by Kait Jagger
‘And then there’s that poor girl,’ he continued, pointing in the direction of the office downstairs. ‘That girl who would do anything for the two of you. And you let her. You took advantage of her loyalty.’
‘Oh, come now, Sören,’ Augusta said peevishly. ‘Luna is an adult—’
‘He almost raped her, Augusta!’ Sören thundered, slamming his fist onto the coffee table in front of her. Stefan released a fraught, inarticulate noise at this and his father turned on him. ‘Too late for that now.’ He looked between the two of them with disgust. ‘It’s a bad business, this,’ he concluded. ‘I wish you no happiness from it.’
Stefan had found Luna’s work phone, laptop and tablet all neatly piled on her desk, along with a brief letter of resignation saying she had to leave for personal reasons. And so she slipped through his fingers. He had no idea where she was, or how to find her. His only connection to her had been through Arborage, he realised with some shame – he didn’t even know if she had a personal email account. He could call Jem or Kayla, he supposed, beg them for news of her. But he didn’t, knowing that she would hate him for involving them.
His father seemed to regret his harshness later, when the two of them sat together in the Dower House, Stefan riddled with guilt and regret.
‘I blame myself for this,’ Sören said. ‘I should have suspected something when Augusta first came to me to talk about Florian. I, who knew her better than anyone. I should have asked more questions…’
He gave his son no comfort on the matter of Luna, however.
‘When you told me you were seeing her, I was of two minds. First, I was glad, but then…Luna is a serious girl, Stefan, the kind who doesn’t love lightly. And you have never been serious about women.’
But his father was wrong. Stefan couldn’t even find the words to tell him how wrong he was. He thought back to the moment when he had first recognised Luna, standing dripping wet in the garden. How he had laughed, not out of a lack of seriousness, but out of sheer joy, that there was a reason he’d felt a connection with her from the moment he had seen her in the farm shop. She was the arg flicka, and she belonged to him.
He had pursued her single-mindedly after that, so certain was he that they were destined to be together. Even Augusta’s dire warnings of Luna’s mental fragility in the wake of her parents’ deaths hadn’t put him off – indeed, this very fragility, combined with her quiet reserve, had drawn him towards her. That and her honesty, her complete inability to play games. You look beautiful too. He’d known even before the first time they made love that it would be special, and she hadn’t disappointed him – he’d literally never experienced anything like it, the way she made him feel. She unmanned him without even trying, without even realising her power over him.
Power. That was what it came down to. Her unwitting power over him, his desire for power over her. The power Augusta had over them both, power she had used to set them at cross purposes, drive them apart. And the power of love, to which he had been so completely unwilling to yield that he had shut Luna out of every part of his life he deemed off limits.
He thought about their final conversation in the garden. He had come into it determined that it was an argument he must win. Goaded by her initial coldness, he’d kept at her and kept at her until he broke her. God forgive him, he’d even silently exulted when he saw her shoulders sag, heard her say, You’re right. I’m being unfair.
Now, too late, he saw the conversation through Luna’s eyes. Not as an argument, but as the final step in a decision-making process. She had already concluded that she had to leave the Marchioness; she’d come to the garden to decide if she was leaving him as well. She had given him every chance to make a concession, and gotten nothing in return. Could he admit that he had been wrong to conceal his agreement with Augusta from her? No, he could not. That his obsession with work and his own selfish concerns had put her off seeking his help with Florian? No. No, in fact, he’d as much as blamed her for remaining silent.
And worst of all, could he convince her that of course she came first in his life, that if she doubted it he was prepared to do anything it took to make her believe? No. You knew what I was like when you got involved with me, he’d chided her, watching her break in front of him, and taking satisfaction from breaking her.
And now she was out there somewhere, alone, crying for him. But you. You told me you loved me. The possibility that she believed he didn’t, that she thought loving her had been a game he’d played in his spare time, tore a hole in his chest.
He would prove to her that she was wrong. She couldn’t hide forever, not even his elusive Luna. Her severance payments from Arborage had to go somewhere, and her bike still sat in the barn. She would reveal herself to him eventually, and if she didn’t, he would track her until he found her.
He would get her back. That was all that mattered.
About the Author
Kait lives on a farm in Lancashire, England with her husband, four children, one dog and one cat. Like Luna, she makes her living as a PA.
Lord and Master is Kait’s debut novel, the first in a trilogy. The second book in the series, Her Master’s Servant, is due for publication by late-2015.
www.kaitjagger.com
Her Master’s Servant
Book Two of the Lord and Master Trilogy
Coming Soon
Arriving at a heavy oak door where a small card with her name had been fixed, Luna pushed it open to reveal a large room with mullioned windows overlooking the lawn below. Tucked into an alcove on the right-hand side of the room was a four poster bed complete with curtains. There was no carpet on the floor, so out of habit she lifted one leg, then the other to remove her heels before entering.
