We kissed, taking care not to smudge my lipstick, and sprayed each other with scent. Before leav
ing the room, Joss put on a pair of thin black leather gloves and stuck a riding crop in his belt loop.
At the door to the east wing, we stood, hand in hand. I was wearing some high-heeled black pumps that weren’t the easiest to totter about in. I’d practised, but the general wobbliness of my legs did little to help my poise. Joss kept his spine straight and stiff, his chin up high. He raised his hand and knocked, a rhythm that sounded like a signal.
His fingers tightened around mine, crushing them. His hand felt damp.
‘It’ll be OK,’ I whispered. ‘Don’t worry.’
We stood there like that until my knees were just about ready to give way, then footsteps were heard tapping along the corridor beyond, swift and light; a woman’s, I thought.
I was right.
The door was opened by a young woman with a mane of dark hair and very little in the way of clothing. A tulle tutu, a pair of sparkling nipple pasties and some ribbon-tied ballet shoes were about it. Oh, and a diamond collar round her neck.
‘Do I have the honour of speaking to Lord Lethbridge?’ she asked, and when he confirmed this, she dropped into a deep curtsy. She was so graceful I was sure she really was a ballerina.
‘This is Lulu,’ he said, putting a hand in the small of my back. There was no way I could curtsy in the rubber dress, or do much more than nod a greeting.
She nodded back, but there was distinctly less in the way of deference – almost a lip curl, in fact.
‘And you are?’ asked Joss.
‘When I am here, I am nameless,’ she said. ‘I am a thing to be used, sir.’
‘I see. Well, may I use you to lead us to your master?’
‘Of course, sir. For anything at all.’
She turned and I took the opportunity to give Joss a sideways raised-eyebrow look. I knew from the ball that the done thing was to appear unfazed by the most assumption-challenging sights and words, but I still found it hard at times. A thing to be used. Why would a person want to describe herself as such?
The east wing was in noticeably better condition than the rest of Willingham Hall. Voronov had had interior decorators in and everything was sharp and sparkly and pristine. The east wing was the house on top form – the rest of it was in a depressive slump. Just as Joss had been when I met him, I supposed.
Ballerina took us through a beeswax-smelling room and up some thickly carpeted stairs. Nothing was dusty, nothing threadbare. I could see the lower curves of her bottom through the layers of tulle. There was a tiny tattoo of some initials on both cheeks, with crossed canes above.
I couldn’t take my eyes off these and almost shoved into the back of her when she stopped suddenly and turned to a side door. Joss pulled me back to his side and put one hand at the back of my neck. Ready for formal introductions.
He was breathing fast and audibly. I kept my arms down by my sides, rigid with nerves.
Ballerina opened the door and stepped into the room.
‘Lord Lethbridge and his submissive,’ she announced.
I wasn’t even worthy of a name, apparently.
She scampered off somewhere to the side of the room, leaving us to try and make as stately an entrance as we could accomplish while trying to take in our surroundings.
We took three steps forwards, and I was in the midst of scanning the row of people in ornate wing-backed chairs, looking for Voronov, when Joss pushed the hand that was on my neck forcefully downwards, indicating that I should kneel.
I did so, clasping my hands instinctively behind my back and casting my eyes to the floor. All the same I tried to flick them upwards to fix the scene satisfactorily in my mind.
There were about half a dozen seated people, and a further four at their feet, kneeling in the same position as me. Of the seated people, four were men, two women. The submissives were three women to one man.
It was easy to work out which was Voronov. He sat in the centre, on the biggest, most ornate chair – more like a throne than anything domestic – wearing the sharpest suit and exuding the most compelling presence.
This was my father. It seemed impossible. He looked nothing like me, his colouring pale and arctic in contrast to my dark hair and eyes. My mother’s hair. My mother’s eyes. I could say now that I took after her – I’d never quite been able to do this with authority.
He was tall and very angular, in his late forties with distinguished silvering hair. He deflected all attention away from the others in the room, despite their more unconventional dress. He had effortless charisma. Of course, I knew that from the last time we had met, and my skin crawled at the thought of what might have happened that night. Thank God it hadn’t.