She lowered her chin. “I did not realize I was about to become a piece of furniture.”
He held her gaze for a lingering moment, memorizing far more than her eyes as he dug his fingers into the wood harder. The future he had seen for them back in London was at hand. She wasn’t a child anymore. Even the way she spoke and carried herself was different.
She and that mind and those hips could whiplash him in the way he needed her to.
His gaze lingered. “Given you are notably more conventional than I ever will be, let me lead in this. Your first few times should be in a bed and we wait.”
She set herself against the doorframe opposite him. “I may have never lain with a man, but who says my taste in lovemaking is conventional?”
“I do.” He dashed some of the ash from his cheroot and gestured toward her sari with it, flicking his gaze to the outlines of her curvaceous body. “When it comes to my tastes, me inside of you is the easy part.”
She lifted a dark brow.
Taking in a long drag of his cheroot, he turned his head and breathed it out between teeth. Leaning in close, he offered in a husky tone, “Try not to start anything because I don’t have three hours to give you right now.” He flicked her cheek. “Maybe this is where you crawl.”
“If I arrive naked, I will not be the one crawling.”
“You seem to forget who you’re talking to.” He dashed out his cheroot against the frame behind himself and tossed it out in the corridor.
Let the government deal with it.
He raked back his hair from his eyes. “You embezzled my rope. Was there a reason?”
She hesitated. “I meant to tell you.”
“Is that so?” Tilting his head, he offered, “After my divorce, it was buried beneath a set of books inside a trunk I wedged up against the attic. It took a lot of effort to find. Why were you in the attic?”
Lowering her somber gaze to her fingers, she picked at her nails and shook her braided head.
He propped himself against the doorframe, intrigued. “Why are you so quiet?”
Her gaze remained fixed on her fingers. “Mr. Fulton and I scoured your entire house after your attempted suicide. We…discarded everything that could have been used to hurt yourself. There was not a trunk or a drawer that we did not overturn in honor of your safety. Razors, rat poison, we discarded everything. When I found your rope, I was going to discard it, as well, given you could easily hanged yourself with it, only I remembered the woman you pointed to beneath the glass of the table. So instead of discarding it, I…kept it. I brought you with me.”
His throat ached knowing it.
It made him realize all of his letters and breaths had amounted to what he already knew: she was his. For that rope, which he had commissioned when he was in Paris, had seen him through his own understanding of not only himself but women.
It was a way to control and sexually explore without limits while eliminating the inward panic he had first known when stripping to his most vulnerable state.
It turned into an art form he sought to perfect.
It had taken him years to overcome the image of a faceless, nude woman creeping into his sphere at night. One of a breeze rustling bed curtains around his mattress that displayed overly pale skin moving through the shadows with an ax.
It hadn’t exactly inspired him to think gloriously of women.
Ridley half-nodded, sensing this conversation of his attempted suicide would never go away. Jemdanee would look at an object, then at him and think the worst. “I buried that part of me when I divorced. That rope holds great meaning. It was commissioned by Jean Maximilien Lacour and enabled me to embrace a level of comfort with women I didn’t feel for years.”
She eyed him. “I respected your rope,” she quickly offered. “The plants were simply easier to tend to whilst hanging. It gave them more light.”
The overlord in him was amused. “I’m pleased you enjoyed exploring its array of possibilities. Maybe one day…” He lifted a brow.
She lingered then pushed away from the doorway and walked back out into the arched corridor. “I have a long list of herbs I have to mortar and pestle. I am attempting to finish as early as possible.”
His rope had been slapped. He leaned out against the frame of the door and watched those curvy hips sway as her rear shifted against the silk. He knew she was putting extra sway into those hips due to him watching.
Damn flirt. “Jemdanee.”
With bare feet that peered out from beneath her flowing sari, she sashayed to a pause and glanced back at him, her blue eyes appearing over her propped shoulder. “Haan?”
