Clockwork Tangerine (3 page)

Responsibility lies with those who can enact changes, his father had always preached from the head of the dinner table. It is our duty to step up and do what is right for all, even if it is for someone we do not care for. We cannot pick and choose who we champion. To do so denies your birthright… your responsibilities… your very legacy.

“And we can’t have that, can we, Mr. Harris?” Marcus told the man on the bed. “Now let’s get you undressed and I’ll see how badly you are injured. Pray my body is cooperative and I’ll be able to walk when I’m done.”

A
T
LEAST
the housekeeper did him
one
small favor before she packed up her belongings and left. Within half an hour of Marcus hearing the woman stomp out of the house with a suspiciously clinking carpetbag, there was a loud rap on the front door, and he’d opened it to find a small, harried-looking blonde woman standing on Harris’s front stoop. She was handsome in a way only a woman could be, pretty enough but made beautiful by the sharp intelligence in her eyes. He was about to introduce himself when she stepped forward, edging into the brownstone.

“Did Harris get a butler?” She pushed past him, a leather medical bag swinging from her tiny hand. Keen to the weather, she’d dressed as practically as a woman could in a hunter-green walking dress, and her short leather boots rapped a sharp retort on the front hall’s floor. Still, the weather had gone sour, and the scalloped hem of her dress was damp and flecked with mud. “Now, where is he and where did Mrs. Conrad get to? Answer me, man. Never mind, I’m guessing he’s up in his room.”

The dynamo didn’t wait for his reply. Instead, she marched up the stairs and turned at the landing, clearly knowing her way to Harris’s bedchambers. Marcus followed, bemused to find a woman with a personality on par with his headstrong grandmother.

“How long has he been like this?” the woman asked.

“A few hours. He was being beaten rather badly when I came across him.” Marcus took the sharp look she gave him and tried to soften its edge with a smile. “I ran them off and brought him home. A bobby knew who he was and gave me his direction.”

“I’m surprised the bloody bobby didn’t get in a few whacks of his own.” She bustled about the edge of the bed, pushing her sleeves up her arms, and began to tug on the sheet Marcus had tucked around Harris’s slender waist. “Sorry there’s no one to introduce us properly, but I’m the doctor for the resident insane asylum down here in the Stews. Great, now that we’re chums, help me get his trousers undone. I’ll need to check his kidneys for damage. Blokes seem to love kicking in a man’s spine for some reason.”

“I was only able to get his shirt off,” Marcus replied softly. “He’s a bit lanky to manage by myself.”

“Well, now I’m here. We can manage it. You hold him up. I’ll tug down his trousers. He’s got a sore knee I’ll need to look at as well. What’s your name again?”

“Westwood.” Marcus cleared his throat. “Well, Marcus Stenhill, Viscount Westwood, and you are…?”

“Bloody shite!” Her eyes went wide, and then the woman composed herself with a shake. “Well then, on we go. Doctor Elle Horan, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Now, grab his arms and lift him up so I can see what those thugs did to him.”

Marcus felt a wide grin stretch over his face. The blonde woman was a refreshing change from the women he knew in the
ton
. She reminded him of his grandmother more than any of the sallow, frilled society dames, and when her eyes narrowed sharply at him, Marcus knew it was time to do what she told him or suffer the consequences.

Cradling Harris’s shoulders, he gently pushed the man up and slid behind him, supporting the inventor’s body against his chest. Harris felt warm, too warm for Marcus’s liking, and the bruising on his face and torso ran dark over the man’s pale skin. In the time since he’d been brought home, Harris’s injured flesh had deepened its color until it looked like he’d carelessly fallen into a vat of indigo and India ink.

The whole thing was too… intimate. His cock was responding, damn it to hell, but Marcus couldn’t blame his contrary piece of flesh. He’d never spent more than a few moments seeking his release in a willing whore’s ass, covert, hushed experiences done in shadowy bawdy houses catering to men with his perversions. The scent of Harris’s skin touched his senses, and he inhaled deeply, drawing in the perfume of lemony soap and pure masculine sweat.

His cock got even harder, and Marcus shifted, angling his hips for some relief.

Then Harris moved in his arms, skin sliding over fabric, and Marcus was lost.

