Maid to Order Read Free Page A

which would have been really unbearable. Better still, Summer hadn’t come in from the garden. Despite the situation I liked her, and she looked up to me. Being spanked in front of her would have been the final straw.
    Eventually I got up and went back to the mirror to make sure it wasn’t obvious I’d been crying. I couldn’t bear to be in the same room as Dad and Danielle when they were together, so I intended to sneak into the garden and find Summer, but I was called down before I even crossed the landing.
    Dad’s tone sounded doubtful, making me wonder if she might have told him about my spanking, and even made him agree to let her discipline me. As I walked down the stairs, I was desperately trying to think how to get out of it if she had. Even admitting to my visits to the Rathwells was no good, because if I mentioned Morris’s name first, all she had to then do was deny everything.
    Dad was smiling, but he looked as doubtful as he sounded. Danielle was smiling too, like a crocodile. I tried to sound casual.
    ‘What’s up?’
    Dad begun to drum his fingers on the table. ‘We were thinking about the rest of your year off.’
    ‘New York?’ I opened my mouth without engaging my brain. Had Danielle persuaded Dad to get rid of me by letting me take up Hudson Staebler’s offer of summer work in the States? He gave a long sigh and my hopes sank once more.
    ‘No, Jem, we’ve been through that already.’
    ‘Europe then.’
    ‘No, Jemima. Danielle has a much better idea.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘My uncle is the manager of a hotel on the south coast,’ she said, and I knew I was in trouble just from the tone of her voice. ‘I’ve got you a place as a maid.’
    ‘A maid!’
    ‘Yes, a maid,’ she answered and quickly turned to Dad. ‘It would do her a lot of good, Jeremy. Teach her about real life for a start. You’ve been far too soft with her and I’m not being harsh. It’s for her own good.’
    ‘I’m sure you’re right, darling,’ he answered, but I could tell he had his doubts.
    ‘Dad!’
    ‘I do think it would be a good idea, Jemima, just for a few months, and then we can talk about Europe for next year, when you’re a little older and you’ve had a term at university.’
    ‘And there’s also the expense to think about,’ Danielle broke in. ‘Your trip would cost your poor dad several thousand pounds, and everybody’s having to tighten their belts at the moment. This way you’ll be earning your own money and learning to stand on your own two feet.’
    ‘But I don’t want to be a maid! I don’t need to work, and there must be dozen of girls who do, so it’s really not fair.’
    ‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ she interrupted. ‘Really, Jemima, it’s for your own good. You must learn to stand on your own two feet.’
    My mouth came open to protest that I had been standing on my own two feet when I was in the States, but I could hardly admit to what I’d been up to, let alone what I would have been up to if Aunt Penny hadn’t ruined it for me. As it was I had to bite my tongue while she went on about how privileged my childhood had been and how much I’d benefit from a taste of the real world, until I finally managed to get a word in edgeways. Even then my every protest was ignored as the summer I’d been looking forward to for so long was destroyed bit by bit. The fact that I’d got a good place at uni didn’t matter, nor that Dad had plenty of money, nor that the whole thing was just completely unfair.
    I even came close to telling Dad about the spanking parties and hoping to catch Danielle out. He knew Morris, and had some idea of what he got up to, but was blissfully unaware of my involvement. There would be real trouble, but there was no way I could prove Danielle knew what went on, and I didn’t even know what the connection was. It was just too risky. I was going, and that was that.
     
     
     
Chapter Two
     
     
    Here’s what I don’t understand. If I take a job, a really