They were telling the truth. “Whose window? Why did he fall?”
They all grew quiet again.
Ridley eased a slowing breath through his nostrils, his leg jittering from a need to keep up with his thoughts and his body that were speeding through coca. “Why did you decide to cover it up? Why didn’t you call for your parents or servants? Hm? They would have helped and could have helped you.”
The youth adjusted the hood to ensure the eyes aligned better. “We didn’t know what to do. None of us even wanted to be there, but Charles insisted. He insisted. He wanted to see her.”
“Who?” Ridley prodded.
“Lady Stanton. He wanted to see her in a state of undress and…fell from her window.”
This crowd might as well have been thirty. And yet another reason why women were pistols waiting to be shot by men who didn’t know how to fucking handle them: with care. “I see. So now you think you’re going to make it all go away by holding ornamental pistols to my head and cutting me with a blade? Was that the brilliant plan?”
They said nothing.
Jesus. “I need the clothing he was in that night and anything else you removed from his person, including the ring he was wearing. What did you do with the ring?”
Several eyes widened.
“How did you know he was wearing a ring?” one of them echoed.
They were all so innocent. That was what made this as incredibly heartbreaking as it was sad that it had to end in the death of one as equally innocent as them.
This is why he did this. To protect faces like theirs that were forced to hide beneath burlap sacks out of fear. “When you’re on the right side of the law, you see things a bit clearer.” He tapped his thigh that his arms were bound against. “I appreciate everything you shared with me, and now I’m asking that you boys cut me loose. All right? I’m not angry. Far from it. The good news is you won’t be in any trouble. The bad news, you’ll have to tell the boy’s father and give testimony in court.”
They shook their heads and kept shaking and shaking it.
“We didn’t do anything,” the closest boy with a velvet blue coat pressed. “We didn’t kill him!”
Ridley eased out a steadying breath, trying to control the tone of his voice so it didn’t strain, confuse or scare them. “I know that and I’m not accusing any of you of such. It was an accident and the burden laid upon each of you has already been too great. Let me help you. All I ask is that you untie me so we are able to finally lay your friend to rest. He deserves that much, don’t you think? Was he not your friend?”
The boys looked at each other, burlap sacks shifting.
Momentarily leaving the room, they picked up the blade from the floor, and closing the door, they whispered to each other.
Through ebbing pulses of silence he heard snatches of their conversation.
A choked sob escaped one of them. “…the right thing…”
“I told you we shouldn’t have disrespected his memory! I told you!”
There was a moment of silence and the door reopened.
One by one, they filed back in.
Some of them sniffled beneath their burlaps.
The leader of the four, who appeared more composed despite the trembling of his hands, lingered. “We will return with everything you need.”
Return? He slowed his chewing. “Ey. I appreciate that you boys were so pleasant and cooperative given my days usually are never quite this glorious, but I need you to untie me. All right? I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
They paused.
That was not the sort of reaction he wanted.
He stared them down. “Is there a misunderstanding I ought to be aware of?”
“We should speak to our fathers first. We may need a solicitor.”
Only the aristocracy would feel so entitled! “I didn’t realize you boys even knew what a solicitor was.” He hardened his voice. “I need you boys to untie me. Now.”
“We will. We will! After we talk to our fathers.” The tallest of the three walked over to the door, letting the others leave before glancing back at Ridley through the slits of his hood. Dark eyes held his. “I am ever so sorry about cutting you.” With that, he closed the door.
Jogging steps echoed as they hurried to leave the building.
What the fuck just—
Violently trying to loosen the binding ropes tightly holding him, while clattering the chair he was tied to, he stilled and looked down. The ropes weren’t even budging.
In fact, the knots were the best he’d seen in years. Military style.
The sons of little bitches actually knew how to trammel a man.
And they took the blade from the floor, so he couldn’t even—
Ridley grudgingly listened as their coach clattered away.
Fuck. Fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck.
At least it wasn’t a complete waste of a morning.
One less file on his desk.
Unfortunately…he had no use of his arms or his legs and had to get to Finkle before noon to sign off on witness papers for Kumar’s case.
Fuck! He paused. His driver.
His driver wasn’t going to be able to find him.
Shite! Spitting out the coca past his shoulder, lest he choke on it given what he was about to do, he gritted his teeth and thudded the chair across the floor, each jarring effort straining muscles. He continued to methodically lift and drop himself and the chair in increments, ensuring he didn’t topple over.
It took…a…lot…longer….than….he…wanted….it…to.
He finally clattered into place beside the dirt-streaked window, his chest heaving from the amount of effort it had taken merely to get to the window.
He paused as an all too familiar black lacquered coach with his driver and footman jostled past the window and out of the square, clearly intent on catching up to the other coach that had already left.
Ridley thudded his head against the glass pane that might as well have been real pain. “Why did you let them tie you? Why?” He groaned. “This is what happens when you get too cocky, Ridley. Oh, yes. Remove my belt, boys. Tie me to a chair, boys. I’m solving a case, boys. Only…I’m now the case! Fuuuuck!”
