Lord and Master

by Kait Jagger

  ‘Say that again, Luna,’ he demanded.

  ‘What?’ she laughed down at him.

  ‘What you said in there.’ Ah, so he had heard her.

  ‘I love you,’ she said, placing her hand on his cheek.

  He lowered her back down and closed his eyes. ‘Mmm, say it again.’ Then opened them to find her pursing her lips at him. She shook her head and nodded at him, raising her eyebrows.

  ‘Jag älskar dig, Luna,’ he said, and when she looked at him sceptically, like maybe a declaration that required translation didn’t count, he shrugged and said, ‘I always assumed I’d say it in Swedish first.’

  ‘Yag el-scar day,’ she attempted, copying his pronunciation. ‘Is that right?’

  He nodded, then said, ‘But I will say it in any language you like, flicka,’ and pulled her close, kissing her forehead, then the side of her nose, then her mouth.

  They walked back towards his apartment in a shared daze, holding hands and stopping periodically to kiss. She eventually remembered to ask if he was hungry, and he was, so he took her around the corner to a Turkish restaurant he frequented. Eager to be alone with each other, they decided to order takeaway, but sat and drank a glass of wine while they waited at a small table near the window, eyes upon each other, fingertips touching on the white tablecloth.

  Luna insisted on paying for the meal, to the evident amusement of the restaurant’s maître d’, who knew Stefan well enough to give him a little nudge on the way out. ‘You hold on to this one, eh?’

  Laughing as they emerged onto the pavement, Luna cocked her head behind them. ‘I take it there have been a few other ones, over the years?’

  Whereupon Stefan stopped in his tracks, placed the bag holding their takeaway on the ground, and took her by the shoulders. It was clear from his expression that he didn’t think this was a matter for levity. ‘There are no others now, Luna,’ he said intensely. ‘I have never told another woman that I loved her, and there is no one for me but you.’ He kissed her then, hard, for emphasis. And Luna felt chastened, and lucky, and enthralled all at once.

  They ate sitting on the sky blue rug in his living room, Stefan having laid down a blanket and decanted the various dips, sides and mains into bowls. As Luna dunked a piece of bread into some olive oil and quickly lifted it to her mouth, he asked her to give a complete blow-by-blow account of her sojourn in Brooklyn.

  ‘It’s going to be a while before I forgive Robert, even though I suspect Nancy will take him back,’ she concluded sometime later. ‘He phoned her the day after we went to his studio and I made her let me take the call.’

  ‘And?’ Stefan asked, scooping some marinated tomatoes onto a piece of bread.

  ‘And I gave him a piece of my mind.’

  ‘Go on,’ he said, mouth full. ‘What did you say?’

  Luna paused and drew breath. ‘I said, “Listen, you stupid fucker, don’t you ever fucking ring this number again unless it’s to fucking beg my friend for her forgiveness. You think getting your clothes burnt was bad, you wanker? Well, let me tell you, you fucking ingrate, it will get a whole lot worse if you hurt her again. And if you fucking don’t believe me, then fucking try me.”’

  She licked some hummus off her finger and looked at Stefan, who was sitting in stunned silence. Her righteous indignation subsiding, she enquired meekly, ‘Too many fucks?’ only for Stefan to launch himself in her direction, crawling on all fours across the blanket till he was upon her.

  ‘God, I love it when you’re angry,’ he said, climbing on top of her.

  Later in bed he sat at her side, slowly drawing his fingertips along her naked body.

  ‘When did you first know you loved me, Luna?’ he asked, tracing the curve of her waist.

  Luna swallowed her natural disinclination to talk of such things, borne of fear of loss and her abiding discomfort at this sort of introspection. She wanted to behave differently, now, with him.

  ‘I feel like it’s been in me to say for a while,’ she said as he rubbed the flat of his palm over her thigh. ‘Since Florida for sure. You?’

  ‘You will laugh at me, I think.’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ she said earnestly.

  He sighed, reaching around to the small of her back and kneading his fingers there. ‘I’ve known you were someone I could love since the moment I saw you in the garden at Arborage and realised you were the arg flicka. It was fate, you coming back into my life like that…but you don’t believe in such things, do you.’

