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Story: A Lord’s Chance (Scandalous Daughters of Duke Street)
Nobbie wasn’t about to let someone touch his watch, especially not this man who couldn’t stop staring at it. The intensity of the man’s undisguised lust for Nobbie’s old watch confused and interested him. On his sixteenth birthday—or an approximation of it—Nobbie was told to leave the orphanage and find employment. They’d given him a box containing the items he'd been left with as a baby on the doorstep of the Duke Street Orphanage. A very dusty small blanket with a J embroidered in the corner and a scratched-up old pocket watch. He’d turned the key and the mechanism had, surprisingly, worked. It kept time very well, provided he wound it each day.
“Why?” He would need a bloody good reason to let anyone look at his watch. His first possession, and the only connection to his parents, for what that was worth. They’d dumped him at an orphanage when he was only a baby. Sometimes he wasn’t even sure why he kept the blasted thing.
“Because it is a rare example of a fine maker and I wish to examine it.” The man’s sincerity shouldn’t make Nobbie so curious. He needed a bit of distance. Nobbie was usually great at figuring out people; it had been necessary for his survival in this world, but he couldn’t quite figure out this man’s end game. Why would he say such a thing when it was obviously untrue?
“And who might you be?”
The man lifted his head, brown eyes wide. He had light brown skin and dark brown, almost black, hair, as if he was a blend of several nations in one person, perhaps with a touch of the British East India Company in his background. “Lord Lawndry. Horologist.”
“Horo-what?”
“Horologist. I am an expert in clocks and watches. My mother is a Leichti.”
Nobbie had never met someone so earnest and wide-eyed. If he needed a new target, this man would be perfect. Na?ve, obsessed, and probably, easily parted from his money. The only thing stopping Nobbie from pulling him in was that he couldn’t help but wonder if he was being played too. The innocence would be the perfect cover for a con.
“And what, Lord Lawndry, is a Leichti?”
“The Leichti family have been superior watchmakers in Switzerland for the past three centuries. Lord Harrington is wearing a particularly fine example; I negotiated the purchase for him three seasons ago. It has a clever lever...”
“Please stop.” Nobbie didn’t care for the details of Harrington’s watch. The man was an imbecile, the walking embodiment of why the peerage and inherited money was a terrible idea. The perfect target; more so than this intense man who would’ve happily bored Nobbie to tears talking about watches. Perhaps there was nothing sinister in Lawndry’s lust over the damned watch.
“Can I please observe your watch?” The man didn’t give up. Nobbie clenched his jaw.
“No one touches my watch.” He was annoyed that he had to admit that much, but Lawndry’s eyes bugged wide open and he gasped.
“Oh, that makes complete sense. If I owned a Hobart, I wouldn’t let anyone touch it either.”
“Excuse me?” Nobbie knew, in a back of his head somewhere far away, that he should be pleased to have an excuse to keep Lawndry from touching the only piece of property that mattered to Nobbie. But surely no one would have this much awe over a beaten-up old watch? Unless... That sly part of his brain that was always looking for a new game pricked up its metaphorical ears and he suddenly needed to know why this apparent watch expert, horo-whatever, thought his watch was worth more than emotional and sentimental value. Could there be an advantage here somewhere?
And then Lord Lawndry did the most surprising thing of all. He sank to his knees. Heat rushed up Nobbie’s spine and through his veins as though he’d been suddenly dipped in a boiling vat of oil. Did this man know how he must appear to anyone watching? Instinctively Nobbie glanced over his shoulders, one then the other, and rapidly assessed the hallway, but they were alone. That should’ve helped. It didn’t. Fucking hell. The only men that had sunk to their knees for Nobbie had been paid well for it. To have someone do it voluntarily made him want—he gasped, choking as he tried to hide it—want more than he ought.
“I was correct. It’s not just a Hobart, but a very fine example of one. It needs a thorough clean, of course, and the ...” Lawndry twisted his head and put his ear very close—but not touching—to Nobbie’s watch. Nobbie gulped. His cock was rock hard at the sight of this man sinking down before him. It would be the easiest thing in the world to thread his hands through Lawndry’s hair. The unexpected rush of desire meant it took Nobbie a minute or so to realise that Lawndry was very carefully assessing his watch without touching it. The obedience. Fuck. Nobbie needed this man. Now and forever. If only it wasn’t impossible.
“... yes, the mechanism is running slightly off-time. Less than half a second per minute, and nothing that a good clean couldn’t fix.” Lawndry rose to his feet with his face slightly flushed. “Please allow me to do some maintenance on your—” Lawndry glanced down again. “—watch.”
Nobbie opened his mouth but nothing came out. Did Lawndry just hint that he had noticed Nobbie’s response to him?
“Please.” Lawndry’s pleading would be better placed in his bedroom, not here in a hallway where anyone might see. And the absurdity of him pleading over a damned watch, and not begging for Nobbie’s touch... well. “The engravings date the piece to 1780 onwards, perhaps 1785, there will be a mark on the silver inside the mechanism to confirm. Hobart produced only three or four watches each year and they all had the Guillochage pattern on the Hunter casing and up the pendant and bow.”
“Not here.” Nobbie’s stomach swooped, speeding wildly from desire to uncertainty. The watch that had been left with him mattered. Maybe he mattered. No. If that was true, everything about his life would be a lie. He already mattered. He knew this because he’d made something of himself despite being left at an orphanage. He managed to pull his card from his jacket pocket and flicked it towards Lawndry. The card floated in the air, much more casually than Nobbie’s own heartbeat.
“Come to my rooms tomorrow at noon.”
Lawndry’s brilliant smile pierced Nobbie’s frigid heart. Nobbie bolted down the hallway, brushing past Lawndry’s shoulders in his haste to get far, far away. What was he supposed to do now?