Mr. Ridley: A Whipping Society Novel Read online

  Because when he needed to thud out being a man, he lined delinquents up and punched.

  For copulating with a woman who meant nothing to him changed nothing. If anything, it would only result in bringing a child into a world his own dog couldn’t survive in. To the devil with that and no. Spraying his seed into linen he could easily wash and feel no guilt in causing it any pain suited him more than fine.

  He chose his words carefully. “Everything you need to know about my ‘functionality’ is right here.” He thudded the desk once with a fist. “This is my god, my church, the altar and bible I pray to on both knees at all hours. Everything else is rain pelting the window.”

  “May the gods never punish you for saying it.” Skimming her brown hand over the hemp rope draped over one of the ledgers, she asked, “Aside from the dedication you grant your work, do you ever make time for other pursuits?”

  He thudded his chest and arms. “I box twice a week and fence. It fills out the coat and extinguishes aggression lest I altogether kill these men before the jury can.”

  “Is that all you do from day to day?”

  “Why? Are you needing a schedule?”

  “I am merely curious.”

  “About what?”

  She heaved out a breath. “Do you not do anything else outside of your work?”

  Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Curiosity never killed the pussy. The one known as Ridley did. “’Tis rather astonishing how busy these knaves keep me. They even commit offenses on Easter and Christmas morning. Not that you celebrate those.”

  She squinted. “So you do not even attend social gatherings?”

  This one also seemed to think he had time for dinner parties. “Oh, yes. All the time. I attend the funerals of victims and make note of everyone in attendance should a perpetrator get morbid and show up. Afterwards, I partake in a meal with that family and offer condolences, but for some reason, they never want to dance.”

  She pinched her lips. “Cease being callous. I am merely trying to get to know you.”

  “And I’m letting you. This is me, Kumar. Me. Morbid, flippant, overly serious, real, intelligent and to the point. Always to the point. I hide nothing. Never. Why? Because I’m not a criminal.”

  She sighed. “Do you not do anything that is not in any way related to crime or the dead?”

  Recognizing that he was being rebuked for not doing more with the living, he shifted his jaw. Too many seemed to think he needed to be lured away from what mattered most: justice. “Are you insinuating what I do is unimportant?”

  Her lips parted. “Of course not.”

  “Then what? What is the point of you bringing up what I do and how I do it and when I do it? Are you now in collaboration with my mother? Did she send you over with a missive regarding the amount of time I ought to spend doing ‘normal’ things? Because last I knew she was in Bordeaux paging through books I send by the dozen to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Work, no matter how gratifying, does not define the parts of us that lives outside of it. I have always been devoted to my greenhouses and learning, but I am also devoted to celebrating life. I attend festivals, dance, and visit other villages throughout India whilst racing toward anything new I can do.” She hesitated. “Perhaps one day, when enough time has passed, I might be able to visit again and you might be able to grant me a tour of London. Or perhaps you might come to India. I would very much like that.”

  He knew where this was going.

  Lever down. “Permit me to halt your one-seater coach right there, Kumar. I don’t know if you have or haven’t kissed a boy or rolled the dice for him, but this here man doesn’t work in the entertainment business. Never have. Never will. For life isn’t always about having a good time, especially when people are dying. I don’t take women dancing, and haven’t attempted to in years. To get to the point of this civilized rant: I don’t offer walking tours to girls who barely reach my shoulder. Not unless you want a tour of every location in London where I arrested felons, donkey thieves and more. Do you understand?”

  Silence overtook the room.

  Kumar eventually half-nodded. “Haan.”

  “Good. Now that you know everything about me, are you exhausted enough to retire?”

  She eyed him. Gathering all of his half-smoke cigars, she stacked them into the ash pan one by one. “Your room upstairs is as much of a mess as this one.”

