Master of the House
Journalist Lucy Miles returns home to her sleepy rural village to chase a potentially career changing story. But after being reunited with the boy who broke her heart, Lucy soon realises that its her own feelings that are under investigation.Lucy Miles is resigned to covering stories for the local newspaper and sharing a flat with her hippy mother, until her first love reappears.She should know better than to trust Joss Lethbridge, even if he is a Lord these days, but he has an intriguing proposition for her and the temptation to land the biggest scoop the Vale of Tylney has ever seen proves too much for her. As does his invitation to rekindle a passion that will set alight her submissive fantasies and untie his dominant tastes.But for how long can playing roles remain pretence before their games become an emotional connection?
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Master of the House
Justine Elyot
Table of Contents
A village fete. That was the best they could find for me.
‘It’s being opened by a celebrity,’ the editor had said, as if this made it more like a summit of world leaders.
‘Who?’
‘Forget his name – bloke off that talent show, the one with the mad sideburns.’
‘Right.’
So there I was, with a photographer who looked about twelve, interviewing people who were betting on which would be the first ferret to pop its head out of a length of plastic piping. Me, Lucy Miles, who once had a byline on the international news pages of the Correspondent.
The elderberry fizz I was sipping from a paper cup might have won a prize, but as far as I was concerned it tasted of abject failure.
‘I need a proper drink,’ I told teen-snapper, eyeing up the bunting-strewn beer tent. ‘Before I go insane.’
He happily went along with this, shambling after me into the sanctuary.
‘Not what you’re used to, I s’pose,’ he offered, by way of conversation, once we had our plastic half-pints of Randy Old Shagger, or whatever it was called.
‘Hardly. Back in Hungary I was covering human rights abuses, anti-government protests, racially-motivated murders, political skulduggery and intrigue.’ I enumerated these shiny nuggets on my fingers, then sighed. What was the point of dwelling on it?
‘Shame they cut your budget,’ offered teen-snapper.
‘Yeah. Hungary got lumped in with Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic and they gave oversight of the lot to the Prague guy. Even though Prague is nothing like Budapest, and even less like Bucharest. But they don’t care about cultural nuance, so back to the Vale for me.’
‘The Vale of Tears.’ Teen-snapper did a sort of snuffly chuckle at the hoary old local joke. I fished a wasp out of my beer.
‘Vale of Tylney versus Budapest. Not comparable at all. Still, I don’t really envy the guy in Prague. He’s got his work cut out for him with the way everything’s going over there.’
‘You’re better off at the Vale Voice,’ said – was his name Kai? – with a wink.
I didn’t want tiny little boys winking at me, so I gave him a hard look and pushed the rather over-treacly beer aside.
‘Whatever,’ I said. Ugh, there was a lump in my throat. An accordion struck up outside, closely followed by the jingle of bells and clatter of batons. Just what I needed to cheer me up. Fucking morris dancing.
Kai got busy with the camera while I stood at the beer-tent flap, trying so hard not to cry that I gave myself a headache.
I’m twenty-seven and my life is over. Living with my mum in the town that time forgot, back at the paper I did my work experience for. And I hope Károly is having a nice time with that bitch he was shagging behind my back. Fuck him, fuck her, fuck everything.
The morris music mocked me and I stormed away over the grass, intent on hiding out in the car until the prize draw was announced.
‘Lucy! Lucy Miles!’
It took me a moment to work out where the voice was coming from, but eventually I traced it to a bric-a-brac stall, presided over by an old schoolfriend.
‘Jamila. What are you doing in … what’s this place called?’
‘Fossey Bassett,’ she said, laughing. ‘I’m teaching at the village school here now, Key Stage Two. I can’t believe it’s you. Haven’t seen you since A levels.’
‘Ahh, Stalag Tylney. I heard they turned it into an academy.’
‘Yeah. Same building, same teachers, same everything, different name.’
‘So how are you?’
We chatted, in-between serving customers with knitted egg cosies and the like, for a good half-hour. I kept my side of the story light, swerving questions by asking plenty of my own. Jamila was engaged to be married to a doctor, still living in Tylney, still seeing a lot of the old crowd.
‘Aren’t you in touch with anyone any more?’ she asked.
‘Nah. I stayed in London during university holidays and then got the gig in Budapest pretty much straight after graduation.’
‘Your mum must have missed you,’ she said, with a sideways look.
‘My mum? Are you kidding? I don’t think she noticed I was gone until I rang her up to ask her to send on some books.’
‘Is she still …?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You don’t know what I was going to ask!’
‘Well, she’s still a tree-hugging hippy, if that was it.’
‘No, it wasn’t. I was going to ask if she still had that cleaning job up at the Hall.’
I stopped, picked up a china dog and examined it minutely, catching a breath.
‘No, no, she quit that years ago. She’s got a stall in Tylney market now. Crystals, tarot cards, all that kind of thing.’
‘Oh, right. Doesn’t she live in Willingham any more?’
‘No, no. She moved about a year after I went to uni. Why?’
‘Well, you’re a journalist, aren’t you?’ Jamila looked painfully furtive. She was never good at discretion.
‘Yes.’
‘You might know something about what’s going on up there … maybe?’
