Any moment and…
The door slammed open, shaking the room.
A tall woman wearing a blond, curl-ridden wig tied with black ribbons stepped into the room. Dressed in expensive, black velvet cinched at a very tightly corseted waist that brought it to an unnatural eighteen inches, she sashayed in with the flaunt she’d always been known for. She tapped a cane against her full skirts.
Because she wasn’t imposing enough. Good-bye, Bloodnut.
Her green eyes scanned the room as if it were far more interesting as her pale freckled nose scrunched in amusement. “At least the furnishing has improved.”
Fuck this. He was going for what he really wanted. All things soft, all things understanding, all things kind and moldable. Jemdanee. “Why the wig, bondwoman? Are you hiding termites, the men or the grey?”
She gave him a withering look and swept toward him, her heels clicking. She lingered beside the bed, the scent of vermouth permeating the room. “You may not believe me, but I was worried about you. It reminded me that I actually cared.”
“A pity you didn’t apply that to our marriage.”
She tsked. “You had my permission to backhand me. Why didn’t you?”
He heaved out a breath knowing he was the only mature one left in the room. Which wasn’t saying very much given his stupid, stupid attempt at suicide. “What do you want?”
Taking her cane she poked his leg. “Is it still broken?”
He winced against the searing pain that went to his teeth. “Elizabeth, for fuck sake!” he roared, the real Ridley barreling to life. He glared, his nostrils flaring. “Kneel. Kneel, or by God, I will backhand you.” He snapped up a rigid hand in warning, taking on the teeth she needed. “Try me.”
She paused and drew away the cane, puckering her lips. “You always were too delicate in nature.” Her tone indicated she believed it. She grudgingly lowered herself to the floor beside the bed, kneeling on his command, her bewigged head now below his. “Am I to be punished?”
The mocking tone alone made him glad she ran off with other men.
He lowered his hand, edging himself back into a calm. “That would give you too much pleasure. Your punishment will be to remain kneeling until we are done.”
A breath escaped her. “You and I both know that compared to my tastes in all things leather, you were always too much of a gentleman.” She eyed him and sighed. “If I may be permitted to say it, you look incredibly well given you had almost died four times.”
He couldn’t even walk away from this. He had to sit here with ripped muscles and a broken leg and listen. To her. “Say whatever you need to say and take the wig out.”
Rolling the cane against the edge of the bed with her hands, she met his gaze. “Is it true?”
“What particular truth are you looking for and why?”
“It appears you have unhinged that massive iron door you once locked despite that black, black vow you made to me that you would turn away every last woman until death took your breath. Apparently, death has come in the form of an Indian woman. A certain Miss Kumar. I read it in the papers.”
Word certainly had spread fast.
“They are known to get certain things right.” He held up the ring. “Your tombstone has fallen and gone crack. Bury it along with your shame. Never call on me again. I now belong to another.”
She sighed, slowly taking the ring with black gloved fingers. She dragged it against her palm and then tucked it deep into the wrist of her leather glove. Her voice softened. “I regret I held no understanding of what my tastes in leather required prior to our marriage. I hurt you and I regret the punishments I bestowed onto you without your permission.”
Morbid though it was, he knew she was apologizing as best she knew how. “Your overlord acknowledges that. Go.”
“Am I permitted to stand?”
The sooner she left, the better. “Yes. Go.”
She rose. “Might I respectfully kiss your head and touch your hair one last time?”
“No.”
“I was never one to listen.” Leaning down over the side of the bed, she kissed the top of his head. She brushed away his hair from his eyes and straightened. She laid the cane beside him, tilting the handle, which was the black iron head of a raven. “I had this made for you. It arrived this morning.”
Because he wasn’t dark enough. “Take it away. I refuse to carry any part of you.”
She lingered. “You will not be carrying me, but him.” Flipping open the head of the cane that belonged to the beak of the raven, she carefully withdrew a small black feather. “Your Chaucer refused to eat despite my attempts to feed him and was found lifeless at the foot of your bed two weeks ago. Unlike me, he stayed with you to the end.”
A suffocating sensation of disbelief tightened his throat.
His vision blurred as he turned his head away to keep his pain from breaking his own sternum. A tear traced down his unshaven cheek. He swiped at it rigidly with trembling fingers, knowing Chaucer was gone.
He hadn’t even been given a chance to…nuzzle that loyal head one last time.
He wanted to rip his own bones out at having murdered the only one who had ever followed him blindly into every adventure they had ever shared.
A bird. A playful, intelligent bird who had depended on him for more than food but for company. In his blind need to play god with time and coca, he had failed the frailest of creatures: his Chaucer.
Elizabeth tucked the feather back into the beak and clicked the raven head of the cane back into place. She set it gently beside him. “Without your permission, for I believed your wellbeing was at stake, I removed all of the coca and limestone from this house. I also respectfully buried Chaucer given you were in a state of unconsciousness. In doing so, I briefly returned to being the woman you once knew and loved.”