  Thinking about it riled him. He hated living in the clutter he never seemed to be able to crawl out of. “It’s why I pay the servants double the wage. This particular room used to be very organized,” he countered. “Hell, I used to file everything into trunks that were methodically tiered and labeled. I even measured the amount of ink that went into this here well, but it annoyed that woman who shall not be named. The one I divorced. It annoyed her that I spent more time in here than I did in her parlor. A parlor I had graciously cleaned out and furnished with obnoxiously expensive teakwood things, oval-backed sofas and gaudy bobbles she wanted. I gave her an entire room and sold off far more books than I should have.”

  If only he hadn’t been duped into thinking he and his ropes needed anyone in his life. For he’d chosen the wrong hell of anyone. The darkness in him had wanted a little light only to end up in a windowless basement and no key. “And do you know how she rewarded her king?”

  Kumar lingered.

  The sooner this one understood his position on women, the sooner whatever was going through her head could be buried. Deep. “Barely three weeks into our marriage, I arrived two hours after I said I would due to my negotiating a damn hostage situation involving children and she and her irrational screams had emptied every last trunk and drawer, shredding pieces I’ll never get back. She did it on the hour like a cuckoo from a clock I never purchased. The servants and I would clean it up and there it all went back on the floor like a dog with a pair of shoes that wanted to chew through the sole. So I stopped organizing it, because too many cases kept coming in and I had to work. Which was damn difficult with that one.”

  Punishing Elizabeth by not permitting her to touch him or bed him did nothing. She’d lie on the other side of his locked door and talk to him alllllllllll night about what a prick he was.

  If he had been a prick, he would have backhanded her to Madrid then to Russia then over to Italy and into the ocean, but never once did.

  Roping Elizabeth to a chair and setting her in the corridor to keep her from ripping up his files did nothing, either. She would purposefully piss the rope and the chair like the animal that she was, insisting he hit her, insisting it was the only thing that would make her kneel.

  He wasn’t one to backhand women not even in the name of his own pleasure. For his pleasure was in the burn of the rope. She knew that going into their marriage.

  She. Knew. That.

  Unfortunately, their marriage didn’t have a leather clause contract because he became something he rarely was: stupid.

  Needless to say, it led to a hell of a lot of fights and him always leaving the house to pummel the only people he really could: delinquents. “It didn’t matter how many times I took her dancing or shopping. It didn’t. For some dogs kneel and others bite and kicking a dog regardless of its antics is wrong. I repeatedly set aside everything for her, everything – even the murder of a child one night – knowing she needed me more. Only it didn’t matter. Because I could have slit my throat, pulled out my spinal cord and thrown in a bit of heart muscle and it wouldn’t have been enough for her to think I cared.”

  Because Elizabeth and her dramatic need for Hades wanted nothing but pain.

  Banging into her anally without lubrication while she screamed hadn’t been enough.

  Gagging her into unconsciousness while his cock rammed her throat hadn’t been enough.

  She kept pushing him to do things that had made him only hate who he already was: the devil.

  Kumar blinked. “Why did you marry a woman who had no respect for you?”

&nbs
p; Because he was known to rescue them all. “Let me tell you something about Elizabeth. That one knows how to wave a map and bury the treasure so deep, even she can’t get to it. She used to be a novelty I met with every Tuesday night at an exclusive club. A novelty who could recite Socrates as if he were her father. Given the sort of man I am, I need someone capable of complimenting my mind, and that one did. She made this dullard believe there were words in the night sky written by Voltaire.”

  A breath escaped him. Note to self: never attempt to meet a woman in a flagellation club. It invited bigger hellions. “Too many demons reside in the caverns of her head, not to mention my own, and I’m not an exorcist.”

  Kumar said nothing. She merely picked at her fingers, looking so miserable, one might think she had attended her own funeral.

  He clearly brought back a shadow, for he had spewed more about his life to her in one sitting than he had to anyone in years.

  He was still edging down from the coca. “That was uncalled for. I didn’t mean to shove an anvil into your arms and break the scaphoids in your wrists.”

