Topping-The-Duke-07

This is an entirely fictional story that is licensed solely to Nifty for workshopping purposes. It may not be reproduced, distributed, or commercially exploited in any form without express written permission from its author.

This story is Historical Fantasy set in the Early Victorian Era and may be too slow burning for some folks. If you’re looking for a quick wank, this probably isn’t for you. But if you like action, intrigue, magic and character growth between sex scenes, then this is your cup of tea.

This story contains graphic M/M sex between teenagers, and between adults and teens. The sex is sometimes romantic, sometimes rough and/or non-consensual with an authoritarian, medical, or BDSM bent. Slavery, forced indenture, medical experimentation on the destitute and corporal punishment in schools were still common occurrences during this time period, so things may happen that should never occur in modern real life. Protect yourself and your health by using PReP and condoms and do not try these things at home, especially if they violate the laws of your locality.

If you are a minor, or think something in this story might bother or offend you, STOP HERE.

If you enjoy this sort of thing, read on, and feel free to email me with comments or encouragement at:

taxandros@protonmail.com

A big thank you to all you who have written to let me know how much you enjoy this story. Your enthusiasm and kind words inspire me to keep going. I don’t have any other stories posted anywhere else yet, but I plan to cobble some together, soon.

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Your humble author, Taz

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End of Last Chapter:

As soon as the opening was clear, Bran reached up and began to pull himself up. A callused hand grasped his wrist to aid him, and then the dragon unleashed its fury with a strange, shushing roar.

A heavy force grabbed hold of Bran’s legs and ripped him from the collier’s grasp. The world spun, and he found himself trapped in a ferocious jet of oily, brackish water that whisked him away from the light. It slammed him into the jagged roof of the tunnel, then spun him around, battering him with debris.

Dazed with anguish, he tried desperately to swim towards where he had last seen the light, but the torrent forced him up into the small venting tunnel overhead with enough violence to knock the breath out of him. It swept him along, shooting him down the dragon’s throat like a ball through a cannon. He clawed desperately at the walls around him, trying to break through to a larger tunnel that hadn’t flooded yet, but the current was too fierce. When he finally managed to inhale, salty, dirty liquid stung his nose and lungs. He coughed, but the inhale brought the same foul water. His body burned for air.

It was no use.

A strange calm came over him. He surrendered to the current, and was amazed at the flickering blue lights of the coblynau dancing around him. The irony of it all made him snicker, despite the pain: In all the ways he had feared the dragon would kill him, he never once thought it would be from drowning.

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Topping the Duke (Chapter 7 -- On the Curious Nature of Goatsby’s Semen)

“Goatsby!” Charles raised the glowing vial, desperate for any sign of the lad. All he could see was roiling, oily black water spewing through the gap with the force of a geyser. The collier who’d had hold of Goatsby’s wrist had been knocked to the ground, and while his fellows helped right him and drag him out, Charles attempted to resist the current to reach the gap, but it was no use. The current was too strong, and the chamber had already flooded up to his knees. “Bran!”

Strong arms wrapped around Charles’ chest and dragged him out of the chamber into the main bank area. “Naught we can do, Your Grace.” The man gripping him set him on his feet and shook his head in defeat. “The current’s got ‘im. Swept ‘im away, it ‘as. No tellin’ where ‘e’ll wind up.”

“But, he’ll drown!”

“As will we, if we don’t get to the cage before the area floods. We must be leavin’ now.”

Charles sighed, feeling a tightness in his throat. He had given his word to the plucky little drammer. To abandon him to such a fate went against everything Charles believed in. But the facts were irrefutable. Water had breached the mine. They must retreat, or be drowned. It was a bitter pill, one that ate away at Charles’ core.

He stopped resisting and turned to jog with the men as they followed after the wagon loaded with the two injured Joneses. “I’ll recover him,” Charles vowed. “I’ll free Goatsby from this wretched place, even if I have to do it posthumously.”

The men glanced over their shoulders at him, then exchanged glances with one another. To a one, they nodded. “We’ll ‘elp you, as best as we can, we will. But we’ll ‘ave to drain the water off and fix the breach, first.”

Once again, their logic was irrefutable. Charles allowed the problem of dewatering the mine to distract him as they navigated through the smoky maze back to the cage. By the time they were all inside and the bell was rung, he had developed a new schematic in his head for a revolutionary new water ram that could likely dewater the flooded areas within a few days rather than several weeks.

“What is that light?” One of the colliers interrupted his thoughts.