Ridley slid his hand toward the cane and with a quaking hand, gripped the head of what would forever be Chaucer. “Where did you bury him?”
“With your father.”
A choked sob he sucked in deep and kept in lest he appear weak, penetrated his chest and quaked it. He’d finally become what no man should: a dark knight without a torch.
Her hand brushed his head. “On to new adventures, my love. I vow I will cause you no more pain. I swear it.”
He swallowed and scrubbed each eye, refusing to show weakness in front of a woman who had knowingly tried to break every bone in his body without any compassion. Her tending to Chaucer’s memory, whispered of the one he had first married. The one who was now and forever dead.
He sniffed hard and numbly flipped open the book Dr. Watkins had given him, setting Jemdanee’s letter onto it, ready to read it the moment he was alone. “I will keep the cane with gratitude for the preservation of my Chaucer, but in this moment, Elizabeth, I bury you. Every last piece of me will be gathered and placed into the bare hands of one who will make better use of it.” Jemdanee.
Elizabeth tilted her head, her green eyes tauntingly brightening. “You always did opt for the easy way out.”
His fingers tightened against the binding. “I never raised a hand to you, Elizabeth, and I am asking you not to let me.”
She lingered. “Will you be taking this Hindu as your bondwoman?”
“She isn’t one of us.”
She paused. “How do you intend to transition her into being yours? Does she know?”
“I hinted at it, but in her honor, I am more than ready to bury what I am.”
Her lips parted. She tapped the book. “Evan Oswald, heed these words. To bury yourself even for a minute is wrong. I recognize you blame me for the failure of our marriage, and I will not argue that I deeply betrayed you by taking others into my bed, but there was a reason I did. Might I say it knowing I mean to heal you not punish you?”
His jaw worked as his fingers dug into the leather binding. “I was always one to listen. Unlike you.”
She inclined her head. “I acknowledge that and have since grown.” A breath escaped
her. “My gift to you is that you offer less words and more passion. Show whatever woman you take what you never showed me. For the intelligence of your words and their deeper meaning and the compassion and protection you offer cannot replace the physical passion you refuse to give out of fear of yourself.”
She was quiet for a long moment. “I regret telling you that I was raped as a child after we had married. I regret it because it changed everything between us and you refused to give me what we once shared: teeth-clenching passion. In the remaining months we were married, it was I who forced your hand to touch my thighs. It was I who forced you to ‘osculate’ given you refused to impose. It is I who climbed onto you as I forced you to penetrate me and give us both pleasure. For you only ever saw one thing: my pain. And whilst I admire that you wanted to protect me from that pain, as you can see, I am far stronger than you thought me to be. For I am embracing what I have always been and what I have always enjoyed giving to others: pain. It is not a sin.”
A suffocating sensation crawled up his throat, overtaking his mind. “Pain is a destructive path, Elizabeth. No one knows that more than I for it only grows. Be wary of it and the power you attempt to hold over others whilst using it.”
“It is only destructive when there is no control behind it, and I assure you, I have long since learned from the greatest master of control: you. A master who broke his own rules and knelt to coca like a governess to her employer. You, Evan Oswald, have an incredible soul of unending strength and generosity, but you need to cease being too much of a hero. Or you will break not only yourself but the very people you claim to save and love. Did you not physically want me? Did I not appeal to you and the mind you feed with only books?”
Despite the pain she had caused him, he offered, “It was never that. You had simply endured enough at the hands of those men at a very young age and I hardly wanted to join in on the perversion.”
She dug her nails into his shoulder. “No woman can believe she is loved without feeling it.”
He swallowed. “The world would burn if I ever gave into what I really felt. Drinking a bottle of laudanum pales to what I can do. Hell would be on earth.”
“Hell is already on this earth, Evan Oswald. Do not think you are saving it. If you do not unleash who you really are and the passion you feel, you will lose more than yourself, you will lose whatever woman you seek to claim. Much like you lost me.”
He stared her down. “Forgive me for saying it, Bloodnut, but you were never strong enough to endure my love. You snapped beneath the weight of it the moment it landed on your weak soul.”
She lingered, blinking rapidly as if he’d slapped her. “I acknowledge that.” She no longer met his gaze. “We play the part one last time in honor of what had once been. Might I be given permission to depart, my overlord? Might I be given permission to let your rule be vanquished so I may now rule over others?”
“Yes. Do both. We are done.”
A tear traced down her cheek. She pointed to it. “Might you take the tear from my cheek and swallow it one last time?”
“No.” He still had the taste of Jemdanee’s tears on his lips. “I have already swallowed the tears of another.”
Her lips trembled. She turned, rustling back toward the door. She opened it and glanced back at him. “I did love you in my own way. You gave me what no man ever did: understanding. I hid myself and what I am from everyone, including my brother. But I never hid myself from you. You never let me and for that, I will always love you. You do know that, yes?”
