The Lady's Tutor (47 page)

Instantly
alert, Ramiel searched the crowd—there. Edward Petre was talking and laughing
with a group of Parliament members. Stiffening, preparing his body for action,
Ramiel waited for the right moment.

The
animated discussion broke up as each man sought a carriage, either alone or in
pairs. Ramiel moved quickly. He grabbed Edward Petre’s arm just as he placed a
bowler hat on his head.

“Uranian,
Petre.” Ramiel’s voice was muffled but clear through the scarf. “Come with me
now or every man here will soon learn about your little diversions. And while I
am aware that several of them share your proclivities, they will not support
you when the knowledge comes to public notice.”

Edward
Petre’s face turned pasty white in the light of the gas lamps. His breath, a
gush of silvery steam, punctured the air. “Take your hand off me.”

“Soon.
There’s a cab waiting for us. You and I are going to your house for a little
chat. Or I can kill you and dump you in the Thames. Since the latter would
certainly simplify matters for me, I suggest you shut up and come with me. Now.”

“You would
not dare. Someone is waiting for me.”

“I dare. I
was exiled from Arabia for killing my half brother. I assure you, Petre, I
dare.”

Stark fear
filled the older man’s brown eyes. “You would not. You are fucking my wife.
Even she would not want a man who killed the father of her children.”

A cynical
smile twisted Ramiel’s mouth. “Perhaps. She might surprise you. In either
event, you will be dead. Free of earthly concerns. Shall we go?”

Petre did
not further protest. Ramiel guided him toward the hack, fingers digging into
the wool of his coat, and gave the cabbie the address to drive to. Dull yellow
light penetrated the dirty cab windows. The suffocating scent of Petre’s
cologne and the macassar oil that Europeans universally wore overrode the
smells of the hack.

“Elizabeth
will tire of you.” The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s voice was admirably calm. “And
then she will come back to me.”

Ramiel
fought down a burst of dangerous rage.
He wanted to kill him.
“Softly,
Petre. We will talk when we are inside your house.”

“Afraid of
scandal, Safyre?” Petre sneered.

Ramiel
looked out at the gleam of lights on the river. “No. The Thames is too close. I
am afraid I will give in to temptation.”

The
remaining journey passed in taut silence. Petre was angry, but he was a clever
man: He was afraid of what a bastard sheikh who confessed to killing his half
brother would do to a man who kept him away from his woman. Rightfully so.

While
Ramiel paid the cabbie, Petre fumbled with his house key.

Hoping, no
doubt, that he could rush inside and lock the Bastard Sheikh out.

Ramiel
calmly took the key from Petre’s gloved hand and inserted it into the door. He
mockingly inclined his head. “After you.”

The
servants had left a gaslight burning. A dangerous courtesy, considering what
had happened to Elizabeth.

There was
no sign of Elizabeth and her incredible gift of passion in the town house. It
was not cluttered with a table in every corner or knickknacks on every surface
but it was still a typical Victorian home with its drab wallpaper and
predictable furniture draped with cloths lest the sight of their legs excite a
man.

Petre
walked stiffly down the floral-papered hall, wrenched open a door. Ramiel
followed. The older man lit a gas lamp more efficiently than he had opened the
front door. But then, he was intimately aware of the dangers of gas.

It was a
masculine room that Ramiel stood in. Darkly conservative. A heavy walnut table
occupied one side of the study, while a Carlton House desk stood prominently in
the center of the room.

Ramiel
softly closed the door. Petre turned, faced him. His tall black bowler curled over
his ears; he clenched a gold-knobbed cane in his right hand.

Tossing
his own soft wool hat onto a side chair, Ramiel unwrapped the scarf from around
his neck.

Fear
suddenly exceeded Petre’s anger. Dropping the cane, he darted around the desk.

Ramiel leapt
after him. He slammed the desk drawer on Petre’s hand that scrambled to gain
purchase on the gun within. “Why didn’t you shoot Elizabeth?” he grated. “It
would have been more efficient. Servants are apt to notice gas. Just as they
are apt to recognize poisons.”

“I don’t
know what you are talking about.”

Ramiel
pushed harder on the drawer. He had the satisfaction of watching what little
facial color Elizabeth’s husband possessed drain away.

“Tell me,
Petre. Why would a politician think that murder is less damaging to his career
than divorce is?”

Petre’s
mustache quivered. “I tell you, I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“You tried
to kill Elizabeth with gas. And then you tried to kill her sons,
your
sons,
with Spanish fly.”

Petre knew
what cantharidin was. The knowledge was clear in his brown eyes.

“I had
nothing to do with her lamp going out. She tried to commit suicide.”

“How
convenient for you, especially considering the fact that she was leaving you.”

“You are
smashing my hand.”

“Good.
Perhaps next time you will think twice before you try to harm Elizabeth or her
children. But you have intrigued me. Why would you try to kill your wife when
you could far more easily have committed her? You must know I would not have
let you get away with murder.”

“For the
love of God, I never tried to harm her.” Petre’s left hand wrapped around
Ramiel’s wrist and tried to pry it away from the drawer. Ramiel was far
stronger. “Elizabeth didn’t have the stomach to face me in your home. I have not
been near Eton or the boys. Let me go!”

Ramiel
grabbed Petre’s left hand, used the combined weight of their bodies to press
harder on the drawer. “How badly do you want me to let you go, Petre? As badly
as Elizabeth wanted a divorce?”

Sweat
rolled down the older man’s bloodless face, beaded off his waxed eyebrows and
mustache. “I will divorce the bitch. Just let me go!”

“Not good
enough. I will not have her name smeared all over London. Furthermore, you will
grant her custody of her two sons.”

“She has committed
adultery.”

