Chapter 3

I watched Charlie as he pondered all I had said. I realised that I really did not know all that much about this young man or how he would react. I had told my family's tale. I had revealed to him more about myself than anyone had a right to know. I had taken my courage in my hands and followed my plan, now I waited with bated breath to see how he would react.

After a few minutes that seemed like an eternity to me he finally spoke.

"I have listened to all you had to tell me about your family and yourself. I am amazed that you had the courage to do this, especially since it leaves you so vulnerable to me, whatever my intentions. I have made up my mind. I will accept your proposal. That being the case you now belong to me. I hope you realise fully what that means and that from this minute on you have to do as I say."

He looked at me inquiringly.

I let out my breath without realising until now that I had been holding it. Then I looked into his eyes and answered him before lowering my glance.

"Yes sir, you are my lord and master and I must do as you bid."

"Good!" He said, "I believe you live in a flat with three other girls is that right?"

"That is the correct," I told him.

Then I realised he was looking at me sternly and waiting for me to say something else. The silence stretched for further seconds and then the penny dropped.

I bowed my head and said, "I am sorry my lord, I should have addressed you properly. You were correct in your assumption. I do live with three friends."

"As a lesson for the future you are going to be punished for that omission. After all you have said and promised you should not have needed to be reminded of your new status."

Again I lowered my eyes from his face and felt a tingle in my nether regions as he said this. I responded

"It will be as you wish sir."

"Then let me say this, I would prefer that you refer to me as your Lord rather than use the term master. Also note that if you displease me I and I am not able to punish you at the time, I will tell you that you have incurred penalty points and these will determine the nature and severity of your punishment and may be added together. So for your current infringements you have accumulated five penalty points for needing to be reminded how you should address your Lord and Master. Is that clear?"

Lucy bowed her head and replied, "Yes my Lord."

"We will now go back to my car and I will drive you back to the college to pick up your vehicle. You will then follow me back to my home. I did as he said and when he arrived back at my car he told me to sit where I was. He then got out, walked round the front of his car and opened the door for me to alight. I did so and thanked him for his courtesy. He waited until I was seated in the driver seat of my car and then he got back into his, He then did a u turn and drove back past me and I followed behind him home.

We drove a little way out of town and then turned up a farm road to what had once been a farmhouse complete with barns and outbuildings. The yard, however, was completely laid with red coloured tarmac and was clean and tidy. The other buildings were all freshly painted and clean. Flower pots were strategically placed around the yard giving it a beautifully manicured look and it was a delight to the eye. Once again he got out of his car and opened the door for me and indicated I should follow him into the house.

"You will be staying here tonight. I will get the Range Rover out of the barn and we will go and collect your things. Don't worry about the rent arrangements. I will repay you for what has been already paid for the term so far and cover the future rents until your friends can find a new tenant. How you explain to them what has happened I will leave up to you," he said with a grin.

It was at that moment it dawned on me I had not really thought through what it meant when I said I would be his from the moment he accepted my proposal. He was taking a literal translation of that promise and immediately asserting his authority over me. A little thrill of apprehension ran through my body as I realised he was probably going to be as demanding and as controlling as Maria had been. I had really burned my boats and would now have to meet the price I said I was prepared to pay if he came to the rescue of me and my family.

"I will put your car in the small barn where I keep my vehicles and then we will get into the Range Rover and go and collect your things. I am certain that if your friends are in they will help you to carry your stuff out to my car. There will certainly be plenty of room for everything in this vehicle."

When we arrived at what was now my former digs, I was left with the quandary of telling my friends what was going on. I misled them a bit by telling them that Charlie has proposed to me and that soon we would be getting engaged and I was moving in with him.

At that point he came into the room and Heather said to him

"I believe congratulations are in order. Lucy has told us that you have proposed to her and she has accepted and that you will soon be engaged and she has agreed to move in with you."

He smiled, "Yes something like that is what has happened. Thank you for your good wishes."

"I did not even think you two knew each other all that well," Heather continued, "You are a couple of dark horses."

"Well I have to confess that until this term we didn't know much about each other," he told her while looking over at me. "But sometimes you can learn a lot about a person in a very short space of time and you know that he or she is the person you are going to spend the rest of your life with. That is how it was with us."

"Oh how romantic," Celia another of my friends said, "But I don't think I could have made a commitment to live with someone as quickly as you seem to have done Lucy I hope you know what you are doing."

"There are times in life when you just know you have no option but to go where your heart leads," I told her with a smile and this time I looked over at Charlie.

He was grinning at the way I had replied to Celia. He knew full well he had given me no option about the course I had to take.

Charlie explained to the girls that he would cover my share of the rent until they could find someone to take my place in the flat. They cheerfully accepted this telling him they were sure they would fill the space quite easily. They then helped us to carry my stuff including my books and my laptop out to the car.

I waved goodbye to my friends as we drove off and awareness hit me as we arrived back at the farmhouse that the new life I had chosen for myself was beginning right now

I led Lucy into the farmhouse and showed her around. On the ground floor there were three rooms, a large kitchen, and a toilet and hand basin at the back door. There was a small laundry room beyond that. Of the two large front rooms, one I used as a comfortable sitting room for everyday use and this had a large television situated in one corner. The other front room across the quite wide hallway was also a sitting room and had the same bay window as the bedroom above, but it had been furnished with more style and would be used to entertain visitors you wanted to impress. Needless to say it was seldom used by me.

The back room behind the posh sitting room was also quite large and I used this as a study. It had a desk with my desktop computer and a smaller desk which held my laptop. The walls were lined with bookcases which held my library. There was also a fourth room smaller than the rest and it seemed to have been built on to the back wall of the house and I used it as a dining room.

From the hall, the stairs led to a half landing and then turned back on themselves to the landing on the top floor. There was also a very small flight of three steps to the left which led to a large bedroom off the half landing. This room also had once had a dressing room off it. The dressing room had now been divided in two. One half, which had a window on the back wall of the house, had been made into an en-suite with a toilet, hand basin and shower. The other half now had a door from the bedroom and was a walk in wardrobe.

This I was using as the master bedroom though it was slightly smaller than the bedroom with a bay window at the front of the house. Through the wall from this was a bathroom with a bath, toilet and hand basin. On the other side of the toilet was a third bedroom, still quite large but smaller than the other two. This did not have a bay window. From the top landing another and narrower stairway took you up to two attic bedrooms and what could have been a third bedroom but was used as a store room.

Lucy was quite impressed by the fact that I owned a house and a few acres of land which still belonged to it as well as the castle on our highland estate. On the way back downstairs we stopped again in the bedroom on the half landing and I told her this would be our bedroom from now on. I said that at the weekend were would go and choose a big double wardrobe which I would use for my clothes and she could have the large walk in cupboard as hers. This had been shelved on one side as well as having quite a large hanging space. She seemed a bit surprised when I told her this. I think the implications of what she had committed herself to were just beginning to sink in.

After the tour we went back out to the car and I gave her a hand to move her clothes up to one of the guest bedrooms and we dumped them on the bed and on part of the floor. I told her that she could hang them in one of the wardrobes until we had time to sort out the hanging space in what would be our bedroom. Her laptop we moved into the study and put it on the small desk alongside mine. Another table was going to be needed for her to do her studying.