The Duke Effect EPB

by Jordan, Sophie

  She knew the maid assigned to her upon moving into Haverston Hall rued the day she had landed Nora as a charge. Nora was forever uncooperative, avoiding custom and dressing herself, undressing herself, doing her own hair, tending her fire and pulling down her own bed at night. She was every lady’s maid’s nightmare, but Bea’s especially. Bea had said as much.

  Considering the manner of activity she had planned for the rest of the day, she donned one of her old costumes. A simple gray blouse and skirt with an embroidered belt. She had worn the attire often before Marian married the duke—when Nora was naught but a simple country maid.

  Life had been hard then, with little money and debtors hunting them and a belly that was never quite full. Fear for their future was a very real thing.

  Now there was no fear. And yet life had been simpler then. Simpler when she’d had nothing. No money. No prospects, certainly.

  Now there were expectations, as much as she disliked those expectations and chafed beneath the weight of them.

  She descended the stairs and made her way free of the house without encountering anyone. She exhaled. It always felt a little easier to breathe when she was clear of Haverston Hall.

  She basked in the fine day, her long strides quickly covering the distance, soon depositing her at her destination on the far side of the estate. The secluded little lagoon was a place she had occasionally visited, swimming in the waters as a child, although she supposed she had been trespassing in those days.

  She rounded the pond where several white willows crowded the water’s edge, shielding a good portion of the water from the sun. Nora was well familiar with these particular willows. She’d harvested willow bark from them regularly every spring, even before Warrington had taken residence at Haverston Hall . . . before he met and subsequently married Marian.

  Papa had been the one to show her how such a thing was done . . . and where all the willows were to be found in the shire. At least in so far as he knew. The closest willow tree to her house no longer thrived. Papa had foraged from it every spring until it had finally died.

  She’d been delighted when she one day looked up during her swim to notice the trio of willow trees. She had at once set about harvesting the bark, but judiciously. She had no wish for the trees to perish for the sake of medicine. What good would it do anyone if she harvested the bark too aggressively and destroyed the trees?

  And of course, there was her work.

  Willow bark was a common ingredient for many of her experimental tonics. She was constantly researching ways in which to improve the suffering among the injured and ill. It had been an area of particular interest for her father, and she had taken up the banner.

  She winced as she considered the tonic she had made for Charlotte. She had thought it quite harmless. Willow bark had been among its components. All the ingredients she had used before. Some together. Some apart. And yet nothing strange or new. She only altered the levels from previous variations.

  And yet how that tonic had dramatically altered the course of Charlotte’s life.

  Historically, her sister suffered from terrible cramping in the days preceding her menses. Nora felt as though she were close to a breakthrough when she delivered a new mixture to her sister, hopeful that this particular concoction might mitigate her pains. Nora had in no way anticipated the most incredible outcome.

  She winced again. Nora did indeed reduce her sister’s cramping, but she also created a host of other symptoms for which she could not have accounted. She might approach life with a clinical eye and have a strong grasp of the workings of the human body, but she was still a maid. She had never given a great deal of thought to matters such as arousal.

  Never had she considered lust to be such an altering and powerful condition, where an individual’s physical state could outweigh her mental faculties, but that is precisely what had happened to Charlotte when she took Nora’s tonic.

  Nora had invented an aphrodisiac.

  Incredible as such a thing sounded, it was true. Nora had catapulted her shy, reticent sister into the throes of desire. Thankfully, such a circumstance had not resulted in anything dire. Quite the opposite.

  When Nora considered the situation, she could only feel inordinately pleased with herself. Because of her tonic, Charlotte was blissfully in love and happily married and mother to a healthy child. Perhaps it was bigheaded of her, but she could not help herself. Wrong or right, she was proud of herself—or rather, proud of her tonic. Even if she didn’t know what to do with it now. She couldn’t very well go about dosing people with an aphrodisiac, after all.

  Still, her talents had never brought about such marvelous results before. As far as she knew she had helped people through their ailments, but saved no lives. It made her feel warm inside to know she had played a role in bringing about Charlotte and Kingston’s happy union . . . and the life of her niece. She felt giddy at the knowledge.

  Nora stood back and carefully evaluated the three trees, noting the areas where she had harvested bark before. Biting her lip, she worried the tender flesh just as she worried over permanently damaging the trees. Papa had warned her against foraging too forcefully. She could cripple the tree and that would not be the thing at all.

  She continued to appraise the three trees, marking the lighter skinned patches where bark had been removed from the trunks in previous years. “Well,” she announced to herself. She was guilty of talking to herself whilst she worked. “It must be done.” But done right.

  The only right way was to climb high up the tree to collect bark off some of the upper branches that had been spared of earlier foraging. It was much wiser to cut bark from one of the branches rather than the trunk.

  She adjusted the strap of her satchel across her chest and hiked up her skirts, tucking the front hem into the belt at her waist. Thankfully, she’d spent a girlhood climbing trees all over the shire. Even though it had been some time since she had done so, it felt a familiar task.

