Lord and Master

by Kait Jagger

  She got all the way to the edge of the estate where it backed onto farmland beyond before she stopped. She hadn’t felt the cold till now, but when she looked down she saw that her hands were white, almost bluish, and she was shivering. Chest roiling, she clasped her hands over her arms, trying to steady her breathing.

  Chapter Thirty–Seven

  When she returned to her desk later that morning, the Marchioness heard her and called out, ‘Luna! Luna, I need you!’

  Luna looked at her pad and pen, sitting on top of her desk, and left them where they were, silently walking into Lady Wellstone’s office and shutting the door. Her Ladyship was sat behind her desk, reading glasses perched on her nose, looking at the printed diary Luna had left for her the previous afternoon. Just like any normal day…

  ‘You’ve asked David Martin to come on Monday morning,’ her Ladyship said. ‘But I’ve got the lawyers coming first thing. If David came at lunchtime, that should be fine. And is 6.30 the earliest Gus can do a call with Stefan and me today?’ She looked at Luna over the rim of her glasses, her expression a mirror image of Stefan’s earlier. Do as you are told, Luna.

  ‘How long has Stefan known?’ Luna said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me,’ she said curtly. ‘How long has he known about your plans for him?’

  The Marchioness frowned. ‘I don’t think that’s any of your concern.’

  Luna leant forward, placing both hands on Lady Wellstone’s desk and fixing her iciest stare on the older woman. ‘It isn’t a difficult question. How. Long.’

  The Marchioness relented, adjusting the silk scarf around her neck. ‘Since November. I spoke with him after he made his first presentation to the board.’

  Luna cast her mind back, remembering the triumphant look on Stefan’s face as he stood in front of her just a few feet away, his presentation successfully completed, the Marchioness waiting for him in her office. And then…Kayla’s opening night, and the stilted phone message from him. Something has come up, he’d said.

  A business opportunity.

  ‘Luna, there are things you don’t understand,’ Lady Wellstone began.

  ‘You keep saying that,’ Luna replied coldly. ‘But I understand well enough. Did you tell Stefan? Did you tell him how you were going to hand Arborage to him? What it would take to achieve that?’

  Lady Wellstone opened her mouth and shut it.

  ‘No. No, I don’t think you did. You took that upon yourself. And me. You left me at that monster’s mercy while you and Cartwright schemed.’

  ‘Luna, believe me, had I known—’

  ‘Had you known you’d have done nothing different,’ Luna said. ‘Please, please don’t insult me by denying it. I think you would do anything, sacrifice anyone, to keep control of this place. The Dowager Marchioness in waiting…’

  ‘You forget your place, Luna.’ The Marchioness’s tone was stern, as though somehow she could re-establish her moral authority, squeeze shut the Pandora’s box that had been opened.

  ‘My place,’ Luna replied, voice strangled. ‘My place.’ She began to turn away, but then stopped as a horrible realisation dawned upon her. ‘It was you who told Stefan about my parents. My father.’

  The Marchioness said nothing.

  ‘Why?’ Luna asked, pain at last creeping into her voice. ‘Why, Augusta?’

  ‘I— I was trying to protect you.’ The Marchioness couldn’t even meet her eyes now.

  Luna shook her head sadly. ‘No, you weren’t.’ She walked out of the office, unwilling to listen to another word.

  She was climbing the main stairs when Stefan came down them in a hurry – late, Luna thought, for the 11am meeting she’d scheduled with Roland, back when she thought it would be Sören doing the meeting. He slowed when he saw her, reaching his hands out to her.

  ‘Luna,’ he began.

  She looked at his hands, then at him. ‘Get away from me, you liar,’ she hissed, sweeping past him up the stairs. She kept going till she got to her room, where she shut and locked the door. She remained there for the rest of the day.

  *

  She rang him a few minutes before 5pm, as snow was just beginning to fall outside.

  ‘We need to talk,’ she said.

