by Kait Jagger
‘Hello, girl. I’ve missed you.’
Lady Wellstone was at her desk as Luna entered, herself dressed comparatively casually in a Chanel sailor top and navy trousers. She didn’t acknowledge Luna, instead continuing to stare out of the window at the long queue of tourists snaking around the house, waiting to buy tickets for the tour.
Luna was used to this. The Marchioness often returned from her trips to Venice in an uncommunicative mood. So Luna sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk and waited – their usual routine. Studying the older woman’s profile, Luna thought she looked drawn. Tired.
John Wellstone, 16th Marquess of Lionsbridge, lord and master of Arborage House and all its holdings, had left English shores thirteen years before, taking residence in a palazzo the family owned in Venice and effectively refusing to return, save for very occasional visits. Luna herself had only met him a few times and as a matter of loyalty she had refused to like him, though even she had to admit he was a very charming man, as was evidenced by the series of Italian mistresses he’d gone through over the years. That he made absolutely no effort to hide them from his wife had sealed Luna’s enmity, though under other circumstances she could have pitied him. Pitied them both.
For it had been a family tragedy that had placed John and Augusta Wellstone on the path to estrangement: the death of their beloved son James thirteen years previously. James had drowned in a boating accident at Cambridge, a night of drunken revelry followed by an ill-advised attempt at punting. The sort of stunt that should have formed the basis for happy university memories, but had instead ended in horror. Luna could remember the photos of the family in the papers, the Marchioness practically collapsing against her husband on the way out of the church following James’s funeral. Luna knew from personal experience that death was as likely to drive families apart as to bring them closer, and so it was for the Marquess and his wife, and to some extent their surviving daughters.
There were times still, many years later, when those events came back to place a ghostly hand on the Marchioness’s shoulder, to remind her of all she’d lost. And so Luna sat and waited. Waited for the Marchioness to come back to her.
After some time, Lady Wellstone turned away from the window, lifting, then dropping the thick folder of papers on her desk. ‘All signed, Luna,’ she said briefly.
Luna stood to pick them up, then sat again, hands clasped over the folder. When the Marchioness said nothing more, she enquired, ‘Tea?’
‘Tea would be lovely,’ Lady Wellstone sighed. So Luna headed off to the staff kitchen, a slight, sympathetic ache in her throat.
Later, when they had finished the better part of a pot of Earl Grey and jointly agreed on a to-do list for the beginning of the week, the Marchioness seemed keen to hear how Luna’s week with Stefan had gone. Luna listed the managers they’d met with, summarising some of the questions Stefan had asked, as well as the observations he’d made to her.
‘Yes, but what did you think of him, Luna? Do you think he’s up to the job?’
Luna hesitated. ‘I do…but I’m not sure you’ll be happy with some of the recommendations he makes.’
The Marchioness waved her hand. ‘I was a bit sharp with him the other day, I know. But I’m a big girl. I can take a little…brutal honesty.’ Both women laughed, and the Marchioness leaned forward in her chair towards Luna. ‘He’s quite attractive, don’t you think? I seem to remember he and Isabelle having a bit of a penchant for each other when they were younger.’
Luna remembered it slightly differently, though she didn’t say so and chose not to give her own opinion on Stefan’s attractiveness.
It would have been too much to say that she missed him the following week. Missed the spice a change to her routine had added to her life, more like, Luna told herself. As it was, she and the Marchioness ticked along nicely, and if she’d enjoyed her time with Stefan, well, she also enjoyed the return to stability, predictability in the form of Lady Wellstone. Besides, with him still ensconced in the Dower House, his work for the estate still in progress, he remained a fixture in her life, albeit a slightly elusive one.
For example, one morning as she engaged in her usual, tortuous run around the estate, she glimpsed him again in the distance, running through the forest. She herself stuck closer to home, noting that the clouds above looked ominous. Indeed, fifteen minutes into her run the heavens opened, and by the time she got back to the formal gardens she was thoroughly soaked. She spotted their head gardener Nigel there, pruning back some ornamental shrubs in preparation for winter and remembered she wanted to talk to him.
‘Morning, miss.’ He tipped his hat as Luna ran to a stop, bending over and placing her hands on her knees, panting furiously.
