by Jagger, Kait
She would miss Mika when he decamped for good next month. His final assignment for her, consulting on the Robert and Margery exhibit to be housed in the main house pending completion of the Dower House renovations, would conclude after the ribbon cutting in February. And then she and Stefan would be alone again here in the massive west wing.
‘Can we see Margery’s jewels?’ Tilly was asking.
‘Not yet,’ Luna said. ‘They’re away being specially cleaned and polished.’ She leaned towards the girls and confided, ‘I think your grandmother was very excited to discover that her ring is part of a set.’ Or relieved, more like, to finally be rid of a family heirloom she’d always hated, a massive emerald and gold ring that ill-suited the Marchioness’s delicate hand. Take it with my blessing, Lady Wellstone had written in a brief note to Luna shortly after a matching emerald necklace was discovered in the casket, along with other love tokens.
‘I like your ring better,’ Tilly said, gazing admiringly at the blue diamond on Luna’s left hand. Smiling, Luna twisted it off and slid it onto the little girl’s index finger, the folly of this impulsive gesture hitting home seconds later when Tilly added, ‘I can’t wait for your wedding. Have you decided yet when it will be?’
An amused choking sound emanated from Mika’s end of the table and Luna cast him a hard look. Gods preserve her from inquisitive children! Stefan, meanwhile, turned to her and enquired innocently, ‘Yes, Luna. When will our wedding be? I’d like to know too.’
‘Only Mum said—’ Megan elbowed Tilly sharply in the ribs and Tilly frowned at her older sister. ‘I was only going to say that—’
‘Shut up, Tilly!’ Megan hissed.
‘—Mum says you can’t wait to be Marchioness.’
The room became pin-droppingly quiet for several seconds, Megan glaring at Tilly and Luna stiffening in dismay. Eventually, Stefan broke the silence, enquiring coolly, ‘Does she really?’ Too late, Tilly appeared to realise that she’d misspoken. She removed the ring from her finger and meekly handed it back to Luna, who cast about desperately for something to say, something to take the ominous look off Stefan’s face and salvage this meal.
‘I have photos.’ As one the table turned to look at Mika, who was holding up his mobile phone. ‘Pictures of the casket and jewels being cleaned,’ he explained. ‘Would you like to see them?’
Luna stood quickly. ‘Wonderful,’ she said, shooting Mika a grateful look. ‘I’ll bring dessert to the sitting room, shall I? We can look at the pictures there.’
To his credit, Stefan wasn’t one to allow his grudge against their mother to poison his interactions with Megan and Tilly, so when Mika cried off a subsequent Frozen screening in favour of clubbing in London, Stefan dutifully settled in on the sofa between the girls, giving every impression of being fascinated by the adventures of Elsa and Anna. And when they begged to be allowed to sleep on the floor of Luna’s attic sitting room rather than in their mother and Aunt Isabelle’s rooms, he’d dragged up mattresses and made a fire, chatting with them all the while.
‘They worship you,’ Luna whispered to him later in bed as the girls lay tittering to each other on the floor outside.
‘Do you worship me, Miss Gregory?’ he whispered back soulfully.
‘I do.’ She rubbed her nose against his. ‘Yes I do.’
Stefan and the girls were hanging the bird feeder for Luna’s wrens when their mother arrived to collect them the following morning. Luna endured a prickly silence from Helen as the two of them walked around to the side of the house, and a further prickly silence between Helen and Stefan, who climbed down from the ladder propped against the house’s exterior wall to greet his second cousin cordially but distantly.
Had she and Helen been friends, Luna would have felt sorry for her then, watching her daughters interacting easily with Stefan, Megan holding his hand on the walk back to the portico, Tilly skipping next to them, waxing poetic about how much fun she’d had and how she’d been invited to come again anytime and could she, could she please, Mum?
