The Lady's Tutor (6 page)

“If I wished to be identified, I would not wear a veil. There was
no need to address me by name. Servants talk.”

“And English gentlemen do not, I take it?” The light mockery
remained in his eyes, tinged with something darker. “If you did not wish
English servants to know you, Mrs. Petre, you should not have left your card
with one.”

“Your butler is Arab,” she said tightly.

“Is he? What am I, do you think? Arab or English?”

It took all of her self-control not to tell him
exactly
what
he was.

“Your nipples are hard, Mrs. Petre. Does anger stimulate you?”

Elizabeth’s breath caught in her throat.

Suddenly, he smiled, flashing even, white teeth.

It was an inviting smile, full of warmth and mischief.

She was irrepressibly reminded of Phillip, her younger son. He
smiled just so when he did something totally outrageous and wished to avoid
punishment.

“Please, Mrs. Petre, sit down. My servants are too well trained to
repeat the names of my guests. In Arabia, disrespectful servants are whipped or
sold.”

“In England, it is illegal to whip one’s servants,” she retorted
icily. “Nor do we condone slavery.”

“But it is not illegal to buy a servant a one-way passage onto an
Eastern freight steamer. Ah, here is Lucy. Place the cup and saucer on the tray
. . . there. Thank you. We will not need you again.”

Elizabeth fought her body to keep it from independently following
the maid out of the library. Even if the Bastard Sheikh had not betrayed her,
he had used the word
nipples.

Common sense, however, told her she had sought him out to tutor
her in the ways to please a man. If she could not survive a member of a woman’s
anatomy passing through his lips, how would she react when he discussed a
gentleman’s
anatomy?

As if unaware of her inner struggles, he poured a surprisingly
black brew into the extra
demitasse cup, then added what looked to be a splash of water. He offered her
the coffee, formally presenting it by holding the edge of the saucer. “Come,
Mrs. Petre. Sit down. Unless you’ve changed your mind, that is.”

He had neatly tossed the gauntlet into her lap. If this lesson
failed, it would be her fault and her fault alone, that tauntingly correct
gesture implied.

It was a challenge she could not refuse.

Elizabeth stiffened her spine; it thrust her breasts forward,
increasing the friction to her nipples. Slowly, she crossed the wide expanse of
Oriental carpet that separated them and perched on the edge of the burgundy
leather chair.

Proper etiquette decreed that a woman remove her gloves if she
intended to visit for more than fifteen minutes. Just as it decreed that she
not hide her face behind a veil.

Coolly, methodically, she peeled off her gloves, then tucked the
veil over her bonnet. Balancing the gloves and her reticule on her lap, she
reached for the blue-veined porcelain saucer. “Thank you.”

The coffee was thick and sweet and so strong it nearly crossed her
eyes. It was also boiling hot.

Gasping, she hurriedly set the saucer and cup onto the desk. “What
is
that?”

“Turkish coffee. It is best when freshly boiled. You should blow
on it, then quickly drink it down. Did you read the designated chapters?”

She brought her hand up to her throat—it felt as if the inner skin
had been scalded. “I did.”

He leaned back in his chair, his face a study of light and shadow.
“And what did you learn?”

The turquoise eyes were no longer mocking. They were the eyes of a
painfully attractive man summing up a painfully plain woman.

The pain in Elizabeth’s throat was immediately forgotten.
Composing her features into the bland expression that society demanded a
respectable woman wear in public lest she betray common, vulgar emotion, she
rummaged inside her reticule and
produced his book and a sheath of papers. The first she
laid on the desk beside the demitasse cup and saucer; feeling as if she were a
young girl back in the schoolroom, she consulted the latter.

“The Perfumed Garden of the Sheikh Nefzaoui
is estimated to have been written in the
beginning of the sixteenth century. The author is presumed to have been born in
Nefzaoua, a town situated on the shore of the lake Sebkha Melrir in the south
of Tunis, hence his name, Sheikh Nefzaoui, as many Arabs take their name from
their birthplace. While
The Perfumed Garden of the Sheikh Nefzaoui
is
not exactly a compilation of authors, it is likely that several parts may have
been borrowed from certain Arabian and Indian writers—”

“Mrs. Petre.”

Elizabeth ground her teeth.

The Bastard Sheikh pronounced her name as if she were indeed a
schoolgirl—a rather stupid one at that.

She glanced up. The turquoise eyes were shadowed by thick dark
lashes.

“Yes, Lord Safyre?”

“Mrs. Petre, I did not tell you to read the ‘Notes of the
Translator,’ did I?”

Her fingers clenched, crimping her notes. “No.”

“Then let us dispense with the history of the book and the author
and proceed to the section otherwise known as ‘General Remarks About Coition.’“

He smiled, daring her to continue.

Elizabeth thought of her husband with another woman.

She thought of her two sons, estranged from their father.

She took a deep breath to still the pounding of her heart. “Very
well,” she said calmly, returning to her notes. “The sheikh claims that man’s
greatest pleasure lies in the natural parts of woman and that he knows neither
rest nor quietness until he”—raising her head, her gaze locked with his—”enters
her.”

She refused to look away from those turquoise eyes. Just as she
refused to acknowledge the tightening in her breasts.

Suddenly, Elizabeth wanted to humiliate him as he planned to
humiliate her.
She
wanted
to be the one who embarrassed and shocked
him.

“So, Lord Safyre, it appears your remark yesterday morning that
all men are of the same nature holds true. I am confused, however, about the
sheikh’s reference that a ‘man is at work as with a pestle, while the woman
seconds him by lascivious movements ...’ “

The hiss of the gas lamp on the table was loud over the roar of
her heart. The burning logs in the fireplace snapped and sizzled.

