The Lady's Tutor (45 page)

The
Cornishman remained silent.

“Have you
ever been with a woman, Connor?”

A brief
smile lit Catherine’s face at the Cornishman’s expression of shocked outrage.

“I am a
eunuch.”

“But you
have your manhood.” If the light were brighter, she would swear that he
blushed.

“I do not
need a straw to urinate with,” he said stiffly.

“Eunuchs
who have been shaved off as cleanly as a girl baby take wives.”

“They
laugh at them in the harems.”

“But at
least they gain a measure of happiness. You were a young man when they removed
your testicles, Connor. If you had been a youth who had yet to grow body hair,
I could understand this—this martyrdom. It affects children differently than it
does young men. Women in the harem value eunuchs such as you because they can
grow erect and give them pleasure without impregnating them. Have you never
wanted a woman? Have you never, ever wanted to find love in a woman’s body?”

“You
should not discuss such things with me.” The Cornishman’s voice gritted with
anger. “You are the sheikh’s woman.”

No,
never again, no matter how much she might wish it.

“No,
Connor, I am my own woman. And I will not stand by and watch you alienate my
son and the woman of his choice.”

“I would
never harm
El Ibn.”

“Yet you
possess knowledge of cantharidins.”

“If I had
wanted to kill Elizabeth Petre, I would not have poisoned the food in the
hamper. That was for her children. I would not harm her children.”

“Not even
to save them from a fate worse than death?”

Connor’s
black eyes did not blink. “Not even for that.”

“Did
Edward Petre truly call today?”

“Yes.”

“Was he
alone?”

“No.”

“Who was
with him?”

“I do not
know.”

Catherine’s
delicately arched eyebrows snapped together. “Connor, please do not lie to me.”

“I do not
lie, madam. It was a woman. She was heavily veiled. She did not speak. I do not
know who she was. I am not even certain if it was a female.”

lizabeth woke up with a gasp. The very darkness surrounding her
throbbed. For a second she did not understand the pure, uncontrollable need
that played on the surface of her skin like St. Elmo’s fire. And then she
remembered. The pain that was more than pain. The heat that did not cease.
Muhamed, pouring a syrup down her throat. The countess, pouring water down her
throat.

She had
vomited, she had urinated, and still she had burned. As she burned now.

The slice
of cake she had devoured had not been sprinkled with ground-up nuts; it had
been sprinkled with ground-up insect. A blistering beetle, the countess had
said, the sale of which was prevalent in both the East and the West.

Dear God.
Someone
had tried to poison her sons.
Instead, they had poisoned her.

The
pulsing darkness pressed in on her; it was as black as the beetle she had
eaten. Gagging, she threw back the covers and slid her legs off the mattress.

A hand
tangled in the man’s silk shirt she wore in lieu of a nightgown.

Elizabeth
froze.

The hand
flattened against her spine through the thin silk, slid underneath the heavy
weight of her hair, lightly caressed the nape of her neck. “Stay.”

She
shuddered. Ramiel’s voice grated along her nerves while the heat from his hand
traveled to places that had nothing to do with her neck.

“I have to
go . . .” She bit her lip. “I have to go to the water closet.”

“Do you
need help?”

She jerked
away from the temptation of his hand. “No, thank you.”

Silently,
she padded to the bathroom and closed the door behind her. When she returned, Ramiel
sat on the edge of the bed, holding a glass, unashamedly naked. He had lit the
hurricane lamp on the nightstand.

She
blinked.

Touch,
smell,
sight
... all of her senses seemed to be focused on one place, and
that place was between her legs.

It was humiliating.
She would not give in to it, no matter how great was her need.
She was not
an animal.

The
passionless years she had spent married to Edward suddenly seemed like a haven.
Perhaps society was correct. Perhaps women were not meant to enjoy the pleasures
of the flesh.

Ramiel
held out the glass. “Drink this.”

She stared
at the glass instead of his muscular brown skin. “You know what happened.”

“I know
what happened, “ he calmly agreed. “Take it. You need fluids.”

“I am not
thirsty.”

“The more
water you drink, the more quickly the cantharidin will be flushed out of your
body.”

She
avoided his turquoise eyes, so solemn, so knowing. Obviously, he had experience
with the poison she had ingested. That he should know the needs that it
engendered made her experience all the more humiliating.

“I have
drunk gallons of water and I still. ..” She swallowed. “Burn.”

“Then let
me ease the burning.”

Elizabeth’s
heart did a somersault. “I want to leave.”

Somewhere
in the house a door banged shut. It was followed by the squeak of the
four-poster.

Ramiel
padded across the floor until he stood in front of her. “Drink the water,
Elizabeth. We will talk in the morning.”

Her gaze
traveled from the glass in his hand to the thick mat of dark blond hair
covering his chest; it arrowed down to his stomach. His body was hard; a drop
of moisture glistened on the tip of his manhood, ripe purple, like a succulent
plum kissed by dew.
The forbidden fruit.

The heat
rose in Elizabeth’s body until she felt as if she would burst into flames.
She
did not want water. She did not want to talk.
Lashing out, she knocked the
glass out of his hand. “I said I am not thirsty!”

Crystal
water arched through the air, then the glass tumbled to the floor and bounced
on the Oriental carpet. A dark stain spread across the brightly dyed wool.

For one
timeless second it was as if Elizabeth were not there, as if someone else had
perpetrated the small, senseless act of violence and then shock, anger, and
fear, all of the differing emotions aggravated by the need that burned and
throbbed in her body, swelled over her.

