The Lady's Tutor (35 page)

The banked coals emitted seductive warmth. It reminded her how hot
Ramiel’s mouth had been. How soft the tips of his ears.

Memory rolled over her, drowning her in sensation, the sharp
contraction of her womb when he had stroked the roof of her mouth, the
pleasure-pain bite of his teeth sinking into her nipple, and the hot, wet
suckling of his lips, his tongue, the surge of moisture between her legs when
she had blindly arched into his mouth, holding him closer and closer until her
body clenched in a flash of white light. A quiet peace had followed, then
Ramiel buried his head into the crook of her neck,
so like Richard...

I want you.

Elizabeth
slipped into sleep. It was not her son who pursued her.

“Elizabeth
...”

A
feminine whisper invaded her dreams.

She
didn’t want to hear it, to respond to it. She wanted Ramiel, the rasp of his
voice, the stroke of his tongue, the vibration of his groan filling her mouth.
Edward stared at the two of them from across the ballroom as they danced with
her breasts spilling out of her satin ball gown; beside him stood the
parliamentary member who had claimed him at the Whitfield ball and the
golden-haired young man from the charity ball.

My lover is a fellow Uranian.

You said you did not have a mistress.

I don’t.

Ignoring
the staring, condemning eyes, she threaded her fingers through Ramiel’s hair,
soft as spun gold.

When you are ready for the truth, you will see for yourself who
your husbands lover is.

“Elizabeth
. . .”

Sunlight
stabbed her eyes. She rolled her head on the back of the armchair to escape it.
A
whoosh
sounded between one heartbeat and the next, as if someone
sighed or blew out a candle, and then Elizabeth was aware of nothing but Ramiel
and the intimate bonding of a man suckling at her breasts.

“Mrs. Petre! Mrs.
Petre! You must wake up! Please, Mrs. Petre!”

The bed shook underneath Elizabeth. No, not the bed. Her
shoulders. Someone was shaking her back and forth, back and forth. She flapped
a limp wrist in protest.

“Mrs.
Petre! Please! Wake up!”

Elizabeth
groggily opened an eye . . . and stared at Emma. Her hair straggled about her
face.

Elizabeth
had never seen Emma untidy.

“Tired,”
she whispered. “Come back. Drink. Chocolate. Later.”

The idea
of chocolate made Elizabeth’s stomach roil.

“Don’t let
her go back to sleep. I’ll get her a glass of water. Is there a bucket in the
WC?”

The
darkness pulled Elizabeth down and down. It smelled faintly rancid, like ... It
dawned on her that Emma had two voices, one female and one male.

“Mrs.
Petre. Drink. Mrs. Petre, open your eyes and drink.”

Emma’s
male voice was very commanding. Something hard and cold pressed against her
lips, clicked on her teeth.

“Drink,
Mrs. Petre.”

Water. Icy
cold.

Elizabeth
suddenly realized what the darkness that weighted her eyelids smelled like.
Gas.
The water tasted just like the gas smelled.

Everything
Elizabeth had eaten and drank the evening before rushed up into her throat. She
doubled over and heaved.

“That’s
good, Mrs. Petre. Get it all up. Emma, hold that bucket for her.”

The
masculine voice sounded vaguely familiar. Just when Elizabeth was on the verge
of identifying it, every muscle in her body seemed to convulse. She heaved
until she felt as if she were regurgitating her stomach instead of its contents.
Every time she thought she was finished, she would get another whiff of gas or
taste it again on her tongue and the sickness would start all over again.

She knew
where the gas odor came from. It came from the bedside lamp—which had been
burning when she fell asleep.

She
recalled a woman’s voice and the
whoosh
of a sigh . .. and knew that
someone had blown out the flame in the lamp while she slept.

More
exhausted than she would have thought it humanly possible to be, Elizabeth sat
up in the armchair. The banked coals had long died. She was cold and her neck
was cramped from sleeping sitting up. Her buttocks were numb, which was no
doubt better than the pain she would otherwise have been experiencing, perched
on a bustle for heaven knew how long. She wiped her mouth with unsteady
fingers.

Emma knelt
on the floor beside the chair. Her round brown eyes were guarded. Johnny the
footman knelt beside the maid.

Elizabeth
closed her eyes. “You blew out the lamp,” she thickly accused Emma, remembering
everything, Edward stealing her notes, then ordering the milk dosed with
laudanum that the maid had brought her.

“No, Mrs.
Petre. I would not do that.”

Elizabeth
forced her eyelids open. There was truth in Emma’s eyes. Truth . . . and
knowledge.

She was
too sick to be frightened, but she knew that neither condition would last long.
“You know who did it.”

Emma did
not answer. Elizabeth had not expected her to. Edward paid Emma’s salary, for
all that she was Elizabeth’s maid. Just as he paid the salary of Mrs.
Sheffield, the cook, and Mrs. Bannock, the housekeeper. Both women had been
hired at the same time as had the abigail.

She
shivered and hugged her body. Icy sunlight and February air poured in the open
window. No wonder she was so cold. “Where is Mr. Petre?”

“Mr. and
Mrs. Walters and he had breakfast together. They all left afterward. Mrs.
Walters wanted to wake you, but Mr. Petre said to let you sleep.”

Her
husband. Her father. It really did not matter which one plotted to kill her or
what servant had carried out the order.

“Thank
you, Emma. You may leave me now.”

“Shall I
ring up the doctor?”

So that
Edward could accuse her of being suicidal?

Perhaps he
had not intended to kill her with gas. A woman who was both a nymphomaniac and
suicidal would be an ideal candidate for bedlam.

“No, no
doctor.”