  Stefan exhaled in relief on the other end of the line. ‘Yes, of course. I’ll be finished down here by seven and then I’ll come up.’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Not in the house. You have a break in your schedule at six. I’ll meet you outside then. At the Rose Temple.’

  The snow was still coming down as Luna exited the staff entrance an hour later. She paused to wrap her scarf around her head, walking out through the garden. Although the snow was beginning to stick, she could still make out the small path that led to the temple, a scale model of the Temple of Vesta built by the 12th Marquess in honour of his dead wife. In summer months, it was one of Luna’s favourite places in the entire estate, its cool marble walls and small, burbling fountain a welcome retreat, and the view back towards the garden and house nothing less than stunning.

  She climbed the steps of the temple and looked back on that view now. She tried to imagine, not for the first time that day, what the Marchioness had said when she told Stefan about her parents.

  It was an absolute tragedy, Stefan. Luna was in a bad way for a long time afterwards…Go carefully with her, she isn’t as strong as she appears. Walk away if you’re not serious.

  But he had been serious. The Marchioness had misjudged that part of the conversation, if not the bulk of it. Perhaps she’d really thought Stefan would turn his attentions to her daughter, a more acceptable choice and one which would have cemented her future role as Dowager. But there was more to it than that. Luna thought of Stefan’s expression, that day during the staff Christmas party when he’d kissed her in full sight of Lady Wellstone. She saw now that he’d been sending a message to the Marchioness, informing her of his intentions – intentions that had clearly worried her for reasons that had nothing to do with Isabelle.

  Luna was looking at the statue of Rose, the 12th Marchioness, as Stefan approached from the house and climbed the steps to join her.

  ‘He refused to pay for it, originally,’ she said, nodding to the statue of a young woman dressed in Roman style, head inclined towards the ground. ‘The 12th Marquess,’ she clarified. ‘He said it didn’t look anything like his wife and he wouldn’t pay. It turns out that the sculptor used his daughter as his model. There are statues of her all over Europe, apparently, at every age – as a cherub in Versailles, an angel in a cemetery near Milan, the Virgin Mary in Rome. The sculptor said she was the most beloved creature in the world to him, and that his hands could only fashion stone in her image. It’s a rather lovely story, isn’t it…’

  Stefan didn’t reply and Luna sighed, turning to face him.

  ‘So,’ she began. ‘Is it everything you’d hoped for?’ At the blank look on Stefan’s face, she added, ‘Becoming the future “lord and master”, I mean. Of course, it’s early days yet. I’d watch my step if I were you. Augusta could always decide you don’t fit the bill and then it’s on to number four…Crispin, isn’t it? In Peebles?’

  ‘Sarcasm doesn’t become you,’ Stefan said wearily.

  ‘Yes, yes, so I’m told,’ she replied, something akin to hysterical laughter rising in her throat. ‘I’ve forgotten my place, apparently.’

  Stefan closed the gap between them and took her by the shoulders, shaking her slightly. ‘Stop this, Luna. I can see that you’re angry with me, but you called me a liar earlier and I want you to know that I never lied to you.’

  She looked at him incredulously. ‘A business opportunity, you said.’

  ‘Strictly speaking, that’s what Arborage is, what I’ve always said it is. A business.’

  ‘Nothing to do with me, you said.’

  ‘It wasn’t. At least, not this part.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ she cried. ‘It had everything to do with me. This place is
my livelihood. I live here, for God’s sake.’

  ‘I’m afraid that in this regard, I had to treat you like any other Arborage employee. Augusta swore me to secrecy.’

  ‘Oh, I daresay she did.’

  ‘And I had to honour that agreement, even if it meant concealing some things from you. I’m sorry if you feel I unfairly excluded you.’

  Luna pulled away from him, going to stand next to one of the Corinthian pillars that supported the temple’s miniature rotunda.

  Stefan’s voice came quietly from behind her: ‘I know you won’t believe this, but I was trying to protect you – protect us – from all this. I wanted what was growing between us to be separate.’

