The Lady's Tutor (27 page)

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.”

“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.

“She
tried to seduce her husband.”

“Allah akbar,
Mother!”
Ramiel fought to contain his jealousy, that Elizabeth would confide in his
mother but not him. “Did she tell you everything over a cup of English tea?”

“She did not have to. I asked her if you had been successful as a
teacher. She said that perhaps some women were meant to be companions and
mothers as opposed to lovers.”

Ramiel grimly stared at the red and yellow silk pillows piled high
on the built-in seat underneath the drawing room windows. Dusky night streaked
the gray sky.

He remembered the feel of Elizabeth’s waist beneath his hand at
the charity ball, her flesh cruelly constrained by a corset. He remembered her
nipples stabbing her gray velvet dress as she held the artificial phallus in
her hand.

He remembered her words,
He does not want me so you should be
satisfied.

“She’s wrong,” he murmured, not even aware that he spoke out loud.

“I agree that Elizabeth Petre is not meant to be merely a
companion and a mother. I am still not certain about some women.”

“I
will not let him hurt her.”

“Spoken
like the son of a sheikh.”

Ramiel’s
head snapped back. “You mean spoken like the Bastard Sheikh.”

“You
are a good man,
ibnee.
”

The
countess’s gray eyes were too penetrating. Ramiel sometimes thought that he
fought a useless battle, protecting her from the truth. At times like this he
felt she already knew.

“How was Elizabeth?” He leapt up from the plush velvet divan.
Restlessly, he strode toward the fireplace, leaned against the mantel, and
stared at the fire instead of the encroaching darkness. “Did she ask about me?”

“She
is terrified of you.”

He pivoted, facing the countess. The fire behind him roared with
heat. “I would never hurt her.”

The countess scrutinized his face in the flickering firelight.
Satisfaction shone in her eyes. “No, you would not. I told her my door would
always be open for her.”

The significance of the countess’s offer was not lost on Ramiel. “You
are offering her your friendship?”

“I
already have.”

“Do
you accept her as a daughter?”

An expertly darkened eyebrow arched. “Did you offer her marriage?”

“Even in Arabia a woman is allowed only one husband at a time,”
Ramiel returned wryly.

“Her mother is the daughter of a bishop, you know.” The countess
relayed the information as if it bore some significance.

“No,
I did not know.”

“That is initially how Andrew Walters was elected to Parliament,
because of her father’s connections.”

“How
do you know so much about Elizabeth’s family?”

A shadow dimmed the countess’s gray eyes. “Rebecca Walters took it
as a personal affront that I had survived being kidnapped and sold to a sheikh.
And having survived it, that I had the temerity to come back to England.”

With a bastard son in tow.

Ramiel sometimes forgot what his mother must have endured. In
England he had been the darling of the nursery while she fought dragons.

“I
learned a lot about that young lady,” the countess added ruefully.

“But
she could not best you,” Ramiel said gently.

The
countess smiled a smile filled with cynicism, irony, and a certain ruthless
satisfaction. “No, she could not. I was not respectable, but because of my
title and my money, I was fashionable. The more viciously Rebecca slandered me,
the more fashionable I became. Whereas the opposite is true of Rebecca. People
who live in glass houses should not throw stones. I heard certain rumors ... so
I in turn passed them on. Your mother is a very wicked woman.”

Ramiel couldn’t help but laugh. The sound echoed in the drawing
room.

Women like the marchioness, who waylaid him so that she could rut
with a bastard Arab, were wicked. His mother was the kindest, most intelligent
person he had ever met. To hear her compare herself with women who had never
had an unselfish thought in their small, greedy lives was absurd.

His turquoise eyes glittered. “Let us hope that Elizabeth soon
finds her own wickedness,
Ummee.
”

The shadow disappeared from the countess’s eyes. “I think she
already has,
ibnee.
And I am going to help you.”

A
sharp well of emotion rose inside Ramiel.

When he had first returned to England nine years earlier she had
hugged him, fixed him a cup of hot chocolate, and sent him off to bed, just as
she had done when he was twelve years old. Not once in the intervening years
had she asked him why he had left Arabia.

“Why?” he asked now, the heat that had previously pricked the tips
of his ears burning his eyes.

“Because I am your mother and because I love you. Elizabeth is
like you in some respects. She runs from her passion and you run from your
past. Perhaps together the two of you can stop running.”

lizabeth distractedly stared at a middle-aged man with bristly
muttonchops. Unaware of her regard, he pulled back a chair so that his lady
friend could rise from the table directly in front of the one Elizabeth and
Rebecca occupied. His black Prince Albert coat swung at the backs of his knees.

One week.

It had been exactly one week this Tuesday since Elizabeth and Ramiel
had had their first lesson. It seemed like a year, like a hundred years ago.
And no matter how she pretended otherwise, she knew that she could not go back
and be the woman she had been before.

“Elizabeth, you are not listening to a thing I am saying. I was
telling you that you will be attending the marchioness’s ball. While she is
rather unsavory, she does have royal connections.”

“I’m sorry, Mother.” The apology came automatically. Focusing on
Rebecca, Elizabeth lifted her cup to her lips and sipped cold, weak tea. The
sudden desire for hot Turkish coffee was almost overwhelming.

“You and Edward are having dinner with the Hammonds tonight.”

I
will
not put myself through the trouble of bedding you again just so that you can
lie with a man.