by Jagger, Kait
With that, he gave Florian a final, vicious shake, and pitched him into the adjacent rose bed. Glancing toward the house, he saw a quartet of heavyset guards moving in his direction and immediately turned his back on them, heading off at pace into the overgrowth.
Now he knew: his recurring dreams hadn’t been just nightmares, projections of a troubled subconscious. They were premonitions. Luna was in danger, and he had put her there.
He heard two sounds, then. The first of the four security guards crashing through the garden, shoving startled partygoers out of their way in pursuit of him. And then, off ahead of him, of a woman screaming. Luna screaming.
He began to sprint, running as fast as he could, praying that somehow she could hear the single, silent thought he was sending her way.
Hold on, Luna. Hold on. I’m coming for you.
THE END
The Marchioness
Book Three in the Lord and Master Trilogy
By Kait Jagger
Published by Kait Jagger
Copyright © Kait Jagger 2017
Cover: Lauren Nagoda (www.laurennagoda.com)
Formatting: Troubador Publishing (www.troubador.co.uk/matador)
For address information, please contact the author at [email protected]
All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the prior written consent of the author, excepting for brief quotes used in reviews.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
ISBN 9780993458422
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Praise for Lord and Master
Book One in the Lord and Master Trilogy
‘Enjoyable, erotic romance, infused with a healthy dose of reality.’
- Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller
‘Author Kait Jagger has penned a gripping, scintillating page turner, loaded with riveting characters. Best book I’ve read in ages!’
- Stephanie Lasley, The Kindle Book Review
‘I loved that author Kait Jagger creates the character of Luna as a friend and colleague with a full life of her own, rather than a flat character simply waiting for a man. Lord and Master is indulgent and magnetic. I stayed up way past my bedtime on more than one night simply because I needed to know what happened next.’
- Jenna Czaplewski, The Girl with Book Lungs
‘This book is filled with good story, passion, good writing and real characters. Nothing feels forced, the story flows flawlessly...Stefan is my newest book boyfriend, and I want one of my own!!’
- Carol Sales, Beauty and the Beastly Books
Praise for Her Master’s Servant
Book Two in the Lord and Master Trilogy
‘How wonderful to meet a heroine who is brave. Who can sometimes be shy. Who manages her own problems with intelligence and a fiery spirit. Who loves her friends so wildly and perfectly. Who owns up to her errors and acts with compassion and grace. Who isn’t defined by who she is sleeping with. Seriously, that’s rare.’
- Jen Starkey, Doves Falling Book Blog
‘Kait Jagger is one of the best authors that not enough people are reading. She handles romantic suspense and erotica with ease, laying out a compelling plot which plays out in beautiful landscapes.’
- Sandra Lombardo, Reads and Reviews
Contents
Praise for Lord and Master
Praise for Her Master’s Servant
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Epilogue
In Conversation with Kait Jagger
Chapter One
Luna Gregory was sprinting through the woods, her breath coming in strangled gasps. Slowing briefly to look behind her, she saw nothing but trees, heard nothing but the sound of a bird warbling in the distance. Her eyes and ears weren’t to be trusted, however. She was being hunted; it was only a matter of time before her pursuer caught up with her.
Chest aching and a trickle of sweat sliding down her temple, she tried to pick up speed, but her feet seemed to sink with every step, like she was running in treacle. Up ahead, through a gap in the trees, she saw a glimmer of reflected light. Close, she thought; she had to be close. If she could just keep up this pace…
And then she heard it. The sound of branches being swept aside, twigs snapping. Some distance behind her, but gaining fast. A panicked noise rose in her throat, quickly subsumed by her laboured panting. She didn’t dare look back again, for fear that glimpsing her stalker in the flesh would make her lose heart, surrender to her fate.
The sound veered off to the right, sweeping around her. Heart hammering in her chest, Luna realised her pursuer intended to get ahead of her and cut her off. If she stayed on her current path, she would surely be overtaken. Out of options, she looked toward the dense thicket of pines falling away to her left. The shorter route to safety, she was sure of it, but the more arduous, obstructed.
There was nothing for it – she swung off to her left and ran for dear life.
Down, down, into shadows, tall evergreens blocking out what little light remained this late in the day. Leaping over a fallen tree trunk, she briefly stumbled, but then righted herself and kept running, thankful for the steepening downward slope. There was a clearing ahead and yes – yes! – a cottage.
Scanning the clearing as she approached, Luna saw no sign of her stalker. But caution made her slow down, take a closer look. The cottage was made of red painted wood, fronted by a white porch complete with porch swing. Its windows were dark. Luna exhaled heavily, a cloud of steam puffing out in front of her. She was alone.
Her pursuer emerged from the woods twenty-one seconds later, crashing through a stand of fir trees to find Luna sitting on the porch swing, waiting for him. He sprinted toward her so fast that Luna involuntarily shrunk backwards, the swing creaking beneath her. Shaking her head at him – late, you’re too late – she reached her hand behind her and pulled on a chain connected to a small brass bell above the cottage door, which rang out into the cold, midwinter Swedish sky.
