Lord and Master

by Kait Jagger

  ‘I’m clean,’ he agreed, and gave her a long, slow upside down kiss, eventually breaking off and enquiring against her chin, ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘No.’ She reached up and rubbed his cheek and he pressed his hand over hers, kissing her wrist.

  ‘Pizza?’

  ‘That would be great.’

  So he got on with ordering it, pouring two glasses of wine and delivering hers with his mobile cradled to his ear. As he finished placing their order, she put her laptop on the coffee table and walked up behind him in the kitchen, putting her arms around his waist and resting her head against his back. He put his mobile on the work surface and clasped her hands in his.

  ‘I’ve missed this,’ he sighed, though his body was tight against hers. And his expression, when he turned to face her, looked tense.

  ‘Was Berlin as bad as all that?’ she asked winsomely, and when his face didn’t lighten she added, ‘Hey, please tell me. Are things not going according to plan? Are you going to have to spend more time there?’

  ‘No, no more Berlin for me, not now,’ he said, his voice resigned, but…bitter, almost. ‘I’ve just finished my last assignment there for the foreseeable future, and this week I pulled the plug on our plans to open a new office in the city.’

  Luna shook her head, confused. ‘But, this business opportunity of yours—’

  ‘—means abandoning my plans for expansion into Germany.’

  Luna was flummoxed – she had assumed that all the time Stefan was spending in Berlin meant his business opportunity must lie there.

  ‘And it wouldn’t be so bad,’ he went on, ‘if I hadn’t had a handshake agreement in place with someone to manage the new office for me, who I’ve had to let down.’ He ran a hand through his hair, hunching his shoulders. ‘It’s just…hard to let this go. Something I’ve been working towards for so long.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Luna said, putting her arms around his neck and drawing him to her. She felt suddenly inadequate; that all this had been going on in his life and she’d had no idea, engrossed as she was in her own worries.

  ‘Well,’ he said into her hair. ‘It’s finished now. And at least I will be travelling less.’

  She kissed his jaw and his hands moved to her back, tightening against her. He brought his mouth down to hers, gently at first, but as the pull between them shifted and deepened, his kisses became more demanding. He brought a hand down to her bottom, lifting her skirt to pull her thigh against him, something like a growl escaping him as he traced the line of her stocking.

  ‘Take your knickers off,’ he ordered her, unbuttoning his jeans as he watched her slip them to the floor. She’d hardly stepped out of them when he grabbed her and hoisted her up onto the counter. ‘Put your legs around me,’ he commanded, pulling her roughly towards him. And then he impaled her, driving his cock deep into her and crushing his mouth down on hers. Unsatisfied with his angle of entry, he lifted her against him and swung her hard up against the fridge. It rocked backwards, glass bottles jangling together inside, then tinkling rhythmically as he thrust himself into her over and over again, his hands clamped on her ass.

  He came with a roar, head thrown back so far she could see the veins standing out on his neck. It scared her a little, the intensity of it.

  Later, after they’d eaten, he told her apologetically that he had to do some work and Luna replied, ‘It’s fine. I have work to do too.’ So for another hour or so they sat together on the sofa, both pecking away on their respective laptops. It had been such a strange and unsettling night that it came as a relief when he finally closed his laptop and nestled up against her, resting his head on her shoulder.

  ‘So, what has you so hard at work this late on a Friday night, Miss Gregory?’ he asked.

  ‘My CV,’ she said. Florian’s behaviour that afternoon had finally tipped the scales for her, spurred her into action.

  Stefan sat up and looked at her. ‘Has it been that bad lately?’

  Luna had to physically prevent herself from pouring out just how bad it had been, the last thing Stefan needed to be burdened with after the time he’d had in Berlin. She shrugged slightly, keeping her eyes on her laptop screen.

  ‘But surely, the Marquess will be out of hospital soon and Augusta will be back to work, and things will go back to normal.’

  Luna met his eyes and said quietly, ‘Stefan, the Marquess is dying. And when he’s gone Florian is going to take a scythe to the staff, and one of the people he will get rid of is me.’ Even if he didn’t, she had absolutely no interest in a future at Arborage under his ‘tutelage’. The mere thought of it made bile rise in her throat.

