The Devil is French: A Whipping Society Novel Page 2

  Today’s mood? Railway spectacles.

  There was a lot to do.

  Jemdanee looped the brass wire around each ear, adjusting the square lenses into place.

  Still nude from the hip bath she’d taken, her bare feet squeak-squeak-squeaked across the tiled floor of her bedchamber.

  First order of business?

  The Regimental Surgeon needed nine bottles of laudanum for an upcoming amputation.

  Having attended eighteen surgical amputations in the past three years, she no longer fainted and/or gagged when the flesh was sectioned off by a blade like bacon, a trephine bored a hole into the cartilage, and the rest of the bone crunched off beneath the saw like toffee brittle being served to a hoard of eager children.

  Gagging didn’t help the poor bastard on the table who screamed for more sedatives.

  “Chunmun.” Sweeping up a prescription ledger from the drawer of her pedestal desk, Jemdanee slid a large bowl of sliced apples across the uneven floor with her foot. “Chunmun!”

  A scrambling sound, followed by fingers grabbing an apple, clattered the porcelain bowl against the tile at her feet. A grey langur monkey darted back across her bedchamber, climbing up the banyan trellis and past a maze of ropes woven together to uphold countless jars filled with carnivorous plants that decorated the room.

  He dangled by the hemp ropes with one arm, swaying jars as he crunched on an apple with the scrape of teeth. “Hoooowaa!”

  She pointed. “You are most welcome. I decided on a change in the menu. Bananas are boring.”

  Flipping through the ledger, Jemdanee noted the prescription she’d written last night had been…chewed out from the deformed binding. “Chunmun.” She snapped up the ledger, wagging it. “What is this? Do I not feed you enough?”

  Large black eyes framed within an equally black face blinked. His grey, fringed hairy head tilted in confusion. With the smack of lips, he held out the saliva-slathered, gnawed fruit.

  She tsked. “Like any man, your inability to comprehend how you complicate my life is annoying.” It appeared he was getting into drawers now. “Fortunately, it is our last week here at the compound, so feel free to destroy whatever government property pleases you.”

  With a smirk, she set the ledger onto the pedestal desk, dipped the nib of the quill into the well, ignoring the dots of ink she flicked across the teakwood, and scratched out another cordial.

  Dried opium, 9 oz. Pour upon it 9 gills of boiled water and work into mortar. Funnel equal parts into 16 oz. bottles containing alcohol of 76 percent proof, ½ pt each, adding alcohol to preparation. Requires saturation period of 24 hours before use.

  She still had to leech the papaver somniferum plant whose stalks she had earlier cut in order to make powdered opium. She never stored it on her shelves anymore.

  Officers were stupid enough to roll the opium in dried tendu and smoke it.

  One idiot stole an entire tin from her inventory, tapped out too much and died.

  She didn’t feel sorry for him at all.

  The tin had been labeled with the word WARNING.

  Wedging the quill into the ink well, Jemdanee tore the prescription from the ledger.

  The chime of the clock made her snap toward it naked. “Oyo.”

  Stumbling over to the cluttered dressing table, she tucked the prescription into the medicinal chest knowing she was late. Banging open the wardrobe, she grabbed a blouse and petticoat, yanking both on, while wagging out a sari from beneath the mass of tangled silk.

  With the twist of exasperated lips, her fingers poked through uneven holes covering the lavender silk of the pallu.

  It had been…chewed through by Chunmun.

  She almost thudded her head against the wardrobe.

  Rescuing him from the cage of a market had turned into work. She sometimes left the window open hoping he’d find himself a mate and disappear.

  It never happened.

  She pointed at Chunmun’s head. “You and I are going to discuss your lack of manners and it will affect the sort of fruit you find in your bowl.” Rifling through the stack of saris, the quivering pile toppled, sending veils and saris across the tile floor at her bare feet. “Ayyyyy.”

  Shoving them all into the wardrobe with arms and a foot, she slammed the door and frantically pleated and wrapped herself in a sari, ensuring the decorative part draped her shoulder.

  Earning a wage was anything but glamorous.