Her pursuer stopped dead and she was pleased to note that, fit as he undoubtedly was, the chase had winded him. He removed his wool hat and ran a hand through his dark blonde hair, even in exhaustion looking every inch the Nordic God. ‘That was—’ he broke off, panting furiously, ‘—that was cheating, really, Luna.’
‘Was it?’ Luna enquired innocently. ‘You challenged me to a race, and, from where I’m sitting—’ she lifted her boot-clad feet from the floor of the porch and casually rocked on the swing, ‘—it looks to me like I won it, fair and square.’
With that, she hopped off the swing and walked down the porch steps to where her fiancé stood up to his ankles in snow. ‘Oh, Herr Lundgren,’ she
said, slowly removing her mittens and tucking them in her pockets, then grasping the collar of Stefan’s down jacket, pulling him toward her. ‘I’m going to enjoy collecting this forfeit.’
*
Two Months Earlier
‘You have much to learn, Luna… Let me show you what it means to be MY bitch.’
With these words, Viktor Putinov loomed toward Luna, his face implacable, his lashless grey eyes unblinking.
Luna struggled in vain against the two thugs holding her arms, only for their grip to tighten to the point of pain. She heard a high, piercing scream; her own. Not, her rational self recognised, that there was much chance of her being heard. Putinov had been careful to stage their parley well away from his Essex mansion, in an outbuilding hidden deep within his garden.
She had fallen into a trap. Cajoled into attending a late-summer party at the mansion on the pretext of meeting her future mother-in-law’s mystery beau, Luna saw too late that the entire event was a smokescreen. She already knew Karoline Lundgren’s boyfriend, Viktor Putinov, and Putinov’s real aim, the goal he’d had ever since he set eyes on it the previous winter, was the acquisition of Arborage House, Stefan’s ancestral home in Berkshire.
The heavyset Russian ran his thick fingers under Luna’s jaw and she tried to jerk away. In response, he slowly inclined his head towards hers till she could see the shadow on his skull where his hair was shaved, the skin underneath glowing fluorescent white. ‘Such a pretty neck…’ he observed, reaching into his pocket to remove something heavy and metallic.
Luna writhed against her captors, to no avail. Viktor’s hands returned to her neck and she felt something cold tighten around it, heard the clink of a clasp snapping shut.
At the sound of shouting in the garden, the guards briefly loosened their grip on Luna and she wheeled around to see Stefan hurtling toward them through a tangle of overgrown rose bushes, pursued by four more guards. He stopped at the bottom of the steps, searching her face, reading the combined fear and relief there. And then turned to Putinov, fists tightening.
‘Ah, yes,’ Putinov said, clapping his hands together in a leaden simulation of delight. ‘The “lord and master” of Arborage, here for his… pet.’
His expression turning murderous, Stefan launched himself up the stairs. The four burly men behind him lunged simultaneously and, foreseeing how it would end if Stefan managed to reach Putinov, Luna threw herself in his path, placing her hands on his chest. Still he kept coming, propelling her backwards, her heels skittering along the concrete floor of the outbuilding.
‘No, no,’ she begged him in a fierce whisper. ‘Not here.’
‘What in God’s name…?’ came a voice from within the garden, and instantly the security detail parted like the Red Sea for Karoline Lundgren. Looking like a modern-day Valkyrie in her sapphire-blue cocktail dress and blonde gamine haircut, Stefan’s mother ascended the stairs to her son, sparing nary a glance for Luna. ‘What is going on here, Stefan?’ she demanded.
‘A little business talk only,’ Viktor shrugged, extending his arm to Karoline, who immediately moved to his side. Staring at Luna over Karoline’s head, he nodded infinitesimally. Yes, she is a GOOD dog.
Wanting only to end this stand-off, Luna slid her hands up to Stefan’s neck, trying to draw his eyes, currently locked on the sight of his mother clinging to Putinov like a limpet. ‘Please, Stefan,’ Luna begged. ‘Take me home.’
Ten minutes later, they strode out onto the drive fronting Putinov’s colossal neo-baroque mansion, which Luna now knew had taken its inspiration from Arborage, in the way a crudely drawn cartoon might take inspiration from a Rembrandt. Behind them an inky tide comprising most of Putinov’s security detail flooded out onto the drive, including the two sallow-faced bullies who had restrained her during her fateful encounter with him. Helping her into the passenger side of his Land Rover, Stefan said tersely, ‘Did he touch you?’
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head adamantly. ‘Get me the hell away from this place.’