He held her gaze. “I’m going to talk to Lieutenant Bradley about something I found in your room. Are you at ease with that?”
She squinted. “What did you find?”
“A hidden door.”
Startled, she swung toward him. “Are you saying he was coming into my room?”
He shrugged. “I’m not certain, but as the right hand to the Governor General he would know of such passageways. Did you want to see it?”
She set a hand to her throat. “No. My life here is done.” She hesitated. “What do you intend to do?”
“I’ll dig out whatever son of a bitch was making use of it and have the Field Marshal deal with it.”
Her eyes widened. “Be careful, Ridley. I cannot have you—”
“You needn’t worry. Go. I’ll see you later tonight.”
She hurried back toward him, reached up and grabbed his face hard. “Promise me you will not get hurt or arrested.” She kissed his lips and teased, “We have yet to make love.”
Tightening his jaw, he permitted her touch and her words with agonizing revere, but refused to engage it out of respect for how quickly he had unraveled when he had osculated her on Monday. “No distractions,” he said down at her. “I need to focus on whatever the hell this is.”
His mind had already seen more than enough disorder these past three years because of her.
She hesitated, sensing his reserve and half-nodded. Smoothing his hair away from his forehead, she smiled, despite her eyes being troubled. “Be careful.”
“Always.” He thudded his chest and pretended to toss his heart at her. “Go finish those orders.”
She swatted at the air, catching the heart he’d thrown and popped it against her mouth, chewing. “In answer to question, it tastes sweet.”
Har.
She nodded and bustled down the corridor, disappearing.
Dragging his tongue across the lips she had grazed with her own, he eased out a breath. Knuckle down. Shoving past the door and into her room, he winced against the muscle strain in his always aching leg. “Christ. You had to go for a younger woman.”
Setting his shoulders before the mirror in her room, he repositioned his waistcoat and ticked through his appearance. The government expected him to be in a cravat at all times.
Not today.
“Hail the Queen.” He unbuttoned another button on his linen shirt beneath his waistcoat and set his shoulders again. Much better.
He billowed his linen shirt against his waistcoat, trying to bring his mind to a calm.
Don’t get arrested.
Chapter 6
Once everything had been packed, fastened, stacked and delivered to the hotel, Ridley made his way back toward the domed east wing of the Government House. The Council Room was less than twenty feet from Dr. Harper’s office where, according to the Field Marshal, Jemdanee had spent most of her time.
Three years of this.
Three. Years.
Few blessings ever touched his life but knowing she hadn’t seen any harm was one of them.
Cracking his neck and his knuckles, he set his shoulders to relieve a sliver of the tension coiling in his muscles. Observe. Assess. Decide.
He softened and eased his limping step.
Ridley paused outside the Council Room whose banyan door was slightly open, showing a brightly lit room. Quietly setting the
cane against the wall in the corridor, Ridley slowly fisted the end of the heavily faded leather on his belt and eased the holster loose from his trousers and set it as gently as he could onto the marble floor with a soft clack.
The last thing he wanted was to let emotion curve around the trigger of a pistol. He wasn’t in London and Finkle wouldn’t be able to get him out of prison if he overstepped his bounds.
Ridley edged past the open door.
An oak-leaf embroidered military coat had been slung over the side of a teak chaise.
The lingering scent of oak moss cologne tinged the muggy air.
Across from the open plantation shutters of a massive window, in a cane chair, sat a well-muscled man of about thirty, his pensive gaze lowered to a bible he held.
A bible? Those sins apparently were great.
Linen trousers were rolled crookedly to the knee as extended bare feet soaked in a porcelain basin full of water. Blond hair brushed back with tonic showed the lines of a comb. His features were good-looking, disrupted only by a crooked nose and a fresh, sizable gash that streaked his forehead.
This one defined what every female would want laying in their bed.
Younger. Fitter. Highly placed.