  ‘And do you think that others in the staff feel the same as you? That their positions are at risk?’

  ‘I’d be very surprised if they didn’t. Florian has a lot of scores to settle…’

  ‘Who in particular?’

  ‘Well, Roland, for one. And Marta.’ Luna exhaled with frustration. ‘Really, it’s harder finding the people on staff Florian does like.’ Stefan appeared to be considering her words, and as the silence stretched out between them, Luna felt an inexplicable need to defend herself. ‘I have to consider my position, Stefan. One way or another, my job is going to come to an end. The sooner I start preparing—’

  ‘But these things have a way of getting out, Luna. You or Roland go to see a headhunter and news starts to spread of staff trouble at Arborage…it could be very damaging for the estate at a particularly crucial time.’

  Luna looked down at her hands, still resting on the keyboard. ‘You think I’m being disloyal. To the Marchioness,’ she said, her voice small.

  Stefan said nothing in response, but she felt the weight of his judgment in what he wasn’t saying. Reaching her hand up to her laptop screen, she pulled it shut.

  *

  Florian gave Luna a bit of a breather early the next week, opting to stay in his Mayfair apartment for the first half of the week. The phone calls continued, however, and on Tuesday morning he called to announce his plans to host Viktor and an ‘intimate group’ of fifteen guests at Arborage that weekend. Nothing but the best would do for them, he said, and Luna’s head spun at the list of requirements he reeled off: beluga caviar, Krug champagne, Montecristo cigars, Talisker eighteen-year-old single malt whiskey.

  ‘God, I hate him. I hate him so much,’ Caitlin exclaimed ferociously when Luna met up with her and Roland for coffee in the garden centre and told them about Florian’s plans. ‘You have to tell Lady Wellstone about this. He’d never dare try a stunt like this if she were here.’

  ‘Yes, but he’ll know it was me who told her. Until she and the Marquess are back at the house, he can still make things very unpleasant for me.’

  Caitlin bit her lip, nodding. Roland, however, simply shrugged, taking a sip of his coffee. ‘You’re letting him get to you too much. Rise above it. Humour him.’

  Luna blinked at him. This, from the man who only a few days previously had sounded like he’d all but given up hope. Caitlin appeared to agree with her.

  ‘Well thank you, Pollyanna,’ the press officer said caustically.

  Roland raised his hands and added, ‘I’m just saying, things look dark now, but we need to keep our chins up.’

  ‘That’s right, remember the Dunkirk spirit,’ Caitlin mocked.

  ‘Keep calm and carry on,’ Luna rejoined, and at Roland’s rather miffed expression, the two women started to laugh. For a brief moment, she felt less alone than she had for the past month. Buoyed by their chat, she went back to her desk and phoned the Marchioness, but got her voicemail. Leaving a brief, non-specific message, she rung off and began working on the massive shopping list Florian had lumbered her with.

  Her conversation with Lady Wellstone the following morning resolved nothing for Luna. Though she was considerably more frank regarding Florian’s behaviour than she had dared to be in previous phone calls, recounting his humiliating demands on her in Scotland and none-too-subtle offer of contin
ued employment in exchange for accepting his ‘tutelage’, the Marchioness seemed neither surprised by her revelations nor prepared to act upon them.

  ‘But he’s planning to bring this Viktor here, to Arborage,’ Luna protested. ‘It doesn’t feel right…’

  ‘You were right to come to me, my dear,’ the Marchioness said. ‘But I need you to be patient for a little while longer. Go ahead and arrange this party for Florian. Order everything he’s asked for, make all the arrangements he requires. Say nothing to him about this conversation. I promise you this is almost over.’

  Luna couldn’t understand it. Any of it. Why, if it really was almost over, why allow Florian’s bacchanalia to proceed? Why let this Russian thug and his friends come anywhere near Arborage? What possible reason could there be for going this far to satisfy Florian’s appetites?

