by Jagger, Kait
There was a brief note from him on the tray.
Gone out with Gus and forestry manager. Back by lunch.
Consulting the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, Luna frowned slightly. It was just after 9am. When Stefan asked her to come to the lodge, parallel play wasn’t what she’d had in mind.
Ah well. She had a bit of admin work to catch up on. Logging into her email, she found a message from a recruitment agent she’d been in communication with, now that her work for Sören was reaching its conclusion. To no great surprise, there was also a message from Dagmar saying she wouldn’t manage to fly to Shetland next week. And if this made Luna feel a little melancholy, well, she reminded herself, it was nothing to how utterly bereft she’d been when she started her assignment there. What a difference a few months made.
Finally, there was an email from Sören, a response to one she’d sent him the morning after the screening event at the Fisherman’s Rest.
She finished her work at just before 11 and resolved to go for a run, a decision she regretted within ten minutes of setting off along a dirt path that skirted the loch. Midges. She’d forgotten about the midges here in the Highlands; large, biting insects that descended in clouds on animals and humans alike. The weather had closed in since the previous day and something about the humidity and low-lying cloud brought them out in droves. Luna briefly considered just going back to the house, but decided to battle on, pulling up the hood on her sweatshirt and tightening it around her face.
And then the thunder started.
Softly at first, some distance away, but growing louder and more frequent with every passing minute. She calculated that she was around two miles away from the lodge when the midges suddenly disappeared and large, fat raindrops began to fall. Resigning herself to the prospect that she was about to get very, very wet, Luna turned back the way she’d come. This was fun, exciting, she thought, grinning to herself as she whipped off her hood, ozone filling her nose and the rumble of thunder reaching all the way down to the pit of her stomach.
It started to feel a little less fun when a massive lightning strike illuminated the loch, followed immediately by a heart-stopping clap of thunder. Perhaps the storm was approaching a little faster than she’d calculated.
Choosing the better part of valour, Luna scrambled up the next path that led to the gravel road running the length of the estate. The rain was literally pouring down now and as another flash of lightning filled the sky, Luna started sprinting down the road. She was about a mile from the house when she heard the sound of tires crunching up behind her and turned to see a Land Rover pulling to a halt.
The driver’s side window rolled down to reveal none other than Stefan, who shouted, ‘What the hell are you doing out here? Get in.’
Luna shook her head, gesturing to her soaking wet clothes. ‘I’ll get your car all wet,’ she protested.
Just then, another earth-shattering clap of thunder sounded. ‘Get in the bloody car, Luna,’ Stefan ordered.
Luna ran around to the passenger side and hopped in, immediately pulling off her sodden sweatshirt and dropping it with a wet plop on the floor of the Land Rover. Laughing, she started to remove her shoes.
‘Are you actually trying to get yourself killed?’ Stefan asked, gesturing to the roof of the Land Rover, which was rattling loudly in the deluge.
‘No,’ Luna said, kicking off her squelching shoes and inserting her fingers into the waistband of her leggings. ‘It wasn’t raining when I started out.’
‘But surely you saw the clouds coming,’ he insisted, putting the 4x4 into gear and pulling back onto the road.
‘Well, obviously I didn’t,’ Luna replied, peeling her leggings off, laughing again. Stefan clearly didn’t think any of this was funny, and she could see him winding up to deliver a long, Swedish lecture on the incredible stupidity of running in a forest during a thunderstorm. So she cut him off at the pass, pointedly removing her sports bra and pulling the seat belt over her now naked chest. Still driving, Stefan glanced over at her and opened his mouth. Whereupon Luna lifted her butt off the car seat and slid her knickers off. He shut his mouth.
By the time he pulled up outside of the lodge, the rain had begun to ease off and the thunder was fading into the distance. Luna looked over at Stefan and, stretching in her seat, enquired, ‘All done with Gus?’
‘All done,’ he nodded, turning off the engine.
‘And,’ Luna added, ‘just so I’m perfectly clear, we are completely alone now? You’ve given every single member of staff the weekend off?’
Stefan turned and rested his arm on the steering wheel, eying her up. ‘I have,’ he confirmed.