‘Morning,’ she gasped. ‘I just wanted to ask…’ Luna straightened up and coughed, wringing the water out of her ponytail before resting her hands on her hips. ‘I wanted to ask if you think we can have estate flowers at the volunteers evening on Saturday.’ Every October the Marchioness hosted an event for the scores of volunteer docents, tour guides and other support staff who gave their time to the estate, without whom, she often said, the place couldn’t run. There were also several volunteers attending who worked in the gardens and wider grounds, and Luna thought it would be a nice touch to use Arborage-grown flowers.
‘I should have thought so,’ Nigel replied, beginning to run through a list of what was still in flower this late in the year. While they were talking, Stefan ran past, looking fresh as a daisy and somehow even more attractive soaked to the skin. He slowed and did a double take at Luna, who frowned in return. Yes, yes, we can’t all be as lovely and fit as you. And then he had the audacity to laugh, actually laugh, before continuing his run. The cheek of him.
She had another near miss with him later in the week, when she returned from lunch and could swear she smelled his cologne in the air. Sure enough, when the Marchioness called her in later, it turned out he’d dropped by over lunchtime. ‘We were talking, Stefan and I, and I wondered if you’d be willing to take him to see your friends, the video game ones, on Friday. Seeing as this is your brainchild…’
It was hardly Luna’s brainchild, but it was true that she’d been the one to introduce Jem and her boyfriend Rod to the Marchioness a year earlier, when Rod, a games designer, had floated the idea of creating a game based in and around the Arborage estate. His magnum opus, Remainers, was due to be launched early the following year. But the direct income to the estate from sales of the game remained an unknown quantity. Luna was surprised Lady Wellstone thought it was worth Stefan’s time, until she continued, ‘And after I’ve arranged for him to have lunch with Isabelle and see her shop.’
Luna swallowed a smile. Could it be that her boss was indulging in a bit of maternal matchmaking? Not that it was any of her business, she thought as she pinged an email to Jem, who she knew would be thrilled about the command visit.
Otherwise, Luna’s week was fairly routine, apart from planning for the volunteers evening and dealing with the numerous papers the Marchioness had brought back from Venice, all of which needed to be scanned and sent off to various law offices and the like. One of the documents, an application for a government grant for the equestrian centre, required Helen Wellstone-Waverley’s co-signature. Luna was reluctant to put it in the internal post; things that went to the stables had a way of getting lost, or coming back in no fit state to pass on.
So on Wednesday morning she popped her head into the Marchioness’s office and said she was going to take the application down to Helen personally. Working at Arborage was good that way, she mused as she walked past the portico, where a crowd of primary school students in grey blazers and pinafores were posing between the two statues of lions on either side of the main entrance. Always opportunities to get out and about, if you looked for them.
‘Roar like lions,’ the students’ teacher shouted, holding her camera aloft to capture a photo. Luna smiled at the resulting chorus of high-pitched roars,
catching the attention of one particularly cheeky little boy, who gave her a little extra roar as she passed. She rewarded him with an answering snarl and a quick display of her claws.
The equestrian centre was located on the boundary between the forest and the farmland beyond. Including an outdoor manège and an indoor school, as well as state of the art stables, it housed anywhere between fifteen and twenty horses at any given time. As well as being a professional show jumper, Helen also gave lessons and hosted camps for aspiring show jumpers.
None of this held any particular interest for Luna, who frankly found horses unpredictable and unreliable. Give her a solid, dependable motorbike any day.
As usual, the various teenage stable hands toiling away mucking out stables paid her absolutely no attention as she carefully picked her way into the brick-cobbled yard, wishing she’d worn more sensible shoes. She eventually had to collar one pimply youth, who informed her disinterestedly that Helen was ‘hacking out’ and might be back soon. Or might not, he didn’t really know.
Luna was debating whether to risk leaving her document with the pimply wonder when she heard the sound of horses approaching on one of the forest trails. It was Helen, clad in quilted jacket and jeans, her light brown hair cut sensibly short and face still tanned from the summer. Like a larger, horsier version of Lady Wellstone. And with her was…Stefan. Judging from the sound of Helen’s laughter, it appeared he’d melted through whatever grudge she had against him, at least for the present.
