The Devil is French: A Whipping Society Novel Read online

  Chapter 3

  Having less than forty minutes, Jemdanee banged open the door. It was time to pull out all female ammunition right down to the jasmine.

  Ridley had earned it.

  Frantically unravelling the entire length of the sari from her body, she whipped it and kicked it aside. She tugged on the calling bell several times and skidded from one side of the room to the other fully naked, her mind unable to function.

  Scrambling across her unmade bed piled with countless books she knocked over, she grabbed a honey stick from the glass jar and stuck it in her mouth to eliminate the lingering taste of apple brandy. Chewing the sweetness of the honeyed wax in an effort to stay calm, she rolled off the bed and jerked open all of the cluttered drawers of her dressing table, trying to locate hair pins.

  There were none. She groaned.

  Swatting aside the insect netting, she angled-open the shutter of the massive window to flood the shaded room with enough light to see.

  The muggy heat of the morning outside and the distant shouts of the regiment gathering at the gate made her all the more anxious.

  She finished chewing the last of her honey stick and spit the wax into an ash pan. The time had come to wear the gown she had commissioned from Russia.

  It had been sitting in the trunk for almost a year, waiting to be revealed.

  The doors opened and Kalpita breezed into the room barefoot in her morning sari, a pained expression on her dark oval face. “You never call for me, sahelii. What sort of trouble are you asking me to partake in?”

  The woman knew her too well. “I require assistance with the Russian gown.”

  Kalpita lowered her chin. “The heat.”

  “I would normally agree, but Ridley will be at the gate shortly.” She couldn’t believe he was actually here. “I only hope he is worth the angst I have suffered.”

  Kalpita’s dark sultry eyes brightened. “Given the amount of letters he has written, I have no doubt.” Clasping her brown hands, she shook them before touching her own bindi. “Bless yourself with ittar until you are glistening and offer him carnal suffering, for it is the only language men understand.”

  Ah, the glory of Kalpita.

  Unlike the rest of the pucker-lipped Hindu women righteously serving the Government House in an attempt to erase who they were, Kalpita embraced her life with the shake of her hips and her head. Prior to her service in the kitchens, she had served as a veil dancer for a chakla and specialized in far more than silk.

  There wasn’t a man Kaplita couldn’t bring to his knees.

  It was going to be useful.

  Jemdanee tried to remain calm. “I will forgo the stockings and slippers.” There was no need to further swelter and no one was going to see anything beneath the mass anyway. “The gown is in that trunk. I only hope there is no mildew on that silk. I have very little time. Might you assist?”

  “Haan, haan. Come!” With the flick of her mint-oiled black braid, Kaplita swept past, the veil of her palomino sari flowing against the warm wind blowing in through the netted window. With the extension of slim arms, she thudded open the trunk.

  “I do not see any damage.” Kalpita pulled forth the massive gown that continued to unfold from the trunk despite standing back several times, running her fingers over the fabric. “Sahelii, sahelii, you are dishonoring our culture with this circus tent. Are you certain you wish to wear it?”

  Jemdanee rolled her eyes and assisted in dragging out the rest of the gown’s weight. “Ridley is a sophisticated European that deserves acknowledgement. There are worse things a Hindu woman can do in the name of a white man.”

  “Jee. Debauchery.”

  They giggled.

  The off-the shoulder gown was a very glorious magnolia color with elegant, pin-fine stripes. With her skin tone, she was going to look magnificent.

  After yanking a chemise over her nude body, and arguing with Kalpita about which way the corset was supposed to go, they eventually pulled over the mass of crinoline over another mass of petticoats (the weight!) and yanked the silk fabric of the gown over it, shifting it to fit into place.

  The gown was tight.

  Her cleavage was heaving out almost to the brown of her nipples. It didn’t look right. She adjusted her glasses. “I do not remember it being so tight.”

  “You have been eating more than usual. Even I noticed.”

  Nerves. “Is there a fichu for this gown?”

  Kalpita squinted up at her while arranging the gown. “Fichu? What is this…fichu?”

