ENCHANTING PLEASURES

Lovely lady sets out to cure her new husband’s migraines—which improves their sex life to no end—in another winner from Regency-romancer James (Midnight Pleasure, 2000, etc.).

A serious riding accident six years ago left Quill Dewland with a limp and excruciating three-day migraines triggered by any rocking motion. Horseback riding is out of the question, and as for sexual congress—well, it’s clear to the apoplectic Viscount Dewland that his eldest son may well be unable to provide an heir to the family fortune, even though Quill’s shrewd investments in the East India Company have multiplied said fortune many times over. Younger son Peter will have to marry instead, and the conniving viscount has arranged for a suitable young heiress to be delivered to London all the way from India for just that purpose. Peter, however, is a powdered, pomaded, social-climbing fop; one swift look at Lord Jerningham’s charmingly disheveled daughter, Gabrielle, makes him wince. Other men may admire her provincial impertinence, glorious bosom, and tawny, tumbling curls, but not Peter. Passionate Gabrielle is momentarily piqued—until she falls into Quill’s arms. Darkly handsome, powerfully built, and utterly unlike his finicky brother, he’s the man of her virgin dreams and quickly woos and wins her. But the terrible headaches that afflict him after lovemaking trouble her conscience. She searches for a cure, but Quill has other things on his mind, like the political machinations of unscrupulous Englishmen seeking to put a puppet ruler on an Indian throne to increase their own influence and profits. It’s whispered that Gabrielle smuggled an Indian princeling into England, a feeble-minded boy some want dead, although she’s determined to protect him. Quill gets to the bottom of that mystery, while Gabrielle consults a Brahman priest, whose secret herbal remedies will either cure her husband . . . or kill him.

Delightful heroine, masterful hero, and an ingenious plot: intelligent, sexy fun.