She’d have felt sorrier still, when Helen urged the girls to run and change into their riding clothes and Tilly bridled, poised on the brink of total rebellion. Luna sensed that the littlest Waverley girl had fallen out of love with all things equine, and that it was a source of growing friction between her and her mother. Had Helen been her friend, Luna might have gently interceded before Helen, stretched to breaking point, snapped at Tilly to do as she was told, her face flushing as her daughter stomped off into the house.
And last, had they been friends, Luna might most of all have sympathised with Helen’s plight as a woman. England’s anachronistic laws of primogeniture had deprived her of the right to inherit Arborage, and the fact that this iniquity had resulted in the estate ending up in better, more secure hands didn’t make Helen’s situation any less unfair.
Even though they were not friends, Luna could understand Helen’s pain, walking along the gravel path as Stefan strode ahead of them looking every inch the lord and master. She felt Helen’s pain. And it was this that shaped her next words.
‘I’ve actually been wanting to speak with you… to ask for your help.’
*
Three days later, Luna emerged from the bedroom of Stefan’s Southwark apartment and walked into the living room, where he was working on his laptop. Gesturing to her knee-length floral dress, she enquired, ‘What do you think?’
Stefan’s eyes flitted toward her. ‘Very pretty,’ he said absently, continuing to type.
‘You don’t think it’s too girly?’ she said, inserting a pearl earring into her lobe and glancing out of the floor-to-ceiling windows, where a chill January fog floated above the Thames. Stefan didn’t reply, instead frowning distractedly at his laptop screen until Luna made an exasperated noise.
That got his attention. He closed his screen and set the laptop aside. ‘Not like you to be this anxious about your appearance,’ he said mildly.
‘I want…’ she trailed off, studying her stockinged feet on the limewashed floor. ‘I want to look nice. For Rafe.’
He stood, himself looking immaculate in his navy suit, smelling even better as he walked calmly toward her and cupped her cheek in his palm. ‘I think I am beginning to be slightly jealous of Rafe.’ His lips quirked and Luna inclined into his hand.
‘Not like you to be jealous of a man old enough to be your father,’ she murmured with a shy smile, and turned to go find her heels.
An hour later they emerged from a lift onto the 68th floor of the Shard, London’s newest and most iconic skyscraper. Even with fog lingering outside, the view from this high up was majestic, London’s cityscape stretching out below them like a tapestry made of glass and brick, marble and steel.
Their first official commitment of the new year was, ironically, nothing to do with Arborage. Her late father’s friend, Rafe Davies, had asked Luna to act as patron for a charity he’d established in Lukas Gregory’s name, a music scholarship programme for disadvantaged children. The charity’s launch event was billed as a picnic, for which the Shard’s viewing gallery had been exquisitely kitted out. The otherwise stark platform had been temporarily transformed into a garden in the sky, where artful floral displays and miniature palm trees shaded tables covered in gingham tablecloths and laden with Fortnum & Mason hampers, pitchers of Pimms and antique tea urns.
‘This is a celebration party, really,’ Rafe had explained to Luna on the phone earlier that week. ‘We’ve met our fundraising target already, so this is a chance to thank our biggest donors for their generosity. And for you to meet them, of course.’
Truth be told, Luna felt entirely unprepared for her first foray into philanthropy. A filmmaker of some repute, Rafe appeared to have plumbed his extensive contacts list for every A-list musician and celebrity in Britain, in addition to a smattering of politicians, Chelsea wives and other beautiful people. Exactly
the sort of milieu Luna felt least comfortable in, and it was all she could do to stop herself from reaching for Stefan’s hand like a nervous child when they stopped at the entrance to be photographed for an entertainment website.
There was music playing above the hum of voices in the viewing platform; a recording of her father singing ‘No Good’, her favourite song from his first and only album. Rafe, who was standing near the bar chatting with a supermodel and her actor boyfriend, immediately came bounding over when he spotted Luna, his dark mop of curly hair bobbing through the crowd.
‘You’re here!’ he exclaimed, hugging Luna tightly. He reached out to clasp Stefan on the arm, gesturing around the platform. ‘What do you think, eh?’