‘Right then,’ Luna said, opening her door and hopping out. Running buck naked down the grass lawn in front of the house, she paused briefly at the top of a set of stone stairs leading down to the wooden dock. Behind her Stefan had exited the Land Rover and was walking down toward her.
‘The water is very cold, Luna,’ he shouted. ‘I wouldn’t do it if I were you.’ Which was all the incentive she needed. Running down the steps, she leapt onto the dock and pelted down it, not giving herself the opportunity to chicken out. Reaching the end, she launched herself off and tucked her body into a ball.
Jesus wept, the shock of it. Cold wasn’t the word for how freezing that water was. Luna surfaced and squealed loudly.
‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ she spluttered. ‘Oh my fucking God.’ She swam a few strokes, then treaded water, looking up at the dock, where Stefan was now watching her incredulously.
‘The water’s great!’ she assured him, teeth clenched, lips turning blue. ‘Come on in.’
‘I think I’ll give it a miss,’ Stefan replied, shaking his head.
‘Suit yourself,’ she said, dogpaddling nonchalantly in the direction of the ladder at the side of the dock, reaching for the bottom rung.
And suddenly Stefan was there, holding out his hand to her, inquiring drily, ‘Had enough?’ Luna grasped his hand with her own icy one and, heaven help her, something about the amused expression on his face… something about it compelled her to grasp his hand more firmly, brace her legs on the ladder and give a mighty pull.
He almost stopped himself. Almost. But she had the advantage of surprise on her side. Over he went, with a loud splash.
Teeth chattering, Luna climbed the rest of the ladder and pulled herself onto the dock just as a long stream of Swedish invectives began behind her. She paused long enough to be sure he wasn’t going to drown, but the minute his hand flailed onto the ladder she started running.
Sheer, blind panic kept her going for around fifty feet, till she got to the stone stairs and her muscles started seizing up. She turned to see Stefan lying on the dock, trying to pull off his waterlogged boots, cursing all the while. His clothes, she thought as she climbed the stairs, legs like rubber; those wet clothes were going to slow him down.
She was hunkered down in the bath, up to her neck in hot water by the time Stefan entered her bathroom, naked and shivering. Gesturing for her to budge up, he inserted a foot and hissed, ‘Otch, too fucking hot.’ And then tried again, slowly sinking into the water opposite her.
Luna sat back against the end of the bath, giving him her best butter-wouldn’t-melt look. To which Stefan started to laugh, the water in the tub quivering around him.
‘Oh, Miss Gregory,’ he said. ‘I am going to make you pay for that.’
*
Gus’s wife was bored, Luna could see that much. The couple came to the lodge for dinner that night, after Luna had taken what had to be one of the best naps of her life with Stefan. Maybe, she suggested to him when they woke in the late afternoon, stretching against one another, they should jump in freezing water together more often. To which Stefan had merely smiled and said, ‘If you think that’s going to get you out of what’s coming to you…’
He’d arranged for their meal to be delivered from the Kelpie, a coaching inn ten miles distant from the lodge that w
as part of the estate’s portfolio. And if Luna felt slightly guilty at the prospect of hosting a meal she’d had no hand in preparing, she overcame her scruples when she tucked into the succulent, note-perfect pork belly, asparagus and baby new potatoes.
They ate in the formal dining room, a slightly macabre setting decorated with scores of stag skulls on the ceiling, the fruit of the Wellstone family’s prodigious hunting obsession. Quirky, is the way Luna described it to herself, taking comfort from the fire Stefan had built in the brick and stone inglenook fireplace in the middle of the room. Indeed, between the fire and her somewhat eccentric attire of a tunic covered by one of Stefan’s jumpers, plus a scarf around her neck, it felt more like autumn than the beginning of June.
Dinner conversation largely revolved around ways to maximise income from the Scottish estate, a subject Luna found fascinating but which clearly held no interest for Gus’s tiny blond wife, who kept trying to distract her with talk of local spas, or shopping in Glasgow, or myriad other frivolous topics that Luna normally kept in a box marked exclusively ‘The Girls’; subjects she would happily discuss with Kayla, Nancy and Jem, but which otherwise made her impatient.
