Her Master's Servant (Lord and Master Book 2)

by Kait Jagger

  Was it like riding a bike, returning to Arborage after five months in the wilderness? Well, yes and no, yes and no. She was relieved by the fervent thankfulness with which Emma greeted her when they met in the staff cafeteria the following morning. And heartened, when she ran into Marta, ruler of Arborage’s catering realm, and the older woman immediately pulled her into a warm embrace.

  ‘It’s good you’re here, especially now,’ Marta said, rubbing a tear away from her eye. ‘She needs you.’

  Doubly heartened, when she went to see Roland later that morning to enlist the support of his crack Tours team in mobilising for the funeral. Her favourite manager had anticipated this need and assured her he would place his entire staff at her disposal. ‘Have you seen her?’ he asked. Luna shook her head and he made a noise in his throat, looking as distressed as she’d ever seen him. ‘She is horrible to behold, Luna.’

  Luna and Sören commandeered the conference room down the hall from the Marchioness’s office, meeting with the funeral director first thing that afternoon. As Luna’s to-do list stretched to a fifth page, she began to colour code urgent items, getting Sören to do a round of calls to board members while she phoned the local audio-visual company that had driven Emma to tears the previous evening.

  ‘I told the girl on the phone yesterday,’ said a disinterested-sounding woman who reluctantly gave her name as Sandra. ‘We won’t do anything without a purchase order from yourselves.’

  ‘The funeral is on Monday,’ Luna replied. ‘Your company has worked with the estate for the past five years and I expect a little latitude from you.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid I can’t help unless you—’

  ‘Put me through to your manager, then. Or better yet,’ Luna said, scanning the company’s About Us page on her laptop, ‘put me through to Mr Evans.’ The owner.

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘You can and you will,’ Luna said coolly, ‘or I can promise you, Sandra, that the next time you hear from me it will be an email to Mr Evans telling him that you’ve lost him Arborage’s future business.’

  As she was speaking, Sören, who was standing beside the window drinking coffee, started laughing quietly. When she rang off with Mr Evans five minutes later, having arranged for a screen and sound system to be installed in the field adjacent to the estate chapel so staff and other overflow guests could watch a live broadcast of the service, he observed, ‘I am sometimes a little frightened of you, Luna, I must confess.’

  But even as plans for the funeral began to coalesce, and despite the fact that she was glad to be amongst her Arborage friends again, Luna found herself averting her gaze from the Marchioness’s office. She knew from Roland that Lady Wellstone had gone through a few temps after she’d left, before the Marquess’s illness subsumed all thoughts of work. And now there was no one in Luna’s former role, and her desk and the Marchioness’s office were deserted.

  She felt Lady Wellstone’s presence, however. She who had sworn to herself that this woman, once the bedrock of her entire world, was nothing to her now. She felt her as surely as she smelled the mixture of roses and beeswax that pervaded Arborage House, or heard the creaks and knocks the house made each evening as it wound down for the night.

  She didn’t need Stefan to tell her that her Ladyship was beside herself with grief; unable to sleep, eat, or take even a cursory part in planning for the funeral. Or that the Marchioness was alone in her desolation, her daughters having failed utterly to rise to the occasion. Though, when he could be persuaded to talk as she lay holding him each night in their hotel room, Stefan painted a vivid picture of Isabelle, prostrate on a sofa in the family sitting room, sobbing disconsolately. And of Helen, gone completely AWOL, retreating to her stables and her beloved horses.

  ‘Little Megan and Tilly have done more to comfort their grandmother than Isabelle and Helen have,’ he said bitterly.

  Luna told herself this made her angry because of Stefan, and the burden it placed on him. She told herself that she was moving heaven and earth to prepare for the funeral for his sake, and for Sören’s. She told herself this, and she focused on the job at hand, only resorting to a brief emotional appeal during the talk she gave on Sunday night to the twenty-five Tours staff Roland had selected to serve as stewards at the funeral.

  ‘Remember who you are doing this for,’ she said to the assembled faces, young and old, gathered around her in the portrait gallery. ‘Our job is to make tomorrow easier for her Ladyship; to take a burden off her shoulders. I know you won’t let her down.’