  She squinted. “My scaphoids?”

  He tapped his wrist. “It’s a bone.”

  She eyed him. “Of course it is.” She softened her countenance. “You need not apologize. I am honored you were willing to share so much with me. Few do. Even Peter has a tendency to limit sharing personal thoughts. Why do you think I talk so much? I have learned to entertain myself while attempting to prod out a measure of conversation from those around me. I sense their discomfort given I am not of their culture or color and do my best to erase it.”

  The earnestness in that accented voice which revealed her little vulnerable world made him nudge aside a stack of missives he almost shoved.

  It riled him knowing Dr. Watkins had treated her like a pet. Snarling women like Elizabeth deserved to be treated like pets. Not bright-eyed angelic Indian girls who knew the taxidermy of plants like he did bones. “Never doubt the glory of a good conversation, Kumar. I live for it and will admit, it has been quite some time since I have had the unending pleasure and privilege of being entertained by a highly intelligent mind like yours.” He meant it.

  She brightened. “You think me to be intelligent?”

  It was obvious she didn’t hear it often if at all. Society was cruel. “You are incredibly intelligent. What you did with that mere dabbling of that vial goes beyond what any of top chemist I have worked with over the years can do. You’re brilliant.”

  She smiled shyly. “I thank you for making me hum.”

  That humble charm was darling. “You do that. Hum.”

  Peering over the side of his desk, she deposited the ash pan’s contents of stacked cigar stubs into the bin filled with ripped parchment, setting it on his desk and angling it into place. “I suggest a hookah. It makes less of a mess.”

  He stretched, cracking his neck. “Oh, yes. I can imagine myself on the streets of London now. Bumping into passing citizens while asking them to excuse the size of my hookah.”

  A bubble of a laugh escaped her. Her eyes brightened as her lips curled.

  His chest tightened at the glorious beauty of that sound.

  Laughter wasn’t something he was used to hearing. Not in his field, not in this study and most certainly not in this house. This was the house that often whispered of things he still tried to catch. Like the creak of the door when a shadow and an axe had moved in. Like the shattering of glass outside the darkness of a trunk he’d been locked in for too many hours with blood running into his eyes as the thudding and the dragging of something heavy down the corridor moved past his ragged breaths.

  It was something his mind would never unhear.

  Kumar searched his face. “Mr. Ridley?”

  He sat up. “Yes? What?”

  “Are you unwell?”

  His gaze snapped to hers. “No. Why?”

  Those features softened. “You look haunted.”

  When wasn’t he? He defined enough of the past to be a ghost. “My mind never lets me rest. It’s the curse of what I do.”

  She hesitated and reached out across the desk to touch his face.

  His pulse roared as he caught that hand to prevent its contact, his fingers pulsing against the heat of her soft skin. Her brown fingers trustingly curled around his and tightened.

  The curling of those small fingers against his large hand whispered of what he already knew.

  She wanted more.

  For she wasn’t a mere Kumar but a Jemdanee. A Jemdanee full of smiles and compassion which had miraculously not been stripped despite her upbringing. Despite poverty-stricken demons and a guardian who had been grooming her like a dog.

  Ridley released her hand and scrubbed the thought. “Try to respect the boundaries of others.”

  She lingered. “It is not a sin to offer compassion to another.”

  The pulsing of his fingertips hinted at what he feared: a heightened state of awareness toward an eighteen-year-old girl. One he was responsible for. One that could end up dead if he didn’t get her on that boat in less than three days. The hearing was in five. “I have nothing against compassion, Kumar,” he rasped. He flexed his hand to rid himself of feeling her. “I admire that in you. I admire it in anyone who holds onto it despite the wrath of circumstance others use as an excuse to violate others. I simply prefer you respect yourself by not touching a man like me.”

  Because tucking her into that bed had been beautifully different.