  “I believe you answered the question. There is no fichu.” Jemdanee angled herself toward the mirror, her usually tame cleavage appearing massive and top-heavy. Shiva. “They almost reach my chin.” She patted each one in an attempt to deflate them. “Is it too whorish?”

  “Nahin.” Leaning left and right while hooking her in, Kalpita chided in Hindi, “If he complains about the size of your breasts he is unworthy of them.”

  She bit back a smile. “You are quite right.” Regally positioning herself after arranging the weight of the magnolia silk around herself, she set her chin. “How do I look?”

  “Russian. You know what they say about Russians women: crazy. Which you are.” Kalpita winked, snapping out a fan. “Use it against him and the heat.”

  Jemdanee swept forward and took the ivory handle, slipping the string onto her wrist. “Now the banana has a peel.”

  “May he be the nimble monkey.” Kalpita wobbled her head. “Shall I assist with the ittar?”

  “Nahin, nahin. You have duties.” Jemdanee kissed her fingertips in thanks and pressed them against the woman’s cheek. “Go! I thank you.”

  “May your reunion be born of bliss. Are you in need of an amulet?”

  Fourteen of them. “Gather whichever one you believe will be helpful.”

  “I will dig through what I have.” Kalpita’s dark eyes grew playful. “Your Dunning called on my kitchen this morning and ate more than three men in need of souls. Do they not feed him over at the barracks?”

  A breath escaped Jemdanee. “They treat him like a sepoy. Be gracious.”

  “Since when do you know me to be unkind?” Kalpita leaned in and cooed, “How he stares at me and blushes. One would think I was the only brown woman in the land. He looks like a boy but towers like a giant! How old are his freckles and what are his finances?”

  Jemdanee lowered her chin. “Leave him be, lest the Field Marshal see him shot. The boy suffers enough at the hands of everyone on the compound and to break his heart would be cruel.”

  The woman puckered her lips. “Better he learn that lesson now then later.” Kalpita departed with the sway of hips she slapped.

  Uff. Knowing time was against her, Jemdanee bustled to the other side of the room, the skirts on her rear wagging. Tossing out ribbons and garters and stockings from her dressing table (all useless), she dug through the bottom of each drawer, plucking out random wooden pins for her hair. “Not even a mantra swami with a magic towel could ever clean this up,” she muttered.

  Jemdanee unraveled her braid, loosening its long waves and seductively bundled all of the black curls before the carved wood mirror, pinning it up into a soft chignon with every wooden pin she could find. She teased out several long curls, letting it fringe against her bronzed throat and cheeks.

  Peering at the mirror, she removed her railway spectacles, revealing her pale blue eyes. Picking up the lip rouge the Government House never permitted her to wear, she dabbed it generously onto her lips and carefully followed the outline of their shape, rubbing it to ensure they were glossier, fuller and red.

  Red. Like her bindi.

  Red. Like the color of the blood she intended to boil in Ridley’s veins.

  Without sex, there was no possibility of rebirth.

  Without sex, life came to an end.

  And Ridley would feel the glory of what her passion would bring.

  After she made him crawl.

  Tugging open a dra
wer, she plucked up a French pair of lunettes. Adjusting the dainty brass lenses onto her nose, which gave her a sultrier and sophisticated look, she uncorked a bottle of jasmine ittar and turning it over, paused, realizing it was…empty.

  She frantically clanged through all five of the other small empty bottles.

  Empty? All of them?

  “Dhatt.” She had a habit of using too much except for when she needed it most.

  Grudgingly, she knelt at the low side table set in the corner and struck a match against the flint. One by one, she lit all four of the resins of the commiphora wightii tree sticks set in the brass incense stand. Gathering fresh jasmine flowers from the water bowl beside the small banyan altar she had created, she set the flowers onto the statue of Krishna.