  He returned to the house on Wednesday evening, forcing her to work well into the night going through his checklist with him. She finally managed to escape just after 9pm, but not before Florian issued some personal instructions for the following day.

  ‘Wear something nice, eh? Rather than your usual Victorian school mistress outfits. And do something with your hair. Viktor likes to see women dressed as women, not nuns.’

  Luna walked up to her attic room with her fists clenched. She sat down on the sofa, but found she was too agitated to sit still so she began pacing the room. She was fed up of feeling scared and alone, abused by Florian, abandoned by the Marchioness. She thought about what Nancy would say if she had the guts to tell her about all this – Nancy would tell her to stop being a carpet everyone walked over, that no job was worth what she was putting herself through. Then she thought what Stefan would say, if he found out his cousin wanted her to dress like a slut for him.

  The next morning she got up and pulled out her most severe, professional outfit, her tailored black suit and white silk blouse. She showered and brushed her hair till it gleamed, carefully pulling it back into a tight, immovable bun. She eschewed all jewellery and applied a bare minimum of makeup, studying the end result in her sitting room mirror.

  ‘Fuck this,’ she said to her reflection.

  Florian’s guests began to arrive early. First a limousine drew up in front of the house bearing the French wraith and seven compatriots so scantily clad and glassy-eyed Luna could only assume they were coked up to the nines. Luna knew a moment’s trepidation that only grew as the women’s shrieks of laughter filled the air, and she quickly instructed two members of the household staff to show them to their rooms. Viktor and his associates showed up shortly thereafter in a trio of blacked-out Range Rovers. By this time, Florian had emerged onto the portico, briefly studying Luna’s outfit with displeasure before going to greet his star guest with all the unctuousness of a snake oil salesman.

  As the men stomped into the house, Florian apologising for the scaffolding and drop cloths covering the front hallway, Viktor paused, surprising Luna by greeting her by name.

  ‘This is beautiful house, Luna,’ he said in heavily accented English.

  ‘It is,’ she agreed dispassionately.

  He nodded and looked her up and down, much as his host had done but with obvious approval. Florian was wrong, it appeared, about Viktor’s taste in women’s clothing.

  The rest of the day became a running battle to keep the party from disrupting tours and ongoing restoration work in the front hall. Whereas the men were content to commandeer the library, which had been cordoned off from the tour on Florian’s instructions so that pre-hunt libations could be served, their female companions seemed to assume that the entire house was at their disposal.

  It wasn’t long before she received a frantic call from one of Roland’s assistants, after the wraith and two of her friends wandered into the house chapel carrying bottles of Krug at the same time as a party of visiting priests from Ghana. It took Luna and two members of security to lead them, protesting all the way, back to the library. Florian initially cast a furious look at Luna for this disturbance, but the presence of the two burly security guards and Viktor himself, who seemed pallidly unperturbed by the turn of events, threw him off balance.

  The wraith began screeching at Viktor, ‘Dites ce pute de me laisser tranquille!’

  At being called a whore by this woman, something finally broke inside Luna. Resting her frostiest gaze on Viktor, she said, ‘Dites à votre putain de s’asseoir, comme une bonne chienne.’ At this the wraith lunged for her, nails drawn, and Viktor had to grab her with one beefy hand, giving her a quick, brutal shake.

  He nodded appreciatively towards Luna and observed to Florian, ‘Elle gagne à être connue,’ scarcely bothering to hide his contempt when Florian laughed uncertainly and nodded his incomprehension.

  Luna felt better than she had in weeks as she walked back down to her office. Florian could sack her, for all she cared. Somehow she didn’t think he would; he needed her now, with logistics to sort out and guests to impress. In that regard, at least, he was no different than his sister-in-law.

  It was thoughts of the Marchioness that tempered her response when the head of security phoned her to say that Paul Walker had turned up at the gatehouse, insisting he was an invited guest. What Luna would have liked to do was turn him away, but no, she’d taken enough liberties this morning. Florian was clearly expecting him, and what Florian wanted, Florian got.

  ‘It’s okay, let him in,’ she said eventually, adding, ‘But when Mr Wellstone and the gentlemen go out hunting, send a couple of your men back up to the house. Just to keep an eye on their lady friends.’