  ‘No, but I love that you do,’ she smiled at him, shutting and opening her eyes. ‘All that time,’ she noted, ‘and you never said anything.’

  ‘I thought you would want to say it first, with your control issues,’ he joked, drawing his hand up to her nape. Joke or no, there was truth in what he said; the fact that he understood her this way was just another thing to love about him.

  And because she loved him, and was trying to be different with him, she gathered herself to finally broach the subject that had been hovering at the margins of her mind. ‘Stefan, the Marquess…he is very ill.’

  His hand stopped on her. ‘Yes.’ She tried to think of how to go on, what she wanted to say, but Stefan continued, ‘I don’t think anyone can look at him and not recognise the gravity of the situation – he is so much changed.’

  ‘Helen and Isabelle don’t know,’ she replied.

  ‘Yes, but they’re his daughters. Your child doesn’t want to see such things, so they don’t. I wouldn’t want to see it if my father were dying…’

  So there it was. He’d said it. Luna felt guilty at the rush of relief she experienced at no longer harbouring this secret from the man she loved; it was something they could share going forward. But her relief was short-lived; Stefan was looking at her oddly. Expectantly.

  Realising what this meant, she sat up in bed and faced him, saying in as measured a tone as she could, ‘My mother died of a brain aneurism when I was eleven. It was very sudden. And my father was killed in a train accident a year later. So I never experienced that, watching a parent die.’ Her body, which had been so relaxed under his hand a few moments before, was suddenly tense. She had to physically resist the urge to get out of the bed and walk away from his gently inquisitive gaze.

  He could see it, she knew. ‘Is this hard for you to talk about?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said immediately, her tone so fierce that she could see he was taken aback, that he’d expected her to say, ‘No, it’s okay…’ or, ‘Yes, but…’ and then open her heart to him. ‘You’ll have to give me time, to talk about my parents,’ she said. ‘Can you do that?’

  ‘Of course, but, Luna,’ he reached his hand to her and she flinched. ‘Luna,’ he insisted, pulling her towards him, brooking no resistance. ‘I love you, Luna. Do you understand? I love you.’

  Chapter Twenty–Nine

  The family arrived back from the lodge late on Monday, but the Marchioness failed to put in an appearance in the office the following morning, eventually phoning her just before noon.

  ‘Good morning,’ Luna answered warmly. ‘How was Scotland?’

  ‘It was good,’ the Marchioness said, but her tone was uncertain. ‘Can you please come upstairs, Luna? I need you.’

  Luna grabbed her notebook and tablet, heading out to the main hallway, which was almost completely cordoned off in preparation for restoration work to commence after Christmas. She walked quickly up the stairs, experiencing the little thrill she always felt on the rare occasions when she entered the family’s inner sanctum. At the top of the stairs, Luna turned left into the west wing and it was here that she began to hear the sound. She thought it was coughing at first, then realised it was someone crying.

  Walking along a corridor lined with busts of Wellstones past, passing a wooden sign that read ‘Private, no entry’, the sound of the sobs grew. There, at a final set of four steps leading to the private residence, the Marchioness’s eldest daughter sat, dressed in jeans and a cotton long-sleeved shirt, weepin
g into her hands. Luna approached her and said simply, ‘Helen.’

  Helen looked up, tears streaming down her face and made a gesture. Don’t talk to me, please don’t talk to me. So Luna continued past her, opening the great oak door that led to an anteroom where various coats, hats and walking sticks hung on wooden pegs, wellies, boots and brollies arranged underneath.

  She knocked at the next door but got no reply, so she quietly opened the door into the family’s sitting room. Lord and Lady Wellstone were sat on one floral sofa, with Isabelle opposite them on a matching sofa. Regina and one of Helen’s dogs were lying on the floor next to the fireplace, where a fire was burning, and Florian was standing beside them, dressed in moleskin trousers and a quilted hunting vest. The ornate grandfather clock on the opposite wall was just chiming twelve o’clock.

