The Lady's Tutor by Robin Schone Read Free Book Online Page A

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.”
    Elizabeth’s eyes widened.
    Impossible. No
woman could accommodate fifteen inches.
    “Well, Mrs. Petre?”
    She sat back. “Either Arab men have extremely large members or they
have very small hands, Lord Safyre. Until we reach the chapter containing
recipes for increasing a man’s ‘meritoriousness,’ I suggest we go on to the
benefits of perfume.”
    Reaching forward, she dipped the pen into the inkwell and prepared
to write. “What perfumes are used in a harem?”
    Rich, masculine laughter filled the library.
    Elizabeth had never before seen or heard an adult give way to
uninhibited laughter. Ladies tittered, gentlemen guffawed. Real laughter, she
discovered, was infectious.
    The Bastard Sheikh possessed a perfect set of molars.
    She bit her lips to keep from succumbing to a sense of the
ridiculous. For one unguarded moment her eyes locked with his, sharing with him
the absurdity of their circumstances.
    “Touche, taalibba. ” His turquoise eyes continued to sparkle even after the laughter
died. “I bow to your superior wit. . . this morning. Amber, musk, rose, orange
flowers, jasmine—all those scents are popular among Arab women. What perfumes
do you use?”
    His voice was husky, intimate. It was not the voice of a man
intent upon humiliating a woman.
    Elizabeth’s head jerked back. “I regret to say that I am allergic
to perfume. What is it that you called me . . . taalibba?”
    The light in his eyes dulled, turning the color of polished
turquoise to raw, uncut stone. “Taalibba is the Arabic word for student,
Mrs. Petre.”
    Absurdly, Elizabeth was filled with disappointment. Edward had
never called her by an endearment, not once in their three-month-long courtship
and sixteen years of marriage.
    She made a pretense of jotting the Arabic word down on her notes. “Is
it necessary that a woman wear scent in order to ... attract a man?”
    “What if I said that it was?”
    A large blob of black ink spread across the paper. “Then I will
consult with the chemist to see if there is something that will stay my
allergies for the duration of time it takes to please my husband.”
    “There is no need to sacrifice your health.” The warmth as well as
the laughter was gone from his voice. “A great sheikh, when giving his favorite
daughter up in marriage, counseled her that water makes the best of perfumes.
Are you allergic to flowers?”
    “No.”
    “Then crush flower petals against your skin—underneath your
breasts and in the triangle of hair between your thighs. The combined scent of
the flower and the wet heat of your body will be far more effective that
anything you buy in a bottle.”
    Perspiration beaded underneath Elizabeth’s breasts. She busily
scribbled crush flowers underneath . . . The steel nib scratching across
the surface of the paper momentarily drowned out the popping of burning