The Lady's Tutor (51 page)

Elizabeth
was gone, but he could yet do one more thing for her. He could help her son
accept as a boy what Ramiel had not been able to accept as a man.

ny moment now the dean would return to take Richard and Phillip
away from Elizabeth and
she could not let go of her babies.
Harrow.
Eton. They were different words for duplicate institutions that held innocent
boys hostage to the teachings of corrupt men.

She
gripped the leather-covered arms of the lolling chair and stared at the dark
paneling behind the large glass-topped desk that the dean had vacated. Richard
and Phillip stood on either side and slightly behind her, the first patiently
waiting, the second restlessly fidgeting.

“We do not
have to do this.” Elizabeth’s voice echoed in the cavernous gloom. “I will hire
a tutor. Richard, you can still take your exams in time to enter Oxford this
fall. Phillip, I will buy you a little dinghy. We can float it in the park
every day after studies.”

Warm
fingers enveloped Elizabeth’s hand. They were man-sized but baby-soft still.
Her little boy was irrevocably gone and she could not,
would not,
expose
him to any more danger.

She
blinked, stared into solemn brown eyes. Richard knelt in front of her chair.
His face was no longer gaunt and his black hair was glossy.

He reached
up and wiped her cheek with his thumb. It slid wetly across her skin. “It’s all
right, Mother.”

Elizabeth’s
voice was thick. “How can it be?”

How
could anything ever be all right again?

Suddenly,
there were two pairs of brown eyes staring into hers. “We’re men now, Mum,”
Phillip declared with childish wisdom. His auburn hair glowed in the subdued
light. “And men don’t belong at home with their mums. Though the countess does
have a banging fine house,” he added wistfully.

Her sons,
just as Elizabeth had prepared to leave for Eton the morning following Rebecca
Walters’s confession, had mysteriously arrived on the countess’s doorstep. Lord
Safyre had brought them down, they had merely said, because their mother needed
them.

Elizabeth
had cried the tears she had been unable to cry and endured the novel experience
of having her two sons comfort her. Phillip had taken to the countess like fire
to kindling. While she introduced Elizabeth’s youngest son to the Turkish bath,
Elizabeth had talked to Richard—about his father, about the Uranian fellowship,
about her bitter regret that she had failed to protect him.

That had
been two weeks earlier and now here she was, acting like a child again instead
of a responsible parent. She sniffed, released the steadying anchor of the
leather chair arms, and wiped her cheeks.

Richard
produced a large white handkerchief and held it to her face. “You need to blow,
Mother.”

A choked
laugh escaped the tightness of her throat. She took the handkerchief. “I can
blow very well on my own, thank you.

“Don’t
worry, Mum. I didn’t want a dinghy anyway.” Phillip rested sharp elbows on her
left knee. “I’ve decided I don’t want to be a pirate. The countess gave us this
jolly book called
The Arabian Nights.
I want to be a
jinni.
That
way I can live in a magic bottle and make people’s wishes come true. They
usually wish bad things so that will be fun.”

“Phillip,
you are incorrigible.” Elizabeth could not hold back a watery snort of
laughter. “I don’t suppose, you being a man now, that you would like a box of
chocolates.”

Phillip
dove for her reticule. “Would I!”

“I wouldn’t
object to a box of toffees if you have one.” Richard’s voice cracked a
little—not quite a man yet, no matter the circumstances.

“Excuse
me, Mrs. Petre. If you would like a few more minutes ...”

Phillip
and Richard jumped up, both equally horrified to be caught in such an
undignified position. “Men” did not kneel at their mother’s feet. Phillip
whipped the box of chocolates behind his back.

Elizabeth
took a deep breath and squared her shoulders.
It
was time to let go.

“No, thank
you, Dean Simmeyson.” She stood up. “I must catch the train.”

“Have a
safe journey, Mrs. Petre.” The dean, more bald than gray, bowed courteously. He
did not mind associating with a woman, unlike Dean Whitaker at Eton. “Master
Richard. Master Phillip. If you will grab your luggage, Masters Brandon and
Lawrence will take you upstairs. You will have time to tour the premises before
the noonday meal is served.”

The two
boys turned like young soldiers marching off to barracks. One day soon Richard’s
voice would no longer crack in that awkward stage between child and adult.
Phillip, too, would grow up and would not need her to run interference for him.

But
that day had not come yet.

“One
moment, please,” Elizabeth crisply ordered. “Your portmanteau is gaping open,
Richard.” Grabbing the box of toffees from her reticule, she leaned down and
crammed it into his luggage.

When she
straightened, Richard caught her up in a tight hug and buried his face into her
neck. “It really is all right, Mother. I talked to someone and he made me
understand about. . . things. Please don’t cry anymore. It’s over. Phillip and
I are glad you are divorcing Father. If you aren’t happy, I will worry about
you crying when I’m studying for exams and I shall never get into Oxford.”

“Well.”
Elizabeth held back more tears, concentrating instead on the familiar smell of
Richard’s hair and skin and the warm, moist gust of his breath. “We cannot have
that, can we?”

“No, we
cannot.” Richard rubbed his face against her neck, as he had when he wanted to
wipe away tears; it had also made a handy handkerchief when he didn’t want to
blow. “I love you, Mum. Please do not blame yourself for what happened. I don’t.”

And then
he was gone even though she clung to him and an innocence that no longer
existed.

The train
ride afforded her flashing glimpses of a borough of Greater London instead of
southeast Buckinghamshire. The rhythmical click of the wheels and the swaying
of the carriage lulled her exhausted body into reluctant relaxation. Without
warning, the man whom she had desperately strove to forget these past two weeks
exploded into her unguarded thoughts.