“Shall I
run you a bath?”

Elizabeth
envisioned the countess’s Turkish bath. She had said Ramiel had one too.

“No.
Nothing.”

She
wanting
nothing
from this house. Not clothes, not jewels.

Emma rose
with a creak of her knees. Johnny stayed where he was. “You cannot stay here,
Mrs. Petre.”

A loyal
servant.

“Yes, I
know.”

She closed
her eyes and clamped her mouth tightly shut, holding back a dry heave.

“Do you
have somewhere to go?”

A hotel.
Countess Devington.

Come
home with me, taalibba.

“Yes.”

“Do you
want Emma to pack a bag for you?”

He was on
a first-name basis with her abigail. Perhaps Johnny was not as loyal as she had
thought.

“No.” She
did not want to take anything with her that had been purchased with Edward
Petre’s money. “I just want to get up . ..”

Her legs
were so shaky, she had to grab the footman to keep from collapsing back onto
her bustle. Righting herself, she slowly walked down the hall to the water
closet. Inside, she brushed her teeth and rinsed out her mouth, then leaned
heavily against the sink, forehead pressed to the cold mirror above it.

Someone
had tried to kill her. . .
and had very nearly succeeded.

What would
she tell her sons? That either their father or their grandfather was a
potential murderer?

When she
opened the door, Johnny waited outside with her cloak. Swaying slightly, she
stood as still as she could while he tossed it around her. He was far too
familiar for a servant; he buttoned the wool snugly about her neck.

“Who did
it, Johnny?”

He
concentrated on adjusting a black bonnet on top of her head. His skin was dark
but without the golden tint Ramiel’s skin possessed. He tied the ribbons of the
bonnet beneath her chin as if she were a child.

“I don’t
know, ma’am.” He stepped back and produced her reticule from inside his black
coat. “All I know is that it wasn’t Emma.”

“How do
you know that?”

“She said
you told her you wouldn’t mind her marrying. A servant don’t kill a good
mistress.”

Elizabeth
remembered relaying that piece of information to Emma. It had been later in the
day after her first lesson, Tuesday. She also remembered the expression on Emma’s
face when she offered to redress Elizabeth’s hair that should have hung down
her back in a braid but that Elizabeth had carelessly left in a bun after
visiting Ramiel, and then again when she retrieved her cloak that was still
damp from early morning London fog.

Emma may
not have tried to kill her, but she would lay odds she had been the one to
alert Edward about her early morning jaunts.

‘How is it
that the two of you arrived in such a timely manner?”

Elizabeth
watched with detached interest the dull red that spread over the footman’s dark
face. “Emma’s room be above yours, ma’am. We were ... together... and I smelled
the gas.”

Together.
No wonder Emma’s hair had
been mussed.

The
numbness of near-death burst in a
pop
of pain. Emma had found love ...
and betrayed Elizabeth because she sought it.

She would
almost prefer Emma to be Edward’s lover.

“I have no
doubt that Mr. Petre will provide Emma with a glowing recommendation.” She
peered inside her reticule, spotted her change purse. “You will forgive me, but
I am feeling less generous. Good-bye, Johnny, and I wish you the best of luck.”

“Where are
you going, ma’am?”

Elizabeth
stiffened her spine. “I appreciate your concern, but it really is none of your
business.”

“Shall I
have a carriage brought around for you?”

Either
Tommie the groom or Will the coachman had told Edward of her visit with the
countess. She did not want anyone in this household knowing of her whereabouts.
“That is not necessary.”

The front
door was left unsecured, as if the servants were deliberately occupied
elsewhere so that she might escape unnoticed. The sun was bright, only faintly
obscured by coal smoke. After walking six blocks, she spied a hack. It sped on
by. Two more hacks passed her by before one stopped.

“Where to,
ma’am?”

Straightening
her shoulders, she looked up at the cabbie’s prematurely aged face and told him
in measured, precise words exactly where she wanted to go. And prayed that she
would not regret it.

Elizabeth
fumbled inside her reticule; her ringers closed around two shillings. She rode
the distance clutching the coins. The sickening smell of impending death
followed her.

Her life
would never be the same again, a voice inside her head warned.
She
would
never be the same.

But she did
not need her conscience to tell her that.

The hack
jerked to a halt. Pushing open the door, she stepped out onto the cobbled
street, stiffened her legs to prevent them from giving out underneath her.

She stared
about her, the London landscape almost unrecognizable in the full light of day.
The house was of Georgian design, the lines pure, speaking of an age less
cluttered by minutiae than was the age of Queen Victoria.

Her heart
lurched; the hack was leaving. Too late. She had made her choice; there would
be no going back. She raised her hand and grabbed the lion-headed brass
knocker. That, at least, looked the same.

The Arab
butler who was no Arab but a European man dressed in a turban and flowing white
robe opened the door. At sight of Elizabeth his head reared back.

“El Ibn
is not here.”

Elizabeth
felt like she had come full circle.

“Then I
will wait for him.”

amiel awoke abruptly, every sense in his body alert. Muhamed stood
in the doorway of his bedroom. His face was shrouded in shadow.

“What is
it?” Ramiel asked tautly.

“The woman
is here.”

Air rushed
into Ramiel’s lungs.

Elizabeth
. . .
here.
She would not come to him in broad daylight unless she meant
to stay. Especially after she had asked Edward Petre for a divorce.

He closed
his eyes, savoring the feel of her presence in his home, anticipation rising,
heat building—Ramiel threw the bedcovers back.

“El Ibn—”

The glint
in Ramiel’s eyes halted the Cornishman’s warning. He cinched a turquoise silk
robe about his waist. “Is she in the library?”