by Kait Jagger
Reaching into his suit pocket, he extracted a small black leather box and opened it to reveal an emerald-cut blue diamond ring, sparkling in the evening sunshine. ‘For three months I have been carrying this around in my pocket, waiting for my moment. And the one morning I wake up and say—’ he adopted the Stefan-talking-to-Stefan voice she loved so well, ‘“No way are you going to propose to Luna at a funeral. That would be crazy…”’
Removing it from its velvet cushion, he took her hand in his and said, ‘Stellaluna Gregory. Will you marry me?’
‘Yes,’ she said immediately, shutting her eyes as he slipped the ring on her finger.
Sitting on the steps of the temple shortly thereafter, her head on his shoulder, Luna stared in disbelief at the ring on her left hand and said wonderingly, ‘Three months, you’ve had this?’
‘Three long months,’ he confirmed. ‘But every time I thought of proposing, something would be wrong. Like, oh, I want to give Luna this ring now, but she is wheezing and I have sheep shit all over me. Or, oh, maybe this is the night, but whoops, I’ve just sodomised her, so maybe not now…’ His chest rumbled and Luna started to laugh herself, before sobering.
‘It’s beautiful, I love it,’ she said. The large emerald-cut diamond was flanked by two smaller rectangular diamonds on a delicate band of platinum. ‘I love the colour of it.’
‘I chose it because it reminded me of your eyes,’ he said simply. Heart full, Luna lifted her mouth to his larynx, feeling him swallow against her lips.
They spoke of many things, after that.
Of Sören, with whom he’d had a brief conversation regarding her the night before. ‘All the usual stuff about how I don’t deserve you,’ Stefan smiled. ‘In the end, I said, “But, Pappa, I love her. I can’t live without her.” And then he looked at me as if to say, why didn’t you say so before? And now suddenly it is all, “So, when will you set the date?” and, “A winter wedding would be nice.”’
Luna laughed a little nervously at this and said, ‘Oh, there’s no rush to set a date…’
Of John Wellstone, and of Augusta. ‘I look at her and see a woman who knows the past thirteen years of her life could have been different, if she had behaved differently,’ he said. ‘Oh, I know, it takes two to break a marriage and John was no saint. But if you wanted her to suffer, Luna, to pay for what she’s done, believe me, she is suffering.’ Luna shook her head at this, not trusting herself to speak.
He looked toward the house, where the exterior floodlights were just beginning to come on, one by one. ‘Luna,’ he said, and shook his own head. ‘So much has happened so quickly—’
‘Yes,’ Luna said, cutting him off.
He turned to face her, his expression serious, uncertain.
‘If Arborage is what you want,’ she said, ‘have it.’ She had known since he raised the matter in his apartment the previous week that this would be her answer. Seeing him today in the funeral procession, so grave, so poised and in control – the Marquess of Lionsbridge in waiting – had only reaffirmed it to her.
Confirming her instincts, he acknowledged, ‘I want it. I want it very much. But only with you by my side.’
‘Have it, then. Because that’s where I’ll be.’
Last, they spoke of their separation the previous winter. Tongue-tied as ever when it came to articulating her emotions, Luna struggled to find words to express her thankfulness that Stefan had kept faith. ‘You—’ she began, leaning into him on the temple step. ‘You believed we’d fix things and you were right.’
He was quiet for a spell. ‘There was only one time I doubted,’ he admitted eventually. Luna sat back from him and tilted her head, and he continued, ‘I’d just come home from the Association of Historic Homes to find your motorcycle gone. And… all I could think was the amount of trouble you must have gone to, to come all the way from Shetland on the one day you knew I wouldn’t be here.
‘But fortunately the gods smiled on me,’ he added lightly. ‘By coincidence, I had prior plans to go and see Cats that night.’
Luna half-laughed incredulously, but he insisted, ‘I tell the truth, I swear. Partly to make up for missing Kayla’s preview last year and partly because I was desperate. Desperate for news of you, desperate to talk to someone who knew you. But when she told me you’d been there the previous afternoon, I thought to myself, “Maybe this is what Luna wants. Maybe she thinks she’s better off without me.”’
