Free Kitty Little by Freda Lightfoot Page B

eyes, fury building as she laughed and teased whichever poor soul she’d set out to enslave. He would return the uninvited flowers with a curt note, or bar the sender from ever partaking of dinner at his table again.
    Once, while attending an anniversary ball of an old friend, Magnus had discovered her dancing alone in the conservatory with a young captain.
    ‘What is this?’ The ominous quiet of his voice had so chilled her, she could only stare at him, unspeaking. Even her valiant partner had deemed it wise to hold his tongue.
    Magnus had taken her arm in an iron grip and propelled her out into the garden in order to give full vent to his feelings on her questionable behaviour. Charlotte, desperately struggling to keep pace with his long strides had been quite out of breath by the time she managed to wrench herself free from his grip. ‘For pity’s sake, what’s up with you? We were doing nowt wrong, only dancing.’
    ‘Doing nothing wrong. You were doing nothing wrong.’
    ‘Well then, why make such a fuss?’
    He’d swallowed an explosion of rage. ‘Do please watch your grammar, Charlotte. How many times have I told you? As for this latest charade, I do not recall giving you permission to disport yourself so openly with that fop,’ referring to Julian Webster, the son of one of his fiercest competitors at the race track.
    ‘Julian is a poppet and wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ Charlotte had retorted, carefully rounding her vowels. ‘And it were that hot in the ballroom.’
    ‘ Was too hot.’
    ‘Like I said, too hot by ‘alf.’
    ‘Damn you, woman, you’ll do as I say, understand?’ Then he’d flung her to the ground, ripping her gown in the process. ‘You’ll offer favours to no man unless I say you may. Is that quite clear? I’ll tell you with whom and when. Don’t ever forget that I am in control. If you play the slut with me, woman, you’ll be back where you came from, in the gutter.’
    ‘You’re me bloody ‘usband, not me keeper!’ she’d unwisely responded, some imp of madness making her hit out at him, partly caused by the folly of youth and partly from the confidence she held in her own charms. She was soon to regret such recklessness.
    He’d taken her home, stripped the clothes from her back and whipped her, using the silken cord from his tartan dressing gown. Afterwards, as she sat sobbing, terrified of moving in case she exacerbated the pain in her back, he carefully explained how the punishment was not out of lack of love on his part, but meant only to cure her of disobedience, in particular her persistent waywardness.
    ‘Not forgetting me bad grammar,’ she’d obstinately yelled back at him, receiving another leathering for her cheek.
    Later, as she tenderly bathed her raw skin, Charlotte had noted with a mixture of relief and fear, that he’d been clever enough not to break it, which meant that if he could get away with it once, he could do so again. Nevertheless the bruising took weeks to heal, serving as a spur to greater obedience, and causing her to work all the harder at being the wife Magnus demanded.
    In this way, the peculiar nature of their relationship continued to flourish. He as the master and she the slave. Charlotte learned to simper and smile and play her charms to his will. And whenever Magnus judged that his wife had not quite put her heart into a prescribed task, thereby failing to procure whatever prize he’d set his heart on, he would smile, almost with pleasure. ‘Now what would you consider to be a suitable chastisement?’
    Charlotte would shake her head in mute distress, for some of these punishments proved to be alarmingly imaginative.
    He might lock her in a spider-infested closet for hours till she was ready to agree to anything just to be released from the crawling darkness, or twist her arm until she wanted to scream from the pain but dare not because he would beat her all the harder if the servants heard anything untoward. He might slap her till