Pleasure For Pleasure by Eloisa James

your head.”
    â€œJosie, you witch”—and it didn’t sound like an endearment anymore—“can you kindly inform me precisely howmy name came up during this oh-so-delicate conversation?”
    â€œAs I said, you didn’t come up. But the fact that many men are unable to make women happy in bed did.”
    â€œDon’t tell me your sisters were worried about Rafe.” He sounded horrified; it was likely a question of insult my friend, insult me.
    â€œNo. But—” Josie stopped. It was one thing to be indiscreet with Mayne, and it was another to reveal that Imogen’s first marriage had not been entirely satisfactory in that respect.
    He didn’t say anything, just stared at his glass. “I seem to have no problem providing a suitable experience.”
    Josie sipped her glass a bit more cautiously. She was feeling definitely tipsy. It was agreeable, but a native cautionary streak was advising her to stop drinking.
    â€œBravo for you,” she said.
    He looked at her, and she felt the impact of his wild black eyes to the bottom of her toes. “’Twas I who found it unsatisfactory,” he said to her. “And I can’t tell you in what respect, because it’s not the kind of thing you talk about with virgins.” Saying the word seemed to startle him and he snatched up the bottle. “Damn it. I’m three sheets to the wind,” he growled. His voice had darkened to a champagne-drenched growl. Josie thought it was the most sensual thing she’d heard in her life.
    â€œWhy’d you keep doing it, then?” she asked, watching him through her lashes so he wouldn’t know how curious she was.
    But he didn’t even glance at her. “I haven’t,” he said. “Haven’t had a woman, if you’ll excuse the vulgarity, since Lady Godwin, and—” He stopped.
    Josie knew who Lady Godwin was. She was a brilliant musician who wrote waltzes with her husband. Lady Godwin had created that bewitching waltz that she had dancedaround and around Rafe’s ballroom, in the days before this horrible season started. Now Josie couldn’t dance a waltz because she didn’t want anyone putting a hand on her corset. A man could feel every spike through the thin silk of her gowns.
    â€œYou mean,” she said carefully, “the countess?” Was that misery in Mayne’s eyes?
    â€œThe very one. If you’ll believe the foolishness of this, I fancied myself in love with her. Hell, I was in love with her.”
    â€œHow dare she reject you?” Josie cried. “I shall never think well of her again.”
    He grinned at that. “She stayed with her husband, you little witch. She loved him, more than she loved me, and since she didn’t love me even an iota, that was easily done.”
    â€œSylvie is far more beautiful,” Josie said stoutly.
    â€œYes.” And, after a while: “Sylvie is a painter, did I tell you that? Both of them artists.”
    â€œI wish I had a talent for something like that.”
    â€œWhat do you have a talent for?”
    Josie shrugged. “Nothing ladylike, nor artistic either. I can’t even embroider, and all I really like to do is read.”
    â€œReading is an estimable pursuit.”
    â€œNot what I read,” Josie said with a burst of reckless honesty. “I like to read books published by the Minerva Press.”
    He laughed at that.
    â€œThey’re really very good.”
    â€œAdventures, escapes, damsels in peril—why Josie, I hardly know you! Aren’t you the one who’s afraid of riding, even though you love horses?”
    â€œIt’s impolite of you to mention it.”
    â€œWell, I’m about to get even more impolite,” he said, with just the faintest slur in his words. “You need to take off that blasted corset. Don’t slay me, but you never looked like that before.”
    â€œLike what