The Duke Effect EPB

by Jordan, Sophie

  She looked back and forth from his face to his splendid manhood. Both were beautiful sights. She rolled her thumb over the distended head of him. Moisture rose up to kiss her thumb and she rubbed the evidence of his desire over him, lubricating him.

  More fluid rose and she used it to slick her hand over him, gliding faster over his stiff rod, her fingers exerting slightly more pressure and squeezing him harder.

  He seemed to enjoy that. He growled and she watched his contorting face, riveted and hungry for every variation of his expression.

  He pulsed, jumping under her touch and she gave him another squeeze.

  “Bloody hell,” he groaned, arching and thrusting in her grip.

  The length of him, the generous girth of him folded in her hand, was as impressive as it was intimidating. Taking him into her body would be daunting.

  Would be?

  When had she started thinking of it as an eventuality?

  She had vowed that would not happen but now, in this moment, she wasn’t scared at the prospect. She envisioned herself mounting him and easing down on his member so that it filled the gnawing hollowness inside her.

  Of course her thoughts had traveled there. It was the nature of sexual congress. How could she have her hand on his cock and not think about it? She eyed the length of him, wetting her lips. Her body was afire, the ache something fierce between her legs. She wanted this for herself. Not just for him.

  “Nora,” he said hoarsely, the sound a strangled plea.

  Her gaze shot to his face again, ready to do anything right then—and not just because he was asking.

  “Kiss me.”

  Anything but that.

  Chapter 21

  Nora stilled at his request. “I beg your pardon?”

  She did not know why she acted as though she had misunderstood him. She had heard him perfectly well. Likely it was because the request struck such a deep chord of alarm in her.

  She had never kissed a man.

  Granted, she had never stroked a man’s member before either, but the notion of kissing loomed as something much more personal and intimate and bound for failure. What if she was bad at it? She suspected there was skill involved with kissing.

  She’d heard two maids tittering in the kitchens at home, giggling about the handsome and virile stablemaster’s prowess as they simultaneously mourned the fact that he had fallen in love and married. Both lasses had agreed that Blackthorne was a good kisser whose lips would be heartily missed by all. If the stablemaster was a good kisser, then that meant bad kissers existed. What if she was one of them?

  What if Nora was a bad kisser?

  “Kiss me,” he repeated, lifting his head up from the bed. “Nora. Please. Will you?”

  Her gaze fastened back on his face. Gone was the composed duke’s heir. There was no dignity in this man. This man pled for her lips, his face contorting and twisting with emotion as though he might die if he did not have them.

  It’s just the tonic. Not you.

  “Nora,” he said again. “Kiss me so that I don’t feel as though I’m taking this from you. As though you are doing me a service with not a bit of enjoyment in it for yourself.”

  She jerked. Was that what he thought? That she was performing some regrettable chore?

  Did he have no idea how she was affected? That she was consumed with the basest of desires? That she ached for him, too? That she suffered guilt for putting him in this dire situation?

  “You take nothing from me. I did this to you, put you in this state—”

  “Stop saying that. I volunteered. I knew the risks.” He lifted his head from the bed, the tendons of his neck stretched taut.

  She could not take another moment of this. Seeing him in such torment, hearing him blame himself? She wanted only to end it. She wanted him to understand she was here of her free will. That she touched him with her free will.

  She released his manhood and draped herself over him, stretching for his lips, determined to convince him this was no miserable chore for her. He needn’t feel guilt on that score. If anyone should feel guilt, it should be her. She shouldn’t enjoy this so much.

  Her lips pressed clumsily on his without art or skill, but he did not leave it at that. He buried a hand in her hair, his fingers spearing through the thick mass, unraveling the loose plait she’d arranged for bed.

  He tugged her closer and she obliged, clambering over him, her nightgown pooling over his naked form. She straddled him with her knees on either side of his hips.

  It was shockingly freeing and delicious—the sensation of his big naked body under hers. Heat washed through her. She felt wonderfully afire, her breasts and womanhood aching for pressure.

