in
the sitting room.” The butler took Elizabeth’s gloves. “You should have taken
an umbrella, Mrs. Petre.”

Elizabeth
should have done many things. An umbrella was low on her list of priorities.

The
countess sat near an Adam fireplace at an escritoire, writing. Her face, bathed
by crackling heat, lit up when Elizabeth walked into the sitting room that was more
Western than Eastern, more feminine than masculine.

The older
woman had not once asked Elizabeth why she had left her husband. Or why
Elizabeth did not go to her own mother.

“Would you
help me seduce your son, Countess?”

A finely
arched eyebrow rose. “Why?”

Because
he had accepted Elizabeth for the woman she was instead of the girl that she had
been.

“Because
he does not deserve to be alone.”

And
neither did she.

Elizabeth
blinked at the radiance of the countess’s smile. Sometime later she faintly
protested, “Are you quite certain that this will please him?”

Body
glowing with Joseffa’s ministrations, Elizabeth donned a satin-lined black
velvet cloak with bell-shaped sleeves. It belonged to the countess and was four
inches too long. She was naked underneath it.

Stepping
up into the carriage that waited for her in the dreary darkness, she carefully
tucked the cloak about her lest the groom see more than what he expected to
see. When Lucy the maid allowed Elizabeth entrance into Ramiel’s Georgian home
and insisted upon taking her cloak, she almost ran back to the countess’s
carriage. A lady, no matter her intentions, did not visit a man dressed as she
was. Especially a man whom she had rejected so summarily and who could very
well have found a less cowardly lady to comfort him. But the groom had raced
back to the coach when Lucy opened the door; seconds later a creak of leather
and wood was accompanied by a “Get up, you nags!” and Elizabeth had nowhere to
go but forward.

“That is
quite all right, Lucy.” Elizabeth held the cloak against her body with both
hands. “Is Lord Safyre at home?”

“He’s in
the library, ma’am.”

“Then I
will announce myself.”

“Very
well, ma’am.”

It
was now or never.

“Lucy.”

“Ma’am?”

“Please
leave two bottles of champagne outside the library door.”

Lucy
fought to keep a knowing smile from spreading over her face, but failed. “Very
good, ma’am.”

Ramiel’s
servants were as knowledgeable as had been the Petre servants. Velvet cloak
trailing behind her, Elizabeth walked down the hallway that was paneled with
mahogany wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl. And knew that she had come home.

She
knocked softly, heart pounding. With desire. With fear. Consciously, she may
have refused to think about Ramiel, but her dreams had been full of him and the
ecstasy they had shared. Her body had always accepted him. If only—

A muffled
voice bade her enter.

Taking her
future into her hands, she opened the door. Before he could order her out, she
closed it behind her and leaned against the solid wood.

Ramiel sat
at his desk; a book lay open before him. A fire flickered and flamed in the
mahogany fireplace while rain steadily pattered against the bay windows. Light
from the gas lamp on his desk touched his blond hair with gold, his dark face
with shadow.

Turquoise
eyes flicked over her cloak, her damp hair that was loosely caught up in a bun.
There was no welcome in his gaze. Or desire.

“What are
you doing here?”

The old
doubts reared their ugly presence.
What was she doing here?
To appease
her passions, because once having experienced sexual satisfaction, she could
not forgo it, like an addict craving opium?

Stiffening
her spine, she pushed away from the support of the door. “I came here to give
you pleasure.”

An ugly
smile curled his lips. “Should you not first ask what my preferences are?”

Tears
stung her eyes. She wanted to weep for the pain she had caused him, but now was
not the time for tears. “I cannot change the past.”

He tilted
his head back, as if the sight of her were more than he could bear. “I cannot
change the past either.”
But he wanted to.

A pulse
throbbed at the base of his throat, or perhaps it was the flicker of gaslight.

“You never
told me what
bahebbik
means.”

Dark
shadows slashed his cheeks—his eyelashes. “You didn’t stay.”

No. He had
asked her to come home with him even after she had thrown unforgivably cruel accusations
at him, and she had rejected him. Like Lord Inchcape. Like Rebecca Walters.
It
was not supposed to be like this.