This is
the carriage in which I suckled your breasts until you orgasmed. I am the man
who buried myself so deeply inside your body . . . that you screamed. Then you
took me into your mouth and made me cry out. Yet you still do not trust me.

Why
didn’t you tell me?

Would
you have believed me?

Perhaps
she would have believed him, she thought, eyes squeezing shut to block out the
memories.
If he had given her the opportunity.

He could
have prevented her pain.

He could
have told her and she would not have suffered the horror of witnessing her
husband and her father in an intimate embrace.

He could
have told her and there would have been no need for her mother to try to kill
her because there would have been no secrets to hide behind.

Once
started, the memories would not stop.

This
bastard you rut with has lived in Arabia, where such things are looked upon
differently than we do in England. Perhaps you should ask his preferences
before you judge your father.

Why did
you leave Arabia, Lord Safyre?

Because
I was a coward, Mrs. Petre.

Then
you are no better than my husband or my father.

I am a
man. . . . WhetherI am called a bastard by an Englishman or an infidel by an
Arab, I am still
a man.

Why could
Ramiel not have lied, like her father had lied, like her husband and her mother
had lied?
She had not wanted the truth.

No one had
ever touched her. No one but Ramiel.

But you
would have taken him inside you last Saturday. You used the things that I had
taught you that aroused me to seduce another man.

No.

But she
would have.

Why
didn‘t you come home with me last night? Why did you risk death rather than
come to me?

Her sons .
. .

He had
brought her sons home to her even though she had cited them as a reason not to
commit herself to a Bastard Sheikh.

Whom do
you have, Lord Safyre?

No one.
That is why I know that sometime soon the pain will become too great for you to
bear alone.

Elizabeth
welcomed the noise and the smell of the train station. Soot and mist rained
down on her bonnet when she hailed a cab, and she welcomed that too. She
welcomed anything that turned her thoughts away from what was and what could
have been but now would never be.

A carriage
waited outside the countess’s white brick house. Elizabeth froze with terror at
sight of it.

Her
husband could still commit her. Her mother could still kill her.

As long
as we are together, you will be safe.

But she
did not have Ramiel to turn to anymore. It was time that she learned how to
take care of herself.

She
resolutely stepped out of the hack and paid her fare. At the same time, a woman
dressed in stark black stepped out of the waiting carriage.

Elizabeth
could not control her fear: She darted for the house.

“Mrs.
Petre! Mrs. Petre, please wait!”

The sound
of Emma’s voice did not reassure her. Perhaps Rebecca Walters had sent the maid
to do her killing for her.

Elizabeth
grabbed the brass door knocker.

“Mrs.
Petre!” Harried steps flew up the stoop behind Elizabeth. “It wasn’t me! I
never told anyone about your meetings. It wasn’t me, Mrs. Petre! We wouldn’t
have done that to you!”

More
lies.
Obviously
someone
had done that to her.

“It was
Tommie, ma’am.” The heat of the maid’s body seeped into Elizabeth’s back. “Mrs.
Walters asked me that Tuesday morning when you . . . you slept in ... if you
often took laudanum.
“Elizabeth had lied about taking the laudanum, as Emma
had known.
“I told her no, you were merely having trouble sleeping of late,
that Monday morning you had taken an early morning walk because you could not
rest. Mrs. Walters told Mr. Petre and he had Tommie follow you. I did not mean
you harm, ma’am. I did not know. ...”

Tommie.
The groom. He had
supposedly gone home sick the night of the fog. Elizabeth remembered the
custodian. The watching eyes.
The fear.

She closed
her eyes against the distorted white face staring at her in the brass plate.
Gloved fingers suddenly numb, she let go of the knocker and turned to confront
the round-faced maid. Only her face was no longer plump. It was haggard—as
Richard’s had been haggard two weeks before.

They were
the same height, Elizabeth noted dispassionately. In the sixteen years they had
been together, she had not even noticed that small reality.

“I have
been coming here every day for over a week now. To explain,” the abigail said
doggedly, her breath a plume of gray vapor in the early March air. Mist beaded
on her black bonnet. “But you wouldn’t see me.”

The
countess’s butler had announced merely that a woman requested to see Mrs.
Petre. He had never mentioned a name. Elizabeth had thought it was her mother.
She was not certain she would have wanted to see Emma any more than she wanted
to see Rebecca Walters.

But yet. .
.

If she
had not gone to question the maid, she would not have discovered that her
father and husband were lovers. And her sons would still be in danger.

Elizabeth
tilted her chin. “You knew my mother blew out the gas lamp.”

“I
suspected it, ma’am.”

“Then why
did you not tell me?”

“Mrs.
Walters hired me.”

“I see,”
Elizabeth said. So much for Emma’s claims about not tattling on her.

“Begging
your pardon, ma’am, but I don’t think you do. Mr. Beadles, myself, the cook,
the housekeeper, the coachman—Mrs. Walters hired us outside a bridewell. Mr.
Will, he drove Mr. Petre and he ... saw . .. and heard . . . certain things.
But if we had said anything, we would have been turned out without a character.
These are bad times. Servants without a reference and with a criminal record
would not have gained employment. And even if we had said anything, who would
have believed us? But you, ma’am . . . We never intended that harm befall you.
We quit our posts. It don’t matter much to me—I have Johnny now, but the
others—they don’t deserve to suffer. Please, ma’am. Please give them references.”

Bridewells
were local houses of correction for persons convicted of minor crimes. In the
outside world, however, servants who were convicted of minor crimes had no
better chance of employment than those convicted of serious crimes. Rebecca
Walters had planned very carefully to keep the sins of her husband and
son-in-law from the voting populace. No wonder she had been so disturbed when
Elizabeth upset her plans.