They entered the yard, Helen riding a chestnut mare while Stefan was on a gorgeous, even to Luna’s untrained eyes, dark grey stallion. She was astounded Helen would let him ride what must be one of her best horses, till she noticed the stallion toss its head with a wide, crazy-eyed look that completely confirmed her distrust of his species. Stefan corrected it with a swift yank of the reins, and Luna realised why Helen had given him this horse: as a test.
Stefan and Helen were talking horsey talk, something about colic, which in Luna’s experience all horsey people seemed obsessed with. This stuff went in one ear and out the other for her, even more so because she was transfixed not just by the stallion, but by its rider. Stefan was dressed in tan, close-fitting jodhpurs, a zip-front black jumper and suitably worn boots and chaps. He wore a black riding hat as well and looked like he was born to the saddle, completely at ease chatting with Helen, then bending down to slap the stallion’s neck affectionately. He hadn’t shaved yet that day, and Luna noted for the first time that his beard hair was ever so slightly lighter than the hair on his head.
From her vantage point next to an empty stable, Luna also had a bird’s eye view of the hard line of his thigh and left buttock in the saddle, flexing as he squeezed his legs against the horse’s sides. She hadn’t really given Stefan’s buttocks much consideration before now and, gracious, well, they were worth considering. Bloody hell – and a glimpse of the muscles in his forearms as he managed the reins. How did a man get that fit just from running?
Maybe Stefan’s ears were burning because at that moment he turned his head in her direction and saw her standing there watching him, pitiful little stack of papers in her hand. She didn’t think she was actually slavering or anything, but the look of amusement that settled on his face surely meant that she’d been caught out. Seeing as she couldn’t play it off, she decided to go the full distance, raising her eyebrows and giving him her best I’m impressed look.
Helen, too, noticed Luna and came straight over to her after she’d dismounted. ‘Sorry, I did get your message about the papers. I’ll just take them in the office.’
Luna moved to follow her, but Stefan called out to her, ‘Miss Gregory, a word please?’
She walked over to him as he dismounted the stallion and casually handed the reins to the pimply stable boy. As the boy led the horse away, Stefan removed his helmet, tucking it under his arm and running his free hand through his hair. Luna put her hands on her hips as if to say, Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying the show, but…and immediately regretted baiting him when he abruptly leaned his face close to hers, eyes looking her up and down then locking with her own.
‘I should warn you,’ he said softly, but with intent, ‘that if you continue looking at me like that, I’m going to drag you into one of these stables and—’
She never got to hear what Stefan planned to do to her in the stable because the grey stallion chose that moment to rear on its hind legs, emitting a high-pitched scream of a whinny. The stable boy cowered as the horse’s front hooves danced above his skull, and Stefan cursed under his breath, then walked over to help get the horse under control.
‘Whoa there, lad,’ Stefan said calmly, raising one hand to the stallion’s neck as he tried to grab the reins with the other. ‘Duktig pojke, duktig pojke…’
At this point Helen emerged from her office with the countersigned document, which she practically threw at Luna before going to Stefan’s aid. Luna took this as her cue to make a swift exit.
Chapter Six
As fate would have it, Stefan had his own ideas about how their day in London would pan out. He had early morning meetings in Kensington, so he asked Luna to meet him at Isabelle’s shop at ten.
Emerging from the Knightsbridge Tube station, she found the skies clear and the air crisp. With time to kill, she walked as far as Sloane Square. There were far worse things than sauntering along some of the most expensive streets in Britain, pausing occasionally to window shop in stores she couldn’t afford.
At just gone 10am she met Stefan outside Lionsbridge, which was located in the ground floor of a beautifully renovated brick Victorian building near the Cadogan Hotel. The building itself, like many along Sloane Street, belonged to the Earl Cadogan, and Luna blanched to think what the rent for Isabelle’s small shop ran to.
In truth, the accounts for Lionsbridge were a mystery to Luna. Whereas she had a good basic grasp of the balance sheets for the rest of the estate’s businesses, the Marchioness was careful to keep Isabelle’s vanity project under wraps. For vanity project it was, from the expensively etched Arborage lions on the glass frontage to the carefully contrived scent of Arborage roses and beeswax that greeted visitors inside.