Gus was running through the pros and cons of renting out the house to hunting parties when his wife rolled her eyes at Luna and said, ‘It’s not enough that he spends fifty hours a week on this stuff. He brings it home too.’
Really, Luna reflected, she couldn’t abide women like her and Liv, under-occupied at home and plainly resentful of their husbands’ work lives. She was trying to think of a polite way to shut the conversation down when Stefan came to her rescue, placing his hand on hers and asking, ‘What do you think, Luna? Would Augusta countenance giving up the lodge?’
Giving his hand a grateful return squeeze, Luna admitted, ‘I’m not sure. Really, I wonder if it would be worth the trouble to you and the staff here, Gus. There are so many things you’d have to do to the house to make it rentable.’ She glanced up at the forest of antlers above them. ‘And why would hunting parties pay a premium to stay here when you’ve just built that lovely clubhouse down the way?’
Gus made a resigned face, like she was just articulating his own reservations.
‘I was thinking, though,’ she ventured, ‘while I was out running today.’ At the mention of her outdoor pursuits, Stefan’s fingers curved around hers and his index finger stroked her palm. Determined not to be distracted, Luna went on, ‘Have you thought about rally driving? I’m sure there are companies that’d love to come in and organise the whole thing, just pay to use the estate…’ She faltered as Gus directed a broad grin at Stefan.
‘See, Stefan?’ he laughed. ‘Luna agrees with me!’ Ah, so he’d already proposed this option. And apparently been shot down.
Stefan sat back in his chair and reached his arm over to the back of Luna’s, saying sceptically, ‘And you think Augusta would tolerate rally cars screaming past the house.’ Luna felt his fingers gliding along her neck, insinuating themselves under her scarf. This was going to have to stop.
‘Actually,’ she said hurriedly, ‘I was looking at those aerial photos in the library yesterday. I think you could create a course that bypassed the house entirely.’ Next thing she was on her feet and she and Gus were off to the library, talking a mile a minute. Leaving Stefan to converse with Gus’s wife about spa treatments or clothes or whatever, Luna thought with an inward grin.
By the time the Walshs left two hours later, Luna and Gus had plotted out a possible course around the estate and an outline brief to present to the Arborage board at its next meeting at the end of the month.
She and Stefan remained in the doorway as their guests’ car pulled off, Stefan’s arm around her. She wondered fleetingly what it might be like, doing more of this, and briefly pictured the two of them standing in the portico at Arborage House. Her stomach gave a funny and not altogether pleasant little flip at this mental image and she quickly put it out of her mind.
‘Glass of port?’ Stefan enquired.
‘Mmm,’ Luna nodded, almost immediately regretting it when, before she could stop him, he was off toward the one room she’d hoped to avoid during this visit.
Feet dragging, she followed him as he entered the parlour adjacent to the snooker room. He moved to the mahogany drinks cabinet and extracted a glass decanter of port, pouring two glasses. Despite or perhaps because of the heavy ornate mirror hanging along one wall, the room felt oppressive to Luna. Claustrophobic. She caught a brief glimpse of her reflection and remembered standing in this exact spot five months ago, surrounded by Russian thugs and Parisian prostitutes, completely at Florian Wellstone’s mercy.
Unable to articulate any of this to Stefan, Luna lingered next to the door, hands clasped behind her back. Placing the glass stopper back in the decanter, he inclined his head at her. ‘What’s wrong, Luna?’ He began to smile. ‘Don’t tell me you think this room is haunted.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I… Florian…’
He understood her, then. Handing the glasses to her, he swiftly ushered her out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind them. They went back to the dining room and he pulled a chair away from the table and set it next to the fire, pressing her down into it. To her mortification, Luna looked down to see the glasses shaking in her hands, on the verge of spilling. Stefan took them from her and placed them on the dining room table.
Drawing up another chair, he sat facing her, his face dark with warring emotions.
‘Luna,’ he said eventually, ‘are there things you haven’t told me? Did Florian… did he take liberties with you while you were here?’
