Free The Lady's Tutor by Robin Schone Page A

of her linen shift and heavy wool dress
against the tips of her nipples was an acute irritation. It reminded her that she had
needs no respectable woman should have, but she had them and they had
led her to this, being mocked by a man who could have any woman he wanted while
her husband stayed overnight with the woman whom he wanted.
    She perched on the edge of the chair, anger simmering inside her,
searching for an outlet. “Thank you. It was not difficult after reading Chapter
Two.”
    He cocked his head. “You did not enjoy the sheikh’s writings on ‘Concerning
Women Who Deserve to Be Praised.’ ”
    It was not a question.
    “Indeed.” She forcefully peeled off her gloves. “The moral of the
chapter is, after all, what every woman yearns to read.”
    Especially a woman who showed every sign of losing her husband to
his mistress.
    The Bastard Sheikh poured coffee into a blue-veined demitasse cup.
Steam rose like a curtain between them. He added a splash of water to the cup. “And
that is?”
    She reached into her reticule for her notes . . . and realized
that she was looking forward to this, to channeling the anger that she had
nurtured the day before and that now blossomed in the new day.
    She deserved more from her husband than a casual remark about the
repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts.
    After sifting through several pages of notes, Elizabeth found what
she was looking for. “ ‘A man who falls in love with a woman imperils himself,
and exposes himself to the greatest troubles.’ ”
    “You do not agree with the sheikh, Mrs. Petre?”
    “Do you, Lord
Safyre?”
    He offered her the cup and saucer, so very correct in this most
incorrect schooling. “I believe nothing that is worth having comes easily.”
    That was not the answer she wanted to hear. She snatched the
saucer out of his hand and raised the cup to her lips.
    “Blow on it, Mrs. Petre.”
    Elizabeth blew on the brew. Once.
    Hardly registering the scalding liquid, she took two sips.
    “What did you think about the sheikh’s advice on the qualities
that make a woman praiseworthy?”
    Impervious to the dictates of polite manners, Elizabeth set the
saucer onto the desk so hard that black coffee slopped over the rim of the cup.
The rustle of paper filled the room as she flipped through her notes.
    “‘In order that a woman may be relished by men, she must have a
perfect waist, and must be plump and lusty. Her hair will be black, her
forehead wide, she will have eyebrows of Ethiopian blackness, large black eyes,
with the whites in them very limpid. With cheek of perfect oval, she will have
an elegant nose and a graceful mouth; lips and tongue vermilion; her breath
will be of pleasant odour, her throat long, her neck strong, her bust and her
belly large…’“
    She lowered her notes. “I think, Lord Safyre, that Arab men desire
different attributes in their women than do English men.”
    The turquoise eyes glittered with laughter. “We have already
agreed that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, Mrs. Petre. However, it was
not the sheikh’s description of a woman’s physical attributes that I was
referring to.”
    The hot anger coiled more tightly in the pit of Elizabeth’s
stomach.
    Her mother was scornful. Her husband was indifferent. She was not
going to endure ridicule from her tutor.
    “I take it, then, that you are referring to the sheikh’s edicts
that a praiseworthy woman rarely speaks or laughs. She has no friends, ‘gives
her confidence to nobody,’ and relies solely on her husband. ‘She takes nothing
from anyone’ except her husband and her parents. She ‘has no faults to hide. .
.’ She does not try to gain attention. She does what her husband wishes when he wishes and always with a smile. She assists him in his political and
social affairs. She soothes his troubles that she might make his life more
content even if it requires sacrificing her own contentment. She never
expresses any emotion for fear he will be