‘Very impressive.’ Stefan retrieved an envelope from his suit jacket. ‘Mika couldn’t make it, but he sent money.’
‘Well, that’s what counts, old chap,’ Rafe chuckled. ‘Just excuse me for a moment while I borrow your fiancée.’
A whirlwind. That’s what Rafe was, Luna thought to herself as he led her around the room, introducing her to his friends – for that is what they were, all these famous people prepared to give him money. Circulating beside him, trying to absorb some of his natural ebullience, she did her best to be charming, talking about the charity’s pilot programmes in Manchester and Glasgow and responding appropriately to a relentless outpouring of reminiscences about her father from those who had known him.
She had steeled herself for this, of course she had. But it was more difficult than she’d anticipated, listening to strangers talk about Lukas Gregory as if they owned a piece of him, as if their memories were gifts for his daughter to treasure. Worst of all was a forty-something indie singer who cornered her next to a display of white lilies to describe where he’d been when he heard the news of Lukas’s death, how his world had stopped, how he and all his mates had lit candles that night in front of the Cat, the club in Hackney where Lukas often performed.
‘Never cried like that before or since,’ he said, staring at her intensely, the stench of lilies all around them.
Luna made her excuses and went to get a cup of tea. And when she looked down to see her bone-china cup chattering against its saucer, she made her way up the stairs to the very top floor that was accessible to the public. Semi-exposed to the elements, the air up here was chilly, the wooden platform damp with rain. Luna stood in a quiet corner next to a massive triangular sheet of plate glass, sipping her tea, gazing out at the fog billowing and thickening below.
Soon others filtered up from below, a party atmosphere beginning to develop despite the inclement weather. She watched Stefan for a while, working the crowd with his usual consummate ease, obligingly posing for photos with partygoers who remembered him from his TV days and others eager to be seen with the new Marquess of Lionsbridge.
‘I’m sorry.’
Luna turned and met Rafe’s slightly downturned brown eyes.
‘Sorry for what?’ she said, attempting a bright smile.
‘I didn’t think,’ he said heavily. ‘I wanted to do this thing, this good thing. I wanted to honour Lukas’s memory. And I didn’t think what it would be like for you, being here.’
‘Rafe…’ Chagrined to learn that she’d allowed her discomfort to show, Luna slipped her hand onto his. ‘You are doing a good thing. A very good thing, and I’m proud to be associated with it. Please don’t think otherwise.’
He shook his head mournfully. ‘I let you down then too. I watched you at his funeral, and I could see how things were for you. But me and every other so-called friend of his walked out of that church and told ourselves we’d paid our respects, we’d done our duty by you.’
Luna’s chest contracted. ‘I wasn’t your responsibility,’ she protested, genuinely appalled by his outpouring of remorse. ‘I never, ever expected you to help me.’
‘I should have expected it of myself,’ he said. ‘You were so small…’
She cut him off briskly. ‘And now I’m big. I’m all grown up, and I’m happy. Do I not seem happy to you?’
He studied her for a moment, then laughed sheepishly. ‘You do.’
‘Well,’ Luna smiled. ‘There you are.’ She pointedly removed her arm from his and gave him a little shooing gesture. ‘Go dazzle your guests, Mr Davies.’
The highlight of the party was a performance on the main platform by a high-school brass band from Brixton, which performed a rather charming cover of one of her father’s hits. Always more relaxed with children than adults, Luna stopped to chat with them afterward. She was snapping a selfie with the trombonists when a barely perceptible darkness seeped into the periphery of the room. The fog, she thought at first, but then she saw a large man dressed in black near the bar. And another near the stairwell, with an earpiece curled around his ear. And another, with pallid skin and acne scars, standing a scant fifteen feet away from her.
Luna… knew these men.
She searched the crowd anxiously for Stefan, catching a glimpse of his head and shoulders next to the window overlooking Tower Bridge. Standing beside him was Viktor Putinov, his shaved skull gleaming fluorescently. She moved in their direction and her black, sallow-faced shadows moved with her, converging towards her as she made her way across the room.
