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skin
had been scalded. “I did.”
    He leaned back in his chair, his face a study of light and shadow.
“And what did you learn?”
    The turquoise eyes were no longer mocking. They were the eyes of a
painfully attractive man summing up a painfully plain woman.
    The pain in Elizabeth’s throat was immediately forgotten.
Composing her features into the bland expression that society demanded a
respectable woman wear in public lest she betray common, vulgar emotion, she
rummaged inside her reticule and produced his book and a sheath of papers. The first she
laid on the desk beside the demitasse cup and saucer; feeling as if she were a
young girl back in the schoolroom, she consulted the latter.
    “The Perfumed Garden of the Sheikh Nefzaoui is estimated to have been written in the
beginning of the sixteenth century. The author is presumed to have been born in
Nefzaoua, a town situated on the shore of the lake Sebkha Melrir in the south
of Tunis, hence his name, Sheikh Nefzaoui, as many Arabs take their name from
their birthplace. While The Perfumed Garden of the Sheikh Nefzaoui is
not exactly a compilation of authors, it is likely that several parts may have
been borrowed from certain Arabian and Indian writers—”
    “Mrs. Petre.”
    Elizabeth ground her teeth.
    The Bastard Sheikh pronounced her name as if she were indeed a
schoolgirl—a rather stupid one at that.
    She glanced up. The turquoise eyes were shadowed by thick dark
lashes.
    “Yes, Lord Safyre?”
    “Mrs. Petre, I did not tell you to read the ‘Notes of the
Translator,’ did I?”
    Her fingers clenched, crimping her notes. “No.”
    “Then let us dispense with the history of the book and the author
and proceed to the section otherwise known as ‘General Remarks About Coition.’“
    He smiled, daring her to continue.
    Elizabeth thought of her husband with another woman.
    She thought of her two sons, estranged from their father.
    She took a deep breath to still the pounding of her heart. “Very
well,” she said calmly, returning to her notes. “The sheikh claims that man’s
greatest pleasure lies in the natural parts of woman and that he knows neither
rest nor quietness until he”—raising her head, her gaze locked with his—”enters
her.”
    She refused to look away from those turquoise eyes. Just as she
refused to acknowledge the tightening in her breasts.
    Suddenly, Elizabeth wanted to humiliate him as he planned to humiliate her. She wanted
to be the one who embarrassed and shocked him.
    “So, Lord Safyre, it appears your remark yesterday morning that
all men are of the same nature holds true. I am confused, however, about the
sheikh’s reference that a ‘man is at work as with a pestle, while the woman
seconds him by lascivious movements ...’ “
    The hiss of the gas lamp on the table was loud over the roar of
her heart. The burning logs in the fireplace snapped and sizzled.
    Finally, softly, “In what way are you confused, Mrs. Petre?”
    The time had come. There could be no more pretense of modesty.
    Sex was not a modest subject.
    Elizabeth wondered if he could hear the drumming of her heart.
    “Before I became wed, my mother instructed me to lie still when my
husband visited me. I do not understand how a woman can move without hindering
the actions of the man.”
    The Bastard Sheikh sat as if turned to stone. Even the steam
drifting up from his coffee seemed to freeze.
    She had succeeded in shocking him.
    She had succeeded in shocking herself.
    It was one thing telling a stranger about her husband’s
infidelity. It was another thing entirely telling him about her marriage bed.
    The heat in the library was suddenly unendurable. Blindly, she
groped for her gloves and her reticule. “I’m sorry—”
    A sharp creak of wood snapped her head upright.
    The Bastard Sheikh leaned forward in his chair. His turquoise eyes
blazed in the light of the lamp.
    “In Arabic the word dok means to pound, to concuss. It is a
combination of the