  One of his hands remained in her hair as he continued to kiss her, his tongue slipping inside her mouth. She opened her mouth wider so that their tongues could dance and tangle and rub sinuously.

  “Nora,” he moaned into her mouth. “My cock . . .”

  She felt the rock-hard evidence of him, jutting through the layers of her nightgown and robe into her.

  He moved under her, rocking, seeking his release.

  He reached it at last.

  Shuddering, he cried out, spilling himself as his hands dropped, clenching her hips, gathering fistfuls of the fabric in his fists. She felt the wetness on her nightgown as he stilled, his mouth open against hers, silent on a gasping cry.

  She gasped, too, relieved he had reached his end—that it was over.

  She was glad and relieved for him, but aching for herself. Bereft and empty. Unsatisfied. The fires he had stoked still burned within her.

  She supposed that was her burden to bear.

  She slid off him, releasing a pained breath. “Are you . . . improved?” She winced. Awkwardness was inevitable. There was no stopping it. How could they go back to the polite formality of before?

  He tossed an arm over his brow with a gratified sigh. “I am . . . spent.”

  “No more . . . pain?”

  “No.”

  She sat there, silent for some moments beside him, her fingers fiddling with the fabric of her night rail. “I don’t suppose we should administer the tonic to Her Grace?” She released a shaky little laugh.

  “No, you are quite right. Not without further testing. I had a spoonful. The next experiment should start with a droplet.”

  She nodded, looking up at the ceiling of his bedchamber and the flickering shadows and wondering when he thought that experimentation should occur . . . especially as she would be leaving tomorrow. That had not changed. More than ever, she felt compelled to put distance between herself and him.

  Although the idea of departing prompted a pang in the center of her chest. She resisted the urge to rub her fingers there, to ease the ache.

  “Indeed,” she murmured. “Except I am departing tomorrow. Perhaps I can leave you with some of the tonic.” Of course it was unlike her to leave an experimental tonic in the hands of someone else, but she felt an overwhelming urge to flee. The exception could be made this once.

  He stared at her with a hooded gaze, his dark eyes unreadable.

  A long moment passed and then he replied. “I cannot believe you scaled balconies to reach my room.”

  “What choice did I have? You would not open the door to me.”

  “I don’t think you should leave on the morrow,” he said suddenly, returning to the matter of her declared intent to leave, proving that he had in fact heard her.

  Her chest tightened and she grew a little breathless. “Why is that?” She searched his face, longing . . . longing for something.

  She was not sure what she hoped to see, but she recognized the emotion squeezing her chest. The hope that encircled her like an invisible band.

  He nodded slowly, resolutely. “I’ll not shirk my responsibility.”

  Her smile turned unsure, wobbly on her lips. She was not certain what he meant. What responsibility did he speak of? Curing the duchess? From the first moment she met him he
had claimed that as his duty. She moistened her lips. “What do you mean? You’ve proven yourself to be a very responsible gentleman. Unfailingly so.”

  “I will do right by you.”

  Her smile slipped altogether, uneasiness sinking through her, the invisible band around her loosening as the hope faded away. “Right by me?” She shook her head. “I don’t understand your meaning.”

  He waved a hand, encompassing himself and her. “I do not make it a habit to ruin well-heeled ladies.”

  Her stomach twisted and sank. Now she understood what he meant. He offered marriage. If one could call it an offer. It felt more like a stinging slap.

  “I am not ruined,” she said tightly between clenched teeth. Oh, how she despised that expression and all its antiquated implications. She lunged from the bed and glared down at him in his naked glory, trying not to let the sight of him thusly dazzle her.

  “A gentleman does not dally with a lady and then not offer for her hand. It must be done. Honor demands it. You’re under my protection whilst here and I abused that trust—”

  She snorted. “Oh, spare me your noble altruism. I am not ruined like some bit of fruit that has gone sour and spoiled. I do not require saving. Any more than I require a husband.”

