Pleasure for Pleasure Read online

  ELOISA JAMES

  Pleasure for Pleasure

  Contents

  1

  There was no way to introduce the subject with delicacy,…

  2

  It was a serious wedding, plump with pomp and circumstance.

  3

  Lord Charles Darlington was feeling rather morose. There was no…

  4

  Under my direction, circulation of this newspaper has increased tenfold,”…

  5

  The Earl of Mayne sauntered up to Josie as if…

  6

  Thurman walked up to the Sausage as if he’d been…

  7

  Josie turned away, rather blindly, and walked straight through the…

  8

  Griselda’s first husband had been handed to her on a…

  9

  The door opened, and Josie slapped her arms back in…

  10

  Griselda took the news that Josie intended to visit her…

  11

  Lord Charles Darlington went to Hyde Park driving the little…

  12

  Sylvie de la Broderie found that races, racehorses, and racetracks…

  13

  Griselda plucked the note off the salver Brinkley offered her.

  14

  Eliot Governor Thurman had been having a difficult week. Neither…

  15

  The best suite at Grillon’s Hotel had a large bed…

  16

  Lady Mucklowe knew exactly what it took to make a…

  17

  Thurman thought masks were a rotten idea. How could he…

  18

  Within ten minutes Griselda had lost Josie. And that was…

  19

  Mayne finally found his fiancée tucked away in Lady Mucklowe’s…

  20

  Sylvie knew the moment their carriage entered the grounds of…

  21

  Lucius Felton’s box at Ascot was, without doubt, the most…

  22

  If Darlington was supposed to be looking for a spouse,…

  23

  Mayne was conscious that he ought to be the happiest…

  24

  It’s rather disconcerting to bring a woman to my house,”…

  25

  Josie crept down the ladder about half an hour after…

  26

  For the fourth time, Griselda said that she must leave.

  27

  Griselda wasn’t home. At first Mayne just stared at the…

  28

  Do you know what I like most about this story?”

  29

  Smiley had spent the last twenty years as Mr. Felton’s butler…

  30

  If you would just summon Josie,” Mayne was saying again,…

  31

  Annabel couldn’t stop laughing all the way up the stairs,…

  32

  Thurman was not having a good night. He had arrived…

  33

  They were sitting around a scrubbed white table in Darlington’s…

  34

  It was her wedding night, and Josie was unable to…

  35

  I must return to my house.”

  36

  I don’t know what comes next,” Josie said, laughing a…

  37

  Sun was coming in the window, so Josie rolled over…

  38

  It was embarrassing, waking up again to find that afternoon…

  39

  Josie awoke and grinned at the ceiling of the matrimonial…

  40

  Thurman had never seen his father looking like this. He…

  41

  Somehow she’d ended up falling asleep in Darlington’s arms again.

  42

  The letter arrived along with all of the mail, except…

  43

  Josie sank to the floor as if her knees were…

  44

  Don’t argue with me,” Josie snapped. “I know it’s a…

  45

  It was all much easier than Josie would have thought.

  46

  The party to celebrate the debut of the book that…

  Epilogue

  Bloody hell,” Josie gasped. “This is awful. This is—This is…

  A Note About Sisters and Shakespeare Plays

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Praise

  Other Books by Eloisa James

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  An extract from the widely proclaimed memoir:

  The Earl of Hellgate,

  or Night Scenes Amongst the Ton

  Dear Reader,

  As I would loathe to shock and dismay you, I must beg all ladies of a delicate disposition to put down this volume on the moment.

  I have lived a life of Immoderate Passion, and have been persuaded to share the particulars in the hopes of keeping any susceptible gentlepersons from following in my steps…

  Oh Reader, Beware!

  May 24, 1818

  15 Grosvenor Square

  London residence of the Duke of Holbrook

  There was no way to introduce the subject with delicacy, at least none that Josie could imagine. “None of the novels I’ve read elaborate on the wedding night,” she told her sisters.

  “I should hope not!” her eldest sister Tess said, not even looking at her.

  “So if we’re going to discuss Imogen’s wedding night, I’m not leaving.”

  “It wouldn’t be appropriate for you to join us,” Tess said, with the rather wearied air of someone who has said the same on two former occasions. After all, of the four Essex sisters, Tess, Annabel, Imogen, and Josie, there was only one left unmarried: Josie.

  “We’ll give you all the details you need on the eve of your marriage,” Imogen put in. “I don’t need the talk. I am a widow, after all.”

  They were seated around a small table in the nursery, having a light supper. Josie’s chaperone, Lady Griselda, was technically dining with them as well, but since she had spent most of the evening huddled in an armchair reading the Earl of Hellgate’s memoirs, she hadn’t taken more than a bite, nor contributed to the conversation a whit.