He didn’t look up. He couldn’t. Because it was over. And when something was over, one never looked up or back.
She softened her voice. “May your tale have a fairy.”
She closed the door.
Ridley shifted his jaw and dragged in an evening breath trying to hold onto the only thing he had left: his mind. A mind that had seen him through this much. A mind he refused to fail again.
He slowly flipped through the book Dr. Watkins had given him and settled his gaze on Jemdanee’s letter. Without any of the calm he was known for, he frantically opened it and unfolded it, his gaze falling on perfect penmanship. Perfect. Like he expected it to be. Perfect. Like everything that defined her.
Mr. Ridley,
I write this knowing we are at an impasse. I
wish you happiness and a long life spent in
the joy I know you will never feel. Your lack
of self-respect is not one I can respect. I will
forever be grateful for all that you have
done for me, but it will never erase the
horror you forced into my arms. I am
worthy of more and I hope one day you will
believe you are, too. I leave with you a
bottle of jasmine oil as it is known for its
healing qualities. It is the only part of me
that will ever touch your skin again. I
attempted to console Chaucer and feed
him, but he only lunged at everyone who
dared to go near him as if we were the ones
to have harmed you. I hope when you are
coherent enough, you will cradle him
knowing he will be the only creature to be
so blindly devoted to your ignorance. May
we meet in another lifetime under better
circumstances,
Kumar
A lone tear traced down his cheek.
One he felt no shame in crying.
One he owed her and one he owed himself.
For she at her mere eighteen had a taught a man at two and thirty that without self-respect, no life was worth living. She was right.
But that didn’t mean he had to stay wrong.
He gently kissed her name, ensuring he didn’t smear the ink and set the letter onto the pillow beside him. So she might lay with him in bed every morning and every night.
Taking up the small green bottle, he uncorked it.
The sweet crisp scent of a flower he’d never had the pleasure of smelling in person whispered of the cool beauty of the night she had been in his arms. It made him ache. Yet it also calmed him.
Touching his finger to it, he tilted the bottle just enough to let a small drop of oil graze his skin. Corking the bottle, he set it on the pillow next to her letter and with a quaking hand, smeared the oil against his upper lip beneath his nose, to ensure he smelled nothing else.
Nothing but her.
Eyeing the writing box set beside him on the bed, he dragged it over to himself, wincing against the effort.
The first letter he wrote was:
Quincy,
You should feel endlessly honored to know
you are the first person I am writing since
emerging from the gates of
unconsciousness. Given I am unable to
tend to the duty myself for what may be a
while, might you be so kind as to call on
Mr. Pickering for me? I owe the bastard a
few books. Call on me to take them and in
turn, I will ensure an extra one or two are
set aside for you. That way, you cannot
claim I never paid you.
To the brotherhood of the whip,
Ridley
The second letter he wrote in French was:
Vidocq,
For the time being, I am retiring from the
investigative field in honor of the fact that
I did not die and now must give myself
time to heal. As we have always agreed to
never send missives beyond three
sentences, I wish to thank you for this cap
you so generously bestowed unto me
nineteen years earlier, but regret to inform
you, sir, I have no further use for it. For I
now have a new motto: Protect my little
raven.
Cordialement,
R.
The third letter he al
so wrote in French was:
Mère,
No one knows more than I how often you
worry, and I thank you for having
overseen my coffin nail of a life with your
unending love these many years despite
the hardships I have bestowed onto you,
which included nearly hanging myself by a
rope in the attic when I was younger. I
cannot imagine the horror you felt as a
mother and I still carry it with me to this
day and now have stupidly infringed that
same suffering on another. I acknowledge
that I am who I am in my compassion
because of you. I am currently bed-ridden
for what may be some time. Worry not, for
I am recovering, but I would nonetheless
be honored if you would cross the distance
between France and England and sit at my
side. It is my hope that you and Lord
Spencer are as happy as you both were
when I left Paris.
Your son in soul and breath,
Evan
The fourth letter, which took him a few more moments to compose, he wrote:
My Jemdanee (Do you see, little raven?
You are Kumar no more),
I am still in possession of a skull because of
you. Whilst you might not find it to be a
compliment to cradle, I assure you, my
skull means far more to me than the rest of
this broken body and thus it is the
equivalent of what might be my heart. The
one that is waiting to beat again with
far more than self-respect. ‘Tis a humbling
reminder of what you have come to
represent in a single breath. The short time
we have spent together was to me A
Midsummer’s Night Dream, and I vow
to write far more than these words in
future correspondences. I will find the
countless expressions and phrases and
remarks that would best personify the
indescribable. For you are exactly that:
indescribable. Though you appear to have
abandoned me for reasons I understand
Mr. Ridley: A Whipping Society Novel Page 25