He led her through a doorway into a room his brother had envisioned for elegant meals with white linen-covered tables and candles flickering on them. What use had adventurous women for such boring dining options? He still had the flickering candles, but they stood on tall pillars providing the barest of light over fainting couches and mounds of pillows where ladies lounged while men placed grapes between their lips or handed them glasses of wine. Young bucks knelt before them, holding a platter of food while they ate to their hearts’ content. Some women invited the men to join them while they dined, some merely wanted to be served. Whatever their pleasure, the gentlemen were hired to provide it.

“Have you a hunger to be sated?” he asked suggestively. “A thirst to be quenched?”

“I have no interest in food or wine. Although I am intrigued by the decadence.”

She lifted those flame-blue eyes to his, and it took every bit of resistance he could muster not to fall headlong into the fire. Why was a woman with such seductive powers coming to an establishment that catered to the lonely wallflowers?

“Within this room, women are made to feel like goddesses,” she continued.

It pleased him that she understood the underlying purpose of his efforts here. He grinned. “Hence the reason we call it the Goddess Parlor.”

“Did a woman help you design this place?”

He thought a touch of jealousy marred her tone, but that could not be. They didn’t know each other well enough to spark emotions as volatile as that between them. Although had she wanted to lounge about within these walls, he might have found himself letting go any man who came near enough to inhale her strawberry scent. “My sister-by-marriage suggested the ladies would welcome being made to feel special.”

“Which one? Lady Aslyn or Lady Lavinia?”

Definitely nobility. She spoke the names as though they were familiar to her tongue, and he fought not to consider with what else he might wish to make her tongue familiar. “Lavinia. Although she’s dispensed with the use of lady before her name.” Except when she wrote scathing articles about the unjust treatment of unwed mothers and children born on the wrong side of the blanket. Then she embraced her place in Society, allowing it to serve her purpose and a greater good. “You seem to know a great deal about me.”

“Your family is the talk of the ton.”

“My family, but not me.”

“Of course, you. How do you think I knew of this place? Why provide women with all this?”

“I have a gaming hell for men. Not as posh. Cards only. But every now and then a woman would come to play. Why shouldn’t women have their own space in which to enjoy themselves? Why should they be relegated to evenings of needlework?”

“Because it is the proper thing to do.”

“And you are proper, are you?”