Finally, softly, “In what way are you confused, Mrs. Petre?”

The time had come. There could be no more pretense of modesty.

Sex was not a modest subject.

Elizabeth wondered if he could hear the drumming of her heart.

“Before I became wed, my mother instructed me to lie still when my
husband visited me. I do not understand how a woman can move without hindering
the actions of the man.”

The Bastard Sheikh sat as if turned to stone. Even the steam
drifting up from his coffee seemed to freeze.

She had succeeded in shocking him.

She had succeeded in shocking herself.

It was one thing telling a stranger about her husband’s
infidelity. It was another thing entirely telling him about her marriage bed.

The heat in the library was suddenly unendurable. Blindly, she
groped for her gloves and her reticule. “I’m sorry—”

A sharp creak of wood snapped her head upright.

The Bastard Sheikh leaned forward in his chair. His turquoise eyes
blazed in the light of the lamp.

“In Arabic the word
dok
means to pound, to concuss. It is a
combination of the thrusting motion that a man uses to bring himself to climax
inside a woman and the grinding of his pelvis against hers to heighten her
sensation, hence the ‘pestle’ simile.
Hez
is a swinging motion. A woman
may thrust, or swing her hips upward, to meet the downward thrust of a man, or
she may swing her hips side to side to complement his grinding motions. There
will come a point when the motions of the man are too rapid or too powerful for
the woman
to
move without dislodging him. At that time she may best please both him and
herself if she wraps her legs around his waist and simply holds on while he
brings them both to climax.”

Electric sensation jolted Elizabeth’s body.

The Bastard Sheikh’s words suddenly became visual images, as if
she watched mechanical slides in a magic lantern show. The pictures, however,
flashed behind her eyes instead of onto the wall before her. They were not the
innocent hand-painted slides she showed to her sons to amuse and educate them.
They were erotic pictures, explicit pictures illuminated by a light far hotter
than was the limelight inside a magic lantern.

There was the man, naked, images advancing in rapid succession so
that he alternately thrust and rubbed his dusky brown body between pale,
outstretched legs that hitched higher, higher over lean, muscular hips. For the
first time in her life, the auburn-haired woman underneath him was completely
open and vulnerable. There was no stopping the man, he pounded and ground
himself into her softness and there was
nothing
she could do to hold
back her pleasure—

Reality returned with the distant echo of a door slamming shut.

Elizabeth blinked.

The palms of her hands were wet. As were other, unthinkable parts
of her body.

And they were not even halfway through the first lesson.

She squared her shoulders. “Excuse me, may I borrow pen and ink? I
would like to make notations.”

The breathtaking hypnotism of his eyes frosted over. “Do you plan
on consulting your notes when your husband comes to your bed, Mrs. Petre?” he
asked acidly.

“If need be, Lord Safyre,” she returned imperturbably.

He pushed a brass inkwell across his desk in reply. Opening a
drawer in his desk, he produced a pen.

A heavy gold pen.

It warmed between her fingers as if it were made of flesh instead
of metal.

Determinedly dipping the nib into the inkwell, she poised the gold
pen above her notes. “Would you repeat what you said, please?”

The forbidden images were blessedly absent in his colder, more
terse explanation.

“Thank you, Lord Safyre.” She finished writing with a small
flourish and again consulted her notes. “The Introduction ends by giving the
full title of the sheikh’s work,
The Perfumed Garden for the Soul’s
Recreation.
Shall we go on to Chapter One?”

The Bastard Sheikh smiled, a male smile, planning his revenge. “By
all means.”

“The sheikh claims that men are excited by the use of perfumes—”

“You are ahead of yourself, Mrs. Petre. Not only have you skipped
the beginning of the chapter, you have omitted two sub-chapters, ‘Qualities
Which Women Are Looking for in Men’ and ‘Various Lengths of the Virile Member.’”

Virile member
echoed
inside her ears.

Elizabeth gripped the thick pen to calm her quickening breathing.
This was the moment she had dreaded, but now that it was there, she felt
strangely exhilarated.

“I found little that was noteworthy, Lord Safyre,” she lied.

“A pity, Mrs. Petre. You will remember that the Introduction ended
with the sheikh’s friend and adviser urging him to add to his work a supplement
to include such things as how to remove spells and methods to increase the size
of the virile member. Chapter One is named ‘Concerning Praiseworthy Men.’ The
sheikh places great emphasis on a man’s genitals. If your husband suffers from
sexual despondency, you must be able to judge whether it arises from the size
of his member, in which case you must know the correct length to, ah, stretch
it.”

The turquoise eyes glinted. He was enjoying his efforts to
embarrass her.

“According to the sheikh, a ‘meritorious’ man must have a member
which is ‘at most a length of the breadth of twelve fingers, or three
handbreadths, and at least six fingers, or a hand and a half breadth.’“

Elizabeth struggled to keep the heat that traveled through her
chest from spreading to her face. “Is that three handbreadths of a woman’s hand
or that of the sheikh’s hand?”

He laid his hands one above the other on top of the desk, the
first a rich dark wood, the latter dusky warm skin. “You be the judge, Mrs.
Petre.”

She had never seen her husband; she had only the size of her two
sons when they were small children to compare a man to.

Curiosity outweighed prudence.

Clutching pen and paper in one hand and gloves and reticule in the
other, she leaned forward.

His hands were big and tan and measured far wider than did the
breadth of her own two hands.

“Two handbreadths . . .” The Bastard Sheikh’s hand closest to her
moved five inches forward. “Three handbreadths.”