  She searched and found a handhold and hefted herself up, her boots slipping and scuffling until they gained a foothold. Grunting, she scaled the trunk until she reached the first outcropping of branches, wishing she had worn her gloves. Her palms were stinging.

  She steadied her weight, wedging her boots in the V of branches. She purposefully did not look down. Not that she was scared of heights. It just seemed sensible to avoid doing so. Intent on her task, she crawled out onto one of the sturdier branches. Carefully balancing her weight, she squeezed her thighs around the branch and inched out as far as she dared, determined to collect bark far from areas she had already harvested.

  Pausing, she fumbled inside her satchel for her small paring knife.

  It was precarious business. She moved cautiously, slowly, so as not to lose her balance. Soon, she was slicing slivers of thumb-size bark, tucking them inside her palm until she had well over a dozen pieces.

  Once again, she fumbled inside her satchel, retrieving the small jar within and securing the slivers inside the vessel, screwing the lid back on tightly once she was finished.

  “There,” she breathed heavily, satisfied with her efforts. It should result in a fine amount of willow bark tea . . . with quite a bit left over for her to experiment with in her various tinctures and tonics.

  A flash of movement below caught her gaze and she froze, her eyes flaring wide in her face. She gasped.

  There was a person. A man.

  A man directly beneath her in the water.

  She recoiled at the unexpected sight of him. There was a strange man in her pond! How dare he!

  The motion upset her balance. There was no swallowing her cry as she wobbled upon her perch, attempting to regain her balance to no avail. Her clenched knees lost their grip.

  She slipped, tilting sideways, and then went down . . . falling. Dropping with an unceremonious graceless splash in the pond.

  Chapter 3

  Nora emerged, sputtering and squawking before the very individual to have caught her
so unawares. The wretched individual who had no right to be in the Warrington pond. Who was this interloper?

  She shoved the wet, heavy skeins of her hair back from her face and gawked at him. He stared at her with equal astonishment from eyes the color of coal. His wet hair was equally dark and plastered about his head in wild disarray.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded, treading water and not with much ease as her skirts had come untucked and were a dire nuisance, tangling amid her kicking legs.

  He looked from her and up to the tree, deducing her origin and doubtlessly confirming she had not fallen from the sky.

  “Did you not hear my question?” she demanded. Water splashed against her chin and lips as she bobbed in the water, and she coughed a bit.

  “I’m availing myself of a swim in this pond,” the stranger finally and very reasonably replied.

  Far too reasonably. As though trespassing were a reasonable and acceptable thing. As though availing himself of someone’s pond for a swim were a reasonable thing to do and not at all illicit act.

  Certainly, she had done the same thing for years, but that was neither here nor there.

  “I can clearly see that. It’s your presumption to indulge in a swim here that I find so very objectionable, sirrah.”

  Sirrah?

  Did that come from her lips? She sounded such a prig. As dour and grating as Mrs. Pembroke from the village. Nora had been forced into that unpleasant woman’s company on far too many occasions. She could scarcely stomach the lady . . . and she certainly could not stomach the notion that she was anything like the wretched woman.

  “You’re trespassing.” She winced at the shrill edge to her voice.

  Instead of answering that charge, he replied with equanimity, “What were you doing up in that tree?”

  “Never you mind my business,” she sputtered. Why was he still here in this pond? With her? “Get out! Out!”

  He lifted a hand and wiped it over his face as though clearing it of water droplets would also help to clear away the vision of her before him. Of course it was for naught, she was still very much before him. No magical creature but flesh and blood.

  His lashes were long and dark, jagged wet spikes that snared her attention—even given her state of distress. The small detail should be beneath her notice. Such things usually were. She rarely gave much consideration to the male gender as a whole unless the man was a patient in need of treatment. Certainly a man’s lashes had never caught her interest before.

  This man, she noted, had likely never been ill a day in his life. He appeared quite robust. The very vision of health. He appeared to have no trouble treading water. Water lapped at his rather large and well-formed shoulders.

  “Getting out of this pond presents some difficulty,” he finally answered.

  “How is that?” she asked, snapping her focus away from his bare shoulders.

  “You see”—he glanced toward the shore—“my clothes are over there.”

  She followed his gaze, her stare arresting on the pile of clothing on the pebbled ground. She gave a croak and swung her attention back on him.

  Evidently his shoulders weren’t the only part of him that happened to be bare. He was fully unclothed and only inches from her. Thankfully, she could not see the rest of him through the murky depths of the pond—not that she attempted to gain a glimpse.

  He looked at her rather expectantly. He clearly anticipated for her to turn into a blushing and squeamish female, exclaiming in maidenly protest.

  She lifted her chin in an attempt at dignity. He would be sadly disappointed over her lack of histrionics. She had never been a female given to maidenly airs. Another thing that set her apart from other ladies.

  “I can assure you, sir . . . you are not in possession of anything I have not seen before.”

  Astonishment flickered in his dark eyes . . . and something else. Interest perhaps? For a moment the sentiment was there and then it vanished.

  “Indeed,” he murmured slowly, as though digesting her bold claim.