“It’s brighter than a gas lamp, it is.” a second remarked.

Charles shook off his thoughts and turned to regard the fellows. “It’s a unique substance I discovered recently.”

“Where did it come from?”

“From…” Charles cleared his throat, glad that his breathing mask and goggles hid the heat in his cheeks and the delighted shame in his eyes. The very thought of the origin of that glowing liquid hit him with a wave of self recrimination, even as it charged him with an arousal to rival any he had ever experienced before. He became suddenly, acutely aware of the pressure in his pants and the way the fabric of his shirt brushed over his erect nipples. The memory of what he and Goatsby had done in this very cage set his body ablaze with forbidden desires.

“From your inventions?” the curious fellow prompted. “Like our breathin’ masks?”

“A clever invention, it is.” The man beside him remarked, nodding. “Not an open flame, yet as bright as sunlight. ‘Ow long will it last?”

“I’m not certain. I need to study it further.”

“Can you make more of it?

Charles winced at the reminder of Goatsby’s misfortune. “Sadly, the original source has been lost.” He shifted uncomfortably and murmured: “I need to study it further in order to determine if I can reproduce it.”

If the men noticed his discomfort or the bulge in his trousers, none of them remarked on it. They were more interested in caring for the injured Joneses, who moaned and writhed pitifully.

“May I be usin’ your coat, Your Grace?” Nat Jones looked up from his kneeling position beside his father. He held Charles’ vermilion topcoat in his arms. It was smudged and dirtied with coal dust, but Goatsby’s faintly glowing spunk still decorated the lapel. The sight aroused Charles further. He cleared his throat before asking: “What do you intend to use it for? We are ascending to better air.”

“To ‘eal them.”

“Your father and brother? How will my coat heal them?”

“The bits of gold, Your Grace. Bran was pickin’ them off and givin’ them to our butties who’d fallen by the bank. ‘E said a prayer to Beli Mawr, and they recovered to a man, they did.”

“Recovered? Surely that’s because they reached better air. Their injuries could not have healed.”

“But they did. All their wounds ‘ad gone by the time we reached the cage. They climbed in of their own accord.”

“It’s true, it is.” The curious collier nodded earnestly. “The only ones who came out of the cage bleedin’ were Libby and Pywll. The other five ‘ad blood on their clothin’ but no wounds.”

“Impossible.” Charles shook his head despite the equal impossibility of the glowing semen he held in the vial. “Everything must have a rational explanation. Perhaps their injuries merely looked more severe than they really were? There was much smoke and water. We could have mistaken that for blood.”

The miners kept their mouths pressed in tight, thin lines. The cage banged and jostled against an outcropping of rock, eliciting sharp, anguished cries from the injured Joneses. Nat glanced up at Charles, tears in his eyes. “Please, Your Grace. May I try?”

“Oh, alright. But if it is a humbug, don’t complain to me.” For all his vexation, Charles himself was curious to see if what Jones described could actually occur. He held the light over the injured men, so that he could see exactly what Nat was doing. The colliers leaned in over his shoulders to watch, as well.

The boy carefully picked off a golden circle from the red fabric and placed it in his brother’s mouth, then pushed aside the treated neckcloth from his father’s face and did the same with him. Nat drew in a deep breath, screwed his eyes shut, and recited something in solemn, reverent Welsh. The colliers all withdrew their caps, bowed their heads, and repeated it.

Charles watched attentively. If Goatsby’s semen actually possessed miraculous, healing powers, surely it would cause some dramatic effect. But nothing seemed to occur, other than both of the injured men sighed deeply and stopped moaning, as if they had fallen into a deep, restful sleep.

“Well, that’s a mercy,” the man beside Charles mumbled. To a one, they all crossed themselves. The Christian genuflection struck Charles as strange, since, according to Goatsby, Beli Mawr was a pagan solar deity. But then, it had always been difficult for an educated Englishman to fathom the Welsh capacity for superstition.

“Thank you, Your Grace.” Nat Jones offered the coat back. “Thank you for everythin’.”

The other colliers in the cage echoed those sentiments, causing Charles to lower his head. The Joneses would be dead if not for the courage of Goatsby. And Charles had failed in his promise to see him clear of this hellish place. The shame of that burned brightly in him, even as the grief over the little drammer’s death laid heavy across his shoulders.

Father would have considered this adventure an unparalleled success, counting the life of one spindly apprentice a small price to pay for the rescue of nine hearty colliers. The perception that those of the lower classes were inherently less valuable and less important, and therefore less human than those of his own class was one that Father had drilled endlessly into Charles.