  Wedging out several bidis from a hidden stash, Jemdanee tucked them into her blouse.

  The distant shouts of the regiment gathering drifted in. She quickly pushed aside the shutters of the massive window to permit a breeze to flow through. “Chunmun.” She gestured toward the window. “Go visit some relatives and make turds everywhere but here.”

  Chunmun swung from the roped maze of potted plants down onto the floor and grabbed another apple from the bowl, crunching. He eyed her, curling his grey tail and gave her his back.

  She snorted at the direct cut and patted the frame of the open window as hues of the rising sun streaked the vast morning sky beyond the tamarind trees.

  Lowering her gaze to the sill, she paused.

  A stunning bouquet of murdannia striatipetala held together by a black satin ribbon was draped on the ledge. The gathering of dew on its striped, lavender blooms hinted it had been delivered late at night.

  Her heart popped as she frantically angled the missive attached to the black ribbon.

  Until our breaths meet on the morrow,

  I am, as ever, your servant and overlord,

  R

  Awareness prickled her skin, her thighs, and her breasts.

  Ridley.

  The swaying creak of potted ropes from within her room fittingly announced his presence.

  She knew he’d been set to arrive out of Bombay.

  He’d been writing missives through military courier every other week.

  Missives she…had finally responded to.

  A woman couldn’t be miffed forever.

  Like a sepoy awaiting the first round of fire, she edged past the frame of the window and scanned the surrounding garden acreage outside the stone columns of the building. The rustling of low hanging trees basking in the bright morning light and the chirping of exotic birds as several peacocks bobbed across the lawn with tails dragging downward affirmed he was nowhere in sight.

  Her fingers dragged up the knobby stems and three-leafed, lavender blooms.

  Touching its soft, oval petals adoringly to her lips, the honeyed fragrance permeated the muggy morning air, whispering of too many exotic things to come.

  You are now in my land, Ridley. Not I in yours.

  Heavy, approaching steps made her almost flop the flowers onto the windowsill.

  A lanky but tall cadet trudged past the gravel pathway of the manicured grounds with the thud of scuffed leather boots, his musket propped on the shoulder of a yet to be decorated uniform. He glanced toward her, pecan-brown eyes capturing hers beneath a cap that matted down sweat-soaked hair.

  His freckled, boyish face brightened despite a sizable bruise fingering his jaw. He perked and tapped his forehead in salute. “Miss Kumar! I heard from the Field Marshal it’s your last week!”

  Jemdanee touched two fingers to her forehead in salute. “It is and praise be Lakshmi.” Tucking Ridley’s bouquet against the sill, she eyed Dunning. “What sort of trouble met your face this time?”

  He averted his gaze. “The usual.”

  “Come.” She waved him over. “Permit me to examine it.”

  He shook his head, cringing.

  “There could be blood clots.” Jemdanee tapped against the sill, refusing to let him dart like he always did. “Boots here, if you please. Why did you not call on the office?”

  Cadet Dunning heaved out a breath.

  Trudging toward her across the treed grove, he matted the grass with large boots and veered through the low-hanging tree between them. He angled his face up toward her. “If
I came to you every time this happened,” he grouched, “I’d never leave Dr. Harper’s office.”

  Jemdanee examined his jaw without touching it, the sizable black and yellowing bruise curving well below the throat. There didn’t appear to be any blood clots, but there were visible thumbprints within the bruise hinting at what she already knew. His superiors used their hands like weapons and their authority without remorse. “I have a jar of comfrey salve to accelerate the healing. Shall I fetch it?”

  He made a face. “Half your salves make me smell like a chit, which only gets me further pummeled.” He pointed to the bruise. “Unless you have an ointment to ensure this never happens again, I’ll do what I always do and live with it.”

  She leaned toward him, gripping the sill. “I may have to crawl through a few windows at night before I leave and put molasses in their boots so the fire ants can eat their toes raw. Last time, that bruise was over your eye. It keeps moving like an arrow on a compass.”

  “If only I had sense of direction.” He fidgeted. “Do you have any honey sticks? The dining hall was cleared this morning before I arrived.”