‘No!’ Luna exclaimed, horrified by his train of thought. ‘No,’ she repeated. ‘I just don’t like that room.’
Stefan exhaled and sat back in his chair, running his hands through his hair. He opened his mouth, then appeared to think better of whatever he was going to say and shut it, reaching for Luna’s glass and handing it to her. Luna took a sip and let the port trickle down the back of her throat. ‘This is very good,’ she said, eager to change the subject. ‘Have you broken out Augusta’s private reserves?’
The corners of Stefan’s mouth lifted slightly, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.
Kicking off her shoes and stretching her toes toward the fire, Luna tried a different tack. ‘Could you tell how much Gus’s wife got on my nerves?’
At this he made a visible effort to shake off his mood, remarking facetiously, ‘Did she? I had no idea.’ Then looked down at the wooden floorboards beneath them. ‘I’m surprised there aren’t skid marks on the floor from how fast you and Gus shot off to the library.’
‘I don’t understand how she has absolutely no interest in this place.’ Luna shook her head and took another sip of her port. ‘It’s her husband’s livelihood and it’s fascinating in its own right, even if you weren’t connected to the estate.’
Stefan lifted his glass to his lips. ‘Not everyone is like you, Luna.’
She glanced at him and asked worriedly, ‘Did I overstep the mark? Gus is so enthusiastic and I just wanted to help.’
‘You didn’t,’ Stefan said simply. And again, she got the feeling there was more he wanted to say. But instead he took another mouthful of port and looked her up and down. ‘My jumper suits you.’
Luna screwed up her mouth. The jumper, indeed, her entire schoolmarmish ensemble, had been a necessary sartorial compromise. She felt the reasons for this necessity even now, digging into her waist, stretched taut between her breasts, slung around her hips. Her forfeit for the loch incident earlier.
‘I confess,’ Stefan added, eyes shining, ‘it’s given me a great deal of pleasure tonight, sitting next to you…’
Luna drained her glass, placing it on the table.
‘…knowing what was going on under my jumper…’
She stood, unwound her scarf and dropped it to the floor, then removed Stefan’s jumper and handed it to him. He lifted it to his nose and inhaled.
‘�
��thinking about what I was going to do to you once the jumper came off…’
Luna placed her hands on Stefan’s shoulders and straddled him, descending onto his thighs as he lifted her tunic over her head and dropped it, too, on the floor. Grasping the tassels at her neck with one hand, he raised his glass to her lips with the other, transfixed by the movement of her throat as she swallowed the last of his port.
‘And you, Luna?’ he asked hoarsely. ‘Sitting beside me, my rope around your neck. What did it feel like to you?’
In answer, Luna dug her fingers into his scalp and jerked his head backward. ‘Like something I could get used to,’ she whispered, lowering her port-stained lips to his. Dark, dark it was, eyes sliding shut, tongues joining, his hand tugging on the rope around her neck, her torso undulating against his, his hips flexing rhythmically up into hers.
Momentarily, he placed his hands under her butt and stood, lifting her with him. She heard the sound of crockery and silverware being swept aside as he laid her out on the table, under the candelabra. The scent of melting wax filled her nostrils as his hands glided up her chest to her neck, exploring her jawline. He slid his index finger along her bottom lip and Luna captured it between her teeth, biting down just hard enough to hurt, then sheathing her teeth and sucking his finger gently.
Stefan’s free hand moved to his belt buckle and Luna’s lips curved around his finger, anticipating him climbing atop her body in a few moments’ time. He removed his finger from her mouth and reached for the tight bit of cord between her breasts, pulling her up off the table. Luna arched her back, offering herself to him, but he smiled and shook his head.
‘Not what I have in mind,’ he murmured, lowering her back down. He removed his belt, looking down at her with such hungry, animal intent that Luna knew a moment’s unease. Stomach muscles tightening, she tried to sit up, but in response Stefan yanked her down till her bottom was just at the edge of the table, legs dangling over the side. His hands shot out, grabbing her wrists, forcing them down against her chest as he swiftly threaded his belt under the rope and looped it around her wrists.