  Isabelle, who was holding a tumbler of whiskey in one hand and a crumpled tissue in the other, appeared to be on the verge of hysteria. ‘There has to be more they can do for Daddy than that. It’s barbaric, ripping his chest open and cutting out half his lung—’

  ‘Not half, my girl, only a third,’ the Marquess said.

  ‘Yes, but, Daddy!’ she cried, the anguish in her voice causing Regina to sit up and begin whining in sympathy. And then Isabelle saw Luna.

  ‘I suppose she’s known for weeks now, hasn’t she,’ she said accusingly to her mother.

  ‘Bella, this isn’t helpful,’ the Marchioness said, straightening her wool skirt and sounding as if she was at the very limit of her patience.

  ‘Wouldn’t want to keep secrets from your little helper, would you, Mummy?’ Isabelle continued heedlessly. ‘While you keep your children in complete ignorance about their own father—’

  ‘Enough, Isabelle,’ commanded Florian. Even disliking him as she did, Luna had to give him credit – Isabelle immediately subsided, and the Marquess looked up at his brother with something like gratitude.

  Florian took a seat in an armchair and began a quiet exchange with the Marquess, and the Marchioness came and stood next to Luna, briefly asking her to arrange for Dr Andrews to come out to the house as soon as possible, and to phone Mr Cartwright and ask if their meeting that afternoon could be postponed to the following day.

  ‘And get the Jag brought around to take Isabelle back into town,’ Lady Wellstone added softly. ‘John needs to rest and he can’t do it with her here, acting like this.’

  Luna nodded. As she slipped out of the room, she saw that Isabelle had gone to sit beside her father and uncle. Perhaps it took a family crisis to bring out the best in Florian, Luna thought to herself – at the moment he seemed to be the calm at the centre of a storm.

  So certain was Luna that her Ladyship would come down to the office after Isabelle had been dispatched that when her office door opened shortly thereafter, she looked up from her laptop with a smile. Which rapidly faded when she saw it was Florian.

  ‘Isabelle—?’ she began.

  ‘Gone,’ he said, shutting the door behind him. Coming around to the front of her desk, he added, ‘Both girls are devastated, of courssse…’

  Luna nodded uncertainly, unaccustomed to this sort of conversation with him. He looked around the office and through the open door into Lady Wellstone’s office. ‘It’s times like these when your abilities come into their own, I imagine…that calm coolnesss of yours. It must be a great comfort to Augusta.’

  To this Luna said nothing, clasping her hands together and waiting for him to get to his point, assuming he had one. He circled around her desk again, coming to stand behind her and bending down to look at her laptop.

  ‘Ah, the agenda for next week. Would you mind terribly printing me a copy?’

  ‘It isn’t finalised yet – this is just a draft for Lady Wellstone to review.’ Luna could smell his cologne, an overly sweet odour that she found cloying. Then, to her alarm, he bent closer, till his face was inches away from hers.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked, tilting his head slightly.

  Luna hadn’t heard anything, save for the sound of his breathing next to her ear. She shook her head, heart thumping in her chest.

  ‘Tick tock, little Ice Princessss. Tick tock. The sssound of the clock ticking on your time here at Arborage.’ He was smiling at her, but it was a cruel smile. Luna backed her chair as far away from him as it would go as he continued, ‘I wonder, will it hurt when you have to pack your bags? Will you cry to leave her? Or are you frigid through and through?’

  The door opened and the Marchioness entered then, to Luna’s towering relief. She seemed not to notice Florian’s proximity to her PA and for one shattering second Luna came close to blurting out what had just happened. But what would she say? After all, Florian had merely pointed out the obvious, the truth that had weighed constantly on Luna’s mind ever since the Marquess had returned from Venice: when he died and Florian took charge of Arborage, he would waste no time in getting rid of everything that displeased him. Including her.

  But then Lady Wellstone said, ‘Thank you, Fox, for helping with Isabelle. I was at my wits’ end,’ and continued into her office, tacitly inviting him in. Florian straightened and looked around the office again. Soon all this shall be mine, little princess. Then he slithered into the Marchioness’s office, shutting the door firmly behind him.