Given how decrepit the outside buildings were, strewn with trash and broken windows, it was obvious very few people were going to walk by. Fuck again.
Minutes crawled on and more and more minutes devoured the last of him.
He hated not doing anything.
It was a waste of his mind.
His leg rattled and rattled and rattled in an attempt to calm down as the coca effects didn’t seem to slow down. In fact, they were speeding up and his pulse seemed to thicken his veins.
Not good. Not good, not good, not good.
He eyed the window, his breaths uneven, trying to figure out if there was a way to break the glass and then use the glass to cut his restraints.
It would require a lot of bleeding on his part.
He paused.
A young woman scrambled out of a carriage as she made her way into the square. Her skin glowed with a soft rich caramel tone as thick black hair pushed out in untamed ringlets against its bundled state. And in her hand was a curtain rod.
He dragged in an astounded breath.
It was Jemdanee.
In public.
With a curtain rod.
Whilst her name and likeness was plastered on a brick wall just across the street.
Fuck! Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! Where the hell were the servants?! Fuck!
She wore the same oversized calico gown he’d fastened her into in prison. It flapped and ballooned against the whistling, summer air.
Hell and well and there goes the bell and its funeral knell.
He might as well…make use of her and get them the hell out of sight.
Ridley tipped his chair closer to the cracked window, trying to follow her movements, his legs quaking and rattling against his will.
While crossing the d
esolate square toward him, she grew annoyed by the expanse of the dragging fabric bundling her limbs and with the puff of golden cheeks, while repositioning her sword, she gathered the gown high enough to expose frayed wool stockings that were sliding down shapely ankles and leather boots.
God save me from becoming my own greatest fear.
She paused beneath his window, glancing around with the curtain rod.
It was almost amusing. Almost.
He thudded the wall beneath the window with his boot. “Kumar. Kumar!”
She blinked and jerked toward him with the rod, startled at seeing him strapped to a chair while peering down at her.
Their gazes locked.
The base of his throat pulsed. Hell on earth and damn her all over again for she might as well have been the one to have bound him.
With that curtain rod in hand, she climbed up on the iron railing to better peer up at him.
He now felt like a lion strapped to a cart awaiting a safari with an audience.
Bearing it with the set of his jaw, he fully recognized his own humiliation and that the only reason why she was even out in public with a fucking curtain rod and without a veil to cover her face to protect her from a lynching was because of him. Him. Him and his cocky ways and his fucking coca and his need— “I’m usually on the other side of this window.”
Keep saying it, Ridley. Coca, coca, coca.
Her fingers tightened against the railing she held with one hand. A strong breeze made her flinch as her thick hair lost several pins, causing a curtain of locks to unevenly fall around her shoulders and past her waist.
Jet-black hair rose and fell against the wind, making her features all the more striking. Set against the rod she held, it was like beholding Madame Justice.
His jaw worked, annoyed for noticing how gorgeous she was. He didn’t want to be attracted to her. He didn’t want to turn her life or his into a passion-spilling, skin-splitting mess that would turn him into the animal she didn’t deserve.
He grudgingly stared at her, waiting. “Assistance would be appreciated.”
“Array haan!” Tucking her skirts around her legs, she climbed up higher onto the railing and teetered toward the window, loosening one of the iron bars. She gripped the ledge where a piece of a bent pipe rested and after peering past him into the room, she blinked at him through the cracked window.
“Are you bound and alone?” she half-whispered in that heavy accent. “Or will you require me to slash a dozen throats?”
He gave her an exasperated look, attempting to straighten against the ropes binding him.
He couldn’t move. “Your enthusiasm is much admired, but there is no need to slash a single throat. It’s just you and me and the building. And rope. Lots of rope.” God was mocking him.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.” His leg rattled in an effort to try to throw off the roaring of his pulse and whatever was left in his veins. His pulse wasn’t coming down. In fact, it was going up and up and he knew it had nothing to do with her. It was the coca. He had saturated the limestone with too many leaves. “’Tis merely a good lesson and will ensure I never play with children unless I’m fully armed,” he sped out the words, almost unable to hear himself saying it.
Edging closer to the window, she teetered against the railing.
His gut flipped. “Don’t— You’ll fall off! Climb down. For fuck’s sake, climb down. Go around. Go to the—”
“Cease telling me what to do whilst using foul language.” Those soulful pale blue eyes that shone through a cracked glass in the middle of nowhere. “I have climbed abandoned temples higher than this.” Leaning toward the window, she positioned herself and lifted the curtain rod high over her head with uneven breaths.
He was so startled at the realization of what she intended to do, he snapped his head away, barely in time for the impact. The shattering of glass exploded within the room, spraying him as the warm afternoon wind whipped through, filling his breaths with coal-tinged air.
She kicked at the remaining shards of glass still attached to the window to make more room for her body, using the handle of the curtain rod to chip and dash away the rest, then climbed through and jumped down onto the floor with a graceful thud.