Ramie! did
not look shocked by her outburst. He looked regretful, as if confronted with an
onerous task. Elizabeth was not being an obedient daughter or a dutiful wife or
even a compliant mistress, that look said.

“You lied
to me, “ she said icily.

His
turquoise eyes darkened. “Yes.”

“You said
I would be safe with you.”

“Yes.”

“Then
there is no need to wait until morning. We have nothing to discuss. If waking
your servants is too much trouble, I will find a hack.”

“You knew
when you came to me, Elizabeth, that I would not let you go.”

The heat
inside her exploded into a conflagration. “So you would kill my sons that they
not interfere with your pleasures.”

Between
one blink and another, his hands whipped out. His fingers dug into her
shoulders. “What did you say?”

“My mother
warned me.” Elizabeth should be afraid, but all she could think about was the
heat of his fingers that penetrated the silk of the shirt and how they had felt
lodged deep inside her body when he had found her special place. “She said that
you would not accept another man’s children. You tried to
kill my sons!”

The breath
whooshed
out of her lungs at the force with which he hauled her up
against his chest. “You don’t believe that,” he grated.

His breath
was hot; it fanned the fire already consuming her and it did not matter if she
believed it or not. The day before, he had asked her if she would have come to
him if it had not been for her sons. Earlier in the day he had said he would
not be kept apart from her life when she insisted upon visiting her sons—alone.
The poison was prevalent in the East. Ramiel had knowledge of it. He had known
that the basket was intended for her sons—sons that interfered with his
pleasure.
It could have been he,
she thought wildly.

Averting
her face, she pushed against his chest, but the crinkly blond hair covering it
scratched her fingers and the heat of his skin was blistering. A laugh was born
and died inside of her chest.
All of this burning, aching need. . . from a
bloody insect.

Elizabeth
snatched her hands away from his chest. “Let me go.”

He hauled
her closer, chest flattening her breasts, pulsing manhood jabbing her stomach,
lips only a kiss away. “Tell me you don’t believe that.”

She would
die if he did not release her, yet he would not let her go and
she could not
bear his touch any longer.
“Let me go!” she screamed, wanting to hurt him
as badly as she now hurt. “I do not
want you to touch me ever again! You
were not there when I needed you! I do not want to want you!”

There was
no mistaking the look in his eyes. She had accomplished her goal. She had
wounded the Bastard Sheikh.

Why
would he not let her go?

“Tell me
you know I would not hurt your sons,” he gritted out, breath scorching her
face.

If she
acknowledged that, then she must acknowledge that her husband had attempted to
kill her sons,
his sons.
Like her father had threatened to kill her. She
was an adult. Perhaps her actions warranted some sort of reprieve, but her sons
were only children. Surely no father would be so depraved as to hurt a child!

“Never!”
Reflexively, she brought her knee up to add greater impact to her denial.

Ramiel’s
eyes widened. He abruptly let her go.

Elizabeth
did not know what she had done to gain her release, but she did not stay to
ponder it. Flying across the Oriental carpet, she opened the wardrobe that
overflowed with masculine clothing save for the two lone articles of feminine
dress, the royal blue skirt and matching jacket the countess had hung there
when Elizabeth could only gulp air and try not to scream her need. Frenziedly,
she shucked off the silk shirt that did not belong to her,
nothing belonged
to her, not in Ramiel’s house, not in Edwards house.

Suddenly,
she was bodily lifted up into the air. Crinkly hair abraded her back; hard,
moist flesh prodded her buttocks. And underneath it all was the heat that would
not die.

“Bahebbik.
” Ramiel’s voice was a dark growl. The
Arabic syllables sounded as if they had been dredged up from the very depths of
his soul.

Elizabeth
squeezed her eyelids together. His heartbeat hammered against her left shoulder
blade; it matched hers in rhythm.
Please, God, do not let her lose the
fragile control that was even now hanging by a fraying thread.
“What does
that mean?”

“Stay and
find out.”

Tears
spilled down her cheeks. “You were not shocked when my husband tried to kill
me. You are not shocked by this.
What does it take to make you feel?”

“I feel,
taalibba.
”
His voice throbbed in her ear, a bastard sheikh rejected first by society and
now by her.

She did
not want to feel his hurt. “I thought I would die without you.”

“I am here
now.”

“I felt
like an animal.
” Her pain
and need erupted into agonized speech. “My body ... I did not care. Don’t you
understand?
I
could have lain with any man!”

“But you
did not.”

She opened
her eyes and stared at a row of waistcoats, frock coats, and dinner jackets. “I
do not want to feel this... this
lust.
When you touch me, all I want to
do is to take you inside me. How do I know I won’t someday feel like that about
every man I see?”

“I won’t
let you.”

“Lust is
not love.”

“Perhaps
not,
taalibba.
But I can certainly satisfy your lust until you are too
tired to worry about the difference.”

Hysterical
laughter rose in her chest. Along with the heat of his body. It left no room
for mirth.

“Please
let me go. I am not. . . myself right now.”

“Lust is a
part of bonding,
taalibba.
Share it with me.”

She did
not want to bond. She wanted to copulate.

“My sons—”

“Are safe.
You must trust me, Elizabeth.”

She pried
at the arms locked about her waist. “You said that before.”

“Elizabeth,
I went to Eton today. I hired people to look after your sons.”