No amount of clothing could hold back the intense feeling of the man’s flesh on his body. Even through his trousers and waistcoat, the sensation of Harris’s movements burned into Marcus’s thoughts, and he swallowed hard, his throat sucked dry of any moisture.

His brain quickly jumped in with a solution: swallowing and suckling on Harris’s yet unseen cock until the man coated Marcus’s throat with his bitter-salt seed.

“Can you hold him tighter, please?” The doctor’s voice broke through Marcus’s lust more effectively than falling into a snow bank. Suddenly the thought of having a female audience for his lusty thoughts churned ice chips through Marcus’s hot blood, and his cock limped back into submission.

“I’ll try. He’s definitely limber, even unconscious,” Marcus said as he worked to contain the man’s arms. Harris’s dark hair spilled over his shoulder, hiding the swelling on his face, and Marcus frowned at the color forming on the man’s temple. “It’s good of you to come. Harris needed more help than I could muster.”

The doctor cleared her throat, and he glanced up to find the woman staring at him, a deep suspicion clouding her expression.

“So you know who he is, then?” There was a deep current of protectiveness in her voice, and a surge of relief ran through Marcus as he noticed the high color in her cheeks. The good doctor was definitely a friend of Harris’s, someone who’d at least care the man lay injured. The housekeeper certainly hadn’t possessed that loyalty.

“Yes. I do,” he assured her with a calming smile. “He needed help, and I was in a position to give it to him. The men beating him were run off easily enough, and in this case, it was my pleasure just for the chance of seeing the inside of this house. It’s like… a clockwork shop gone mad.”

“Well, I hope you gave a few good thumps into the asses who did this to him.” The doctor grunted as she tugged at Harris’s waistband, the placket of his trousers opened and flapping loose. “Shift him up, please. I’ll need to get his weight off his back to get these off. Damn his skinny, bony rear! And I think he bled onto the sheets. I don’t want to reopen the wound by tearing him loose of them if he’s stuck. Damned bloody shits for doing this to him.”

She was shocking, loose with her tongue, but her hands were definitely skilled as they probed over the man’s ribs. Worry creased Horan’s brow, and concern bloomed in Marcus’s chest, growing deeper when the woman leaned over and listened to the inventor’s torso.

“Good. I was worried that his ribs pierced his lungs. I think they’re just cracked.” Nodding, she indicated for Marcus to lift her charge again. “Okay, steady on. Let’s do this in one go.”

The man’s slender torso was sturdy enough, lean muscles over long bones, and at the first peek of downy hair being revealed below Harris’s belly, Marcus looked away, more to prevent himself from being aroused than respecting the unconscious man’s privacy. If there was one thing Marcus wanted more than to sneak a peek of Harris’s toned body, it was possibly to lick every inch of it and kiss away every bruise he could find. It was bad enough he was lusting after an injured man. It was supremely uncomfortable to be aroused by the means of his father’s death.

“Deal with that later, Westwood,” Marcus scolded himself softly, keeping his voice to a dull whisper so the doctor couldn’t hear him. “Man needs help.”

Harris’s limp body proved to be a problem as Horan tugged off his trousers. Struggling to contain the seemingly boneless man, Marcus was forced to wrap his arms around Harris’s waist and hoist him up as Horan reached under the man’s rear. Her skirts slithered across the duvet, and at some point, she must have caught at a fold in the fabric, because one moment she was kneeling on the bed, and the next, she was sprawled out on her back across Harris’s bared belly, her dress pooled up nearly to her hips.

And Marcus stared at her right leg—or what she wore for a leg.

If the cat’s artificial limbs were a surprise, the doctor’s was a shock.

Her foot was covered in a low-heeled button-up boot, but the rest of her leg was exposed, and it was a marvel of engineering. The device was artificial, that much Marcus was certain of, and it ended in a leather sleeve that fit neatly over her thigh. A soft row of bezel-set lights haphazardly spotted the soft, buttery leather, magick nodes glowing as she shifted her constructed knee and ankle. Metallic lacework scrolled over her porcelain-glazed shin, providing cut-throughs to the complex rods and gears setup inside. It was both beautiful and horrifically mesmerizing, a profanity of science and arcane many would be averse to wearing.

The doctor, however, seemed more ashamed he’d seen her garters than her leg, and she tugged her skirts down as she righted herself.