“And what
have you done, Petre? You have pandered your own son. I assure you the courts
will be more concerned about your behavior than they will be hers.”

Petre
stopped struggling. “You have no proof.”

“I have
been to Eton. I have all the proof I need.”

“Let me
go.” Petre’s voice was dull.

“Make it
worth my while.”

“I will
give her a divorce. Privately. She may keep her two sons.”

Ramiel
slowly released the drawer, deftly removed the gun from Petre’s limp fingers.
Blood dripped down the back of his hand. The knuckles had already started
swelling.

“Neither
you nor Andrew Walters will go near Elizabeth or her sons again.”

Petre
nursed his hand. “If word happens to leak out about my ... ‘little diversions,’
as you call them ... I will make sure that Elizabeth does not gain custody of
Richard and Phillip.”

Another
secret. Another compromise.

Petre had
the power to take away Elizabeth’s sons; Ramiel had the power to prevent him.
But not through death…

For Elizabeth’s
sake, he would not murder the father of her children. And perhaps for his own
sake as well. Because he would not be killing Edward Petre; he would be killing
his half brother all over again.

Slipping
the gun into his coat pocket, he turned away. From the ugliness of the past.
From the ugliness of the present. He had a future to look forward to: He would
not jeopardize it.

“You were
right. You’re a canny bastard. Committing Elizabeth was the perfect solution. I
left the morning her lamp went out to procure a lunacy order. I had no need to
gas her. Nor did I try to kill my two sons. I have not needed Spanish fly since
I last bedded my wife, your whore.”

Petre was
not as smart as he should be. A man did not denigrate the woman of a bastard
who was the son of a sheikh. He especially did not deliberately conjure up
images of the bastard’s woman lying underneath another man.

Ramiel
came very close to forgetting his resolution of not killing Petre.

“Then you
hired someone to do it. Like you hired someone to threaten her last Thursday
night when she spoke at a meeting,” Ramiel said tightly, fully aware that solution
did not explain the cantharidin poisoning unless Petre had placed a spy in his
home. But unlike the private detective who had met the Petres’ footman outside
the town house and paid him to quit his employment, there were no new servants
in Ramiel’s home.

“I am a
public figure; I would not hire someone to murder or threaten my wife for fear
they would talk.” All of Petre’s arrogance had returned. “It was foggy last
Thursday night. Elizabeth was late. I brought in the constable in the event
that if an accident did befall her, he could quote me as a concerned, loving
husband.”

Ramiel
reached for his hat on the side table by the door. He noted that his hand
trembled. “Then it was Andrew Walters who arranged everything.”

“So she
told you about Andrew’s regrettable outburst. He would no more kill her than
would I. Not as long as there existed a safer method of controlling her. Andrew
was with me the morning I signed the lunacy order.”

Ramiel did
not turn around. “Then who do you suggest tried to kill her?”

“Perhaps
Elizabeth is not the woman you think her, Safyre. Perhaps she tried to commit
suicide. And failing that, she tried to kill her sons rather than face them in
a divorce court.”

“And
perhaps you are lying, Petre, because you don’t want to feed the fish in the
Thames.”

“Perhaps,”
Petre agreed mockingly.

But he
was not.
Ramiel was
suddenly quite certain that Edward Petre had not attempted to kill Elizabeth. A
politician did not kill when less risky avenues existed. He would have
committed Elizabeth to an asylum without blinking an eyelash, but murder would
be investigated.

Ela’na.
Who had tried to kill her. . . if not her husband or father?

Ramiel
opened the door and quietly closed it behind him to prevent giving Petre the
satisfaction of seeing that he had neatly wrested control from his hands. A
tall, shadowed man waited for him in the dimly lit foyer. Ramiel groped for the
gun in his pocket.

“It is I.
Turnsley.”

The
private detective Muhamed had hired. The one who, according to Elizabeth, was
sleeping with her maid.

“What do
you want?”

“To talk.”

Ramiel did
not want to talk. He was in the grip of an uncontrollable need to get back to
Elizabeth to ascertain that she was safe.
He would not lose her.

“You
reported to Muhamed yesterday,” he said shortly. And the report had been . . .
that the detective did not know who had blown the gas lamp out.”

“I
reported what I knew then,” Turnsley responded evenly. “But there is someone
who knows more than I. And she is willing to talk.”

lizabeth studied Ramiel’s sleeping face. The dusky stubble of a
morning beard shadowed his jaw. Twin fans of almost feminine lashes softened
the sculptured hardness of his features.

He had
forced her to acknowledge the darker side of desire and shown her that she was
not immoral, merely a woman. Their union had been primal; it had been physical;
it had forever splintered her convictions about right and wrong.

Blistering
heat reached out underneath the covers, wrapped about her thigh. Immediately,
the slight frown on Ramiel’s face eased. He sighed.

Elizabeth’s
throat tightened.

She would
not live in fear for the rest of her life. Nor could she endure the cold,
sterile life that had been hers as a “respectable” wife. If Edward would not
grant her a divorce with custody of her two sons, then she must find a means to
force him to bow to her will. The law, he had informed her, allowed a woman to
sue her husband for a divorce if he had a mistress or if he physically
mistreated her. Attempted murder must surely qualify for abuse, especially when
the man in question also tried to kill his own children. All she needed to do
now was produce his mistress, or lover, as Edward called the woman who was a
member of the Uranian fellowship.

For a
second she contemplated waking Ramiel. He knew who Edward’s mistress was.

But he had
protected her sons; she could not ask more of him. Perhaps he was right.
Perhaps when she was ready she would see the truth for herself.

Slowly,
carefully, she loosened the long, hard fingers that so perfectly fit her body,
both inside and out. Ramiel groaned in sleepy protest.