Read Online Pleasure For Pleasure by Eloisa James - Free Book Online

Scotswomen who took London by storm and scooped up all the available bachelors.”
    â€œI’m afraid that our happiness in marriage may in itself have led to Josie’s uncomfortable experience,” Tess pointed out.
    â€œThe contrast is just too great,” Josie said, striving for a careless tone. “Between myself and my sisters, I mean.”
    â€œYou are just as beautiful,” Sylvie said. “It is simply your misfortune to follow such remarkable successes. You must expect a certain grumpiness amongst those Englishmen who were not chosen by your sisters.”
    The door opened and Josie’s chaperone, Lady Griselda, poked her head in. “Oh darling,” she said, “there you are! Timothy Arbuthnot has been looking for you with a veritably desperate air.”
    â€œI like it better here,” Josie said. In truth, it was the first time all day that she had felt happy.
    Griselda raised a delicate eyebrow. “In that case, I shall join you, if I may.” She smiled at Sylvie. Obviously, Josie thought rather grumpily, Mayne’s choice of wife pleased everyone.
    Well, who could not like Sylvie?
    She was laughing with Griselda now. Griselda had apparently encountered Lady Margaret Cavendish, whose hair—according to Griselda—had changed color. “She’s yellow as a marigold,” Griselda was saying. “Actually the color of burnt marmalade, if you know what I mean.”
    â€œAnd what hair had she last week?” Sylvie wanted to know.
    â€œBrown,” Griselda said decisively. “I can’t imagine how she did it.”
    â€œThey have all sorts of potions that will dye one’s hair,” Josie said. “Don’t you remember how Papa used to encounter dyed horses at shows occasionally, Tess?” She didn’t add that their own father was quite adept at dyeing a horse black, in order to make him a more attractive candidate for sale.
    â€œWe are discussing who should seduce this objectionable person,” Sylvie said, “this Darlington, and now of course I know precisely who should do it.”
    â€œDo what?” Griselda said.
    â€œMake Darlington fall in love,” Sylvie said. “You, chérie . You are the one.”
    â€œWhat?” Griselda blinked at her future sister-in-law.
    Josie almost giggled. Apparently Sylvie was not a good judge of character. Griselda was certainly beautiful enough to seduce Darlington or anyone else, given her pale blond curls and lush figure. But after being widowed some ten or eleven years previous, Griselda had not indulged in even the slightest indiscretion. Her reputation was, in her brother Mayne’s rather acid summary, a thing of snowy wonder that made her a terrible foil to his exploits.
    â€œYou must seduce this Darlington,” Sylvie said patiently. “We need the man silenced, and I’m sure it won’t be difficult for you. Why, Josie reports that he is good-looking. And yellow-haired. The two of you will be exquisite together.”
    â€œI don’t wish to have anything to do with that poisonousviper,” Griselda said. “And I know precisely what he thinks of me. He told Mrs. Graham that I was unattractively chaste.”
    â€œThen he meant precisely the opposite,” Sylvie said. “If you were not quite so chaste, you would be enormously attractive. And Griselda, surely you do not need us to create some compliments for you?” She waved at the glass, and all four women instinctively looked at Griselda’s reflection. “Guardez!”
    Josie had to smile. Griselda had reached the age of thirty-two without a single wrinkle, nor any sign that she was much over Sylvie’s age. Her hair fell in perfect ringlets, and her figure was wound in something soft and silk and utterly entrancing. In short, she looked like a china shepherdess, only not nearly as hard nor as cold.
    Tess leaned forward. “Though it is vastly improper of