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swung open.
    Elizabeth braced herself, but it was not the hostile Arab butler
in his flowing white robe who greeted her. A demure-faced girl in traditional
English-servant garb of white pinafore and cap curtsied, as if a woman visiting
the Bastard Sheikh without a chaperone at four-thirty in the morning was an
everyday occurrence.
    And perhaps it was, Elizabeth thought grimly, stepping inside.
    “Good morning, ma’am. Beastly outside, it is. M’lord, he said to
take you to him directly. If I may have your cloak, please?”
    Elizabeth clutched her reticule underneath the heavy black wool.
Her breasts without support of a corset felt heavy and full, her nipples stiff
and abraded. “That won’t be necessary.”
    For a second the maid looked as if she were on the verge of
protesting; curtsying again, she murmured, “Very good, ma’am. Follow me,
please.”
    The mahogany walls of the hall were inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
The bright overhead light created a latticework of wood and shell, shadow and
light. Man-sized porcelain vases guarded the bottom of a circular staircase. A
bright yellow and red Oriental carpet marched up the steps and disappeared into
darkness.
    No doubt the Bastard Sheikh had ordered the hall lights turned
high so that she could see the folly of her desperate attempt to bribe him
twenty-four hours earlier.
    It worked.
    What a fool she had been, to think that she could sway the Bastard
Sheikh with money. Obviously, the wealth of his sexual expertise was surpassed
only by his material possessions.
    If—as she suspected—this morning meeting arose out of his desire
to humiliate her, it would be her one and only lesson. Whatever knowledge she
gained would come only through sheer determination and an absolute disregard of
English sensibility.
    The introduction and the first chapter in The Perfumed Garden
of the Sheikh Nefzaoui had contained much that she did not understand. She
was determined to learn at least that much.
    The maid softly scratched on the library door before swinging it
open.
    The scene that awaited Elizabeth was not the one she had
anticipated. She had expected the library to be blazing with cold, sterile
light as it had the morning before.
    It was not.
    The Bastard Sheikh sat in a tweed morning coat behind a massive
mahogany desk, head bent over a book, golden hair gleaming in the gas
lamplight. Yellow and orange flames danced in the beautifully crafted mahogany
fireplace immediately to his left. Hot steam rose from a demitasse cup by his
right elbow—coffee, the rich aroma filled the air. A silver tray with a matching silver pot
perched on the edge of the desk.
    His very Englishness sent off a fresh peal of alarm inside her
head.
    Sex was mysterious and exotic and foreign. If he dressed in Arab
garb—as his servant yesterday had worn—she could sit across from him and study
with equanimity the art of erotic love. Discussing it with a man who could
easily preside over her dinner table took sexual gratification out of the
philosophical realm and became the forbidden fruit that she had been denied for
sixteen years.
    The maid softly cleared her throat. “Excuse me, m’lord. I’ve
brought the lady to you. Shall I get you anything else?”
    Either the Bastard Sheikh did not hear the maid—or he ignored her.
    Or perhaps he ignored Elizabeth, to demonstrate how unimportant
she was to a man like him.
    She suddenly felt like her English rose garden, old and out of
season. As he no doubt planned that she should feel.
    She drew her shoulders back. . . and wondered if her plants felt
as naked and vulnerable without their leaves as she did without her corset.
    Long, interminable heartbeats passed before he closed the book
with a snap and raised his head. “Thank you, Lucy. Please take Mrs. Petre’s
cloak and bring another cup and saucer.”
    Elizabeth felt the blood drain out of her face. Dimly, she was
aware of the maid dropping a curtsy, then the heavy cloak slipped off her
shoulders and