by Kait Jagger
She smiled involuntarily at this, sitting at her desk as the last of the sun’s rays crept across the carpet in the Marchioness’s office. Calculating that she had a good hour before darkness fell, she decided to go for a run to clear her head.
Chapter Thirty–Six
It had been weeks since Luna had managed to do a run in the light of day and she resolved to try and get as far as she could, running down the main drive to the gatehouse, where she raised her hand briefly to their head of security, still working away in his office. From there she continued along the perimeter path to the farm shop, heading back into the estate past the stables. She saw Helen standing in the manège there, intently watching a horse go through its paces, and carried along on the horse track leading into the woods.
It had gone cold again and the forest seemed particularly bleak in the twilight, with only the sound of her steady panting for company. Luna jumped over a knotted tree root in the path and thought of the time she’d come this way with Stefan, him placing his hand under her elbow. She heard a sudden rustling in the undergrowth next to the path and jumped in surprise as a fox burst out in front of her. The fox froze momentarily and she slowed to a stop – it looked a little mangy to her, like it had been a hard winter. After a few seconds, it sprinted off and she placed her hand on her chest, smiling at the fright it had given her.
She was just gearing up to start running again when she saw him, standing next to a tree not a hundred feet away. Paul Walker, dressed as ever in his wax jacket and flat cap, his rifle in his hands. Watching her. In all the drama of the past twenty-four hours, she’d completely forgotten about him; perhaps Florian had told him he could have his job back, or perhaps he had nowhere to go – another loose end the Marchioness would have to tidy up.
Walker began to walk towards her and Luna briefly considered standing her ground. It was him who was trespassing here. But he was carrying a gun, unsmiling, and as he drew closer the courage of her convictions deserted her. She thought of the mobile in her pocket, remembered there was no reception out here, and turned and started to run.
She sprinted down the hill roughly in the direction of the house, pulling her mobile from her pocket as she ran and confirming that she had no reception. Looking behind her, she saw no sign of Walker following, but she kept running till she could see the ornamental lake through the trees. She checked her phone again – still no bloody reception – and carried on to the lake where she finally got one bar on her mobile.
Ten minutes later she, the head of security and two of his men were standing in the formal garden, trying to decide what to do.
‘We should have made sure he got off the grounds yesterday,’ the head of security was saying. ‘It’s going to be hard to find him, now it’s dark. He knows these woods better than anyone and if he’s a mind to hide…’
‘So, you launch a search tomorrow morning?’ Luna asked.
‘Yeah,’ he said reluctantly. ‘But in the meantime we lock the entire house down, and no one goes outside unescorted.’
So Luna herself was escorted back to the house as the security team churned into action for the second time that day. Climbing the stairs to her room, she wondered if today could possibly get any more strange.
She’d just gotten out of the shower when Stefan rang from Heathrow.
‘You aren’t going to believe this,’ she said, briefly explaining the situation with Walker. ‘Honestly, I think I just panicked,’ she concluded. ‘I can’t imagine him hurting anyone, and I’m sure I’m fine to come down to the Dower House.’
‘Absolutely not. You’re to do exactly what security tells you until I get there,’ Stefan replied. He was all for her locking herself into her sitting room, which Luna argued was a wild overreaction. They compromised in the end; she would get dressed and go down to the staff kitchen to wait for him, where at least there’d be a few night staff around.
She was still smiling at his final words – something to the effect that for once he expected her to do as she was told – as she walked down her stairs to fetch her tablet from the office. It had just gone 8pm but felt later. From her office window she could see the headlights of estate vehicles moving up and down the drive in the distance, the security team hard at work.
Switching on her desk side lamp, Luna located her tablet and was rifling through her desk drawer for the charger when a sheet of paper next to her laptop lifted slightly and rustled across the surface of the desk. A cold breeze whispered along her neck and she looked towards the Marchioness’s office, where the door was slightly ajar. The breeze was coming from there.