  She gave a hard nod. “Indeed.”

  “Well,” he said, his deep voice rumbling between them with an austerity that even her dukely brother-in-law failed to manage. “If you have no objections then.”

  Turning, he headed for the shore, gliding smoothly, offering her a glimpse of his muscled male back, youthful and strong, undulating with his movements. An inconvenient lump formed in her throat. Who knew a man’s back could be so riveting?

  The surface of the pond hardly even rippled as he swam away, which seemed a testament to his inherent agility. She did not have a great deal of exposure to agile men. Most were patients who were aging or ill. Except for her brothers-in-law, of course. But she did not see them as men. They were married to her sisters. They existed in a category of their own.

  If you have no objections . . .

  Oh, she objected. Heartily so.

  Inside she was raging at this man’s intrusion on her pond, and upon her peace . . . and his disruption to her equilibrium.

  She watched, frozen in the middle of the pond—except for her treading legs, which kept her from sinking. Although drowning didn’t sound too terrible right now because her face burned hot with mortification. She’d never been one to ogle a man, but here she was doing that very thing. It irked her. She had always thought herself immune to such behavior, but there was no stopping her gasp as he emerged from the pond, revealing himself inch by inch, water sluicing down the long lines of his big body.

  All of his body. From the back, at any rate.

  His broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist and hips. But it was his backside that most captured her attention. The tight, well-formed cheeks of his derriere. Saliva pooled in her mouth. A curious impulse seized her to squeeze those cheeks . . . give them a swat and see if they were as firm as they looked.

  Madness. She wasn’t a licentious person. She attributed the urge to her scientific nature. She was a curious person. Nothing more.

  He bent and gathered up his garments. Turning, he faced her and she saw that his stomach was flat, his chest lightly sprinkled with hair, the sinews of his torso rippling with his movements beneath taut skin.

  For all his great height and breadth of shoulders, he was lean and rangy and could use a few additional meals. And yet his strength and power felt palpable. She sensed it in the same way the air felt charged preceding a storm.

  Again, this was merely her professional opinion and not that of a female given to appreciating the male form in any carnal manner.

  A familiar quote from Julius Caesar sprang to mind . . . a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.

  Treading water, she swallowed against the thickness in her throat.

  “I’ll leave you to your pond, miss.” He executed a bow. Rather ridiculous under the circumstances, but there was nothing ridiculous about this man. Indeed not. As he bent at the waist with his clothes bunched up in front of him to shield his manhood from her eyes, she could only squint, peering at him as though she might see through the garments. Impossible, of course. Unfortunate, that.

  Unfortunate?

  What was wrong with her? Clearly her scientific curiosity was getting the best of her and edging into new territory. Sexual curiosity.

  Was it any wonder? Her sisters were constantly exchanging heated glances with their husbands, touching and brushing against each other in small ways they thought to be discreet.

  She swam carefully for the shoreline, reminding herself that she did not know this man. She picked a spot to emerge a safe distance from him. Water rushed from her body, dripping down her heavily sodden garments as she rose from the pond, eyeing him warily. “I was not here to swim,” she grumbled.

  “But this is your pond upon which I trespass?”

  She hesitated before giving a brief nod of assent. It was her brother-in-law’s pond, but she would not go into that with this stranger.

  “Well then. As requested, y
our privacy.” He gestured around them. “Feel free to continue falling from trees.”

  She snorted. Falling from trees, indeed? Did he think she fell into the pond on purpose? It really was quite lowering. She was more skilled than that. His presence was to blame for her lapse in physical adroitness. He had startled her.

  Before she could correct him of his misapprehension, however, he was gone.

  With a swift turn, he disappeared into the foliage. A horse soon nickered from inside the thicket. He was not on foot then. That meant he was taking himself off with all swiftness. Good riddance.

  Confident she was again alone, she turned her attention to her satchel still hanging from her person, and quickly inspected the jar inside. A relieved breath escaped her. The slivers of bark were still safely inside. The lid had held fast and that troubling man was gone. All good things. She had her equilibrium back. She had enough work to occupy her without adding matters of erotic curiosity to her plate. She’d leave that for others who were searching for a man to bring them fulfillment.

  Nora was no such female.

  Tucking the jar back inside her satchel, she gave it a satisfied pat and headed in the direction of Haverston Hall, cringing at the sensation of her heavy, wet garments clinging to her body. At least it was not a cold day. It would have been even more miserable if she had fallen into the pond during the winter. Of course, he would not have been indulging in a swim in the midst of winter. There would have been that benefit.

  She walked, water squishing from her boots. Not a comfortable sensation.

  No doubt she would have to explain to Mrs. Conally what happened. The housekeeper would take one look at her and demand an explanation. She was not easily put off with excuses or tactics of avoidance.

  She knew better than to enter through the grand front doors of the house where her arrival would be much noticed and exclaimed over. The staff was on high alert these days when it came to her. Her sisters had conspired to make certain she now took her meals with the family, forbidding her from asking for a tray in her room where she could eat as she worked. Alone.