  His hands bobbed on the air as though attempting to mollify her. As though she were some wild steed in need of quieting. “Now, Nora. Be reasonable.”

  She sucked in a hissing breath. “Do not tell me to be reasonable. That’s what men always say to women they cannot control.”

  His gaze widened and he looked her up and down appraisingly, his obsidian eyes staring at her as though he could see directly through her garments to the hollows and swells of her flesh beneath. “I would not be so foolish as to think you could ever be controlled, Nora.”

  Something stirred in her belly at his admiring look, at his deep voice and smoldering examination of her—a rekindling of the fire that had not yet been extinguished.

  He tsked his tongue and continued, “Nor would I ever try to control you, Nora. That would be akin to sacrilege.” His eyes swept over her again and it was tempting to forget that this man had insulted her with a backhanded proposal of matrimony.

  And yet forget she would not.

  She might not have been a girl with a head full of romantic dreams, but she knew how one ought to be proposed to and this was most assuredly not it.

  She breathed in, fighting to reclaim her composure. “You had a problem tonight, sir, which I created, admittedly, so I corrected the situation for you. No harm done. You are not bound to me. You need not give up the elegant Lady Elise and saddle yourself with the likes of me. That particular shame is not one you must endure.” If her voice sounded cutting, she was glad for it. Let him feel every bit of her indignation.

  “Nora. That is not . . .”

  “Not the insult you intended?”

  He stared at her in frustration. “That is—”

  She continued, “Do not worry yourself. You’re still free, fret not. Free to become the Duke of Birchwood without an unfortunate and embarrassing wife clinging to you.”

  She did not linger to hear the rest of his words. She had heard more than enough.

  She marched a hard line toward the door. “If you do not mind, I shall use the door this time.”

  Without a glance behind her, she unlocked the door and exited his room, closing his bedchamber door with a clack, not even caring if a servant spotted her in the corridor.

  Her reputation was not something she had ever overly valued. At least not her reputed virtue. At any rate, such a thing was a construct of men who wielded power. It was not anything substantial. Her reputation as a person, as a sister, as a friend . . . her reputation as a healer, those were the things she valued.

  He did not know her at all if he thought she would accept his insulting offer. Unlike most females her age, she wasn’t after a husband. She was not trying to land a man. So many women needed their reputations as a bargaining device, a negotiating tool for security. Not Nora. She was privileged in that regard.

  She realized she was fortunate to have a sister who had married well and would stand by her through anything. Yes, even a loss of reputation. Not that Nora believed herself without reputation.

  She was still a maid. Her virtue was intact for all intents and purposes, and there would be no threat of tonight repeating itself. They were not lovers. This was a one-time liaison and he could stuff his sense of obligation toward her.

  He’d only succumbed because of the tonic. He would not do so again.

  He would return to his former self, the ever-rigid, ever-passionless and ever-proper heir to the Duke of Birchwood.

  She took refuge in her chamber and undressed, glad for Bea’s absence as she removed her soiled nightgown. She fetched a fresh one from her packed luggage, standing at the ready for tomorrow’s departure.

  She was no longer certain if she was leaving tomorrow. Her head ached when she contemplated it, so she decided not to give it another thought. At least for the remainder of this night. Tomorrow she would consider her fate. Tomorrow she would decide.

  Once in a fresh nightgown, she moved before the washstand and poured water on the one she wore to Constantine’s chamber. Taking the soap, she scrubbed it into the fabric, determined to rid herself of the evidence of their tryst.

  Would that she could rid it from her mind as effectively.

  Chapter 22

  Constantine stood near the window in the duchess’s bedchamber the following morning, observing the elderly lady where she sat in her bed, propped up against several pillows. Thankfully, she looked in fine form, happily perusing the array of food on the tray before her.

  “You know,” Her Grace began, “the only thing that gave me any relief was that tea from our darling Nora.” She sat cozily in her bed, lathering jam generously on her toast as though nothing unpleasant had ever afflicted her.