  They were eating by themselves because Imogen had heard it might cause misfortune to see her groom on the night before the wedding, and since Imogen was marrying their guardian, the Duke of Holbrook, they couldn’t eat in the dining room. Technically, Annabel’s son Samuel was a member of the party, but since he was all of four months old and dreaming of a red shiny ball, an occasional longing snort were his only contributions.

  “If my season continues as it’s begun,” Josie said, “I shan’t be married at all. One can hardly obtain one’s entire education in the ways of men and women from the pages of novels.”

  “Tess, did you know that Josie has made a list of efficacious ways to catch a husband?” Annabel asked, taking a final bite of syllabub.

  “Based on our examples?” Tess said, raising an eyebrow.

  “That would be a remarkably short list,” Josie said. “Lady is compromised, gentleman is forced to marry her, marriage ensues.”

  “I was not compromised by my husband,” Tess said, but she was laughing.

  “You married Lucius only after the Earl of Mayne jilted you at the altar,” Josie said. “It wasn’t precisely a long courtship period. All of ten minutes, as I recall.”

  The smile in Tess’s eyes suggested that those ten minutes had been sweet, and Josie didn’t want to think about that because it made her feel jealous. If she, Josie, were jilted at the altar, there’d be no secondary candidate waiting in the next room. In fact, given her disastrous performa
nce on the marriage market, the altar was likely a prospect she should discard.

  “It’s true that I was compromised,” Annabel said, “but Imogen is marrying Rafe for pure love and after a long courtship.”

  “I suggested we elope,” Imogen said, grinning, “but Rafe said he’d be damned if he’d follow in Draven’s footsteps and allow me to direct all the wedding traffic to Scotland.”

  “He was right,” Tess said. “You’re going to be a duchess. You couldn’t marry in such a hurly-burly fashion.”

  “Yes, we could have.”

  “But think of all the pleasure you would have denied the ton,” Josie said. “The prime enjoyment of the season so far has been watching Rafe stare at you longingly from the side of the ballroom. Now, are we going to discuss your wedding night, or not? Because there are marked gaps in my knowledge.”

  “There are no gaps in my knowledge,” Imogen said, “so—”

  “I knew it!” Josie said. “You and Rafe anticipated the night, didn’t you? Oh, the shame!” She threw a dramatic hand up to her brow. “My sister lies prostrate under her guardian.”

  “Josephine Essex!” Tess said, suddenly turning into the eldest sister who’d raised them all. “If I hear you say such a coarse thing in the future, I shall—I shall swat you!”

  Josie grinned. “I was merely demonstrating that the gaps in my knowledge do not have to do with mechanics.”

  “Anything else will have to be learned on the fly, darling,” Annabel said. She had gone over to the crib and scooped up Samuel. Now she was comfortably snuggled into a deep chair, feet up and casually crossed at her slender ankles, cuddling the baby. He was used to such manhandling and slept on.

  Josie knew that she should do a better job at curbing the wild flares of jealousy that periodically gripped her. Yet all she had to do was look from one to another of her three sisters to feel the pinch as sharply as frozen toes while skating. All three of them were slim. Well, Annabel wasn’t precisely slim, but she carried her curves splendidly. All of them were (or soon would be) happily married. Two of them married titles, and if Tess’s husband didn’t have a title, he was the richest man in England and anyone with common sense would agree that such wealth trumped a coronet.

  “I’m serious,” Josie said, pulling her mind back to the subject at hand. “Annabel, you’re only here for the wedding, and Imogen is leaving on her marriage trip directly. What if I have to marry quickly? You won’t be here to give me advice.”

  In the back of her mind, Josie knew that she might have to do something drastic to find a husband. No one was wooing her in the normal way of things, so she might have to compromise someone in order to get the deed done. Which would require an immediate wedding. “When Annabel was about to marry Ewan, Imogen told her that she should kiss her husband in public.”

  “Goodness, do you remember that?” Imogen said, looking faintly surprised.

  “You said,” Josie reminded her, “that Draven didn’t fall in love with you because you refused to kiss him at the racecourse. Whereas Lucius did fall in love with Tess because she allowed intimacies in public.”

  Tess was laughing again. “I’ll have to inform Lucius precisely why he’s so fond of me. It was all that kiss at the racetrack!”

  “Hush,” Imogen told her. “That was just a stupid idea I had last year, Josie. You mustn’t take it so seriously.”

  “Well, I do take it seriously,” Josie said. “That is, I would if anyone showed the slightest inclination to kiss me in the open air, or the closed air, for that matter.”

  Annabel looked up from kissing Samuel’s head. “Why so bitter, dearest? Has no man presented himself whom you admire?”

  There was a moment of silence in the room, as everyone realized that a letter or two had gone astray between London and the Scottish castle where Annabel lived with her earl.

  Characteristically, Josie took the bull by the horns. “I’m not exactly the toast of the season,” she said grimly.

  “Oh darling, the season has scarcely begun, hasn’t it?” Annabel said, tucking the baby’s blanket around his little shoulder. “There’s plenty of time to lure any number of men.”

