Clockwork Tangerine

by Rhys Ford

  “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?”

  AFTER 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.

  “LAST 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.

  A basket that previously had been filled with picnic foods they’d shared by a small creek and splashed in like children before shaking themselves off in the afternoon sun.

  “Yes,” Robin repeated. “I trust you.”

  “Good, because I need to do something. Something I should have done a long time ago.” Marcus set his cigarillo down on a pot metal Chinese dragon dish he’d found during one of their meanderings at the local bazaar. Turning around, he reached for Robin and slid his broad hand under Robin’s hair to cup the back of his head. “Come here.”

  Marcus’s touch was a familiar one by now, but the feel of the man’s work-roughened fingers against his scalp brought life to Robin’s cock. His skin tingled, much as if he had licked a current or spelled an arcane node wrong. Marcus’s hand guided him closer, and Robin leaned in, perplexed at what the man was intending, but when Marcus slid over the davenport’s cushions, Robin nearly pulled back in surprise.

  Then he gasped with shock when Marcus’s mouth touched his and the man’s lips stole the breath from his body.

  The tang of cherry and light wood lingered on Marcus’s tongue, a strong perfume of tobacco th
at bled away to a more intriguing dusky taste of man. To be specific, a single man… one Robin often pondered over and fantasized about tasting.

  It was much better than he’d ever imagined, and Robin now knew he could die happy with the flavors of Marcus Stenhill in his memories.

  Marcus pressed in, pulling Robin into his arms before leaning them both back onto the davenport’s arm. The heavier man’s weight spread over Robin’s legs and chest, distributed carefully so as not to crush, but Robin still felt the heft of him along his body. It felt as wonderful as Marcus’s mouth.

  The mouth that continued to explore his own until he whimpered from lack of air. Their lips parted briefly… long for Robin’s liking, but it was enough for him to exhale and breathe before Marcus descended again, his hands clenched in the strands of Robin’s black mane as they skillfully guided Robin into a deeper kiss.

  If his breath was stolen by the first one, the second clearly abducted his reason, because Robin’s world became a speck of cushion and the length of hard muscle, sinew, and bone lying on top of him. His hands couldn’t find enough of a purchase on the man holding him down. There didn’t seem to be one spot he could stop and say this was perfect, because in a few inches, another area lured him in. The breadth of Marcus’s shoulders begged to be explored, and the line of his throat needed to be licked, but he only had his fingers, as his mouth was still enraptured by the viscount who’d rescued him.

  Then Marcus pulled away, just enough to stare down at Robin’s besotted face, and he was left gasping again, gulping at the blend of tobacco and Marcus left behind on his ravaged lips.

  “Do you still trust me, little crow?” Marcus whispered. “And will you let me give you more?”

  Six

  THEY BARELY made it upstairs. It was a near thing. Between dodging a wide-eyed maid carrying towels into Marcus’s room and accidentally frightening Robin’s hairless gargoyle of a cat when they came in, Marcus thought he’d die from anticipation before the first button on Robin’s shirt was popped from its prison.

  The cat screamed her displeasure, probably calling down the fury of all cat gods on their heads, but she slipped out of the room in a high temper, and Marcus kicked the door shut behind them.

  He’d slammed it hard enough to rattle the glazed glass windows, but he kept Robin busy enough the man didn’t notice the noise. Marcus’s hands were hot from running over Robin’s slender torso, and he could taste the brandy on Robin’s tongue, flavored with a hint of the cigarillo smoke he’d blown into the man’s mouth.

  Beneath that was the sweetness of Robin, a blend of man, lemon soap, and a hint of arcane―a tingle of erotic strangeness he’d had no contact with until he’d met his bespectacled inventor.

  It was a taste as addicting as fine chocolate or rich coffee, and Marcus was quickly surrendering to the power of its lure―of Robin’s lure.

  And Marcus wanted to die drowning in it. In the man himself if God was willing.

  From the way Robin tore at the buttons on Marcus’s waistcoat, God wasn’t the only one who was willing.

  Marcus moved forward, backing Robin into the room. Their tongues did battle, a furious dance then a slow engagement, feeling one another out. Marcus marveled at the texture of the man’s mouth, the smooth ridges at the roof and then the silken roughness of his tongue. The sweetness of Robin’s kiss stilled suddenly when the man’s legs struck the edge of the bed and Robin’s soulful eyes flew open, startled at the sudden impact.

  “If you tell me to stop, I will,” Marcus promised, his hands poised at the ready to undo the line of buttons closing the front of Robin’s linen shirt.

  He wasn’t unaware of the horrors perpetrated on New Bedlam Island. If anything, what little he knew only fueled his imagination, and suddenly the slender, beautiful man he longed to bury himself in seemed to need more than lust and desire to stoke his arousal. Perhaps even to know that Marcus would pull away, hurting with want, if Robin couldn’t dip down deeper into their intimacy.

  But then Marcus also now feared any sexual encounter Robin might have had came at the cruel and brutal hands of uncaring men who only sought to show their dominance and slake their own desires.

