Clockwork Tangerine (7 page)

Apparently there were greater perverts than Robin. And their money and rank kept them safe from ever being bound to a table for others’ sexual pleasure.

Then the older man caught Robin looking at him and
smiled
, a clear pour of sexual interest in the curve of his puffy lips.

Robin fled to the gardens, only making it as far as the balcony before losing the duck comfit he’d choked down at the Duke of Harding’s table.

He couldn’t remember what the duck tasted like when he’d first eaten it. Everything he’d put in his mouth seemed flavored with sawdust and grit, but he’d chewed away, mechanically nodding at the stories someone’s boisterous uncle told their corner of the room. It wasn’t until he’d stood up did he realize he’d probably also drank too much, because he couldn’t recall his wineglass ever being fully empty due to the seemingly continuous presence of a bottle-bearing footman at his elbow throughout the entire meal.

There was a handkerchief somewhere in his evening jacket, and Robin fumbled through his pockets to find it. Wiping his mouth, he opened the large snuffbox his father’d given him at his graduation and shook out one of the mints he kept in it. The lozenge was compact and strongly flavored, nearly burning his sinuses, but Robin sucked on it anyway, washing away the bitterness on his tongue.

He’d nearly gotten the taste of bile out of his mouth when Robin felt a pair of hands sliding up his thighs. The cloying scent of a pungent cologne blocked out the sweetness of the garden’s cabbage roses, and the press of a man’s body pushed him into the balcony’s stone railing, a thickening erection jutting into the curve of his ass.

“I knew you’d recognize me, Harris.”

Robin stilled, frozen in the memory of where he’d first heard the man’s voice. He’d just seen one witness to his shame. Now another had come up on him, and his stomach creased and churned with the unexpected shock.

If he’d had anything more to lose in his belly, he’d gladly have coated the man’s encroaching arms with his sick, but he had nothing inside of him, not even the fortitude to move when the man’s hand caressed the burn hidden beneath layers of Robin’s clothes.

He struggled to break free of the man’s weight, but the aristocrat, benefiting from years of overindulgence, had too much heft for Robin to dislodge. Instead, the man leaned over Robin’s shoulder, bringing his jowly cheek to rest against Robin’s.

“Let go of me, sir.” Robin pushed back, using the railing for leverage, but it was like trying to move a boulder.

The world continued to spin merrily along, uncaring of Robin’s panic or the slavering man now clasping at his hips. Below them, the gardens were softly lit with strings of lights, faint blue dots giving off barely enough glow to chase off the deepest of shadows but still allowing some privacy for lovers to escape from the glaring brightness inside.

The same brightness illuminating Robin and his tormentor.

“Admit it, sodomite, you want this.” The man’s breath stank of fetid cheese and cheap rum. Robin turned his head to avoid the stench, but it was too late. The curdled air was already upon him, burying the minty flavor in his mouth. “I’m surprised you aren’t moaning and rubbing up against me like the whore you are. You must have more self-control than most perverts. Is that because someone might see us? I can have my carriage brought around, or better yet, we can find someplace near the stables. All we need is something for you to bend over. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“And I’m sure it will be over very quickly, but sadly, I’d like to have a conversation with Dr. Harris.” Another voice—unfamiliar and droll—cut through the evening, and the scent of lightning filled the air.

A crackling blue light arched up behind them, and then something hot lit Robin’s skin, a sharp spark coursing from the man behind him. The man’s hands fell from Robin’s body, but the places he’d been holding tingled and ached. His attacker fell forward, slamming Robin into the hard stone rail. Then he jerked to the side, his body rocked with spasms.

Spasms obviously induced by the pair of wires leading from the back of his fat neck to the strange gun-looking device held by an elderly gentleman standing a few feet away.

Wires that carried an obvious current of arcane energy from the device to the man’s flopping body, a modulating flow seemingly driven in intensity by the press of the cherubic-featured man’s finger on the trigger.

He was short for a hero, but Robin wasn’t going to decry the man’s heroic stature. Despite his years, the man’s face was plump, his round cheeks bright red with excitement, and a broad smile curved up above his double chin, ruffling back a pair of impressive snow-white muttonchops.