  “Annabel.”

  She looked up at the tone in Josie’s voice.

  “I’m known as the Scottish Sausage.”

  If Josie were writing one of the novels she loved to read, she would have said that there was a moment of stricken silence.

  Annabel blinked at her. “The—The—”

  “It’s partly your fault,” Imogen said, a sharp note in her voice. “You introduced Josie to your revolting neighbor, Crogan. When Josie rejected his advances he wrote a school friend named Darlington. And most unfortunately, Darlington appears to specialize in cruel set-downs.”

  “Has the tongue of a snake,” Tess said flatly. “No one loathes him, although they should, because he’s so clever. But he hasn’t shown any cleverness here, just garden-variety malice.”

  “You can’t mean it!” Annabel cried, sitting up straight. “The Crogans?”

  “The younger one,” Josie said morosely. “The one who sang all those songs in the tree outside my window.”

  “I know you didn’t want to marry him, but—”

  “He didn’t wish to marry me either. He felt it was beneath him to wed a Scottish piglet, but his elder brother threatened to throw him out if he didn’t court me.”

  “What?” Annabel said, confused. She was trying to think about her neighbors, the Crogans, and not about Samuel’s warm little body under her hand. “How could he possibly insult you, Josie? We had him to the house only once, and I refused to allow him to take you to the assembly!”

  “I overheard his brother urging him to marry me,” Josie said.

  Annabel’s eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you tell me? Ewan would never have let that little toad write insults to his friends in London. As it is, I’m sure he’ll kill the man. He almost did it last year.”

  “It was too humiliating.”

  But Annabel had known her little sister for eighteen years, and she could recognize the slight flush on her face. She said with a little gasp: “Josie, you didn’t have anything to do with young Crogan’s illness, did you?”

  Josie tossed her hair. “He probably ate something that didn’t agree with him, the disgusting little turnip.”

  “He lost two stone in a matter of a fortnight!”

  “That wouldn’t hurt him. And he deserved it.”

  “Papa’s colic medicine for horses,” Imogen told Annabel.

  “It wasn’t Papa’s,” Josie said. “It was mine. I created it myself.”

  “Josie and I have already discussed the inadvisable approach she took to the problem,” Tess said, looking up from peeling an apple.

  “Inadvisable? She could have killed the man!”

  “Absolutely not,” Josie said indignantly. “When Peterkin gave it to the stable boy, it only made him sick for a week.”

  “I rather think the younger Crogan did deserve it,” Imogen said. “After all, he instigated all the unpleasantness Josie has suffered in London.”

  “What did he call you?” Annabel asked. And then: “Ewan is going to kill him. Absolutely kill him.”

  “He called me a Scottish piglet,” Josie said flatly. “Darlington made the term into the more alliterative Scottish Sausage, and the sobriquet has stuck.” Even she could hear the stark despair in her voice.

  “Oh, Josie, I’m so sorry,” Annabel whispered. “I had no idea.”

  “I did write you a few weeks ago, but perhaps our letters crossed as you were coming from Scotland,” Tess said.

  “It’s too late now,” Josie said. “No one will dance with me unless he’s forced to by Tess and Imogen.”

  “That is simply not true,” Imogen said. “What about Timothy Arbuthnot?”

  “He’s old,” Josie said. “Old and widowed. I can certainly understand that he wants a wife for those children of his, but I don’t care to play the role.”


  “Timothy is not old,” Tess said. “He can’t be more than a year or so into his thirties, which is, may I point out, the same age as all of our husbands.”

  “Besides,” Imogen said, “thirty is a watershed year for men. If they’re going to develop intelligence, they do it around then, and if they don’t, it’s too late. So you mustn’t hanker after men in their twenties. That’s like buying a pig in a poke.”

  “Don’t mention pigs,” Josie said through clenched teeth. “I don’t like Mr. Arbuthnot. There’s something waxy about his face, as if he got up in the morning and had to push his nose into place.”

  “What a revolting description,” Annabel said. “While we need to turn this unfortunate situation around, obviously Arbuthnot isn’t the one to do it.”

  “There’s no way to turn it around,” Josie said. “Unless by a miracle I suddenly became slim, everyone thinks of sausage when they look at me.”

  “Absurd,” Annabel said. “You look beautiful.” They all stared at Josie for a moment. She was wearing a dressing gown, as they all were. Josie scowled back at them.

  “The problem with you,” Annabel said, “is that if one doesn’t know you, you look like one of those sweet Renaissance madonnas.”

  “With round, maternal faces,” Josie said glumly. She hated her cheeks.

  “No, with beautiful, glowing skin and a sweet look. But you’re not at all sweet by nature.”

  “True enough,” Imogen said, eating a last seed cake. “You do have the most marvelous skin, Josie.”

  “Unfortunate that there’s so much of it,” Josie said.

 
-->