  Despite her best intentions to stay awake for Stefan, who was meeting with Reverend Thatcher at the estate chapel that evening, Luna nodded off just after midnight. She woke sometime later to find him lying on his back beside her, still fully clothed, and reached out her hand to his.

  ‘You’re cold!’ she said, coming fully awake.

  ‘That chapel is freezing,’ he replied, shivering slightly. Luna immediately climbed on top of him, covering his body with hers. Reaching for his hands, she kissed them and held them to her cheeks, clasping her palms over them.

  ‘Do you think,’ he whispered after a while, ‘that he was waiting to get home to die?’

  Luna’s life experiences had rendered her averse to romanticising the mechanics of death. But she knew her truths were too harsh for him, so she said quietly, ‘I think it had to have been a great comfort to him, to have been in his own bed, with Augusta beside him. No one can ask for a better death than that.’

  She felt him nod against her, and again pressed his palm to her lips.

  *

  More than fifteen hundred people attended the Marquess’s funeral the following morning, the funeral cortège and mourners flowing like a black river from the house down the one-mile drive to the gatehouse, and briefly along the B road adjoining the estate, which police had closed to traffic.

  The Marquess’s mourners included one former prime minister, twelve sitting members of the House of Lords, six FTSE 500 chief executives, luminaries from Hollywood to Bollywood, and a veritable United Nations of guests representing no less than twenty-five countries. Local folks also turned out in force, with what appeared to be the entire population of Deersley lining the road as it reached the turn off for the chapel.

  There was spectacle aplenty in the funeral cortège, with twenty of the Marquess’s former comrades from his old regiment, the Household Cavalry, lining the approach to the chapel on horseback. A contingent from Lord Wellstone’s adopted home in Venice was also in attendance, including a large group of gondoliers dressed in traditional garb and several well-kept women of a certain age, former mistresses of his Lordship’s, Luna was sure.

  Luna chose to join the five hundred staff in the procession, falling into step with Ashley Eccles from the stables, of all people. During the half-hour walk from the house to the chapel, she took the opportunity to quietly ask him about the imminent closure of the equestrian centre, where Stefan had initiated the redundancy process the previous week.

  ‘It’s not a surprise, really,’ the young man said. ‘But it’s hard. I’ve only just got on the payroll and now…’ He looked so crestfallen that she gave him her mobile number and told him to phone her later; what was the point of her connections in the house if she couldn’t give the poor lad a leg up for any redeployment opportunities?

  She caught only brief sight of the Marchioness, flanked by her two daughters at the head of the cortège, and was relieved to see that Lady Wellstone had pulled herself back from the brink of collapse, carrying herself with the same grave self-possession Luna remembered from her first encounter with her, shortly after the death of her son James. Walking behind them were various members of the extended Wellstone family, including Sören and Stefan, holding hands with Megan and Tilly. Luna registered with slight regret that Stefan had been to the barber that morning and was now back to his clean-cut, mature incarnation.

  Shunted to the back of the family party, the Marquess’s only brot
her, Florian Wellstone, walked alone. Luna forced herself to look at him, rather than surrender to her almost overwhelming desire to turn away. He had never been as debonair as his elder brother, but to her eyes he appeared unusually unkempt, like a mangy fox. His scalp was an angry shade of red under its thinning patch of russet hair, as though he’d been spending too much time out in the sun, and his face was shining with sweat above his morning suit.

  John Wellstone, 16th Marquess of Lionsbridge, was interred in the family’s section of the church’s graveyard at just before noon – Sören, Stefan, son-in-law Mark and three Arborage trustees who were also long-time friends of the Marquess served as pallbearers. There was speculation, Luna knew, about Florian’s exclusion from this number, and rumblings about his recent absence from the house, though as far as she could tell no firm knowledge about the events surrounding his abdication.

  At the conclusion of the service, mourners began to disperse and the immediate family returned to the chapel to view the book of condolence. Luna remained stationed outside the church until three estate Range Rovers arrived to take the family back to the house. Then and only then did she make her way inside in search of Sören.