Luna reached out and put her hand on his chest and he covered it with his own. ‘I said as much to Kayla and…’ He smiled. ‘Kayla loves you very much, flicka. She is a good friend to you. She said you probably think she’s so busy thinking about herself that she doesn’t see you.’ He drew away from Luna and wagged a finger at her in true, East End Kayla style: ‘“But I see dat goh.”’
Luna smiled at his impersonation and Stefan continued, ‘She said the only reason you’d have left without coming to see her that day was that you were worried you “couldn’t keep your shit together”. That she’d ask how you were, or say something about me and you’d break down. Kayla said that was the one thing you wouldn’t risk, and it meant you couldn’t be over me, not yet.’
Luna blinked, slightly amazed by Kayla’s insight.
‘And then she said that if she were me, she’d act fast – “do whatever it takes”.’ He paused, then concluded, voice vibrating with emotion, ‘“Before Luna puts you inside a box marked ‘dead to me’, and nothing you do will ever convince her to take you back.”’
Luna made a horrified, distressed noise and Stefan lifted his hand to her chignon, turning her to face him. He shook his head. Over now. That part of our life is over. She heard the sound of water pouring into the fountain behind them, smelled the roses all around. And slid her eyes shut in happy gratitude as his lips melded with hers.
*
The next night, Luna was standing in an alley in the West End when suddenly the door next to her opened and Patrice popped his head out, gesturing to her.
‘Babe!’ Kayla exclaimed when she entered her dressing room a few minutes later in full Grizabella costume. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I have one more night in town before I fly back to Shetland,’ Luna replied, hugging her, ‘and I thought I’d come see you.’
‘Hold on, just let me get out of this and we can have a chat.’ Kayla began to peel off her furry onesie. ‘How was the funeral?’ Luna gave a brief description of the previous day’s service as Kayla sat at her lighted table and removed her stage make-up.
‘And Stefan?’ Kayla asked. ‘How’s he feeling, now he’s “master and commander”, or whatever it is they call ’em at Arborage?’
‘He’s well,’ Luna said, adding softly, ‘He told me, Kay, what you said to him when he came here.’
Kayla met her eyes in the mirror with alarm. ‘Don’t be mad at me, babe,’ she said hastily. ‘It’s just…’ She turned around in her chair and looked at her. ‘He seemed so sad. And you seemed so sad. And I thought, two people who are this sad apart…’
Luna smiled. ‘I’m not mad.’ And held out her left hand for Kayla to see.
‘Oh.’ Kayla stood in a rush. ‘Oh my days.’ She grabbed Luna’s hand and held it up for inspection. ‘What are these, sapphires?’
‘Blue diamonds.’
‘Bloody hell, Lou, they’re massive. So, you and Stefan?’
Luna nodded and Kayla immediately embraced her in a chokehold. ‘We thought,’ Luna said breathlessly, ‘maybe you’d like to come out for a drink with us to celebrate? Stefan’s outside.’
Kayla released Luna and looked her in the eye. ‘This means I’m maid of honour, right?’
Chapter Twenty
It would be fair to say that not everyone was thrilled by the news of Luna’s engagement. Oh, to be sure, her friends on Shetland were delighted, Judith Andersen breaking out an ancient bottle of sherry to celebrate as yet another knitting club descended into drunken disorderliness. Malcolm, too, who engulfed h
er in a massive bear hug when she gave him the news.
‘I was telling Liv just the other night what a sound lad Stefan is, wasn’t I, Liv?’ he proclaimed. To which Liv smiled a tepid smile, offering her own, muted congratulations.
Stefan insisted on coming to help her move the following month, despite Luna’s protestations that he had enough on his plate already, given the demands of becoming the 17th Marquess of Lionsbridge.
Her departure coincided with the grand opening of the wool processing centre, which, to Luna’s delight, both Dagmar and Mika flew in to attend. And if Dagmar rolling her eyes at the sight of her engagement ring took a little of the pleasure out of the occasion for Luna, Mika more than made up for it, rocking up at the after-party back on Malcolm’s croft bearing a case of Finnish vodka, a crate of fireworks and a brand new mix tape.
Later that night, as George Thorogood blared out from inside her cottage, she and Mika stood on the edge of Malcolm’s field under a demi-lit summer Shetland sky, preparing to light a Roman candle. ‘So,’ Mika said, nodding toward her fiancé, who was sitting at the picnic table, teaching Chris Ollason, Sean and Magnus Petersen how to play a Swedish drinking game involving cups and bottle caps. ‘You and him.’
‘Yes,’ Luna concurred, as Stefan guffawed loudly at a joke of Magnus’s.
‘Pah,’ Mika snorted in that Finnish way of his that appeared to translate to no accounting for taste. And laughed his goofiest laugh.
Sören, too, was infectiously enthusiastic when Luna met him the following week at his usual coffee shop near the British Museum for their final official debrief. ‘You must come to Stockholm soon and stay with Christian and me,’ he declared. ‘He wants very much to meet you.’
Luna made a point of mentioning Dagmar, suggesting that rather than an upward move into management she might be more suited for a sideways move into Sören’s design team. ‘She has real creative talent,’ Luna noted. ‘You don’t often see that in someone with such strong business instincts, and I think it could be a real asset to you.’
Sören nodded thoughtfully and said, ‘I shall consider this.’ Then added as a casual aside, ‘A shame she and Stefan don’t get along.’ Looking into her employer’s twinkling blue eyes, it didn’t escape Luna that he seemed markedly… unsurprised by the recent turn of events. Suddenly her entire Shetland assignment began to feel less like an act of charity and more like part of a matchmaker’s covert master plan.
But the larger Wellstone family’s response to their engagement? Well, Luna could only judge from Stefan’s silence on the matter.
Following her move to London, the two of them lived mostly at his apartment in Southwark. They observed an unspoken pact: for as long as possible, they would pretend to be a normal couple, not the Marquess of Lionsbridge and his betrothed. Stefan split his time equally between his business and Arborage, heading off at the crack of dawn to either his office or the estate. Luna took on various freelance assignments, including one for Patrice setting up a database of his many clients.
In her spare time, she temporarily luxuriated in the role of domestic goddess, wallowing in the grateful expression on his face every time the penthouse lift opened and he stepped out – never later than 7pm, he made sure of that – to find her working away in the kitchen. ‘You spoil me, flicka,’ he murmured the night he came home to chateaubriand, looking entirely like a man who enjoyed being spoiled.
And she spent time with her friends, Jem in particular, who took the crown as ‘most delighted of all’ at news of their engagement, appearing at the apartment one afternoon bearing a bottle of champagne and, to Luna’s horror, a stack of wedding magazines.
Stefan rarely spoke about Arborage or his dealings with Augusta, though Luna knew that she remained sequestered in the family’s private quarters and that this was both a blessing and a curse for him. A blessing because it freed him to ‘get on with the job’, as he tersely put it. A curse because it left her daughters at large.
Helen, who refused point blank to take part in the ongoing redundancy process at the equestrian centre, was now briefing against Stefan to anyone on the staff or in the horsing fraternity who would listen. And Isabelle? Stefan volunteered next to nothing about her, but one evening when he returned to the apartment after a long day at Arborage, Luna caught a whiff of Guerlain in the air. Later that night, as they lay next to each other in bed, she ventured, ‘Isabelle… she thought I was just… she had no idea about you and me, did she?’
‘She does now,’ was all he would say.
Much as she might have wished to, Luna couldn’t entirely avoid Arborage. Weekends in particular were no longer her own; Stefan had official commitments on the estate and he insisted on her coming with him. ‘No,’ he said when she suggested over dinner one night that she wouldn’t mind him spending the occasional night alone at Arborage. ‘No more of that.’ His steadfast gaze making it clear that this wasn’t a matter for debate.
So she came with him, and tried her best to maintain a low profile in the house, pouring cold water over Caitlin’s suggestion that they make a formal engagement announcement. She found quiet places to work well away from the family quarters, rebuffing Stefan’s invitations to use her old office. She wasn’t ready to impose herself on the Wellstone family, having gleaned from Isabelle’s rant in the chapel that the narrative surrounding her departure from Arborage the previous winter had somehow been linked to Florian’s removal as heir of Lionsbridge. She believed – no, she knew – that Augusta would never have done this. So that left only Florian, whispering in her daughters’ ears, spreading poison.