It made him, Evan Oswald Ridley, feel like a mangy mutt rolling in mud.
With a limp.
The unexpected swell of jealousy suffocated Ridley with an inner torment he hadn’t been prepared for. An image of Jemdanee struggling as she attempted to thud away the broad, muscled shoulders of Lieutenant Bradley who smeared his mouth on her throat made Ridley’s mind snap.
His chest burned to the sternum with a need to rip flesh, but thoughts of Jemdanee holding him, accepting him, loving him, kept him human.
To release the explosive coil of energy roiling through tensing muscles, Ridley whammed open the door, slamming it against the wall with an earsplitting bang that reverberated beneath his own booted feet to announce his presence.
Lieutenant Bradley startled, sending the porcelain bowl clattering across the tile floor as water sprayed. Snapping his gaze to Ridley, his hand jumped for the sword set against the chair, seizing the handle and slowly rose to his sizable six feet.
Startled green eyes held his moment.
Feeling more in control given he had set the stage of unease, Ridley inclined his head in gentlemanly greeting and scanned the expanse of the room, looking for anything that might have been physically jarred, altered or out of place. Ticking through the obvious furnishings, including side tables, he paused, noting that the campaign desk against the wall had one end tilted forward.
It had never been adjusted.
He casually limp-strode over to that campaign desk where…no surprise…a decanter of apple brandy sat atop a ledger. He held up the crystal decanter and swirled the amber liquid, squaring himself against the desk.
Lifting a conversational brow, Ridley offered, “I hear you forcibly osculated the vitality of my existence.”
Lieutenant Bradley squinted. “Pardon?”
Ridley spaced out his words through teeth. “You kissed my woman without her permission well before I had a chance to kiss her myself. I take offense to that.”
Lieutenant Bradley set aside the sword against the cane chair, next to his bible. “We finally meet, Mr. Ridley. I would say it was an honor but I’d be lying.”
Spreading his arms out wide, with the decanter still in his hand, he offered, “Are you disappointed I survived your felo-de-se?”
Bradley’s square jaw tightened. “I genuinely regret that.”
“Do you?”
“Why do you think I told her?” Bradley hesitated. “I wish we had met under different circumstances but it is what it is. You will not see the best in me and I will not see the best in you. As the closest hand to the viceroy, I will still attempt to be at your disposition. All I ask is that you do right by her given her heart has decided on you. Perhaps it is best we become more acquainted given our mutual interest in the same woman.” He gestured toward a sideboard. “Would you like a glass for the brandy?”
This was all a bit too artful for his liking. “No. I didn’t come to drink.”
Bradley lowered his hand. “I understand your reservation.” Emotion overtook his face. “I never meant her any harm. I swear it.”
To hell with your lies. “I didn’t come here to treat her like property. This is about ensuring you don’t continue down whatever dark path you’ve chosen. So let us be gentlemen about your inability to be one and answer me this. Regardless of whether she was spoken for or not, why did you forcibly kiss her?”
Bradley stared off at nothing at particular. “Maybe I was hoping she would see past your antics and give me a chance. For three years, I have only ever sought to protect her. For three years, I have touched whatever wall she touched and prayed she would notice. Yet she never did.” Bradley stared him down. “I will not deny it. I want what you want. I still want what you want. She is an amazing woman. But do you know what I want most for her? A life outside of the one you lead. She deserves more. She is more. Let her go.”
This one wasn’t in lust.
This one was in love with his Jemdanee.
He could see it. He could hear it. He could feel it. He could smell it.
It burned his chest knowing this man had spent more time with Jemdanee than he had.
It hurt. It dug. It stung.
