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He took her hand and squeezed. “Thank you. That’s all I ask. Not for my sake. But yours. And your father too.”
He returned to the driver’s seat and took her home. For the rest of the short journey, she seemed preoccupied, lips pressed together and eyes darting about. A little lingering shock at the evening’s proceedings, surmised Rick. Not a bad evening, he decided. The question was, what happened next. What happened if she forgot to behave? Would he do it again and would he spank her harder?
Chapter Two
Over the next few weeks of the dwindling summer, Leah tried hard to be courteous to Rick. She said please when giving her destination, thank you when they arrived. She kept the litter out of the car and since the evening with Clive, had not invited men into the vehicle. Little was said about that night, only for Leah to whisper another quiet thank you to Rick a few days later when she realised her driver had said nothing to her father about her errant behaviour. Her father would have been furious if he had known about the young man.
The spanking had a residual effect on her conduct. Rick had shown no delight in doing it, at least as far as Leah could tell and he appeared pleased with her response. It gave her a strange sense of satisfaction, something she couldn’t pin down with logical reasoning.
He smiled at her more, complimented her on her clothes when she went out to a formal event. Following her enrolment at Liverpool University as an English undergraduate, he helped her with her books when in a hurry and ensured he parked a little distance away from the university buildings; Leah had become more self-conscious about her status and the presence of a personal driver. She was determined to make new friends based on face value and not ones who simply wanted a wealthy friend to hang out with at the weekends.
All began well, that first term. Fresher week, at the end of September, came and went, the first lectures given and she had met her tutors. There had been issues; the biggest being an argument with her father about accommodation. He had wanted her to stay living at home, while she was adamant that she should have the freedom to be on her own.
Her mother, in one of their weekly long distance calls, had been sympathetic but unwilling to enter the fray and present Leah’s case for independence. Two weeks into the first term and Leah had still to convince her father.
Been driven by Rick to a morning lecture, she let slip a quiet sob of frustration. His observant ears meant he turned his eyes to the mirror: her unshed tears would be visible to him. Dabbing them away with a handkerchief, she hoped he hadn’t noticed, but he had.
“Problem, Miss Leah?” It was what he called her since the spanking, more familiar but still formal.
“No.” She shook her head, lying.
“Don’t bottle things up. Not good for you,” he said, unperturbed by her fib.
“I wish I lived with my mum, that’s all,” said Leah with a shrug.
“Where is she?” he asked, curious.
“Italy. By the lakes. I saw her during the early part of the summer.” She smiled at the memories of hot days spent swimming in Lake Como.
“I take it your parents aren’t together any longer.”
“She left him when I was six. Just me, no brothers or sisters. Not a great marriage, even I could see that at six.”
“Why? Sorry, I don’t mean to pry. My mum left my dad when I was young too,” said Rick, pulling up at a junction, waiting for the lights to change.
“Oh, really. Sorry too, then,” said Leah, perking up at his confession. “She came from aristocratic roots. Unfortunately, inheritance taxes and death duties have ruined my mother’s family. Along with the demise of the Empire, all the overseas income went too. Left with this grand house and no way to maintain it, they, my grandparents, married Mum off to Dad. He had new money from his industrial empire—clothing, textiles, and now plastics and manmade fibres.”
“So that house, the one you live in, is your mother’s inheritance?”
“Yes. As part of the divorce settlement, Dad gets to stay in the house as long as he lives. Then it reverts to Mum again. She would sell it, to pay off debts if she could.”
“So money drove them apart?” asked Rick, the car picking up speed again.
“No. She ran off with Gregor. An Italian nobleman and he does have both houses and money. It must be in the blood, she can’t resist. Dad threw her out and insisted I was to be brought up here in Liverpool. Mum didn’t put up much fight. Holidays she can cope with, full-time motherhood was never her thing.”
“Sorry, that must be tough, but I can empathise.”
“How so?” Curiosity shifted from the front seat to the back.
“My mother lives in Malta. I rarely see her.”
“Divorced too then,” nodded Leah sympathetically.
“No, as it happens,” said Rick. “Catholic and very devout. That is how they came to be married in the first place. My father is an officer in the army. He had been stationed in Malta during the war and helped relieve the Nazi siege. A whirlwind romance with my mother. She is beautiful and he needed to escape the demands of war. I was the product. Her family insisted on marriage and my dad brought her back to the UK at the end of the war. We lived on army bases, moving about.”
“Not something appealing, I suppose,” guessed Leah.
“No,” agreed Rick. “She missed the sea, the hot weather, her family. Miserable. My dad could not tempt her out of her sadness. So he sent her back to Malta. I think it was meant to be temporary, but she never came back.”
