by Jagger, Kait
*
The snow began to fall in the mid-afternoon, just flurries at first, but becoming heavier as night fell. Fortunately, most of the board members had already arrived at Arborage for dinner with the Marquess and Marchioness in their private quarters.
Luna and the Marchioness left the office together that evening, walking out to the main hallway just as Sören and Stefan entered from the portico, shaking the snow off their coats, Sören removing a wide-brimmed black felt hat. Stefan’s hair was, quite fetchingly to Luna’s eyes, full of snow.
‘Augusta! And Luna!’ Sören cried, taking the Marchioness’s hand and kissing it, before moving to place an arm around Luna’s shoulders. ‘You are a sight for sore eyes after the madness I have witnessed on the road from Heathrow. Such driving, eh, Stefan?’
Stefan nodded vigorously, shaking a combination of snow and water onto the floor. ‘A little bit of snow…’ he began.
‘And the English completely lose their wits!’ Sören concluded. And father and son’s expressions were so similar, their faces so united in horror, that Luna had to draw a knuckle to her mouth and look away to keep from laughing. Unfortunately, she caught Lady Wellstone’s eye in the process and saw that she was similarly affected. And that was all it took; the two women burst out laughing.
Sören looked between them in confusion. ‘What is funny?’ And then to Stefan, ‘What is funny?’
The four of them walked up the stairs together, Luna making her excuses when they reached the landing, from whence she walked into the darkened east wing.
‘We’re using the state dining room for the meeting tomorrow,’ she heard Lady Wellstone explain. ‘Luna’s just checking to make sure everything’s in order…’
They’d decided to use the state dining room because the conference room was slightly cramped for a full board meeting, and as the east wing was now closed for Christmas, using the dining room wouldn’t impact on the tour.
It wasn’t one of Luna’s favourite rooms, its oak panelling and heavy gold-inlaid furniture making it seem dark, oppressive somehow. As she entered from the hallway, however, she was pleased to see that it was currently bustling with activity, with staff dusting wall fittings, cleaning the fireplace and fireback, and laying out leather table protectors on the massive oval table in the centre of the room. Marta was waiting for her, a lunch menu in hand, and Luna sat with her for a few minutes on one of the velvet-upholstered love seats arranged against the wall.
Later, after the catering staff had left, Luna sat staring up at the ceiling, where baroque artist James Thornhill had depicted the Fall of Bellerophon. It was one of many gems in Arborage’s crown, much treasured by art historians and restored a year ago at great expense. Luna suspected the Marchioness had chosen this room for tomorrow’s meeting for that very reason, to visibly demonstrate the fruits of her labours. And, by extension, the board’s wisdom in supporting those labours.
Thornhill had done a masterful job of depicting the terror on Bellerophon’s face as he fell through the sky; Bellerophon, conqueror of the Minotaur, tamer of Pegasus the winged horse, who had flown to Mount Olympus daring to believe himself the equal of the gods. Many of whom were also painted on the ceiling, Zeus most prominently, his face stern and severe as he punished the Greek hero for his sin of hubris.
Luna stood and turned out the lights in the room, then went to the windows and looked out onto the garden below, where snow was still falling, blanketing the lawn.
She heard the main door to the dining room open and close, but didn’t turn away from the window. She hoped it was not someone from the catering staff, come to collect some forgotten item, or a member of the security team, come to hurry her along. She thought it was not. She thought it was…ah, a hand around her waist. Luna smiled and leant back against the tall, lean body behind her.
‘What are you doing here in the dark, flicka?’
‘Looking at the snow,’ she replied, feeling his chest behind her rumble.
‘You English and snow…’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she laughed, ‘I’m not going to try and drive in it,’ holding up her hands and wiggling her fingers, like, woo, scary! In response, Stefan spun her around and lifted her against him, up onto her tiptoes.
‘Miss Gregory,’ he murmured in her ear.
By all rights, perhaps things should have been weird between them after that night at the Dower House, but Luna had found that they were not. Stefan had been at pains since then to demonstrate that her revelations regarding her parents’ deaths had had no impact on his feelings for her, and Luna herself had been relieved to shut that drawer in her apothecary chest for the time being.
‘And you?’ she asked. ‘I thought you and your father were here for dinner.’ She lifted her hand to his nape and added, ‘You’ve had your hair cut,’ nibbling his ear.
‘My father is here for dinner. I was only invited for drinks,’ he said, skimming his hands along her ribs. ‘Apparently I am not ready for the adult table yet,’ he added drily.
‘Was Florian there?’ she asked.
‘Mmm,’ Stefan mumbled into her neck. When she said nothing more, Stefan drew back and asked, ‘What?’
So she told him about her encounter with his cousin the previous week, editing out some of the creepiness that had suffused it; she didn’t want Stefan thinking that Florian had thrown anything at her that she couldn’t handle. No, she told him for the same reason she’d mentioned it to the Marchioness, as a warning that Fox might make trouble at the board meeting.
‘That’s more a matter for Augusta to deal with,’ Stefan shrugged, and Luna felt briefly stung, silly for bringing it up. Realising the impact his words had had on her, he clarified, ‘I’m not even attending the meeting, flicka – my work is done for now and it’s really in the board’s hands. But Florian doesn’t have the power to stop these plans going forward—’
‘He doesn’t have the power now, you mean.’
‘—and once they do they will be very hard to unravel. Please don’t worry about this, Luna. I am confident the board will do the right thing, and I absolutely believe Arborage’s future is secure.’
Privately, