Chapter Twenty-One'Amelia?' I had never seen William look so startled; or so guilty. 'What are you doing here?' He glanced around him, 'you should not be here.'
'William,' I said, 'who is this woman?' She was about thirty, with an angular, arrogant face and clothes that might suit a governess or a duchess who cared little for the opinion of anybody else.
'This woman,' Amelia spoke in a voice that could crack glass, 'is Mrs William Chadwick. And who pray, are you?'
I felt as if the bottom had fallen out of my life for a second time. In that instant I knew that my marriage was doomed yet I straightened up and faced Amelia eye-to-eye. 'I am also Mrs Chadwick,' I said, 'I am Mrs William Chadwick.'
Her slap took me by surprise. My return slap astonished her. To judge by her reaction she had