As Luna and Stefan entered, a rail-thin woman standing behind a restored Edwardian glass and mahogany counter smiled. At Stefan. Abandoning her task of artfully folding silk scarves, she came around the counter and extended her hand to him.
‘You must be Stefan Lundgren. Isabelle told us to expect you.’
Alerted by the sounds outside, Isabelle herself sailed out of a back storeroom on a cloud of Guerlain.
‘Cousin Stefan,’ she squealed, leaping toward him and throwing her arms around his neck. Luna was briefly gratified to see Stefan stagger back slightly before returning the embrace. ‘Mummy tells me you’ve been here for weeks and you haven’t bothered to call me.’ Isabelle’s slightly feline features arranged themselves into a pout.
Isabelle bore a passing resemblance to her elder sister, in the way a thoroughbred horse looked like a Dartmoor pony. She was a very beautiful girl. To Luna, she took after her father more than Helen, with his large hazel eyes and appearance of a permanent tan. Isabelle’s natural hair colour was light brown, like her sister’s, but hers was tinted and sliced to a warm honey that she wore loose, in artfully artless waves that fell to her shoulders.
Her clothes, too, were all designer. Luna had often thought that Patrice and Kayla would have a field day in Isabelle’s closet. The only thing that let her down was her taste for bling. She was wearing a large gold necklace with matching earrings and cuff that served to detract from her beauty and were at odds with her exquisitely cut Roland Mouret dress.
‘It’s only been two weeks, cousin,’ Stefan was saying. ‘I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of each other from now on.’
‘But you can’t stay for lunch?’ Isabelle asked piteously, widening her eyes like Regina the spaniel.
‘I’m afraid not,’ he smiled apologetically.
‘Luna and I have another appointment in Shoreditch after this.’ Luna glanced at him sharply; it wasn’t strictly true that they had to rush off to Jem and Rod’s office, and far be it from her to stand in the way of the Marchioness’s carefully laid plans for Stefan and Isabelle. But before Luna could correct him, Isabelle clapped her hands together and cried, ‘Wait! I’m coming out to the house for the weekend with a few friends to do a bit of shooting, a bit of drinking. You must join us! You’re staying at the Dower House, aren’t you? You must come up to the house tonight and have a few drinks with us.’
‘That sounds—’ Stefan began.
‘I won’t take no for an answer,’ Isabelle interrupted. ‘I’ll see you tonight at eight. Don’t make me come down to the Dower House to fetch you.’
Meanwhile, Luna stood in silence, ignored by Isabelle as she knew she would be. That they had known each other for years, had once even nominally been friends, counted for nothing now. In Isabelle’s eyes, Luna was her mother’s secretary and nothing more. Oh, occasionally, when the two of them were alone in Luna’s office while Isabelle was waiting for her mother, and if Isabelle was feeling chatty, she might mention their long-distant schooldays. ‘Remember Hester? Prim old Hester? I saw her in Mayfair last week. Pregnant with her third child, if you can believe it…’ To be honest, Luna preferred being blanked. She knew where she stood when Isabelle ignored her.
She wondered if Isabelle remembered the time she, Luna and Stefan had briefly crossed paths twelve years earlier. Luna rather imagined that she did, but she had few qualms that Isabelle would reveal as much to Stefan. Isabelle had almost as much vested in keeping the past in the past as Luna did…
*
A strange thing happened after Luna’s father died just before her thirteenth birthday. Whereas her mother’s death the previous year had turned her into a bit of an outcast at the private girls school she attended in Chieveley – what teenage girl, after all, knows how to deal with the recently bereaved? – the subsequent demise of her father in even more tragic circumstances transformed her into something of a cult figure. An emotional grotesque, as it were, who attracted the attentions of morbid goths and earnest do-gooders in equal measure. Isabelle had fallen into the latter category, only she was the alpha do-gooder of St Catherine’s Preparatory School for Girls, daughter to the local landed gentry and top dog in the well-controlled pack at the apex of the St Catherine’s food chain.