  Later in the day, after Florian had left and she and the Marchioness had fallen back into their routine, Luna chided herself for letting him get to her. She had been this close to picking up her mobile and ringing Stefan, to pour her fear out to him. And for what? Yes, of course, Florian would look to clear the decks when he became Marquess of Lionsbridge, but that could be months, nay, years away, and in the meantime she had a job to do and an employer who needed her. She made a silent promise to herself not to let Florian get into her head again.

  She made a mental note, too, to try to tell the Marchioness what she feared: that Florian might make next week’s board meeting difficult for her, now that he had glimpsed a future where the power would rest in his hands.

  The following day was a slight improvement, the Marquess making a brief stop in the office to inform Lady Wellstone and Luna, who were going through their pre-board meeting checklist, that he had gained half a stone.

  ‘Dr Andrews has declared himself quite pleased with my progress,’ he said, placing his hands on his wife’s shoulders.

  ‘That reminds me, Marta’s making you a cheese flan for lunch,’ his wife replied, at which news the Marquess beat a swift retreat. The Marchioness lifted her cup of tea to her lips and smiled at Luna, calling after him, ‘So don’t be late back, will you, dear?’

  Luna saw the Marquess one more time that week, one night as she was returning from the Dower House. Stefan, who’d been working in Edinburgh that week, was returning the following night. Being in the throes of besottedness with him, she’d furtively nicked a sprig of mistletoe from one of Nigel’s recent deliveries to the house, leaving it and a note on Stefan’s bedside table. She was still smiling to herself when she approached the small side entrance to the west wing and smelled cigarette smoke in the air. The Marquess was sat on a stone bench just inside the doorway, dressed in his houndstooth coat.

  ‘Good evening, your Lordship,’ she said, shaking her head at the glowing Dunhill in his hand. At his rueful expression she felt her smile widening; she wondered if her Ladyship found it as difficult as she did to be stern with him. She made to move past him, but he reached out to touch her arm.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Miss Gregory, but it’s been impossible to get you alone, with all that’s been going on…Will you sit with me for a moment?’

  Luna sat next to him and he dropped his cigarette on the ground, grinding it with his foot.

  ‘I imagine you don’t think much of me, as close as you are to Augusta.’ Luna lifted her hand, preparing to demur, but he continued, ‘And I’ve done much to deserve your disapproval. And hers.’ He laced his fingers together on his knees and in the darkness they looked a
bnormally long and thin, almost skeletal.

  ‘Suffice it to say that my relationship with my wife is…complicated. There have been mistakes made on both sides, over the years – mistakes I deeply regret, now that it’s too late to put them right. But be in no doubt, little ice maiden, I do love her.’

  Luna was silently amazed by this disclosure; not at the substance of it, which she believed, but that he had chosen to share it with her.

  ‘I also love Arborage, in a way I find difficult to describe to you and that I daresay you may find hard to believe, me having spent the past thirteen years doing everything I could to avoid the place. Had James lived…’ he trailed off, and Luna heard the weight and depth of the ensuing silence. ‘But he didn’t, and now it’s for me to protect my legacy.’

  He reached inside his coat and pulled out a silver cigarette case, lighting another Dunhill. ‘Left to his own devices, my brother would squander the work Augusta has done over the past three decades to rescue the estate. I know Florian. I know his proclivities. I cannot entirely protect Augusta from the pain he will inflict on her after my death, but I can protect Arborage. The proposals my cousin has made, I will make it my remaining life’s work to make them a reality, so that my brother will inherit something that is much harder to despoil.’ The tip of the Marquess’s cigarette brightened in the darkness as he took a long drag.

  ‘And you, Miss Gregory,’ he concluded. ‘Will you look after Augusta? Will you do your best to help her through the months to come? My daughters will have their own grief to bear and she will need someone to lean on.’

  ‘You don’t need to ask that,’ Luna said, her throat tight.

  ‘No, no, I thought not. Thank you. You’ve put my mind at rest.’

  Luna reflected on her extraordinary conversation with the Marquess many times the next day. First and foremost, she remained astounded that he had shared such deeply personal information with her. At the end of the day, as Florian had made only too clear to her, she was just an employee. But the Marquess had made her feel she was something more, to him, but more importantly to the Marchioness.