Ridley half-nodded, swirling the brandy. “Who wouldn’t love her? Jemdanee Kumar, who was first appeared to me as Jemdanee Lillian Watkins draped in too many shackles and a turned-in bolt, defies logic. She and her eyes of blue and her gorgeous skin of brown laughs when the world spits. She sees light in every darkness and makes a cheerless man like me, who has sinned well beyond what your bible could hold, feel worthy. Unfortunately, my barefooted friend, loving someone doesn’t constitute the right to physically violate them against their will. If it did…I’m about to love you to the marrow of your bones. And I’m not even that sort of man.”
Bradley said nothing.
Still swirling the brandy, Ridley gestured toward the expanse of the brightly lit room around them. “Show me where you kissed her. I want the exact location.” He already knew but he was going for effect.
Bradley said nothing.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Ten seconds.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Twenty seconds.
Not a very intelligent soul.
Squinting, Ridley offered, “You aren’t in any position to be acting like a thimble-wit. The only reason your auriferous head hasn’t already smashed through all eight windows gracing this room is because I’m not looking to get arrested. That is why I’m attempting to reach into the darkest part of my soul and find something called: don’t kill him. Show yourself mercy, my boy, because I’m usually far less tolerant toward those who engage in criminal praxis and none of those pricks had ever even touched my woman. Do I need to say more?”
Bradley held his gaze, then crossed the space between them and pausing beside him, tapped on the desk. “Here.”
Jemdanee had scrambled and pushed here.
Don’t backhand him. Don’t touch him.
Or you’ll be in prison and won’t be able to protect her.
Breathe.
The swaying of a key on a silver necklace around Bradley’s throat made Ridley pause.
It was…similar in size to the opening of the lock on the trunk Amit had taken.
The. Same. Size.
This one had been going into her room. He’d been—
Don’t fucking kill him! Don’t—
Ridley cracked his neck. “Did you enjoy taking her against her will?” he asked in a low, low tone, chanting to himself not to smash the decanter into those teeth. He set aside the decanter lest he get any ideas. “Did you enjoy taking her against this desk?” He tapped it. “Did you?”
The man no longer met his gaze.
“I should hope not.�
�� Ridley rolled his wrists and gestured toward those bare feet. “Soaking after a long day? How nice. Do tell me. How devoted are you to the bible, Lieutenant?”
Bradley said nothing.
“This is where you and I trade places. Usually, I’m the one to play the devil, but in this case…I think you beat me to it.” Ridley wagged his fingers toward that throat. “I want the key.”
Bradley’s gaze snapped to his. “I suggest you leave. You already have what you want: her.” He buried the key beneath his billowing linen shirt. “This belongs to me. It’s all I will ever have of her given she decided. Let me keep it.”
It had depravity slathered all over it.
Ridley jumped and grabbed that throat hard, gritting his teeth as all five of his fingers dug into the esophagus which he chanted to himself he wouldn’t break. “Bradley, I need you to listen to me. I already have the trunk. The question is…what were you doing with it and why the fuck were you using that passageway to get into her room? Were you observing her in the nude? Or were you squirting all over her linen?”
“No. What are you—” Bradley shoved him with the grit of teeth. “I’ve done nothing but look after her. I never once—”
“Never once?” Ridley tightened his hold. “Lex talionis. Have you heard of it?”
Bradley shoved. “The law of…retribution.”
“Exactly.” Leaning in to that perfect face, Ridley breathed out, “If I find anything in that trunk that displeases me, all of India will hear your screams for seven minutes before it goes silent.” Ridley violently shoved him away with the full force of his meaning, sending Bradley crashing into a side table that flipped as both crashed to the floor.
Sitting up, Bradley’s chest heaved, his green eyes blazing. “I would bury that sense of righteousness if I were you. My intentions were never as base as yours.”
Narrowing his gaze, Ridley bit out, “Is that why you osculated her before I did?” Grabbing the decanter of brandy, Ridley jumped toward him and smashed his boot down against that bare foot, purposefully grinding and casually poured the entire contents of amber liquid onto the flap of his trousers. “A bit of holy water to exercise those demons.”
The Devil is French: A Whipping Society Novel Page 12