Today had put the lie to that.

The wit and courage Goatsby had displayed in the face of his initial terror distinguished him as a man of true mettle. Such qualities were sorely lacking among most of those attending Eton, despite their breeding and privilege. The chasm between what a man truly was, and what the class structure allowed him to be, rankled him to the core. Father had always chided him for his soft-hearted, populist leanings, but Charles could not help but seethe at the poor treatment Goatsby had suffered. Born into a house of ill-repute? Consigned to a mill at four? Drafted into the mine at eight? Charles was quite sure that if he had been forced into such a life, he would have gone mad.

He draped his coat over his arm, careful not to brush off the last few remaining golden droplets still adhering to the fabric. As the cage rose up into the ruddy light of the setting sun, it occurred to him that the fire-fighting device and the bag that held his other inventions were still down below, swallowed by the flooding waters. All Charles had left were the goggles on his head and the vial in his hand.

A chorus of glad cries sounded from as the colliers opened the cage. The alarm bell had summoned their wives and mothers from the nearby village of Dafen, and the entire yard was filled with family members and escaped colliers awaiting news of their trapped fellows. The men with Charles stepped out. Their sodden boots and breeches left a black, wet trail as they carried the injured Joneses out into the yard. Charles added to that trail, stepping after them, only to stop short as a spear of dying sunlight sliced between the mine offices and the smithy and struck the vial in his hand. Warmed under that ruddy ray, the vial seemed to pulse, sending a wave through Charles that echoed the sensations he had felt with his fingers wrapped around Goatsby’s shaft.

He gasped and licked his lips involuntarily, surprised both by the intensity of the feelings, and the violent way his member surged up like a rearing stallion. He quickly tucked the vial away in the pocket of his coat, and then held the coat so that it draped across the wet spot forming over the weeping tip of his prick. He took several deep breaths, struggling to think of something to keep his rampant urges in check.

Just then, Mr. Champness rushed up to him. “Your Grace, thank God you’ve returned safely! I had begun to fear the worst.”

Charles stared at him for a long moment, taking several breaths as he forced his mind away from the images those lewd sensations had awakened in him. He lifted his goggles and rested them on his forehead, recalling Goatsby’s concerns about the abandoned traps. “Did you remove the children from the mine prior to the explosion?”

“Children?” Mr. Champness blinked, then swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Humbug. You employ at least five children in C pit. I’m sure there are more in the other pits. Did you not think I would find out?”

“There’s nothing illegal about that.”

“No. But when I ask, you lie to me? You tell Goatsby to lie to me?” Fury rose up in Charles at the affront. At least it cooled the fire in his trousers. “My father will be shocked to learn he has leased his coals to a man of such conniving dishonesty.”

“Please, Your Grace. I meant no disrespect. I merely thought that question of the children would be a distraction from the more important work of testing your inventions.”

“Did you remove them prior to the explosion? Or are they still missing?”

“I…” The mine owner’s rotund face contorted in a shamed grimace. “I’m sorry, Your Grace. I did not. If they are not with you, then they are, indeed, still missing.”

A murmur arouse from those nearby. It rose in volume as the unhappy news spread through those assembled in the yard. A woman’s voice keened, and then another, and another, followed by the sound of sobbing.

Charles winced. Sympathy stabbed through him, battling with the lust that still coursed in his veins. “Call for a wagon. I want all the men from Jones’ butty taken to hospital, at your expense.”

“My expense?” Champness’ jaw dropped. He sputtered, speechless for a few moments before he could protest further. “Those are their costs. That’s the risk they take, working down below. They’re paid a decent wage.”

“You will see that they are all examined by a doctor, and receive any necessary treatment, and you will pay every shilling needed for their care, and any lost wages. Or I will tell my father to refrain from renewing your lease when it is due next month. And you will pay all funeral costs to the widow Moss, for both her husband and her daughter, and to the families of the other lost children.”

The mine owner’s great fat belly bounced as his sputtering continued, until, at last he throttled it down to a series of hisses. He shook his head, raising his hands, palm up, in supplication. “I can’t afford that. The entire pit is out of operation until repairs can be made.”

“You have two other pits currently in operation. Pay the costs, or lose your mine. As for the damage here, set your smiths and tinkers to work on the water ram I design tonight, and C pit will be back in operation within a week, providing you can obtain the needed hose quickly enough.”

“Aye, Your Grace,” Champness sighed and then turned towards the stables, shouting: “Hitch up a wagon!”