Master of the House Read Online Free PDF

parties. I’ve never been invited.’
    ‘How rude.’
    ‘Yes, isn’t it? But he likes to keep me in my place. He says he’ll invite me when I have a … guest … of my own to bring.’
    ‘Joss, could you stop talking in riddles and get to the point? Please?’ I looked at my watch. I was supposed to be in an editorial meeting in an hour.
    ‘You know, perhaps you should call me Lord Lethbridge. It is my name now, after all.’
    ‘Might I enquire when His Lordship intends to spill the precious bloody beans?’
    Joss hesitated. Actually, I think he was nervous. He was talking to a journalist about something he shouldn’t, after all. He always went all stiff and princely when he was nervous.
    ‘Please?’ I said, more softly. ‘I promise I won’t blab. It’ll be our secret.’
    ‘This is serious,’ he said, entreating me with his darkest look.
    ‘I know. I know it is.’
    ‘Willingham Hall is at stake. And that’s not all. My life might depend on your discretion.’
    ‘Wow.’
    He sat back in his chair and took a deep breath.
    ‘I met … this person … at a party. The kind of party he likes to throw, albeit on a slightly smaller scale. It was in London. At a dungeon.’
    ‘The London Dungeon?’ I said, a little confused. Were they all mad-keen on grisly murders?
    ‘No, Jesus, Lucy, are you being deliberately dim? A dungeon. In London. Not the London Dungeon.’
    Light dawned, albeit of a murky nature.
    ‘You mean a kinky fetish type of thing?’
    ‘That’s what I mean.’
    I paused and stared at him.
    ‘Oh.’ It was all I could think of to say.
    ‘Yes,’ he said, inspecting his fingernails, with the odd surreptitious glance at my expression.
    Joss in a dungeon. Was it such an outlandish thought? I mean, there had been nothing weird or fetishy going on when we were together, but we were young, and … actually, looking back, perhaps there had been signs.
    A memory popped into my head, of him pushing me up against the tree he had used to tie me to in childhood, holding my wrists above my head, thrusting into me, his eyes like coals. Always that tree. Every time.
    ‘Whips and chains?’ I said, just for clarification.
    ‘Whips and, indeed, chains,’ he confirmed. ‘Although I prefer a more subtle approach myself.’
    ‘You do?’
    He looked a little touched by my bemusement and he leaned forwards.
    ‘Dear sweet innocent Lucy,’ he said softly. ‘Did you never think?’
    ‘I … you were a bit … I suppose, looking back, it makes a kind of sense. But I never framed it that way. For me you were just on the slightly domineering edge of normal … slap and tickle … I didn’t think it went any deeper than that.’
    ‘Normal.’ He sat back again. ‘That would be you, would it?’
    ‘I’ve never been normal.’
    He liked that answer.
    ‘I know. I’m surprised that you’re surprised, to be honest. I always thought you had a touch of that tendency in you.’
    ‘What … whips and chains?’
    ‘God, shall we cut the tabloid-speak now, please? I’m talking about dominance and submission. You loved being told what to do and made to do it. In bed, I mean, not out of it.’
    I looked down at my lap, remembering the lurid adolescent fantasies I used to have about him. I wanted to deny his assertion, but it was at least half true. It struck me that every time we had made love, he had been doing what he wanted to me, and I had been letting him. And finding the skewed dynamic endlessly arousing.
    It probably wasn’t normal. But I wasn’t here to discuss the minutiae of our dead sex life. I made an effort to stay on track.
    ‘I don’t know why you think that, or what the hell it has to do with this alleged scoop you claim to be offering me.’
    ‘It has everything to do with it,’ he said.
    I pushed my chair back and half-rose from it.
    ‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that,’ I said, scanning his face intently. ‘If you think I have the slightest idea of getting tangled up with you