The Lady's Tutor (32 page)

Andrew leaned toward Elizabeth, his jaws knotted with the force of
his emotion. “Are you deaf, girl?” Each word was carefully, perfectly
enunciated, all the more terrible now that he was not shouting. “Edward is
going to be England’s next prime minister. If he cannot control you, everything
we have worked for will be lost. Edward will be banned from Parliament. My
career will go up in smoke. I will see you dead before I allow you to destroy
our lives.”

Hookah smoke,
Elizabeth
thought incongruously,
not political careers.
She pictured the countess,
comfortably sitting with a towel wrapped about her head while Ramiel offered
her a baklava, and now here was Elizabeth’s family—

I will see you dead
echoed hollowly inside her head.

Elizabeth’s heart skipped a beat. Blinding, breathtaking pain
engulfed her.

Surely he had not said that.
Surely a father would not threaten
to kill his daughter.

Andrew leaned back in his chair, once again the affable, dignified
man who sponsored charities to assist widows and war-orphaned children. “Does
that answer your question, daughter?”

Ramiel
knew the moment Elizabeth entered the ballroom. His entire body charged with
electricity. He pivoted, eyes searching, seeking—

There
she was, a mere ten feet away, standing just inside the doorway, dressed in a
burgundy satin ball gown. Beside her, Edward Petre nodded his head at an
acquaintance, half bowed in the direction of another.

Senses prickling, his gaze locked onto Petre’s arm. Elizabeth’s
small, gloved hand was pressed through the crook of his elbow. Petre’s fingers
were snugly clasped over hers. As if in loving affection ... or to physically
restrain her.

Ramiel’s
gaze snapped up to her face. Her skin was chalk white.

He had seen her only hours after her husband had rejected her
sexual advances. She had been pale then, but now—
she looked frozen.
The
ice bitch he had originally mistaken her for.

Ramiel remembered her laughter in the countess’s sitting room. Her
cheeks had been flushed and her eyes full of life as she sampled the hookah and
then the baklava. The woman he stared at now was dead.

What had the bastard done to her?

Common
sense told him to wait until Petre left her side—no good would come out of a
face-to-face confrontation in an overcrowded ballroom. Male possessiveness told
him otherwise— Elizabeth was his woman; he would not tolerate another man
touching her,
hurting her.

He
closed the distance separating them, planted himself squarely in front of them.
“Mrs. Petre.”

Elizabeth’s face did not register any emotion—no welcome, no
surprise, as if he were nothing. Her voice, when she spoke, was cold and
polite. Lifeless. “Lord Safyre.”

Petre’s fingers convulsively squeezed her hand that he still held
captive, as if in warning.
He knew
that Ramiel wanted her. . . just as
Ramiel knew that Petre did not.

Ramiel was an inch shorter and four years Petre’s junior. He
coldly appraised the older man, knowing his weaknesses, weighing his strengths.
“I have not had the pleasure of being introduced to your husband.”

Petre
returned his perusal, lip curled. “We do not associate with the likes of you,
sirrah. Henceforth, you will stay away from my wife.”

For one timeless second Ramiel seemed to be hurled outside his
body. He could see the three of them standing together as if in intimate
dialogue, Elizabeth with her auburn hair and white skin, Edward with his black
hair and drooping mustache, and himself, golden-haired and brown-skinned.
Farther inside the ballroom, couples swirled in a tangle of black evening
jackets and jewel-colored gowns, while around them men and women promenaded or
clustered to chat. A titter rose over the whine of the violins, was swallowed
by a bark of laughter on the opposite side of the ballroom. Suddenly, he was
yanked back into his body and he knew exactly what he had to do.

The line had been drawn, the positions taken. There was no going
back.

“That is for Mrs. Petre to decide, surely,” he murmured silkily,
provocatively.

“I am her husband; she will do as I say,” Petre retorted grimly,
triumphantly.

Ramiel’s
heartbeat quickened; anticipation pumped through his veins. He felt a moment’s
regret, that Elizabeth was trapped in the cross fire. And then all he felt was
the need to take Edward Petre out of her life.

“Really.” A feral smile curved his mouth. “I believe you belong to
a fellowship who call themselves Uranians, do you not, Petre? I wonder. Does
your wife know of your interest in poetry?”

Stunned disbelief shone in Petre’s brown eyes; it was followed by
pure rage. Both confirmed his guilt.

“Let
her go,” Ramiel said softly.

Deliberately
misunderstanding, Petre released Elizabeth’s hand. A sneer twisted his face. “Tell
Safyre you do not wish his company, Elizabeth.”

Ramiel’s
gaze snapped back to Elizabeth.

Her clear hazel eyes were cold, blank.
They did not belong to
the woman who had swum in a Turkish bath and smoked a hookah. They did not
belong to the woman who had held an artificial phallus in her hands and told
him that she had tried to look underneath a stone leaf covering a male statue because
she was seventeen and pregnant and she wanted to see what had made her that
way.

Sharp pain sliced through Ramiel’s chest, stealing his breath. The
countess had offered to send him away today and she had
wanted
him to
stay. They had shared baklava. And now she was going to deny
everything.

Her
pale, bloodless lips quivered, tightened. “Please accept my apologies for my
husband’s rudeness, Lord Safyre.”

“Elizabeth!”
Petre spat out.

“Enough,
Edward.
I will not be dictated to in this manner.” She stared at Ramiel’s white bow
tie. “I will talk to and dance with whomever I please.”

Jubilation burned through Ramiel’s body like warmed cognac.
She
had chosen.
Whether she realized it or not, she had finally made her
choice.

He
held out his hand, so close his breath fanned her hair. “Dance with me.”

Show me that you aren’t afraid to take a Bastard Sheikh.