  And so it continued, all day and into the night, Luna firefighting here and there, the rest of the staff sprinting to meet the demands of Florian’s guests. After the men returned from hunting and clay pigeon shooting they changed for dinner, which was held in the same dining room the Marchioness had used for the board meeting. Thankfully, the Arborage catering machine swung into flawless action and Luna was scarcely required once the evening’s festivities began. She spent much of the evening down in the staff cafeteria, nursing cups of tea and reading a book.

  At just after 1am, having received no further demands from Florian, she decided to go to bed. She swung past the dining room to find a skeleton crew of catering and cleaning staff just leaving, having restored the room to its pristine glory. She spoke briefly with one of the catering crew, Marta’s nephew as it happened, and he nodded down the hall towards the library, where music was pumping out.

  ‘They’re all still in there, so we’ll have to leave that till the morning,’ he said, adding as he pulled on his coat, ‘I’d stay well clear if I was you, miss.’

  But after the last of the staff had left, Luna found herself drawn to the library like a moth to a flame. She’d heard his warning, knew what it likely meant, but she had to see for herself. The door to the library was ajar and from a distance the room appeared to be dark within. But as she approached, the sound of trashy Europop pulsing in her ears, she felt heat pouring through the doorway and saw flickering shadows running along the hallway wall. The first thing she saw on looking in the doorway was a roaring fire in the fireplace, licking up into the flue and appearing to almost throb in time to the music. And then she surveyed the room itself; she couldn’t have looked for more than a few seconds but the scene before her seared itself into her retinas.

  It was like something out of Sodom and Gomorrah. On the Chesterfield sofa in front of the fire, two of the French prostitutes sat fondling each other, completely naked, as an audience of four men looked on, some of them…Luna’s heart began to hammer in her chest as she averted her eyes…some of them fondling themselves. Three other women were dancing drunkenly next to the French windows and a fourth was crawling across the floor on all fours, bearing a tray of drinks on her back. In a darkened corner of the room, Florian sat sprawled next to another woman on a loveseat, talking a mile a minute. He was holding something in his hand, a small glass pipe she thought, and there was a table full of drug parap
hernalia laid out before him.

  The last thing she saw was Viktor, his translucent face practically glowing in the dark, sat in a wing chair near the fire, holding a goblet of brandy and staring directly at her…as the wraith knelt between his legs, her head bobbing above his lap.

  Luna reeled away from the room, heart leaping against her rib cage. She practically ran up to her attic, locking her door and going straight to the window. She opened it and stuck her head out into the cold air, gasping. The window remained open all night.

  Chapter Thirty–Five

  Luna woke early the next morning and quickly dressed in leggings and a jumper, having decided sometime in the middle of the night that she couldn’t spend another day there, the way things were. She’d phone Stefan and ask if she could stay at his apartment, and finally unburden herself to him. She was in over her head, she now realised; Florian was not only a sick, twisted, bully of a man who had embezzled money from his own family and indebted himself to a Russian mobster, he also appeared to have a crystal meth problem. The drug use certainly explained a few things about his erratic behaviour, and Luna wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.

  She went down to the staff cafeteria and ate some porridge, then got a strong cup of black coffee to take away, heading to the office to retrieve her laptop. When she got there, her office was dark but there was a light coming from the Marchioness’s office. She stepped inside, intending to turn it off.

  And discovered her Ladyship, sat at her desk. She looked up at Luna and smiled, and Luna’s chin started to tremble in response.

  ‘I know, my dear,’ the Marchioness said gently. ‘But I’m back now. And we have work to do.’

  First she made Luna sit and tell her every detail of the previous day’s events, nodding at each new revelation and tilting her head occasionally in sympathy. Words failed Luna when describing the orgy she’d briefly witnessed in the library, but she managed to detail the drugs paraphernalia she’d seen on the table in front of Florian. The Marchioness looked vaguely disgusted at this, but nowhere near as shocked as Luna expected – and then Lady Wellstone’s mobile rang and she answered it, engaging in a brief conversation with the caller before ringing off.