ONE WICKED NIGHT - Noelle Mack
Kensington Aphrodisia
ISBN-13:  978-0-7582-1773-8
January 2008
Erotic Historical Romance

London, England - Early 1800's

Prepare to enter the world of Lord Edward Delamar, a noted lover of women in London society.  He loves women and sees no reason to deny himself any feminine companionship he wishes, whenever he wishes.  Right now, as he is looking back on his life, he seems to be attracted to two different women.  One is Anne, sister of his friend Thomas.  At the age of twenty he went to visit their family, and sweet Anne ushered him into the world of sexual experience such as he had never dreamed of.  Theirs was a sweet, tender love, but he left knowing she was betrothed to another, and soon to be wed.  Until ten years later, when he finds out from his friend that Anne lives in London, in a house unlike any Edward has ever seen, so dark and gloomy.

But, Edward has met someone who he considers to be the perfect woman, Xaviera (Xavi) Innocencia, a vision of loveliness, with an appetite for the carnal pleasures he revels in.  Meeting secretly, they satisfy their every sexual longing as they try to keep their secret affair from her evil, mean husband.  But then Anne reappears, now the owner of a brothel that caters to those who like a little "spanking" for their sexual pleasure.  When Edwards starts visiting Anne, etchings of Xavi mysteriously begin appearing in various store windows.  Edward undertakes to find out who is drawing them and buying them back before Xavi's husband sees them and does something awful to her.  His relationship with Anne is on and off again, and he always goes back to Anne because of her sweet personality, but he sees a change in her, and it doesn't make him happy.

A London gentleman, Edward lives alone and enjoys all that life has to offer, good drink and fine women.  Anne is a fond memory of a more innocent time in his life, and meeting her again rekindles those sweet memories.  But Anne has changed, and while he strives to overlook the changes, her present occupation gives him pause.  Xavi wants Edward to consider her a misunderstood wife, but she is hiding secrets from her past too.  As Edward looks at the love notes he and Xavi secretly exchanged, he is trying to come to terms with his life and his attraction to two different women, and whether a secret love is what he really wants in his life.

Noelle Mack has written this book as a series of musings as Edward remembers his two great loves, and what their end shall be.  As he tells his story and makes his comments, I was drawn into his stories of erotic meetings, and the small details of his life.  This was a particularly effective and interesting way of writing and immediately caught my attention.  

The two main ladies in Edward's life are Anne and Xaviera Innocencia, each highly important in his life and in his maturing as a man.  Don Diego Mendez y Cartegna is the supposedly hateful brute of a husband of Xavi.  Quinn is Edward's artist friend who did an oil painting of Xavi and is a sometimes companion of Edward's into the underbelly of London society.

ONE WICKED NIGHT is the tale of a London gentleman and his two different paramours.  Plenty of surreptitious trysts and open sexual play make this a titillating read if you like your history with a touch of spice.

CeCe Johns