Mistress
Chapter One
Life usually changes slowly, almost imperceptibly, as one day slides seamlessly into the next. And sometimes life changes in the blink of an eye, with only the turn of a door handle to demarcate the end of one life and the start of another.
Emily Clemens stood motionless in the street, an island of stillness amid the scurrying crowds, and stared at the wooden door in front of her. Clutching her reticule before her like a shield, as if to buffer herself from the change that turning the handle would bring, she twisted the straps around with cold fingers until they dug cruelly into her flesh.
Should she open the door and go inside? Or turn tail and walk away again through the crowds, her dignity intact, back to the school where she worked as an assistant teacher. Her position, though a modest one and very poorly paid, at least provided the basics of life, but there had to be more to life than just a roof over her head and barely enough to eat.
Just a few short months ago, stranded in the workhouse with too little to eat and no prospect of escape, she would have thought her current situation ... read full excerpt from Mistress ebook