Bought By The Billionaire

My Master leads me through the long hallway, to the back of the house, past the kitchens, and to the rear staircase.

Once of a day, this staircase would have been for the use of servants only, so that their lords and masters did not have to pass them on the main, and much more glamorous, front staircase. Dark and dingy, it leads up to storerooms, utility areas and the rear servants’ access to the upper hallway. Also, I now realise, it must lead down too.

An oak door blocks the way, the timber ancient, and looking capable of holding off the Hordes of Genghis Khan.

My Master winks at me with an air of mystery, then produces a large skeleton key. “This is our private area.” The lock sticks and then grinds open. “I must get some oil on this.” he mutters.

The door swings back, and cool damp air wafts out. Cellars?

Of course, cellars. A house like this would have had butteries, cold storage rooms, the butler’s pantry, laundry areas. And they would all be in the basement areas, where the gentry would never go.

We descend a flight of uneven stone steps, dimly lit by a single bulb, to a long, arched hallway. Stone flagged and chilly, also badly lit, it leads perhaps fifty yards before ending in what looks like a small chapel. Looking up, the barrel-vaulted ceilings are quite beautiful. Several large wooden doors lead off the corridor to right and left. A glimmer of what my Master intends begins to dawn on me.

His mouth twitching at the corners, he waves me forward. “Want to explore?”

Do I! Yes indeedy!

laundry. Stone troughs, with hand pumps, sit side by side with an enormous washing machine straight out of

through cobwebs draped with the dust of years. A couple of drying racks for washing, hang from the arched roof, their

comments “All of this downstairs area needs refurbishing. We’ll get in the builders and decorators when you have decided what you would like to do with

the immensity of what my Master has given me. But it occurs to me that these dilapidated rooms,

change in my Master. Expectation? What

I push open the door, instead of the chill damp, which has greeted me from the previous chambers, warm air washes over me. The room is warm and glowingly lit, with dozens of fat candles, their light reflecting from polished brass sconces and holders. A fire burns in a huge hearth at the far end of the room, its flames casting shadows, that dance and play over stone walls cleaned and polished to a gleaming finish. Thick rugs

glance back at my Master. His eyes are gleaming. Then I step into the room, taking in more

boxes and containers, line one wall. Huge metal rings embedded in the vaulting suggest that whole carcasses might have one hung there, ready

huge bed, a four-poster. Only just fitting under the highest point of the arched stone ceilings, it must have been brought into the room in pieces. It looks old. Solid timber, perhaps oak, posts, dark with age, spiral up from the floor to cross-bars which support heavy velvet curtains, currently pulled open from the bed itself. Silk cords,

room, my Master is behind me, holding me close

the garment down from my shoulders and off. My skirt is harder for him, but my Master is a strong man. Seizing the waistband, he tears it apart and the shredded

have protested his treatment of my clothes in the past, my Master has simply commented that

corset and stockings, he marches me to the middle of the room, centred between two of the ceiling rings. “Arms up.” he instructs, not smiling now, but intense,

before going to one of the stone shelves

shackles, heavy, solidly made, chains with metal cuffs. Holding my eyes as he does so, my Master clips one end to a ceiling ring. The other is snapped onto my left wrist. The cuff is padded with a soft suede and it