She nodded.
“You have a reasonable suspicion that my pizzle is not in working condition. Out of shape. Withered from lack of use. Tired from my own handling—”
“That’s enough.”
“So I would have to prove it to you, obviously, before I could expect you to commit to our marriage.”
“But you yourself are not committed, since I’m not a docile little hen-wit.”
There was a moment of silence in the carriage. Her summary of his marital ambitions seemed unnecessarily harsh. “It’s not that I want to marry an unintelligent woman,” he began painstakingly, but she interrupted him.
“You just don’t want to marry me.”
“It’s not a question of you, Isidore.”
He had that look again, the one of total calm and control. Isidore understood Simeon a bit better now—and pitied him for it. Her husband thought he had anger and lust under control, not to mention fear. He thought he had life under control.
He was a fool, but that wasn’t the same thing as being a madman, the way she and Jemma had thought he might be. And from what he was saying, he wasn’t incapable. Clearly, she needed to think about what to do next.
“If we call it off, I’ll go back to Africa directly,” he offered. “Sign the papers and keep out of your hair while you find another husband.”
She nodded. “Very generous of you.” She looked down and found that her hands had curled into fists. We call it off? Simeon clearly thought that he was as much in control of the end of their marriage as he had been of the first eleven years.
“I expect it might put the new husband off his feed to have the old husband hanging around assessing him,” Simeon said. “I might want to engage in a pizzle contest, for example.”
Isidore smiled stiffly. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw such a contest in Smyrna.”
“Where’s that?”
“On the Mediterranean sea, part of the Anatolian Empire. I met a vizier and his brother who were traveling to present themselves as possible spouses to a sheikh’s daughter. The decisive factor? A pizzle contest.”
“Size?”
“Size and endurance,” Simeon said. “The sheikh made his entire harem available for the duration of the contest. He invited me to join the contest.”
“Was the sheikh just taking anyone? Not that they shouldn’t have offered it to you, but you are married,” Isidore pointed out.
“Oh, the sheikh wouldn’t have cared about an English marriage. In order to enter the contest, you had to offer a tiger ruby. And as it happened, I have something of a collection. I do believe that some of the gentlemen in question had no expectation of winning the princess’s hand but they were happily offering up tiger rubies anyway.”
“Because of the harem,” Isidore asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Beautiful women,” Simeon said. “Exquisite in every way.”
“Wonderful.” Her tone could have curdled milk. “How did you ever resist the temptation?”
He grinned at her. “I had you.”
“Well,” Isidore said, “You didn’t—”
“Have you,” he put in. “You’re right. Let’s put it this way: I didn’t have you. Yet. But you were worth more than a night in a harem and a tiger ruby.”
Isidore thought of various remarks she might make, comparing her worth to that of the hen-wit, and stopped herself. “What does a tiger ruby look like? I’ve never heard of it.”
“Gorgeous: rubies with a tawny yellow streak through them. They’re tremendously rare. In the end the sheikh was able to garner only eight such rubies even with the lure of his harem.”
“How on earth do you know? Did you go to the wedding?”
“Of course! Vizier Takla Haymanot won, and after eleven days of feasting (Takla needed a rest after the contest), he married the sheikh’s daughter. Then I bought the eight rubies from the sheikh and we were all happy.”