  “When our eyes meet, return him unto me, so I might embrace the glory of a passion that will bring me love.” She touched more flowers to her lips and placed them at the blue feet of Krishna, rotating the incense stand three times. “Guide us to happiness we deserve.” She paused, knowing she ought to address the mess. “May Bradley—” she preferred not to play with karma by cursing him to die in the next hour. “—find his Delilah and unearth love, passion, and peace.”

  She leaned down and blew at the brass stand, letting the incense smoke. With cupping hands, she rolled the smoke toward herself, letting its heat and wood fragrance give her strength and guidance. Taking a freshly hewn lotus flower from the bowl, which had been blessed by the incense, she tucked it in her hair, ready.

  The hall clock chimed followed by the one on her mantle.

  Knowing she would have to pass through fourteen other rooms and the massive entrance to get to the Eastern Gate, she decided on a detour.

  She unlatched the window and pushed it wide open.

  Chunmun, who had been waiting outside in the tree, perked. His eyes darted toward her as he bobbed, reaching out fingers like he always did when asking for food.

  She giggled. “Is that all I am to you?”

  His frantic fingers kept waggling as he bobbed.

  She rolled her eyes and held out her arms.

  He jumped toward her and nuzzled his furry head into her shoulder, yanking on her hair hard.

  “Ay, ay.” She poked at his small hand, releasing her hair from it. “Leave some for my head as you have plenty.” She smirked and gestured to the bowl on the floor beside the bed. “Go.”

  Chunmun jumped down and scrambled past her into the room.

  “I am off to meet a gorilla,” she called.

  Gathering the weight of the gown up past her knees, she seated herself on the massive sill and swung her bare feet over the ledge of the window and slid downward in a mass of silk onto the thick grass.

  Turning, she regally swept through the unending row of banana palms, passing the vined walls of tennis courts, the aviary, the Garden House and countless colonnaded verandahs where Hindu servants in turbans sat cross-legged, snipping and sewing uniforms.

  She lifted her heavy skirts higher to permit a much needed breeze and eased out a calming breath knowing Ridley was coming.

  Krishna, guide me into being a queen bent on ruling.

  Jemdanee released her skirts to the gravel to cover her bare feet and bustled over to an already established greeting line of men, her heavy skirts rustling.

  “Miss Kumar!” the Field Marshal called out from the distance, leaning forward to look at her from the other far end of the line. “Officers first, civilians last. This way, if you please.”

  Swiveling away against the biting hardness of the gravel that pinched her bare feet, Jemdanee snapped open her fan to cover her face knowing the dress was going to startle a few of the men.

  She quickly walked behind the long row of men hoping to avoid attention.

  No such luck.

  Chokes, whistles and shouts echoed as officers turned and leaned out, extending gloved hands they wanted her to take.

  “Damn the saints!”

  “Jostle into a spin so I can see that rear.”

  “Lapis!” Officer Barker rolled his hand and kicked out a boot toward her gown. “Lift it to the knees. To the knees!”

  At least she knew the gown was serving its purpose. Albeit these pigs were exaggerating. “I still have access to the laundry room and sumac,” she warned, glaring. “Must you always act like boars who mate with swine?”

  “Bring it on, Lapis,” Officer Shaw hollered, jangling the trousers of his uniform.

  She rolled her eyes, wishing she could start shooting.

  The Field Marshal stalked out of the assembly line, his dark mustache twitching as he pointed at heads. “Enough of this contemptable behavior! Or every last one of you will be lifting sacks of sand for three hours without any water.”

  At least the Field Marshal was attempting to control them.

  Officer Greenly held up a gloved hand and whispered from behind it, “I’ll give those native hips children. Fifteen. All white boys.”

  Because that was an offer every Hindu woman would jump on.

  She held up five fingers as she passed what was now nearing the end of the long row. “This is how many fathers each of you have and they all drowned in their own piss before your mothers could save them. I dare you to act like heathens around Ridley. I dare you. He will shake you out of your uniforms and leave you dead.”

  One of the Brigadiers leaned toward another. “Did you see him take a chair to Thornbur?”

  Someone snorted. “It wasn’t a chair. It was a table.”