She went to the door and pushed it forward, immediately seeing that the sash window next to the settee was open. Shaking her head, she walked over and knelt atop the settee, reaching towards the window frame. It was then that she perceived a presence behind her. Whirling around in the darkness, she could just make out the shape hunched behind the Marchioness’s desk.
‘Little ice princessss,’ came Florian’s voice.
Blood rushing in her ears, Luna stammered, ‘You—you’re not supposed to be here.’
‘Am I not,’ he replied. Not a question. ‘And who the fuck are you to tell me where I can and cannot go.’ Florian rose to his feet and from where she stood, even in the darkness, his eyes appeared wild, crazed. Luna looked at him, then at the open door. They moved simultaneously, her diving towards the door and him coming around the desk faster than she thought it was possible for him to move. He managed to get a hand on her, but she shook free and ran past her desk and out into the hall, despairing at the sight of her mobile sitting on her chair where she’d left it.
Trying desperately to think of the fastest route to someone else, anyone else, in the almost deserted house, Luna raced towards the main hallway, Florian close behind her. She had to slow to negotiate her way through the scaffolding that blocked the doorway and it was here that he caught her, grabbing her arm in a vice-like grip.
‘You’ve been in on Augusta’s little scheme sssince the beginning, haven’t you?’ he accused, pulling her so close to him that she could feel his spittle on her face.
‘No,’ she protested, twisting her arm away from him and backing into the hallway. She made another break towards the front doors, realising too late that they’d been locked by security. There was no escaping Florian this time. He came at her in a rush, lifting his hand and bringing it down against her face like a hammer. She stumbled slightly, ears ringing, and he struck her again – this time she tasted blood.
‘You fucking cunt,’ he raged, raising his hand again.
With nowhere else to go, Luna spun around and ran towards the staircase but only made it up four steps before his hands grabbed her ankles, bringing her down. She began to fight, scratching and kicking as he climbed on top of her and delivered another stinging blow to her temple. She felt his hand reaching between her legs and realised with horror that he intended to rape her. She quickly lifted a hand up to gouge him in the eye and he reared backwards, howling in agony. Luna too was screaming by this point, praying that someone would hear her. She tried to roll away from him, but he fell upon her again, holding her arms down and pressing his sweaty face against hers.
‘God, I’m going to enjoy this,’ he said, raising his hands to her neck. Terrified now, Luna tried to prise his hands away, but he only gripped her more tightly. She felt herself starting to black out…
And then suddenly Florian was off of her, being pulled back. Luna heard the sound of herself coughing and then of air wheezing into her throat. She looked up to see Paul Walker holding Florian by the lapels, shaking him.
‘Enough, Fox! Enough!’ he was shouting.
There was a commotion outside on the front portico and she heard Stefan shouting her name. Florian began mounting the stairs two at a time just as the front door opened and Stefan and the head of security ran in. Stefan immediately moved to grab Walker, but Luna croaked, ‘No, it wasn’t him. He saved me.’ She waved her hand at Florian’s
departing figure and Stefan and the head of security were off up the stairs like a shot.
Watching them go, Walker looked down at Luna and said, ‘We’re square now, you and me,’ and walked down into the hall, out onto the portico and into the darkness.
Stefan and the head of security tracked Florian down to the library, scene of the previous night’s debauchery. By the time the rest of the security detail showed up, Florian’s face had been reduced to a bloody pulp – the head of security had had to pull Stefan off him before he killed him.
Less than an hour later the Marchioness arrived at the house, Luna having insisted that she be called. She took one look at her shaking and battered PA and asked Stefan, ‘Where is Florian?’
‘He’s in the conference room, with two guards watching him. We need to call the police, Augusta.’ The head of security nodded, looking at Luna. Whose eyes were fixed on her boss.
‘Is that what you want, Luna?’ the Marchioness asked. ‘To involve the police?’