The wires stopped their crackling, and the older man waddled over to the still-twitching aristocrat, stepping over his flailing legs to grab at the connectors sticking out of his neck folds. Once loose, the wires curled into bouncy waves, then began to slowly recoil back into the handheld device when the gentleman depressed a button on the back of his contraption.

“Isn’t this lovely?” The gentleman held up the odd gun, showing Robin its gleaming sides and its dual muzzle set with the pair of pronged barbs he’d just pulled out of the man frothing at their feet. “Really, a marvel of what good can come of arcanists and industrialists working together.”

“Um, that’s… a weapon,” Robin mumbled past his shock. “Those are… that’s what got me in trouble… the Society in trouble—”

“Bah, you had nothing to do with the Heretic Society’s purpose. Your devices were for the greater good. Only a sick man would hammer a plow into a sword.” The elderly man tucked the shock gun under his arm, then held his hand out to Robin to shake. “Pardon me. Let me introduce myself. I’m Briarsham, Duke, and all that follows. My intimates call me Ducky. I hope to one day count you among them, Doctor Harris.”

“Oxford stripped me of my honors after….” Robin trailed off, remembering the shock he’d gotten when he’d opened
that
letter in New Bedlam.

“Idiots. All of them. Cambridge man myself. We should talk about them establishing your letters. Closed-minded bastards over there at that other school.” Delivering one final kick to Robin’s tormentor, the gentleman tilted back, slipping on the slick marble tile. Robin caught at his elbow before he fell, grunting when the man’s weight nearly dragged them both down. Smiling even broader, the duke chuckled. “Nearly went ass over tea kettle there. Thank you, son.”

“Um, I should say thank
you
for… that.” Robin gestured at the man coughing frantically at their feet. From the looks of his steady breathing and flushed face, he’d survived the encounter with Briarsham’s gun but didn’t seem able to do much more than flop over and lean against a planter sporting a large asparagus fern.

“Nonsense. I was glad for the opportunity to try this delight out. There’s talk of giving these over to the bobbies for patrols, but we had concerns it would cook a man’s brain. We’ll have to see if Hankshaw here recovers his senses. If not, then the world has lost a reprobate and gained a village idiot.” The duke waved his contraption under Robin’s nose.

“Still, it was….” Lovely seemed like an odd word to use for a rescue, especially since Robin’s fears seemed to have rendered him as senseless as his attacker’s encounter with Briarsham’s device. “I can’t thank you enough. It’s shameful—”

“More nonsense. What’s shameful is how that man acts. His father would be ashamed if he’d known what a mockery his eldest son is making of their title. I knew the old man. He’d have taken that boy out to sea and thrown him to the sharks.” The man shook his jacket back into place, then hooked his arm into Robin’s. “Actually, I’d seen you come out here and thought I’d ask you to join us in the study. A few of us are interested in discussing the work you’ve done down in Little Orient. Fascinating stuff. Marvelous, really. But more to the point, why ever did you choose to use bilateral arcane nodes for your prostheses? And how
ever
did you overcome overloading their cycling energy?”

A
FTER
NEARLY
an hour of searching frantically through the guests, Marcus found Robin in the family’s receiving room, surrounded by a small gathering of men his grandmother soundly labeled as Eccentrics. However, Marcus knew them as the founding members of the Hellfire Club, a curious set of arcanists and scientists determined to safely mingle the two philosophies beyond the meager measures currently deemed acceptable.

Safely being the operative word.

The city proper still didn’t know what to do with the enormous crater where the old Spanish mission once stood, but the multistoried gem spires sprouting up from the bottom of its bowl were gorgeous, especially in full sunlight.

Thankfully, no one died, although the scientist responsible for the disaster still complained of hearing wind chimes whenever a good breeze kicked up.

But there Robin stood, among some of the most insane yet brilliant minds of St. Francisco’s
ton
,
scribbling
on the old Duke’s cleared-off desk with a piece of chalk.

Marcus’s butt still smarted from the time he’d used oil paints and stamped crudely drawn penises on his father’s desk.

He closed the door behind him before either of his brothers walked by and slipped into the room to listen.

“L
AST
NIGHT
went well. Better than the first ball we attended together.” Marcus sighed contentedly, accepting the brandy Robin poured for him. “But I wish you’d told me about Hankshaw before he was taken away that night. I’d have liked to help him into his carriage.”

