Mistress of Pleasure
Delilah Marvelle
Zebra, Sept 2008, 352 pp
ISBN-10: 1420104489
ISBN-13: 978-1420104486
Series: Book #1 – School of Gallantry
$3.99 (US) $5.99 (CDN)
Reviewed by Mary
August 2008
Delilah Marvelle has a first time success with this wonderful and endearing book!
Maybelle de Maitenon has known the grief of losing one’s parent and being uprooted from your home at a young age. Since she was 15 she has lived with her Grand-mère and tried to recover from the embarrassment of knowing her grandmother lived the life of a courtesan. How is a woman to meet a man of respectability when your grandmother refuses to act the way it is expected in proper English society within the Ton.
Lord Edmund Worthington, the sixth duke of Rutherford has known all these things as well and the ton has yet to let him forget the humiliation brought upon Edmund when his father committed suicide in the bed of his lover who happened to be Edmund’s fiancé. Such mistakes are never forgiven or forgotten upon England’s societal elite.
Maybelle craves respectability and the freedom to travel to Egypt and see the Pyramids before they are completely pillaged by archeologists. Edmund fears the possibility of ever loving and depending on anyone else who could embarrass him and bring more shame upon his family. The last thing these two need is to ever meet!
But fate has its own idea of how things should play out and everything changes one night when Maybelle decides it is time to experience everything about lovemaking and lust without attachment. When she encounters Edmund in the garden at a social event she boldly propositions him and without care or thought to sensibility they both start down a path that will forever change their lives. While Maybelle thought she was looking for a one night adventure what she all too soon discovers is the possibility of love and a lifetime of unbearable and exquisite pleasure. Edmund wants to take her as his wife and throw the respectability of the Ton in the wind but is that a possibility with a free spirit who is not quite ready to settle down and give up her hard fought for freedom.
What happens next no one could expect but after Maybelle’s grandmother suffers a stroke she is forced to take over the School of Gallantry where young men are taught the art of seduction, love making and pleasure. Maybelle has but one night of experience yet her grandmother feels that with her instruction and that one experience she will be able to lead these men through their lessons. What Maybelle doesn’t know is Edmund is one of these men and she must not only teach him but fight off all his advances toward making her his wife. How can she possibly deal with her feelings for Edmund, maintain her freedom and try to achieve what might be a normal and proper life. This is the quandary facing Maybelle and how she works through it is both fascinating and very endearing.
This first book for Delilah Marvelle is well written with well developed and interesting characters but also one that makes you feel not only the pain of loss but the excitement and passion of first love. Maybelle and Edmund are very tortured characters but you never feel they are wallowing in grief; they are just trying to establish themselves with dignity in a world filled with very proper people leading most improper lives. I look forward to the other books in this series and know they will be as delightful as this one.