She had confirmation of this early one Saturday just a few weeks after her return from Shetland. Finishing a run in the grounds, Luna was approaching the wrought-iron gates that marked the start of the formal gardens when she felt something brush against her leg. She looked down to see Regina, the Marchioness’s King Charles Spaniel, running beside her.
Dropping down into a squat, she cried delightedly, ‘Hello, sweetheart!’ as Regina placed both paws on her leg, licking Luna’s face and practically wagging her tail off. ‘Yes, yes,’ Luna chuckled. ‘I’ve missed you too.’ She stroked Regina’s silky ears and asked, ‘Where’s your mummy, eh? Where is she?’
Shortly thereafter, Luna climbed the stone stairs that led to the family’s private quarters, Regina in her arms. She knocked softly on the door to the Marchioness’s sitting room, which opened to reveal little Tilly Waverley.
‘Oh, you naughty dog!’ Tilly exclaimed. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere!’
‘She’s not naughty,’ Luna disagreed, kissing Regina’s domed head. ‘You’re just adventurous, aren’t you, girl?’
She bent down and handed the dog to Tilly, who studied Luna unsmilingly. ‘You’re going to marry Cousin Stefan, aren’t you.’
‘That’s right,’ Luna replied.
‘And then you’ll be Marchioness.’
‘Oh,’ Luna said awkwardly. ‘That’s a long way off.’ She heard a door opening behind Tilly and straightened.
‘Who’s that, dear?’ came Augusta’s voice. And before Luna could make up her mind how or if to announce herself, Tilly, an acorn that had fallen not far from Helen’s tree, abruptly shut the door in her face.
*
‘“Ecclesiastical, ambassadorial and armed forces ranks precede the ducal rank,”’ Luna read out the following morning. She was lying on her stomach, wrapped in a towel, atop the four poster in their bedroom at Arborage. Stefan was getting ready to attend a breakfast event in London, a reception hosted by the Earl of Wessex.
‘So,’ Luna concluded, looking up from her prized copy of Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage, ‘it’s Major General Gerald Grosvenor, Duke of Westminster.’
‘I think I will just call him Gerald,’ Stefan replied, inserting a cufflink into the cuff of his white dress shirt. Luna had been slightly shocked to discover how little he knew, or indeed cared, about the niceties of formal protocol and forms of address. She’d ha
d to wheedle and cajole to convince him to meet with an etiquette tutor, the same one she’d used when she first came into her role as Augusta’s personal assistant, and he had done little to conceal his impatience.
‘It’s a job, Luna,’ he’d grumbled. ‘All this nonsense about courtesy titles and ranks—’
‘A job you’ve inherited,’ Luna rebutted. ‘You can’t simply ignore the parts of it that don’t interest you. These things matter to the people you’ll be circulating with now.’
The only reason she’d even managed to convince him to attend this morning’s reception was as part of a covert poaching operation. Following the narrowly avoided debacle at the Marquess’s funeral, Luna had taken it upon herself to quietly put out feelers to a few events coordinators. The second in command of the company organising this reception, who she knew personally, was an outstanding prospect.
Luna continued to page though her Debrett’s as Stefan approached the standing mirror, sliding a tie around his upturned collar.
‘I’ll go to the office after, and then I have a lunch meeting with a client,’ he said; rather sweetly, he’d developed a habit of running through his schedule with her every morning. ‘Then I’m back here for a meeting with Augusta.’ Luna’s eyes met his in the mirror. ‘To talk about the ball next week,’ he explained wearily. Arborage’s annual charity ball and auction on behalf of the Royal Marsden was another social obligation Stefan would have preferred to forego. He’d tried to persuade Augusta that it should be cancelled, in view of its proximity to Lord Wellstone’s death, but she wouldn’t hear of it.
Stefan drew the knot of his tie up to his neck and readjusted his collar, then turned away from the mirror, climbing up beside Luna on the bed. He ran his hand along her towel-clad bottom.
‘I’m reading here,’ she protested unconvincingly as Stefan tugged the towel off her.
‘Don’t let me stop you,’ he replied, bending to kiss first one cheek, then the other.
‘You’re going to be late,’ she warned, smiling now.