If love had a name this was it. “You could have used the front door. It wasn’t locked.”
She straightened, thudding the tip of the rod into the wooden floor. “You needed me sooner.”
If he had married this one back in 1820, his outlook on life probably would have made him a better man. Only…she would have been nine. “I appreciate the urgency. Might you untie me?”
“Haan.” She leaned in. “I saw the faceless ones approach you from the chamber window. I was worried and had your other driver and footman follow. They have all of your weapons. The ones you left on the pavement.”
He was endlessly impressed. “The servants weren’t supposed to let you out of the house.”
She pinched her lips. Glancing off to the side she said out of the corner of her mouth, “The butler pinned me to the wall and refused to let me pass, I therefore had to…” She tapped the end of the rod, indicating she had used the hilt. “His nose will need tending.”
No. My very mind will need tending.
Kumar, run. Run before I crush every bone in your body in an effort to seize you. “What you did was incredibly stupid,” he bit out, refusing to listen to his mind that was no longer being rational. “Incredibly. You could have been hurt. Someone could have seen you. You also forgot to wear my cap down over your nose. Where the hell is it?”
Jemdanee lowered her chin. “Would you prefer I leave for an hour and retrieve it, Mr. Ridley?” Her tone indicated she was displeased with him for not thanking her.
Back to the girl he knew. “No. That won’t be necessary.”
She pointed the tip of the rod to his chest. “Are you not going to thank me?”
For what? For taking the only thing I have? My mind? It’s all I have. “I thank you.”
She set her chin, clearly pleased. “I wish to hear more of this gratitude. I wish for you to call me Jemdanee. No more of this Kumar. Or I will not untie you.”
He was tied and she was insisting. The overlord in him grumbled. “Jemdanee it is.”
“Might I call you by whatever your parents named you? You never told me. What is it?”
“You’re overstepping your bounds. You’ll only ever get that name when you’re lying beneath me, which won’t be for another five years.”
She rolled her eyes, then glanced toward him and veering in close, started unraveling and tugging against the ropes angled behind the chair, wedging and pulling them free one by one by one as she rounded him, her tangle of black curls wagging before him.
The bursting glorious heat of her being near permeated his being, overwhelming his senses. He swallowed and almost buried his face and his nose into her hair and that penny soap scent in half-anguish, wanting to fall into her for being the first woman to actually…save him.
She stripped the last of the ropes and paused. Her eyes widened as she grabbed his hand with soft fingers and cupped it. “Life escapes you!”
“Cease being dramatic.” He squeezed her small hand hard, wanting to remember this moment and its warmth as he would have to carry it with him for a long time. “It’s a scratch. That said, I want to thank you.” He softened his voice. “Thank you for…”
“Not being a child?”
“Yes. That. I…” The room felt like it was swaying.
Edging forward and back against his skull.
It was the coca.
It was speeding up his heart beyond what he and his chest and his mind could bear.
Though a profound weakness slammed itself into his body, sinking deep into the bone from too much coca, his riled mind was much stronger. It had always been. It had to be. He pushed himself up from the chair knowing he had to get her out of the public eye.
His vision dimmed, making him realiz
e he got up too fast and his ankle turned and—
He collapsed to the floor, stunned as his mind blanked and his body suddenly thudded and thudded and thudded, his head and his skull and his arms and his legs hitting and hitting and rattling in a blur he couldn’t control.
“Ridley. Ridleeeey!” Frantic hands held him down and down against the thudding that didn’t end. “Breathe. Breathe!”
He couldn’t see or breathe.
His body, his head, his arms and his legs continued to thud, thud, thud.
His greatest nemesis had at long last come to grip his skull into compliance and what it wanted most: his mind. Thud, thud, thud.
He lost consciousness.
Chapter 11
On both knees beside him, Jemdanee sobbed knowing he wasn’t responding. “Ridley?”
Blood gushed from his nose, his eyes rolling to the back of his head.
Trying to remain calm and rational, she hovered over his lips.
There was heat.
His breaths were short and labored, but they were there.
He was still with her.
She frantically unraveled his cravat and slipped it out from beneath his neck. Rolling the silk, she tucked it in and against his nose. The blazing moist heat of his forehead burned her hand.
All that mattered was that the seizure had stopped.
Scrambling to her booted feet, she skidded to the window and screamed out to Ridley’s driver and footman, “He requires assistance!” She pointed toward the direction of the door, lest they attempt to scramble through the broken window. “The door is open! You will need to carry him out!”
The two men thudded down onto the ground from the coach and sprinted from the street and up the long stone stairwell of the building and banged open the doors into the abandoned house.
“He is still breathing, but requires a physician.” Her throat tightened. Peter. Peter had dealt with coca/limestone seizures. He’d saved a man from it once. But how was she, a fugitive, to get to him?
“Lift on the count of two, Shelton,” the driver instructed, one grabbing Ridley’s booted feet and the other beneath his shoulder. “One and…two!”
Mr. Ridley: A Whipping Society Novel Page 22