  “It couldn’t have been the table. The tables in those barracks are bolted to the floor.”

  “Which he ripped from the boards. I was there.”

  Uniformed backs greeted her one by one as they eventually fell silent.

  She eyed them, dread seeping into her womanly hackles.

  What was she about to get into?

  She settled herself in a patch of shade behind the arched gates where hawkers and crowds and squadrons of red-coated sepoys tramped along the vast, dust-ridden road leading through Calcutta.

  The slowing gallop of several military horses weaving through the massive din of crowds eventually revealed a group of uniformed officers who were permitted to pass through the now opening gates that clanged.

  Several men from the regiment rode in on their horses toward them through the open gates, following the manicured path toward the greeting line she stood in before the Government House.

  The massive amount of dust being kicked up was like watching demons roll in.

  The group of riders stopped on the other far end of where she stood, making it impossible for her to make out very much.

  One by one, uniformed men dismounted.

  Despite protocol, she leaned further out to better see.

  Glimpsing him beyond the assembled men and saddled horses, her throat tightened.

  Dressed in a white linen shirt, a regiment-issued waistcoat and linen trousers that displayed a tall, muscled physique, Ridley landed on the gravel beside his stallion with the thud of large leather boots. Ridley winced against the impact, his rugged features instantly remolding into an unaffected calm as he adjusted his leather belt weighed with weapons.

  Her lips parted in agony. Given what she’d seen of his gored leg in London three years earlier, he shouldn’t have been walking on it at all, let alone hopping off horses.

  It hinted he refused to give into letting anything control him. Even pain.

  She edged back so he couldn’t see her, but strategically positioned herself in a way to be able to watch him through the gaps set between the officers lined beside her.

  Adjusting the satchel slung over his muscled shoulders, Ridley swept out a cane from the side belt of his horse. Impaling it into the ground, he leaned his broad frame against it, his hand gripping its black iron head. Scanning the vast grounds, the profile of his well-tanned, rugged face fully appeared.

  Her pulse roared.

  With a puff of smoke that finished a cheroot betwe
en his masculine lips, Ridley extinguished it against the leather of his saddle and tossed it. Dark cocoa-colored hair cascaded forward against the hot wind which he swiped back with a large, ungloved hand as he made his way toward the greeting line with an uneven but long-legged stride.

  Time had changed nothing.

  He was still a rugged-featured dominating man molding the world around him and forcing it to bend to his will. Right down to his leg that shouldn’t have been moving at all.

  It felt as if she were waiting for the lightening to strike the iron rod she held.

  “At attention!” The Field Marshal finally boomed with a full turn.

  The long line of officers to the right of her thudded their polished leather boots together and snapped their right gloved hands to their low slung caps, positioning themselves for the greeting every military guest received at the Government House.

  Muskets were fired, booming. Crack. Boom! Crack. Boom! Crack.

  She winced against each salute that echoed into the morning air, scattering birds out of surrounding trees until all ten shots faded.

  Silence eventually returned, her ears now pulsing right along with the rest of her.

  It was all too symbolic of her life.

  The Field Marshal stalked out and with unprecedented gusto grabbed Ridley hand and shoulder, exchanging a few quiet words, their heads leaning in to each other.

  It was obvious they had formed an alliance.

  The Field Marshal turned. “Before the musket regiment that hails our king and country, we extend our unending gratitude,” he announced in his typical I-am-your-God voice. “Your dedication honors our regiment that formally acknowledges your bravery and service.”

  Jemdanee peered down the long line of chin jutting officers which she stood at the end of, her forefinger pushing the down-sliding spectacles up on her nose.

  The Field Marshal introduced Ridley to each and every man, leading him systematically down the farthest end of the line. “Officer Greenly. Officer Jasper. Officer Fisher. Officer Barker. Officer Mercer. Officer Graham. Officer Shaw. Officer Harrison. Officer Lawson. Officer Andrews. Officer Barr. Officer Kirkpatrick. Officer Drake.”