  “Nora’s tea?” The duke frowned. “Did not Sir Anthony help you?” The question was worded rather strongly, as though Sir Anthony must have helped her and nothing else. No one else. Certainly not Nora.

  She waved a hand dismissively in the air. “Oh, nothing he does ever helps me. I don’t know why you send for that man. There is nothing to be done for me when I’m in the throes of these spells, I fear, but Nora’s willow bark tea is the closest thing to ever provide me with any relief.”

  The duke’s frown intensified and he sent Constantine a rather uncomfortable glance, no doubt recalling how rude he had been to Nora.

  Serves him right. Constantine felt a stab of satisfaction, hoping His Grace felt remorse for his treatment of her, and also inordinately proud that Nora alone had been able to provide even a modicum of relief for the duchess.

  “I was desperate, m’dear,” the man explained, taking his wife’s hand in his. “I thought Sir Anthony—”

  “Just because he attends your club and is a man does not mean he is proficient in medicine, my dear,” she returned.

  He puffed up his chest in a display of indignation. “I rather thought his medical license made him proficient in that regard, m’dear.”

  “Please.” She laughed lightly and Constantine marveled that this lady was the same one to appear in such discomfort yesterday. “How old is Sir Anthony? Seventy? He received that license in the Dark Ages. I doubt he has kept up on any advances in medicine. Everyone knows he spends all his time with his mistress on Crawley Street.”

  “Maude!” the duke exclaimed.

  Constantine laughed. He could not help himself.

  “What? ’Tis common enough knowledge. Now please fetch Nora, would you? Even though I feel better, I would like some more of that tea of hers.”

  The duke looked to him questioningly. Clearly he expected Constantine to produce Nora as though she were naught but a servant to be managed. He certainly would make no such attempt after the abysmal way the duke had treated her . . . and perhaps Constantine was apprehensive to see her again af
ter last night.

  He did not precisely know how to comport himself after all that had transpired between them. He had tried to stay away from her. He had locked his door . . . and yet she had still found a way into his chamber, to him. It was difficult to accept that the tonic had broken him, but it had.

  “Ah, I believe she is packing for home, Your Grace.” He swallowed and fought to keep his expression neutral. At least that was what Nora had claimed the night before. She’d rejected his clumsy proposal. The fault was his. He should have done better. He owed her better. A gentleman did not offer marriage in such a blundering way.

  “What?” the duchess exclaimed. “Oh, she can’t leave yet. We’ve a dinner party tomorrow and I’ve invited my friend, Mrs. Prentiss, and her charming son specifically for our Nora.”

  Constantine looked at the lady sharply, his gut clenching for some reason. Why specifically for Nora?

  “You cannot mean to entertain tomorrow night, my dear. You are not well—”

  “Rubbish! I am quite recovered and just fine now.”

  “Maude, I forbid—”

  It was the lady’s turn to laugh now. “Oh, Victor, that is amusing. You’ve never forbidden me from anything. What makes you think you can start now and that I will listen?”

  The duke opened and closed his mouth several times, clearly at a loss.

  “Now.” The duchess fixed her gaze on the maid standing nearby. “Please fetch Miss Langley, Polly, and inform her that I should like some of that splendid tea again. Quite restorative.” She nodded brusquely and then turned to look at her husband. “I’ll see the housekeeper now as well, to make sure all is in order for tomorrow evening. There is much to go over.”

  The duke’s shoulders slumped. “Very well, m’dear.”

  Nora carefully carried the tray of steaming willow bark tea to the duchess’s bedchamber. The cook had (again) glared at her the entire time she had prepared it, clearly resenting Nora’s presence in her domain.

  Yesterday the glare had felt more tolerant, but it seemed the cook’s tolerance for outsiders in her kitchen was waning. Today Nora felt the full, relentless blast of that glare. Apparently one day was to be tolerated, but a second day? Just barely.