  She had hoped to avoid this, she who hadn’t entered a house of God since her father’s funeral. Her hands were sweating and her breathing shallow as she struggled with the heavy wooden door at the entrance. Once inside, eyes straining to adjust to the darkened interior of the vestibule, Luna briefly clasped her hands to her upper arms. The chapel remained chilly, clammy almost, despite the fact that just a few short moments ago it had been full to capacity. It also reeked of Lilium longiflorum, a smell Luna associated exclusively with her parents’ funerals and which made her feel faint. She wanted to get out of that church, badly.

  Hovering just outside the arched stone doorway at the rear of the nave, she saw Sören standing next to Augusta over the book of condolence, arm around her shoulders, and Stefan talking to Reverend Thatcher near the pulpit. Isabelle and Helen were standing near the baptismal font… no, Luna decided, she couldn’t approach them.

  ‘Misss Gregory,’ came a familiar voice next to her ear. Luna jumped, heart pounding, and turned to find Florian standing behind her, eyes glittering furtively in the gloom of the vestibule. ‘I hoped I’d sssee you here.’

  She made to move past him but he blocked her path, his rapt gaze travelling from her face down to the trickle of sweat glistening in the V of her black silk blouse. ‘Augusta’s little shadow,’ he purred, a ghastly facsimile of a smile on his lips. The sickly sweet odour of his cologne combined with that of the lilies to overpowering effect. Luna’s lungs seemed incapable of filling; spots were beginning to float in front of her eyes.

  There came a rush from behind her and suddenly Stefan was ramming Florian against the church door, his forearm under Florian’s neck, squeezing against his windpipe.

  ‘You bastard,’ he spat. ‘You touch her again and I’ll—’

  ‘Stefan,’ Luna interjected weakly, reaching her hand out to him. ‘Not here.’ The vestibule began to tilt around her and Stefan immediately abandoned Florian, grabbing her just before she fell. She heard the sound of Florian wheezing as her head dropped briefly against Stefan’s shoulder. ‘I’m okay, I’m okay,’ she gasped, trying to catch her breath.

  ‘What is she doing here?’ Isabelle cried from the archway into the church. Helen appeared behind her and Florian began to stagger toward his nieces.

  ‘After what she’s done to Mummy. And Uncle Florian,’ Isabelle raged, her beautiful face distorted with fury. ‘She has no business being here.’ Helen put a hand on her shoulder, but Isabelle shook it off angrily, moving toward Luna and Stefan as if to physically confront them. At that moment, Sören came hurrying into the vestibule, quickly assessing the situation and grasping Florian by the shoulder.

  For the next few seconds, everything slowed down inside Luna’s brain. She heard the sound of her own breathing, amplified to a roaring, ragged rasp. She felt Stefan pulling her close, drawing her from Isabelle’s path. She shut her eyes, willing herself back from the brink of unconsciousness, and when she opened them they were drawn not to Isabelle, nor Helen, nor even to Florian, but into the nave, to the woman standing alone there, dressed in black.

  Then came the sound of Stefan’s voice, strong and clear. ‘Luna has every business being here.’ Beat. ‘She is my future wife. My fiancée.’

  Isabelle stopped dead in her tracks – hers and almost every other jaw in the vestibule dropping open. Helen made a strangled noise, staring with open astonishment at Stefan. Who, in the brief, stunned silence that ensued, negated the possibility of further argument, tightening his arm around Luna and sweeping her out of the chapel. She scarcely felt her legs under her as he led her down a mossy path that led to a small mausoleum in the churchyard.

  Pressing her up against the wall of the interior chamber, he angled his head down toward hers, chafing her shoulders. ‘Okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ Luna managed, gulping in air. ‘I just couldn’t breathe in there.’

  They stood without speaking for a moment, till the sound of her breathing became less laboured. At length, Stefan looked toward the chapel, then back to her. ‘What I said in the church… I had to shut Isabelle up.’

  ‘Well,’ she replied shakily, ‘you certainly did that.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking clearly when I said it.’