Initially, neither Stefan nor Viktor acknowledged her approach. Outwardly pleasant, Viktor was holding forth, gesturing expansively at the view while Stefan listened to him, an impassive expression on his face. But coming to stand at his side, Luna could practically feel the waves of tension rippling through her fiancé’s body. Though he didn’t spare her a glance, his hand moved possessively to her waist. The Russian’s heavy-lidded, dead eyes followed this movement, then travelled slowly up the length of her body, lingering just long enough on her breasts to be insulting.
‘Ah, Luna,’ he said, grasping her hand before she could stop him, trapping it in his blunt fingers, raising it to his lips.
‘Why are you here?’ she demanded, knowing the answer to her question even as she asked it. She tried to remove her hand from his, but he gripped it more firmly, his leaden gaze swinging toward Stefan.
‘She likes, this one,’ Putinov rumbled mockingly, ‘to tell me where I can and cannot be.’
‘What she likes,’ Stefan replied, his voice lethally neutral, ‘what she says, what she does… these things are of no concern to you.’ Viktor made a little sound, contemptuous, provoking. Stefan stared back at him. And the Russian’s pale thugs looked to their master, awaiting a signal from him.
With an eventual shrug, Putinov released Luna’s hand, but as he did so he gave her a sly, furtive stroke with his middle finger along the underside of her palm; a message from him to her, her alone. Will you tell him? that finger said. Will you tell him I trespassed on his private preserve?
And then Rafe was upon them, eager to introduce them to his new Russian friend, his most generous donor, and to pose for photos with Viktor and Luna. As flash bulbs exploded around them, Luna forced herself to smile, widening her eyes infinitesimally at Stefan, mutely imploring him to remain calm.
She did not resist when he came to her moments later, smiling his most dangerous smile, and said it was time to leave.
Luna drove home to Arborage as he sat next to her in the Land Rover’s passenger seat. He made three calls, all in Swedish, speaking so swiftly and quietly that she understood none of it. When he’d finished the last call, he tucked his phone in his jacket and stared silently out of the window.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I had to… I couldn’t spoil today for Rafe.’
‘You have nothing to apologise for,’ Stefan said, though there was something in the coolness of his tone that made her wonder if he was being honest, if he really understood why she felt compelled to play nice with his enemy. A longer silence, then, ‘I had another resignation from the board of trustees this morning. Dame Judith.’
Lu
na’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You were nervous enough about Rafe’s party. You didn’t need another worry.’
‘But I—’
‘It’s in hand,’ he said curtly. ‘Caitlin is dealing with the press announcement. I will lead the search for Judith and St John’s replacements.’
‘And you don’t see the need to consult with me on this.’
‘I do not,’ he replied, ‘in the same way that I don’t expect you to consult with me on the minutiae of running Arborage House.’ She turned to scowl at him, then returned her attention to the road, lips pursed shut. And suddenly, there on the M4, the scales began to fall away from her eyes.
‘These resignations,’ she said. ‘It’s him, isn’t it.’
Stefan exhaled heavily. ‘The Russian has endowed a chair in Cambridge’s History Department. A professorship for St John – his lifelong dream, he tells me. I fully expect to learn that Judith has experienced a similar windfall. He is persistent, this man. I don’t understand why he prizes Arborage so much.’
‘He doesn’t like to be told no,’ Luna said. ‘It drives him, I think.’
‘And he has money to burn, changing a no to a yes,’ Stefan concurred. ‘He is also behind the consortium that outbid us for the plot of land adjacent to the estate.’
Luna glanced at him in surprise. ‘How long have you known this? Because I would argue that it directly impacts on the “minutiae” of my role. And David’s.’ Her eyes flicked to Stefan again, an ominous realisation dawning. ‘Oh no. Please don’t tell me that you’ve discussed it with David and not me. Please don’t tell me that.’