Hands
trembling, she released the buttons on the cloak. Warm silk slithered down her
back, her shoulders, her arms, leaving a trail of goose bumps in its wake.
Velvet puddled around her feet. And still he would not look at her.

A spark of
anger warmed her skin. “I cannot seduce you if you will not look at me.”

Ramiel
lowered his head and opened his eyes. Elizabeth remembered the marble clock
ticking on the mantel in Rebecca’s house. It had been far less frightening
facing her mother than it was now, standing naked in front of this man who had
once trembled with passion for her but who now stared at her as if she were a
stranger. Or a horse to be sold at auction.

Cold,
relentless eyes weighed the heaviness of her breasts, judged the fullness of
her hips, fastened onto her pubes, as hairless as the day she had been born—the
manner, the countess had assured her, in which all Arab women greeted their
men.

His
turquoise eyes snapped upward. “What if I do not want to be seduced?”

Elizabeth
faced the very real possibility of his rejection and knew that she would not
turn back. She had the knowledge and she had the courage—she hoped.

Reaching
up—his gaze flickered to her armpits, hairless as was her pubes—she released
the pins that loosely secured her bun, dropped them to the Oriental carpet.
Warm, heavy hair cascaded down her back, familiar as her role of seductress was
not. “Then I will make you want to be seduced,” she promised with a confidence
she was far from feeling.

Acutely conscious
of the sway of her breasts and the friction of her thighs pressing in on lips
that were not meant to be so boldly exposed on an Englishwoman, she kicked off
her slippers and closed the distance between them. Stepping around the massive
mahogany desk, she knelt on the floor, hid a grimace. The carpet was cold and
rough on bare knees.

Ramiel
swiveled the chair around, legs slightly spread, eyes veiled. His hands rested
on the arms of the chair, fingers curved to fit the wood instead of her body.
One side of his face was in shadow, the other cast in flickering gaslight. “Are
you not curious, Elizabeth? Do you not want to know the difference between a
man and a woman?”

He was
trying to drive her away
—
as
she had driven him away two weeks before.

“Would you
tell me if I did?”

Darkness
glimmered in his turquoise eyes. “The Uranian fellowship is no longer a part of
the Eton curriculum.”

“You said
you would keep the secret.”

That ugly
smile curled his lips again. “And so I did. Richard is much like you. He does
not run from the truth. He told the dean of his experience.”

“But he
told you first.” Things he had not told Elizabeth, any more than he had told
her about informing the dean of the fellowship. Ramiel, she realized, was the “someone”
who had made it “all right” for her son.

His lips
tightened in harsh betrayal. “He was not supposed to tell you.”

“He did
not. You did.”

“I don’t
want your gratitude,” he grated.

“I know
what you want, Ramiel.”
He wanted what she wanted.
“And I am going to
give it to you.”

Ramiel
could not hide the bulge in his black trousers. “What do you think I want,
Elizabeth?”

What
could a woman like her possibly know about the wants of a man like him?
is what he really said.

Elizabeth
took a deep breath, placed her hands on his thighs. His muscles underneath the
broadcloth were rock hard—he was not as removed as he pretended to be. “I think
. .. that you want me to unfasten your trousers and take your life into my
hands.”

The
muscles underneath her hands jerked, recollection instantaneous. “The second
lesson.”

“The
second lesson,” she agreed. And wrestled with his buttons.

It was not
at all a dignified struggle—undressing a man who sat as still as a statue was
as difficult as dressing a squirming three-year-old boy—but the rewards . . .
Dark blond hair filled the widening vent.

Breath
bated, she reached inside his trousers and delicately pulled out the thick
stalk of living, pulsing flesh. He was hard and hot and filled both her hands.
She did not have to pump his manhood to coax the sensitive crown out from the
hood of the foreskin.

Elizabeth
studied him from underneath her eyelids. A drop of moisture pearled the tip of
the engorged purple head.

“I think
you want me to take you into my mouth and lick and suckle you like a nipple.”
She lifted her eyelids, snared his gaze. “Like you did my clitoris.”

The
fifth lesson.

Ramiel’s
intake of breath filled the silence. An ember popped in the fireplace. His
manhood, lovingly cupped in her hands, flexed.