  Poor Dunning. At eighteen, he had only enlisted because his father sought to make ‘a muscle-flexing man’ of him. As if there was anything wrong with a lanky boy with a big heart.

  The heart was still a muscle.

  As a result, the boy puffed and staggered behind the regiment, sneaking books on dragons into his uniform. Over too many weeks of him calling on the medical office for gauze and witch hazel balms due to tussles he never started, she became the mother he desperately needed.

  The only acquaintance Dunning had made in the entire compound was with a Hindu sepoy.

  It made him a bigger target.

  Officers partook in endlessly assaulting him, calling him ‘Dunce Dunning’, pissing on his bedding (while he slept in it), and smearing henna onto his forehead to mock his support for Indians.

  The boy endured it and even tried to smile at his aggressors.

  Which only made it worse.

  She reached out and adjusted his cap. “A honey stick will not get you through the day, phaujee. Go through the service door and ask Kalpita for a stack of idlis. She made them this morning. Tell her I sent you.”

  He perked. “She wouldn’t mind?”

  “As long as you praise her food, your bowl will never be empty.”

  He hesitated. “Does Kalpita ever ask about me?”

  Chunmun scrambled up past her onto the windowsill and shoving away her arm, hopped out, darting across the garden.

  One less monkey to worry about.

  She tsked. “For the safety of your heart which is the only thing not getting pummeled, never show Kalpita any interest. Aside from her not-so-subtle involvement with the Field Marshal, she would only flick your freckles off. Now I really must go. Everyone is realizing I am departing and the panic has set in. The prescriptions are four times what they usually are.”

  His brows creased. “The officers were talking about you in the barracks last night.”

  Jemdanee lowered her hand to the ledge of the window. She expected as much given she was leaving. Captain Thornbur, she knew, would ‘miss’ her most.

  That puffy-faced Romeo made her braid frizz.

  She’d learned to ignore his incessant, amorous shouts that included, ‘Tap that dot for me, Hindoo!’ His attempts to engage her reminded Jemdanee of being seven and listening to Bengali boys yelling, ‘Your mother sucked my father’s cock!’

  Vexingly, the rooster always trudged into her greenhouse, clucking for attention.

  So she did what she always did and turned to her most reliable friend: nature.

  After all, a machete was not an option.

  To ensure Thornbur and other romantically inclined officers couldn’t get into her greenhouse, she started setting sumac traps above every door. It earned her the nickname of the Lapis Lazuli Witch (or bitch, depending). Having military men call her a witch (or a female dog) was more of a compliment than they realized.

  A witch held power and a dog had teeth.

  Unfortunately, both required effort and she had no time for idiots. “I am not at all surprised given my history with some of these officers. What were they saying?”

  “It had to do with Mr. Ridley.”

  Her breath hitched. “What about him?”

  Glancing around, Dunning picked at the metal of his musket and leaned in. “He came into the barracks last night and rammed Thornbur’s head into several walls. I’ve never seen anything like it and will admit he lives up to the dark name the government gave him.”

  Her lips parted. “Ridley rammed Thornbur’s head into a wall?”

  “Several, actually. There was also a very sizable table involved.” There was a watchful fixity in his face. “Doesn’t he scare you?”

  An exasperated breath escaped her. “In truth, I prefer to ignore the gossip.”

  He eyed her. “Have you not been apprised on the reputation he earned over in Bombay?”

  “Ridley had a reputation in London, as well, but that did not keep him from being a cultivated gentleman toward me.”

  “Cultivated?” He gaped. “You clearly never heard Officer Meyer’s story. Meyer stupidly backhanded a sepoy and with the flick of cuffs links, Mr. Ridley turned and…booma cracka! Meyer was on the dirt, blood oozing out of his leg, howling more than the Hindu he’d hit. Mr. Ridley then whirled the pistol back into his belt and strode off whilst medics scrambled over to Meyer who had already fainted from the amount of bleeding from his calf.”

  Jemdanee cringed. Ridleyyyyyy.