  ‘So, when you guilt-tripped me out of working on my CV, that was protecting me, right?’ she said bitterly. ‘And when you pumped me for information on which managers might be doing the same, that was for my own good, was it?’ Her voice rising, she continued, ‘How long after that did it take for you to go to Roland and tell him not to fret, his job was safe? And never a word to me about my job, even though you knew how worried I was.’

  ‘I had an agreement with Augusta,’ he reiterated.

  ‘And I’ll bet she never let you forget it. I’ll bet she was constantly reminding you of your agreement. Did it never occur to you to ask yourself why she didn’t want you talking to me?’ He was silent. ‘Here’s why,’ Luna said. ‘Because I’d have told you, whatever story she came up with to convince you that Florian was prepared to step down willingly, I’d have told you it wasn’t true. And I wouldn’t have stopped telling you until you believed me.

  ‘But instead you kept her secret,’ she went on. ‘And you stood by while she pimped me out to him.’

  ‘I didn’t know about that, Luna. If you had said one word to me—’

  ‘You weren’t there to tell!’

  ‘One word, I’d have stopped it.’

  ‘Of course,’ she remarked acidly. ‘I should have told my boyfriend, who doesn’t really like talking about work and particularly about Arborage. Not with me, at least. I should have told him about my work troubles.’

  ‘If you felt that way, that you couldn’t come to me, then I’m truly sorry, Luna. I never meant for you to feel that you were alone in this.’ He was standing right behind her now, his heat radiating into her back, and Luna’s body yearned towards him despite everything. ‘I can’t help but notice,’ he said softly, ‘that it seems to be Augusta you are most angry with.’

  She lowered her head. He had hit upon the crux of it, no doubting that.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said eventually, turning to face him. ‘I am angry with her. But at the end of the day, it’s her prerogative to keep secrets from me. She’s my employer, and if I made the mistake of thinking our relationship was something more than that, well…more fool me.’ Her eyes slid away from his momentarily as she added sadly, ‘Just because they call you “my dear” doesn’t mean you are.’

  ‘Luna,’ he said, reaching his hand towards her cheek.

  Only for her to flinch away from him. ‘But you,’ she said. ‘You told me you loved me.’

  ‘I do love you,’ he protested. ‘You don’t honestly doubt that, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Maybe love means something different to you than it does to me.’

  ‘No,’ he said vehemently. ‘No. It means exactly the same.’

  ‘Let me tell you what it’s been like for me, since I realised I loved you,’ she said. ‘Since that day at the Globe, everything has changed. I’ve been so…happy. Every cliché they tell you about love – about how colours seem brighter, and the good things in your life feel even better and bad things seem less important – all of that’s been true for me. Even the past month with Florian…’ Luna’s throat closed up. ‘Even that, I thought, well, it doesn’t matter, not really, because Stefan loves me.’

  ‘Oh, älskling.’

  ‘I’ve been so happy, Stefan,’ she said, a tear welling up unbidden and sliding down her cheek. ‘Happier than I thought it was possible to be.’

  ‘But I’ve felt that way too,’ he said. ‘It’s been the same for me.’

  ‘Between business commitments, you mean. And the demands of your birthright.’

  Stefan exhaled in surprise, as if she’d slapped him. ‘That isn’t fair, Luna.’

  Luna half turned and reached her hand out beyond the columns into the darkness, watching flakes of snow fall onto it and melt. ‘If you had told me six months ago,’ she whispered, ‘that I would want the kind of love my parents had, I’d have said you were mad. I’ve seen what loving someone that much can do, the harm it can cause when that person is gone. But…maybe I’m more like them than I was prepared to admit. I need to know that I come first, not third after Arborage and work. I need loving me to be the single most important thing in your life.’

  ‘It is.’

  Luna shook her head. ‘No. You love me like a child loves a toy.’

  Stefan grabbed her by her shoulders then, pulling her up till she was forced to look at him. ‘Take that back, Luna,’ he commanded harshly, pulling the scarf down from her head and clasping her skull between his palms. ‘Take it back!’

