Her presence here was much too disconcerting . . . in the same way he had felt with her in the carriage. It was as though close quarters with her addled his thoughts and had him doing things like studying her lips and her very fine eyes and the tempting shape of her. It was very wrong of him. It should be Lady Elise’s lips that fascinated him.

She bristled at his brusque tone, and he knew he’d hit a nerve with it. “The potion has side effects. Or rather, one particular side effect.”

He frowned. “But you said your sister is well. These side effects mustn’t be too terrible.”

“Um. I suppose that depends.”

He fought down his exasperation. It was not like her to prevaricate. If anything she was too bold and direct. “Please elaborate.”

“You won’t believe me.” Her chin went up a fraction. “No one does at first. My sister Marian did not.”

Presumably, she did now. “Try me.”

She assessed him as though evaluating him for his sincerity. At last, she spoke. “The tonic afflicts one . . .”

“Yes?” he prompted.

“It acts as a trigger for one’s desires.”

He digested that.

Making certain he understood her correctly, he asked, “You’re saying that this tonic of yours fills one with lust?”

She nodded. “It overtakes them, yes. The most acute lust. Terrible and—”

“Well, right there you are confused because lust is not terrible. That is not the nature of it at all.”

Her lips parted as she looked up at him, and the air crackled, popping over the surface of his skin as he stared at that mouth of hers, such a deep rose color that it looked perpetually swollen. As though those lips had been thoroughly ravished . . . and begged to be ravished again.

Only a few inches separated them. A few inches of space between him and that pillowy mouth.

Bloody hell.

He should not be discussing lust, of all topics, with this female.

Especially alone. At night. In his bedchamber. Doing so provoked all manner of feelings and thoughts uncustomary to him.

He’d lived a sensible life, and he had thought to continue on that path even as the future Duke of Birchwood. Becoming a duke presented new duties and responsibilities, certainly, but it did not change him. Not intrinsically. Constantine was the same man he’d been before receiving word to return home and take up the mantle as heir to the Birchwood legacy.

Even whilst in the army, he was circumspect, never engaging in the services of the many camp followers. That was not to say he lived as a monk. He simply had never been a man ruled by his cock.

But in this moment, he felt entirely subject to his baser instincts.

Nora Langley brought out his feral side. His body hummed and pulsed with the urge to crush that mouth under his.