  “I want you to want this, little crow.” Marcus couldn’t seem to shake off using his nickname for Robin. The man bore little resemblance to a small, twittering brown bird. He was sleek and glossy, with black as a raven’s wing hair and the sculpted strong features of a Roman emperor. “I am serious. I want you to want this. To want me….”

  “You have no idea how much I want you.” Robin’s hands stole up the inside of Marcus’s waistcoat, straining the buttons in their fastenings. “I just… don’t really know how to do… this. Everything I’ve done, the men before—they weren’t—they weren’t like you, Marcus.”

  “If I do this right, there will never be anyone for you but me.”

  It was a heavy promise, one laden with complications, but the words… the sentiment of it felt right. No matter what the next day would bring, Marcus would do everything in his power to ensure Robin’s safety and happiness.

  “You can’t say that.” The man he’d nursed back to health paled to an alarming white, and Marcus wondered if Robin was strong enough for anything other than a kiss and a tuck into his bed. “What we’re doing here… it has to be kept secret. I’m branded as a sodomite. Even your visiting me—staying here—puts you in danger. Your title won’t protect you from that, Marcus. You have to know that what we have… what we share… could ruin you. It could ruin your entire family.”

  “I know what I’m doing, Robin. I know what I’m risking.” He sat Robin down on the bed, studiously examining a button at the man’s collar he longed to undo. Marcus knew what awaited him under the shirt’s fabric. He’d seen enough of Robin’s delectably naked body while he’d been in recovery, but the time they’d spent together had added a bit more muscle and flesh onto the man’s slender form, and Marcus ached to explore every inch of skin he could.

  “You know but you persist in this?” Robin put his hands over Marcus’s to hold him still but stopped short of removing Marcus’s hands from his body. “Do you want to spend two years on the island? Do you want to dream of smelling your own flesh cooking? Because I can tell you, I don’t want that for you. I would spare you that.”

  “And I would spare you the fear of being attacked in the streets while you’re trying to make a little boy’s life better.” Marcus pushed Robin down onto the mattress and straddled his legs to keep him there. “Listen to me, love.”

  “I can’t. There’s too much danger—”

  Marcus cut him off. “Too much danger? How so? Do you know how many bachelors have their friends living with them? In my world, it’s as commonplace as having tea in the afternoon or riding with the hounds. No one will think anything of you coming to live at Westwood. And if anyone asks, I will tell them about your work and how I want there to be a safe place for you to develop those legs or that eye. This isn’t just about my loving you. It’s about redemption, Robin Harris. It’s about taking away the scorn and derision heaped upon you by people who did not know better. You were taken advantage of. My God, man, you were fourteen years old! You should have been in London and having your brilliance nurtured instead of being a scapegoat in a failed uprising.”

  “History is written by the victors,” Robin reminded him softly. “I certainly did not win in that conflict.”

  “No,” Marcus agreed, saddened by the shadows in his lover’s eyes. “But I can ensure that you will win in its aftermath. I refuse to let you go, my mad scientist. I would rather live as a Bedlamite with you than as an aristocrat with an empty soul. I told you, I know what I’m risking. And that is you. If I don’t do this―if I don’t spend my life listening to you, breathing you in… waking up next to you, then I’ve lost everything. That is what I am risking―a life without the man who makes me feel alive.”

  For as long as he lived, Marcus would remember the kiss Robin gave him in that moment
of declaration. It was far from passionate. This was not a torrid meeting of tongues and a battle for dominance. Instead, they met in a light skim of their lips, a tentative touch of Robin’s tongue against the plump of Marcus’s mouth before he parted his own lips and moaned for Marcus to take him.

  The man could have meant anything by those words. To deepen the kiss. To lay Robin out on the bed and savage his body with a fierce lovemaking. Instead, Marcus took it for what his heart needed it to be: to envelop Robin into his life and make the man his.

  “Mine,” Marcus whispered in promise. “Just as I’m yours.”

  Their clothes would not survive the encounter. Marcus was sure of it. He heard something rip and then a longer tearing sound, followed by the ping of buttons striking wood. One must have hit the mechanical miniature peacock Robin had left on the side table, because a soft chiming filled the room, eventually stilling to a murmuring jangle.

  “I should move that.” Robin briefly glanced toward the complex automaton, but Marcus caught him up by the chin.

  “Really, if the peacock is what you’re focused on right now, then I’m doing a piss-poor job of seducing you, Dr. Harris.” Marcus nipped at his lover’s mouth.

  “Maybe you should increase your efforts, Viscount Westwood,” Robin teased. “Because I’m sure you can come up with another cock I’d be more interested in.”

  “I am certain I could.” Marcus nearly spilled his seed at the sight of Robin’s milky skin on the bright white sheets. “My God, Robin. Just… look at you. You’re beautiful.”

  That got a blush pinking the man’s cheeks, and it worked down over his chest, even pooling over his flat stomach for an instant before fading away. Turning, Robin reached to extinguish the light from the nearby lamp, but Marcus stopped him, grasping the man’s wrist and guiding Robin’s hand up to his mouth.

  “You’ll… see… everything,” Robin whispered hotly.