“I’m married, I’ll have you know, and I’ll thank you to keep this quiet, Westwood. I don’t want my husband to call you out.” She sniffed and gave one more tug, removing Harris’s pants in one fell swoop. “He’s a crack shot. A police inspector. Perhaps you’ve met him? David Morgan? He transferred in from Scotland Yard.”

She covered her embarrassment with a flurry of words, so much like his grandmother that Marcus couldn’t help but laugh. When the doctor turned on her heels to face him, he quickly grinned in surrender.

“I give. Really. I have nothing but admiration for you, Doctor.” He inclined his head as much as he could while holding Harris’s torso upright. “And now I have an answer as to why you came out to a man’s home in the middle of the night just on the word he’d been injured.”

“Firstly, sir….” Horan tucked herself into a free spot on the bed to examine her patient. A flick of her hand and a corner of the sheet settled over Harris’s groin, hiding his private area from Marcus’s view. “I’d have come anyway. I’m a doctor. There are few enough who’ll work down here, and himself here does good work.”

“And secondly?”

“Secondly?” She peered up at him from over the span of Harris’s muscular belly, where she’d been prodding for internal injuries.

“Usually where there’s a firstly, there’s also a secondly,” Marcus replied with a smile. “Sometimes even a thirdly.”

“Ah, well, secondly then… yes.” Horan hoisted up her prosthetic leg as much as she could from under its fabric prison. “I do owe him greatly for this. I’d not have gotten as far as I have without Harris’s assistance. He’s a marvelous inventor. The Society’s members should have been hung solely on what they did to him. He was a child, barely into his teens, and they made him—a monster.”

“I don’t think he’s the monster. The Society was. They turned his ideas into nightmares.” He’d known of Harris’s involvement, but it was a distant thing, much like knowing where the sheep lived when his tailor made him a wool coat. It was so very different to be staring down at a helpless, attractive man. “It’s what happens when the naïve become prey. Anything good in them is perverted.”

He’d seen the Society’s perversions. They were a reality the world still could not shake loose from its memory. God knew he hadn’t.

The sight of his father’s chest flayed open by the metallic spider hidden dormant in the hallowed halls of law came to Marcus, an unbidden and horrific memory he’d sooner bury. Everyone—and in some cases, every creature—connected to the Society was tarred with the same blackened brush, stained by association regardless of their role. Harris was one of the few who’d escaped a death sentence, but he would drag around the stigma of betrayal and murder for as long as he lived.

“Ah, the poor boy,” the doctor murmured as she reached one arm under the man’s waist to feel his back. “He’ll be pissing blood for a week if I’m not mistaken.”

He couldn’t help but look. Needing something to take his mind off his father’s gruesome murder, Marcus glanced down at what the doctor was doing, only to find something nearly as horrible as his father’s flayed-open chest.

The mark of a Sodomite branded into the perfection of Harris’s pale skin.

It was livid, a mottled pink-and-tan blight burned deep into the man’s body. Nearly the length of a woman’s hand, the scar ran curved around the man’s right hip, a stylized
S
intersected by a small circle. It was the mark of someone caught in the unnatural act of loving a man, and Marcus’s belly clenched at the sight of it.

The once-Honorable Robin Harris now carried the shame of his perversion for any intimate to see. Any woman Harris bedded would know she lay with a perversion, and any man—any respectable man—would abandon Harris, for fear he’d be caught and branded as well.

Yet Marcus couldn’t
stop
staring at the shiny, slick area. For all its portent, the sigil was elegant, nearly as striking a piece of scrollwork as any found on an elaborate frontispiece. For all its initial beauty, Harris’s seared flesh had healed unevenly, puckered in some areas while stretched out to a nearly painful pinkness over his hip bone.

The mark was something whispered about behind closed doors and in the dark recesses of particular clubs, a fleshy boogeyman carrying with it a two-year sentence of hard labor. Suddenly, the slender man in his arms weighed more than the sum of his bones and flesh, and Marcus shuddered at the thought of what Harris had endured in earning his mark of shame.

“It’s horrific, isn’t it?” Horan murmured, nodding at the scar. “That’s how they punished him, you know? A vigilante group targeted him. Sent a man ’round to seduce him and then brought him up on charges. The boy never stood a chance. Damned lords and their revenge.”