He interrogated her as they drove through Brentwood and Luna tried her best to give a coherent account of the evening’s events. But how to convey her utter horror on learning that Karoline Lundgren’s paramour was the Russian thug who had insinuated himself into the late Marquess of Lionsbridge’s circle the previous winter, becoming creditor, drug supplier and whore procurer to the heir presumptive, Florian Wellstone. At the time, Luna had seen only the danger posed by Florian, a cruel degenerate who had taken pleasure in making her life as personal assistant to the Marchioness a misery.
Now she saw that she had been blind to the real threat to Arborage. Florian was just one of life’s scavengers, a jackal who eked an existence feeding off the suffering and fear of others. Viktor Putinov, on the other hand, was a predator. And in the Wellstone family’s internecine bloodletting he had scented weakness. Tangled as she was in the family’s affairs, Luna feared that she, too, had inadvertently played a part in emboldening the Russian. During their confrontation in the garden, he’d made it clear that this was personal.
‘That morning last winter, when my friends and I were thrown out of the estate like so much garbage, I remember you, sitting outside the house, watching us drive away. Staring at me as if to say, “Get out. This is not your place.”’
When Luna accused him of seducing Stefan’s mother in order to maintain his connection to Arborage, Putinov finally showed his hand.
‘I am a simple man. Too simple to play your complicated English games. I want to buy Arborage. That is the message I would like you to take to your master.’
Her master, the new Marquess of Lionsbridge. Stefan.
As the Land Rover made its way along a B road leading to the M25, Luna relayed Putinov’s offer, only for Stefan to bark a quick laugh.
‘It isn’t for sale,’ he said.
‘That’s exactly what I told him,’ she replied. Luna stared down at her hands, knit together atop the little white dress she’d been so proud of a few short hours ago, when the only thought in her head had been to impress his disapproving mother and her friends. ‘You have to get your mum away from him,’ she said.
Stefan made an exasperated noise. ‘My mother has never listened to me before. I don’t know why she would now.’
‘I’m serious, Stefan,’ Luna insisted, her tone rising vertiginously. ‘He is a bad man.’
In response, he reached out and clasped her hand, promising, ‘I will speak with her.’ He glanced at her briefly and smiled, but then his eyes wandered downward and his brow furrowed.
Luna’s hands flew to her neck; she’d forgotten. Flipping down the sun visor, she tilted its mirror downward to see a heavy choker made of platinum and some kind of large black stones. The clasp, which Putinov had secured on the side, just over her jugular, was embellished with numerous small diamonds in the shape of a buckle. It was… it was a dog collar.
Her fingers worked at the clasp, but it wouldn’t come undone. Suddenly she felt as if it was strangling her. ‘I can’t—’ she began, clawing at her neck. Seeing her distress, Stefan quickly pulled over to the side of the road.
‘Get it… get it off me!’ she cried. When he finally undid it she opened the car window, intending to fling it as far away as she could. But Stefan stayed her hand, uncurling her fingers and removing the necklace. He turned it over in his hands, studying it. Black diamonds, Luna belatedly realised. It was made of black diamonds.
‘This is a generous gift,’ Stefan said darkly. ‘Too generous. I shall return it to our host.’
It was dark by the time they pulled onto the mile-long drive approaching the estate, driving past parkland and rolling lawns toward Arborage House. As ever, Luna’s heart swelled with pride when she caught sight of it glowing gold in the floodlights, its baroque east wing perfectly complemented by a later Gothic Revival west wing made of the same Bath stone.
Stefan
got ahead of her as they walked along the darkened gravel path leading to the portico, wreathed in topiary. Luna could just hear him on his mobile with the estate’s lawyers, who had certainly been earning their crust of late, from Lady Wellstone’s deposal of Florian, to the subsequent death of John Wellstone, the 16th Marquess, and latterly Stefan’s efforts to assert control over the estate in the face of fierce opposition from his predecessor’s two daughters, Helen and Isabelle.
Watching him prowl toward the house, his tall, lithe frame cast into relief by the floodlights, Luna’s heart swelled anew. She looked down at the square-cut blue diamond on the third finger of her left hand and marvelled that Stefan Lundgren had chosen her when he could have had the cream of Stockholm society, and London’s too, now that he’d become 17th Marquess of Lionsbridge.
He reached the bottom of the portico steps, only noticing then that he was walking alone, and turned to her, reaching out his hand. Warm, as ever, against her own cold fingers when she placed them in his. Together, they walked up the steps and into the house.
Chapter Two
Sitting next to Stefan on the porch swing of his family’s cottage in the foothills of the Åreskutan Mountain in northern Sweden, the events of that night seemed a distant memory. It had been Stefan who’d insisted that they get away. The past two months of juggling his management consultancy business with running the estate, combined with the vertiginous learning curve Luna continued to ascend as the new director of Arborage House and Gardens, had put enormous strain on them both. And whereas the driven, ambitious entrepreneur she’d first met a year and a half ago might have thrived on this pressure, Stefan had other priorities now. Like chasing his fiancée through the forest.