  The overlord in him had cradled her vulnerability enabling him to be protective.

  It was the part of him that was still very human and still capable of being soft.

  The part of him that tried to be human despite the countless beasts he associated with morning, day and fucking night.

  She lingered as if hoping he’d say more.

  He thought it was best to bring an already long evening to a lull. “I bid thee a good-night.”

  Holding up the hemp rope she had already removed from the ledger, she draped it over her upturned palm. “You had mentioned you use this to think.” She brightened. “How do you think with it? Might you show me?”

  Bwaaaaaaaa.

  It was endearing but misguided.

  He rose and rounded the desk. Fortunately, it was only his eight inch ‘think rope’ and not his one hundred and fifty foot ‘overlord rope’. Holding her gaze, he tugged the piece of hemp rope from her palm and held it up for her to see. He knotted it twice, methodically ensuring each knot reflected each thought.

  Duty. Tight. Himself. Tighter.

  She peered up at him. “What are doing?”

  “Thinking. I do a lot of it.” He held the rope between them and snapped it, causing the two large knots to compact. “Whenever my mind is in a knot, these are, too. They represent random thoughts and keep me calm when I need it most. Because staying calm and focused in my line of work is an art. These usually stay knotted until I feel it’s resolved.

  “Permit me to guide you through it.” His calloused finger touched the first knot. “This one, which is bound tightly to ensure it doesn’t come undone, relates to the duty I feel toward you. It’s who I am. So please don’t confuse what I do for you with anything else. I deliver justice to everyone. For that is the definition of justice. To be evenhanded. Always. No exceptions.”

  She glanced up at him.

  He moved his fingers over to the second one on the rope. “The second knot, which is tighter still, is the curiosity I know you feel toward me. It’s a curiosity a lot of women feel toward me without realizing that my life comes with a very long rope. Not just this one.”

  She eyed him.

  His chest tightened at facing the only reality he’d known since becoming what Vidocq had inspired him to be: a villain’s nightmare. “I won’t go into my personal use of it behind closed doors, but I have enemies that take pleasure in giving me pain. I’ve had a dog I loved dearly shot dead merely because he was mine.”

  That son of a bi
tch lost a lot of blood that night. He got arrested. “I’ve had a footman, Charles Lerner, who had his throat slit merely because he was brave enough to serve me during a case that went bad. And over the seven brief months Elizabeth and I were married, she was attacked on the street by rabble because of me. Her infidelities made it easy for me to walk away, but knowing she was in danger made it even easier. Fear that. Heed that. And above all understand that what I do is real and unlike these knots, some things cannot be undone.”

  He eased out a breath between teeth. “You’re eighteen, Kumar. I keep saying it, and I’m about to shove a lot of money into your hands while saying it, but there is a reason. What you do now will affect the rest of your life and will stay with you. Always. Like a knot. Only you’ll never get it out. When you’re older, you’ll find your place and your stronghold which will include a man worthy of you. Unfortunately, that man won’t ever be me. Aside from our sizable age difference, it’s very difficult for anyone to belong to me. It was difficult for Elizabeth and part of why our marriage fell apart. For I will always belong to my profession first and to everyone else last. That is the contract that is wordlessly signed when it comes to me.”

  The deep bronze of her cheeks flushed.

  “Do you understand?”

  Her overly large eyes and delicate features softened all the more as if she were now looking up at countless stars scattered across an endless sky gifted by the darkest of nights.

  Pile on the agony. He knew that look.

  It was one that whispered of a renewed hope in men and humanity. “Can you not…”

  Raising herself on her toes, she gently kissed his lower jaw with full, soft lips. “What you do for others is what few dare to even do in their heads. I admire that. Gruff and overly serious though you appear to be, you define every woman’s dream.”

  He shifted his still tingling jaw, but otherwise didn’t move out of fear he’d break from the honor she had just given him. “If that were true, I’d still be married.”