“You
will regret it if you do, Elizabeth.”

Icy
fingers swept down Ramiel’s spine. The threat in Petre’s voice was implicit.

“How
will she regret it, Petre?” Slowly, he lowered his hand and turned his head
away from Elizabeth. Turquoise eyes locked with brown eyes. “Will she regret it
as much as you will? Will she regret it as much as your lover?”

Now
Ramiel would see what Edward Petre was made of. Would he challenge Ramiel?
Would he pretend that he didn’t know what Ramiel was talking about?

Would
he sacrifice Elizabeth—to save his career?

“What will it be, Petre?” Ramiel drawled dangerously, his message
clear.
I
will keep your secrets if you give me your wife.

Edward
walked away.

Ramiel
smiled mirthlessly.

“Why did you do that?” Elizabeth’s face was even more pale than it
had been when she stepped into the ballroom.

“Will
you regret dancing with me, Elizabeth?”

“Yes.”

“But
you will do it.” Satisfaction tinged his voice.

“Only if you tell me what Joseffa said when you took the tray from
her.”

Ramiel’s lashes veiled his eyes. “She said you have magnificent
breasts. Breasts that are worthy to suckle sons… and a husband.”

Bright
pink colored her cheeks. “My husband has never suckled my breasts.”

“There is a difference between begetting children and being a
husband,
taalibba,”
he informed her gently.

“Is
that in
The Perfumed Garden?”

“Yes.”

She
held up her gloved hand. “Shall we dance?”

Emotion
squeezed his chest; relief, regret, triumph. He offered her his arm, a belated
concession to propriety, wanting to make amends for the rumors that were
already springing up from the confrontation between the Chancellor of the
Exchequer and the Bastard Sheikh. He could feel the stares, hear the whispers.

If Petre were a good politician, he would have graciously acceded
and saved himself and his wife public embarrassment. Instead, he had abandoned
her to the unmerciful
ton.

Perhaps it was best that she learn to accept notoriety now. No
matter what Ramiel did or did not do, society would talk. About his bastardy,
about his Arab heritage, about his renowned sexual appetites.

About
his woman.

At
the edge of the dance floor he took Elizabeth’s right hand and clasped her
waist, corseted but not as tightly as it had been the night of the charity
ball. She reached up and rested her left hand on his shoulders. Mentally
counting
one, two, three,
he twirled her into the waltz.

He looked down her dress at the white skin straining for freedom.
And remembered the soft, full curves and long, hard nipples the damp silk robe
had so lovingly cupped when she sat in the countess’s sitting room. “You do
have magnificent breasts.”

The quiver of her lips belied her aloofness. “What is a Uranian,
Lord Safyre, and why did it upset my husband when you mentioned it?”

Ramiel could tell her.. . and she would be free. Conversely, he
did not want to tell her for fear that she would come to him because a bastard
was more acceptable than a man like Edward Petre.

“It
is as I said, a fellowship of minor poets.”

“Minor...
as in ... youthful?”

Ela’na, damn,
she
was sharp. But it was not young girls that Edward liked.

“Minor
also means of little importance.”

She
lowered her head so that he stared at auburn hair instead of hazel eyes. Jagged
shadows darkened her cheeks. “Your mother sent you away when you were twelve.”

He leaned closer to hear her; his cheek brushed her hair, a silky
warm caress. “Yes.”

“Did
you miss ... England?”

Ramiel
realized she was imagining sending her own sons off to a faraway land. She did
not realize that her pain would be greater than theirs. “For a month or so,” he
said laconically.

Her
eyelids sprang open. She stared up at him in blatant disbelief. “Only a month
or so?”

“You have two sons. You know what boys are. When my father gave me
a horse, I realized that sun and sand can be rather pleasant.”

“I shudder to think what you realized when he gave you your own
harem,” she said acidly, her motherly sensitivities offended at a child’s
fickle love.

Ramiel laughed softly, pulled her close so that when he whirled
her around he stepped between her legs. Her stomach rubbed against his groin,
smooth satin on hard silk. “I would be happy to show you what I realized.”

“Do
irises grow in Arabia?”

His
fingers tightened around her small, slender hand. He could feel her delicate
bones underneath silk and flesh. “Pink irises,” he murmured huskily, breathing
in the clean, unperfumed scent of her hair and body. “With silky soft petals
that grow hot and moist.”

She abruptly stopped dancing, hazel eyes wide, avid, wanting
everything Ramiel wanted to give her, everything he wanted a woman to give to
him.

“Come home with me,
taalibba.
Let me show you the ways to
love.”

All forty.

Her hand resting on his shoulder clenched convulsively. Temptation
glimmered in her eyes, evaporated.

He had said too much, too soon.

Snatching
her hand from his shoulder, she stepped back, curtsied. “The dance is over,
Lord Safyre. Thank you.” And turned her back on him. Again.

Ramiel leaned against the wall and moodily watched her mingle with
the
ton.
Gossip had already spread. Men filled her dance card.
Chaperones protectively
hovered over their charges when she came near them.

Sometime after midnight a braying laugh erupted from the dance
floor. Ramiel straightened. He knew that laugh and he
would
not stand by
and see Elizabeth preyed upon by men like Lord Hindvalle.

Another mark against Edward
Petre.

He had the right and privilege of protecting her and he did not;
Ramiel’s protection would further damn Elizabeth in the eyes of society.

Just when Ramiel came abreast of Elizabeth, he saw Hindvalle’s
face turn purple. The seventy-year-old roué abruptly turned and walked away,
spine erect as it had not been in many years.

Elizabeth stared up into Ramiel’s dark, brooding face. “I asked
him if he was a member of the Uranian fellowship.”