Luna was silent. Stefan crouched down to where she was sitting on the bottom step of the staircase, placing his hand on her knee. His eyes searched her face, following her line of sight to the Marchioness.
‘No,’ Luna said finally.
‘Luna,’ Stefan said, but Lady Wellstone was nodding in agreement.
‘Get that man out of this house and off this property,’ she said to the head of security, never taking her eyes off Luna. Then she sat down on the stairs next to her, taking her hand in both of hers. ‘Do you need a doctor?’ she asked gently, to which Luna shook her head. Stefan, meanwhile, stood at the base of the stairs looking between the two women uncomprehendingly.
After Florian had been removed, the Marchioness went to speak with the head of security, standing outside with him on the portico. Luna stood then, half in a daze, and began moving towards the portico herself, until Stefan put his arm around her.
‘Come away, Luna,’ he said, and led her up the main stairs and across the landing to her own small staircase. He took her to the bathroom and washed the blood away from her nose, taking her face in his hands and turning it this way and that.
‘Florian knows how to hit a woman,’ he observed, his voice low and dark. ‘I think there won’t be too much bruising.’
Luna nodded mutely.
‘Why did he attack you?’
‘I don’t know,’ she responded, honestly enough.
He led her back to her room and made her sit down on the sofa, going to fetch a quilt off her bed and wrapping it around her shoulders.
‘Stay here,’ he instructed, walking out of the room. He returned ten minutes later carrying a decanter of brandy and a glass. Placing the glass in her hand, he poured a generous measure and waited while Luna took a sip.
‘I have just asked Augusta the same thing I asked you and she claims not to know either,’ he said, sitting down next to her. ‘I want you to tell me what has been going on here, Luna.’
So she told him. She told him everything. About her secret meeting with the Marchioness at the hospital in early January, about her instructions to keep Florian happy at all costs. About the ensuing weeks of ever greater humiliation, culminating in their visit to Scotland. She told him how Florian had portrayed her to Viktor as his concubine and how she had allowed him to do so. She recounted the previous day and night’s events, including the orgy she’d witnessed in the library. And finally she told him about the Marchioness’s blackmail of Florian.
It got to the point where she could hardly stop talking, the words tumbling out of her mouth between gulps of brandy. And Stefan listened in silence, his lips tightening occasionally, a vein pulsing in his temple as Luna described Florian’s offer of continued employment under his tutelage.
‘Why didn’t you come to me with this?’ he asked eventually, fury etched across his face. ‘Why didn’t you ask for help?’
‘I—,’ she hesitated. ‘You weren’t here, and I guess I thought I could cope. I did cope, till the very end.’
‘The very end when that man physically attacked you,’ Stefan said, shaking his head.
‘Are you blaming me for that?’ she protested, voice rising querulously.
Stefan visibly struggled with his emotions. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Of course I’m not. I’m sorry, flicka. It’s not you I’m angry with.’
He helped her into bed soon after that, sitting beside her and stroking her hair.
‘I have to go and talk to Augusta,’ he said, bending down to kiss her forehead. ‘I will come back later. You sleep.’
She thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but she was wrong. Having at last unburdened herself to him, the weight Luna had been unconsciously bearing for the past month lifted from her shoulders. Perhaps he could make some sense of this mess, and right the Marchioness’s moral compass; perhaps Stefan would fix everything.
She woke only briefly when he climbed into bed with her two hours later, pulling her into his arms. ‘Flicka,’ she heard him say before she succumbed to sleep again.
She woke the next morning to find a note from Stefan on the pillow next to her reading simply, ‘Stay here. I will come for you.’ Remembering the emergency conference call with the board, Luna quickly got dressed in a tunic, woolly tights and boots.
As Stefan had predicted, her face, when she studied it in her bathroom mirror, bore little evidence of the previous night’s attack. A slight swelling in her right cheek was all she could see. And when she quickly pulled her hair up into a sloppy bun and applied a light coat of foundation, it was hardly visible at all. Like last night had never happened.