  When she wouldn’t respond he released her, running a hand through his hair in frustration. ‘The man you fell in love with,’ he said, ‘was a driven, successful businessman whose family birthright was Arborage. You didn’t fall in love with me despite those facts – they were part and parcel of the man I was, and part and parcel of why you loved me. You can’t expect me to stop being who I am.’

  Luna looked at him, then down at her hands. She replayed his final words in her head and heard the logic in them. Her shoulders drooping slightly, she felt the fight going out of her. ‘You’re right,’ she said, her voice small. ‘I’m being unfair. It isn’t reasonable of me to expect you to change.’

  Sensing his victory, Stefan pulled her into his arms, kissing her forehead, her cheek, and her cold lips. And Luna allowed herself to melt into him as she always had, pressing her nose into the pulse in his throat.

  ‘Things will be different now, believe me. I’ll be spending more time here, and I’ll have more time for you,’ he promised her, and Luna nodded into his neck.

  ‘You’ll be late for your call with Gus,’ she said eventually, kissing his jaw and lifting her fingers to his nape, savouring the scent of him.

  ‘Ever the efficient PA,’ he said lightly.

  ‘Well,’ she smiled wanly, ‘you knew what I was when you fell in love with me.’ To which Stefan laughed and lifted her against him.

  ‘Walk back with me?’ he asked.

  Luna shook her head. ‘I think I’ll stay out here a while longer.’

  She watched him walk back towards the house, his feet making prints in the virgin snow. Then she lifted her scarf over her head again and walked back herself, skirting the exterior of the west wing and making her way to the portico, where the estate driver was parked in the Jaguar.

  ‘Thanks for waiting for me,’ she said as she got into the back seat.

  ‘Not a problem, miss. It’s going to be a nasty night. I wouldn’t want you trying to get to the station on your own.’

  He began to drive and Luna turned to look out the rear window as they drew away from Arborage, where her letter of resignation lay on her desk and her personal belongings sat boxed on the floor of her sitting room, awaiting collection by a storage company in the morning. The house looked beautiful in the floodlights, the falling snow making it look hazy, almost dreamlike as it receded into the distance.

  She couldn’t stay. Of course she couldn’t. The Marchioness would understand that, but Stefan…

  Luna turned away from the rear window. Tears were streaming down her cheeks now. The driver glanced with concern in his rear-view mirror and she shook her head at him. It’s okay. Just keep driving.

  And then Luna buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

  Epilogue


  ‘I want one of you to tell me what the hell is going on here,’ Sören was shouting at Augusta and Stefan in the sitting room of the family’s private quarters. It was Sunday morning, the morning after their call with the board. Augusta was sat tight-lipped on one of the sofas and Stefan was standing next to the window, unshaven and exhausted, looking out on the snowy lawn below.

  He had spent a sleepless night searching for Luna. Halfway through the conference call with Gus, he’d started to get a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. Excusing himself, he’d run all the way up to her sitting room, opening the door to find three neat boxes, carefully labelled, her bedroom denuded of all her personal effects except the pink silk cord that had come with her roses.

  The estate driver had been unable to tell him anything more than that he’d left her at the train station in Newbury, at her request. Though when pressed he gave Stefan a hard look and added, ‘She was crying her eyes out in the back of that car, sir.’

  He had known desperation then. Wild, helpless desperation.

  ‘You led me to believe that Florian was stepping down of his own volition,’ his father was saying to Augusta, pacing agitatedly in front of the fireplace. ‘That he had “skeletons in his closet” that made it impossible for him to become Marquess. And now I find instead that you have blackmailed him. And drawn my son into your dirty little game. When what you should have done is taken the evidence your investigator uncovered straight to the police, and damn the scandal.’

  ‘I did what I did to protect Arborage,’ Augusta said obdurately, clasping her hands on her lap.

  ‘How is it protecting Arborage to leave Florian in play, free to continue dripping poison in your daughters’ ears? Do you honestly think he will crawl quietly into a corner and stay there, after what you have done? You have absolutely no idea what you’re playing at,’ Sören said, shaking his head contemptuously.