The Gilded Cage Read Online Free

the same red-haired woman who had run across the street and later, touched the injured man’s shoe. Now her face was strangely composed, her hair tucked back into her cap. But then Columbine saw her eyes. There was something deep and savage there that chilled her. The contemptuous emerald gaze flicked from Ambrose’s face to Ned’s to Columbine’s and found them all equally despicable.
    â€œDo you have a message for me, Fiona?” Ambrose prodded sharply.
    â€œOh, but I don’t like to interrupt the dancing .” The woman’s face was impassive. Her strong, reddened hands were still by her side. Yet Columbine felt she had raised a fist. It was the absence of the usual posture—the bowed head, the almost silent murmur, the curtsey—that sent an electric charge through the air.
    Ambrose flushed heavily. “Fiona! If you have no message, return to the kitchen.”
    â€œThe doctor is here,” Fiona answered. Again, there was a shock, widening outward like a stone dropped in a pool—the absence of the obligatory sir.
    Ambrose’s voice shook. His face held the rigid lines of panic barely in check. “Howell will see to him. And you may pack your bags tonight, Fiona. There will be no letter of reference. I will not countenance insubordination.”
    Fiona said nothing. She pivoted and returned to the small salon, closing the door gently behind her. They heard the man groan again, muffled this time.
    Ned took a step toward Ambrose, but was waved off.
    â€œDo what you will, Ned,” Ambrose said, turning his back and starting up the stairs. “I must see to my guests.” He climbed the stairs heavily and disappeared around the turning.
    Ned stared after him. “Columbine, I’ve known Ambrose all my life. I know his weaknesses. He is afraid, and he’s acting abominably, I know, but if I wait until he calms down and talk to him again—”
    â€œStay then.” She spoke the words flatly. “I am not going upstairs to put in an appearance. You may dance the rest of the night away, but I cannot. I cannot remain under this roof. Don’t you see that I cannot?” Columbine asked, striving to remain calm. When Ned didn’t reply, she bowed her head and closed her eyes for a moment. There, she thought. There it is. The difference between us that will destroy us. He hesitates. And maybe he’ll stay.
    She turned, her silk skirts rustling, and blundered back down the hall, feeling tears begin behind her eyelids. She tried to remember where the cloakroom was. It must be the carved oak door to the right of the double front doors. Blindly, Columbine reached for the knob.
    But Ned’s fingers were there before her. He twisted the knob, found her fur-lined cloak. He didn’t speak as they waited for their carriage. Their breath clouded in the cold air, mingled and dissipated. Ned’s face set in stern lines, and he didn’t look at her or take her hand. But whether he was angry at Ambrose or her, she didn’t know.
    The carriage drew up with a clatter of hooves. Ned ushered her into the leather seat. Columbine sank back with an almost silent groan. She felt twice her years. The decade had just begun, with cries and blood and a yellow sky full of ill portents. She suddenly felt too ill-equipped, old and tired, to cope with any of it.

Two
    T HIRTY BLOCKS DOWNTOWN and three long blocks west, Marguerite Corbeau heard the bells toll the hour of midnight and the start of the new decade. She wished herself a happy and prosperous new year.
    She would turn nineteen in the coming year, and Marguerite was not pleased at the thought. Time brushed against her smooth cheeks like a draft from a rapidly closing door, and she felt the chill. She wasn’t beautiful like Columbine or luscious like Bell. She wasn’t fashionably round. She was slight and pretty, and she was bored with her brief stint at political commitment. She had given