“Well!” she cried, clenching her fists. “What of it! Isn’t the same thing in the minds of all men! It’s in yours, too, even if you—” But there she stopped, suddenly, for he gave her a look so swift and so venomous, so threatening that the words caught short in her throat and she remained quiet.
The next morning, rather early, Amber and Nan came downstairs wrapped in cloaks and hoods and muffs. She spoke to the footman at the door. “Please send for his Lordship’s great coach. I’m going abroad.”
“The coach is being repaired, madame.”
“Then I’ll go in mine.”
“I’m sorry, your Ladyship, but that one is also at the coachmakers’.”
Amber heaved an impatient sigh. “Very well, then! I’ll call a hackney. Open the door, please!”
“I’m sorry, your Ladyship. The door is bolted and I have no key.”
She looked at him with sudden suspicion. “Who has it then?”
“His Lordship, madame, I presume.”
Without another word Amber swirled about and rushed from the entrance-hall toward the library, threw open the door without knocking, and burst in like a gust of wind. The Earl was seated at a table, writing, with a great sheaf of papers beside him.
“Would you mind telling me why I’m made a prisoner?” she cried.
He looked up as though she were, indeed, a disrupting physical force rather than a human being. Then his eyes ran over her slowly and he gave a faint smile, as of a patient man who is somewhat bored.
“Where did you wish to go?”
She was on the edge of telling him that where she went was not his business, but thinking better of it she replied, more quietly: “To the New Exchange. I have some purchases to make.”
“I can’t imagine what they could be. But it seems that no matter how much a woman may have, she always needs something more. Well, if you feel you cannot do without a new pair of gloves or a bottle of essence—send Britton.”
Amber stamped her foot. “I don’t
Radclyffe paused a long moment before he answered her, gazing reflectively at the pen he turned in his fingers. “This is a strange age. A man is considered a fool if he allows his wife to cuckold him—and an even greater one if he takes measures to prevent it.”
Amber’s mouth twisted into an ugly triumphant sneer. “So at last we have it! You’re afraid some other man will get your children for you! Well, now—wouldn’t
“You may go, madame.” As she continued to glare at him, he suddenly spoke with startling sharpness. “Get out! Go to your rooms!”
Amber’s eyes blazed, as though she could wither him where he sat by the sheer force of her hatred. All at once she muttered a curse, slammed her fan onto the floor, and as she went out flung the door wide and banged it with all the force in her body.
But Amber soon discovered that shouts and violence would gain her nothing. He had the legal right to lock her in, and to beat her if he thought that she deserved it. She had little fear the thin brittle Earl would ever attempt physical chastisement—since she was certainly more than a match for him—but she sometimes had a sneaking apprehension of poison or the sudden thrust of a knife. He wouldn’t dare! she told herself. But she was never wholly convinced, and fear made her cautious.
For several days she sulked. She thought of starving herself to make him submit, but realized after she had missed two meals that such a process would be more uncomfortable for her than for him. Then she ignored him completely. When he was in the room she turned her back, sang bawdy songs, chattered with Nan. She never left her apartments but went about all day in her dressing-gown, her hair undone and no paint on her face. He seemed scarcely to notice, and certainly did not care.
She thought of every possible solution, but was compelled to abandon each in turn. If she left him he would have all her money—and she would have no title. To get a divorce was almost impossible and would have required an act of Parliament; not even Castlemaine had obtained a divorce. Annulment was almost as difficult, for the case must rest upon impotence or sterility, and how was she to prove herself a virgin or him incompetent? To make matters worse, the courts, she knew, were not inclined to side with a woman. And so at last she decided that if it had been possible for her to tolerate him before they were married it should be possible now. She began to speak civilly to him once more, joined him at dinner, went into the library to search among the books when he was there. She took an extraordinary care of her appearance, in the hope of buying what she wanted by pandering to his salaciousness.