She practically ran down to the office, but found the conference room door already shut when she arrived. She could just hear the Marchioness’s voice and assumed the call had already started – no matter, Luna thought, she could go to her desk and quietly dial in from there. She didn’t want to miss this, the beginning of what she hoped might be a new dawn for Arborage.
When she entered the office, however, she saw that Lady Wellstone’s door was open and Sören was at her desk. He immediately stood and approached her, taking her by the shoulders.
‘Stefan has told me there were troubles here last night,’ he said gravely, touching her cheek in a way so reminiscent of his son’s that tears sprung to Luna’s eyes. ‘Are you alright?’
‘I’m fine, fine,’ Luna assured him, smiling for emphasis. But then she looked at him in confusion. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in there?’ she said, gesturing towards the conference room.
‘Hmm, yes,’ he replied with an answering smile, shrugging slightly. ‘But when it came to it, I decided it wasn’t appropriate for me to participate. So I’ve…taken a back seat, is that how you would say it? And left it to those two.’
Luna shook her head. ‘But, the announcement to the board – you’re not making it today?’ Sören’s brow furrowed and Luna stumbled on, ‘About you, I mean, becoming the heir presumptive. Congratulations, by the way…’ She trailed off as the expression on his face changed, comprehension dawning.
‘Luna, no, you don’t understand. I told Augusta months ago that I couldn’t take up the role in the event that Florian stepped down. She hasn’t told you this?’
Luna shook her head numbly, her brain unable to take in what he was saying.
Sören smiled down at her sombrely and continued, ‘I love Arborage, but I have Christian to think of. We have a good life in Stockholm. I can’t expose him to the kind of scrutiny our relationship would attract in the British press if I were to become Marquess…’
He kept talking. Luna could see that his lips were moving, but she couldn’t take it in. Months, he had said. The Marchioness had approached him months ago. And now…
Luna turned away from him and walked out of the office. She vaguely heard him calling out after her, but she kept walking all the way to the conference room door, which she opened and stepped inside. The Marchioness and Stefan were sitting at the table, the conference phone in front of them. Stefan
was talking.
‘…and for now absolutely nothing has changed. The Marquess is recovering in hospital and with luck will be home within the next few weeks. I will be assisting Augusta with the implementation phase of Project Mercury as planned, and work will continue as normal here at Arborage.’
The Marchioness cut in, ‘Of course, we are speaking with a few of the key managers, those we’re most keen to retain. Questions are already being asked about the accession plan and they need to know that the estate’s future is secure.’
Stefan looked over to Luna as Lady Wellstone was talking, his expression unreadable. Luna looked back at him, then towards the Marchioness.
A voice on the phone – St John Marsh, Luna thought – said, ‘Well, this is all good news. Arborage couldn’t be in safer hands, from my perspective. Obviously, on a personal level I hope the day is a long time coming, but if I may say so, congratulations, Stefan.’
And suddenly numerous voices on the conference call were chiming in, all adding their good wishes for the future Marquess. And Lady Wellstone was smiling, twisting her emerald ring on her finger absently, thanking the board for making time for the call.
Stefan looked at Luna again as the call was wrapping up. Stay there, his look commanded. Which finally roused Luna from her torpor, shaking her awake. Stay there and do as you’re told. Luna turned on her heel and left the room.
Driven only by her desire to get as far away from that room as possible, she walked blindly down the hall and into the main hallway, crossing into the east wing, through the formal sitting room, then the music room, and finally into the gallery. Empty, save for a cleaning man running a machine along the marble floor in preparation for tours to commence.
Luna looked around her at the portraits of all the Wellstones past and present, then kept walking, out into the Visitor Centre, past the screening room where a video of the Marquess and Marchioness welcoming guests to Arborage was already playing, out of the glass doors and onto the gravel path outside. Away from the house, into the freezing morning air.