“
You
would have
accidentally
thrown him down the longest flight of stairs in the house,” Robin accused, flopping down onto the davenport next to his friend. It was a common complaint of Marcus’s. Even after nearly a month, he never tired of extracting a promise from Robin to tell him if someone like Hankshaw bothered Robin again. “Actually, probably twice if you thought you could get away with it.”

“Only once.” Marcus sipped at his brandy, then smiled goofily. “Okay, maybe twice. Did you have fun with the learned gentlemen today? I noticed the house is still standing, so I’m guessing you went to Briarsham’s estate.”

“You think they’re crazy, but really, they’re quite brilliant,” he snorted back, warmed more by Marcus’s smile than the potent liquor. “But yes, I had fun, despite spending the day with someone named
Ducky
. Between him, me, and Wrensfield, it’s as if we’re at a tea party with Audubon.”

“My grandmother is fond of Ducky. I think she has a
tendre
for him.” His friend leaned closer to Robin. “Or she just wants to grab a hold of that shocking gun of his so she can use it on the gophers eating her tulip bulbs.”

While Marcus spent most of the days tending to business, Robin’s time was being taken up in earnest discussion of theoretical arcane and science. Some ideas he came back to his workshop to test afterward, forcing Marcus to drag Robin out to dinner when he came home.

It was odd hearing Marcus call the row house
home
, but the man spent more time eating, sleeping, and socializing at Robin’s side than anywhere else. He’d let the term slip out in a conversation with his grandmother, and Robin let it pass, a nervous tingle in his belly flaring every time he heard Marcus talk about the house they shared with Robin’s hairless cat.

They’d fallen into a routine. After dinner, they’d have a few rounds of good brandy in the newly cleaned study Robin’d forgotten he had. Sometimes they played cards or chess, with Marcus swearing Robin cheated as he lost each and every game. Other times they read, either by themselves or to each other.

He’d fallen asleep more than a few times listening to Marcus’s soft baritone, only to be woken when his friend began to snore as well.

They spoke of too many things for Robin to remember, but the feeling of Marcus sprawled out next to him on a davenport in front of a roaring fire was something he’d carry with him until the day he died.

He anticipated his time with Marcus Stenhill would come to an end before he was ready, and Robin engraved each touch—every brush of the man’s hard body—into his memories to warm him on that cold day when his house was empty of the loud, boisterous viscount.

Even when Marcus wasn’t talking, he was noisy. His very body was loud, pressing in on Robin’s consciousness with its heat and roughness. Still, the man calmed him in ways Robin didn’t realize he needed, and any resentment Robin might have had about Marcus taking over his life was swept away in the dim light of their shared evenings over brandy and the occasional cheroot.

The cherry tobacco scent of Marcus’s cigarillo teased Robin’s alcohol-mellowed senses, and he peered through the wreaths of smoke at Marcus’s handsome face. Sniffing in a plume, Robin felt the tickle of the smoke in his nostrils. Then the taste of it hit his throat, and he murmured at its pleasant sweetness.

“Do you want one?” Marcus held out his cheroot case for Robin to inspect.

“No. Thank you. Every time I tried to inhale, I choked. Nothing more shameful than passing out from a mouthful of smoke.” That was until he fell into the man’s lap while naked and knocked silly in the head. He had
that
little incident to use as a hallmark of shame now. “It smells lovely, though. Does the smoke taste as sweet?”

“There’s only really one way for you to know that.” Marcus pulled in a mouthful of smoke and wreathed the air with a thin plume.

“How is that?” Robin frowned, wondering what Marcus might have meant.

“Do you trust me, Robin?” The man’s eyes gleamed in the firelight shining through an iron grate set on the hearth.

“Yes,” he admitted slowly. “With anything, Marcus. You know that.”

It was a hard-won trust, but after the time he’d spent with Marcus, Robin knew he’d found the one man he could bet his life on and Marcus would be there. They’d spent hours on Marcus’s estate, wandering through the hills so Robin could explore the rocky outcroppings for certain minerals, while Marcus strolled behind, willingly carting cracked stones Robin tossed into a basket.