The room was wreathed in shadows, with only a small lamp on the wooden desk opposite the bed casting a feeble light. Luna approached the desk and idly examined its contents: a small globe, stack of university study guides, various sporting paraphernalia. She picked up a cricket ball, ran her fingers along the stitching in its seam, then replaced it on the desk. Turning to the large portrait beside the desk, she stood face to face with a teenaged boy holding a King Charles Spaniel, laughter in his eyes.
‘Hello James,’ she said softly. For this had been the room of the Marchioness’s only son, James Wellstone, who died in a boating accident fourteen years ago. From what she could see, the room had remained largely untouched since his death, though clearly the cleaning staff had kept it tidy. She was frankly amazed it had been assigned to her, or indeed to anyone attending the party. Knowing how keenly the Marchioness still felt his loss, Luna couldn’t imagine her countenancing this.
Luna walked to her backpack, sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. As she bent to retrieve it, she caught a motion in the darkness beside her and jumped. Ah, it was a standing mirror—she was jumping at her own reflection. Shaking her head at her nerves, she lowered her backpack and moved closer to the mirror, studying herself.
Her eyes, as ever, were enormous and translucent, and her skin was deathly pale; she certainly looked the part of a ghost. Gaze scanning downward, however, Luna experienced a burgeoning sense of unease. For the first time, she noticed that the gauzy material in the bodice clung to her in a way that left no doubt she wasn’t wearing a bra. It was, well, if she’d been a little less dismayed, Luna might have felt justifiably proud, because they looked phenomenal, the curved tops of her breasts pressing against the gauze as they descended gracefully into the scattering of sequins and beading that covered her nipples.
Craning her neck, she observed that the scooped back of the dress was more revealing than she’d appreciated, exposing not just the bottom of her spine but most of her waist. And the skirt. Bloody hell, Kayla was right, her booty was…hard to miss. Biting her lip, Luna frowned at her reflection. This really, really wasn’t the look she’d been going for tonight.
‘Quite an eyeful, isn’t it,’ came a voice from behind her. Luna spun around to see Stefan sat cr
oss-legged on the bed, half obscured by the drapes hanging around the bed and the stygian gloom of his cousin’s room.
‘Jesus!’ she gasped, placing a hand on her chest, where her heart was fluttering against the gauze like a hummingbird against a net. Then, ‘This is your room.’
‘No, as you can see, it’s James’s.’ His teeth flashed coldly in the darkness. As Luna’s eyes adjusted to the dark she saw that he’d removed his jacket and cufflinks and rolled up his shirt sleeves. His feet were bare and he looked so….like himself, so like the Stefan she knew.
Realisation dawning, she said, ‘Augusta put you in here, I assume?’
‘For my sins.’ His smile was self-deprecating and in spite of herself Luna smiled in return. She couldn’t think of a worse fate than being installed in his dead cousin’s room, expected to replace the irreplaceable.
They stayed where they were for a moment, a silent truce in force. But then Luna lifted her backpack onto her shoulders and said, ‘I have to go.’
Suddenly, he was off the bed like a big game cat, springing toward her, grabbing her shoulders and lifting her up onto her toes.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, because that’s what you do, isn’t it.’ And then he was dragging her toward the door, throwing it open, his fingers digging into her shoulders. ‘You should go, Luna,’ he told her. ‘Nothing good will come of you staying here, I can promise you that.’
She heard the sound of muffled laughter and the tinkling of glass bottles from down the hall.
‘And that, if I’m not mistaken, is your American friend, helping herself to my family’s house uninvited,’ he said. ‘She’ll be around the corner any second now and she’ll see you here with me. So you’d better run, just like you always do.’ His face hardened and he shook her brutally. Luna made a noise, of pain or protest, she wasn’t sure which, and the undercurrent between them shifted.
Lowering his head till it was within millimetres of her own, Stefan angled his face against hers and, like a snake being charmed, Luna mirrored him, her eyelids lowering, growing heavy along with his. ‘Run, Luna,’ he said softly. And reached to her shoulders, lifting the straps there, lowering her backpack to the floor. ‘You aren’t safe here,’ he said, removing her shoes from her hand, dropping them next to the backpack. ‘Run,’ he repeated, the fingers of one hand digging into her chignon while the other pushed the door shut, turning the key in the lock.
He shoved her against it then, reaching his hands up to the yolk of her dress. She heard it tearing, felt the muscles in his arms flexing against her collarbone, heard the sound of beads and sequins showering to the floor as he ripped it to her waist and tore it off her.
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ he said, lifting her into his arms and carrying her to the bed.
To be continued…