  “The Field Marshal, who despises everyone for not being crazed enough, reveres him. What does that say?”

  She puckered her lips. “The Field Marshal reveres me, as well, but I am not crazed.”

  “Sometimes you are.” Fervent enough to be more dramatic, Dunning pointed his musket at a nearby tree with a squint. “Last night, Barker confessed that when he was stationed over at the Flagstaff Tower, your Earl of Hell rode in and beat men to stitches with a cane that eerily looks like a raven. I saw it last night. It’s made of cast iron. It gives a whole new meaning to making a man fly given it leaves beak marks the size of a fist!”

  She lowered her chin. Ridley had nefariously upgraded his ‘title’ from The Shadow Man to The Earl of Hell. Shiva save his troubled kingdom and what she was about to inherit. “None of the rumors are true. I know him.”

  “I pity you for that.” Pushing up his military cap with a finger, Dunning peered up at her. “I’ve read penny novels about inspectors like him, and usually, it’s the criminals they arrest that prove to be more interesting, not the actual inspector. Why is he working for the government? Did the crown hire him to be an assassin?”

  Like most men on the compound, this one was overly curious. Ever since Ridley arrived into Bombay months earlier on a high-profile squadron case, she’d been answering a very long list of questions as if she held the suitcase to Ridley’s mind.

  She wished she did. “Cease with the nose-twitching. He is not an assassin. Ridley gallantly erased the terms of my contract with the Government House by taking up squadron duty.” She adjusted the flowers on the sill adoringly. “Working for Dr. Harper has proven to be a bit…lumpish.”

  He nodded. “So I heard. Must be grand having an iron fist on your side.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Are you done with this chaffering? I have no time and must go.”

  Dunning fidgeted. Glancing around, he lowered his voice. “Given you’re leaving soon and I won’t have anyone to talk to about it, I do have a few…female-related questions about…the anatomical sort. Do you have any books on the subject?” He blinked rapidly.

  Why were these ignorant souls always drawn to her?

  She was beginning to understand the bruises. “I will give you the only map to a woman’s body you will ever need.” She pointed two fingers downward and tapped at the top of the V between her knuckles. “Her pleasure resi
des here above the entrance and never below it or in it. May she live happily, use a condom, and we are done. Now go survive the military by being less of a gossip. I have a long day ahead of me.”

  Dunning surveyed her fingers, then his own. “If it rests well above, how am I supposed to—”

  She leaned out the window, shoving at his head. “I am phytologist, not a professor and must depart. I am late!”

  He made a downward V of his own two fingers and squinting, jabbed at it. “Do I poke or…is it better to ram?” He demonstrated.

  She snorted. “Dunning.” She lowered herself and knelt on the floor, setting her chin onto the sill so they were face to face. “A bit of advice. Never chew anything stronger than yourself. Now lower those fingers lest I send the gods to ram and poke you.”

  He cringed and snapped his hand down.

  The clock in her room chimed.

  Groaning, he stepped back. “Gate change in ten minutes.”

  Thank Krishna. “You, my freckled companion, make me reconsider ever wanting children.” Jemdanee swept a finger right. “Go to Kalpita for breakfast or you will never survive the day.”

  “I will! Thank you!” Scuffing his large boots with a frantic backpedal, he stumbled. “I will miss you more than I miss my mother!” He saluted. “May you survive the wrath of Mr. Ridley.” He made a face and sprinted down the pathway toward the main entrance.

  She heaved out a breath and angled the flowers on the sill.

  Edging out of the window, she scanned the surroundings for a pulsing moment. Whatever happened to the educated, cultured gentleman she fell in love with? Had he ever been that?

  In a most unladylike manner, she hollered, “Ridley! Are you and trouble about?”

  Silence pulsed.

  A peacock quickly turned and bobbed its way toward her. “Mae owww! Mae owww!”

  She gave the spread of those feathers a withering look. “Wrong peacock. I was asking for the one with more feathers.” Sweeping up Ridley’s flowers, whose petals she pressed into her cheek, she closed the window, latched it, and rippled the blades down.