  ‘So,’ Luna hesitated, ‘you’re taking it back?’

  ‘Yes.’ A look of sudden panic, as he realised what he’d just said. ‘No!’ Then one of abject perplexity. ‘You… would you?’

  Folding her arms under her breasts, Luna leant back against a wall of dead Wellstones and took another deep breath. ‘Well,’ she began contemplatively, ‘I’d have said we’re pretty well suited for each other, wouldn’t you? I mean, obviously, if you don’t feel you’re ready…’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ he protested.

  ‘To be honest, I was thinking about asking you,’ Luna continued, pursing her lips to hide the smile forming there.

  Stefan seized her shoulders. ‘You’re saying you’d marry me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Immediately his arms were around her again, lifting her off the marble floor of the mausoleum. ‘You’ll marry me, Luna?’ he repeated. She nodded and he spun her briefly around in a circle before remembering that this was the girl who’d almost fainted a few minutes earlier. Placing her gently back on the floor, he lowered his mouth to hers.

  After some seconds, he pulled away and said vehemently, ‘Please don’t take that job in Toulouse.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘I know I have no right to ask it of you and if it’s really what you want… but I’m tired of being apart from you, Luna. I sleep better when you’re with me and—’

  ‘Okay.’

  He did a quick double take, like he wasn’t sure what he was hearing.

  ‘I wasn’t even sure I was interested in it,’ she shrugged. ‘I’ll tell the headhunter to withdraw my name.’

  ‘You will?’

  Luna cocked her head at him as if to say, really, you can be dense sometimes.

  He pulled her back into his arms, murmuring, ‘Strange, with you, how things that should be easy are sometimes hard, and things that seem hard…’

  Sören appeared in the entrance to the shrine. ‘The cars are leaving for the house,’ he said to Stefan, before turning his gaze innocently skyward and stepping a few paces away from them.

  ‘You go,’ Luna said to Stefan. ‘I’ll walk back.’

  ‘Right,’ Stefan said, bending down to kiss her quickly. ‘But don’t go anywhere, yes? I’ll phone you later.’ He kissed her again before going to join his father. Whereupon, Luna leant back against the wall of dead Wellstones and put her hand to her chest. Well, this was a turn up for the books.

  Looking back on that day, she found she couldn’t remember the walk back to the house. Maybe she floated there, or was carried on the wings of the angels poised over the
entrance to the shrine.

  She was… engaged. Engaged to Stefan Lundgren, the love of her life. Everything else that had occurred in that chapel, from Florian’s approach, to Isabelle’s attempt to confront her, to the sad current of understanding that passed between the Marchioness and herself during the split second their eyes met across the church – all of that she’d have believed had she been told in advance that it would happen.

  But Stefan proposing to her? Never. Never in a million years.

  And, okay, it hadn’t been an actual proposal; more like a shield he’d thrown up to protect her. A moment of pure, unadulterated, lovably Stefan chivalry. It didn’t matter. She had not the slightest doubt in his intent.

  After she got back to the house, she joined Caitlin in her office for a post-funeral debrief, relieved to discover that news of the confrontation in the chapel had yet to go further. She was glad, for the present, to hug this secret to herself. Stefan sent her periodic, leg-jellying texts throughout the afternoon.

  I love you, Miss Gregory.

  All mine now, min arg flicka.

  And that evening, as she sat in the staff kitchen chatting with Marta about possible job opportunities for Ashley Eccles, he rang her.

  ‘Come and meet me in the Rose Temple.’

  Approaching along a gravel path from the house, Luna climbed the steps of the miniature temple to where Stefan stood waiting for her, leaning against one of its Corinthian columns. Hard to credit how completely different the place looked now, at the height of summer, than it had the last time she’d stood there with him in January. The small fountain burbling away inside the temple had been turned off then, and the surrounding garden, now full of Arborage roses, had been covered in snow.

  ‘This place makes me a little sad,’ Luna admitted as she got to the top of the steps.

  ‘Me, too,’ Stefan nodded. ‘That’s why I want to do this here.’ He went down on his knees in front of her. ‘To make it a happy place again.’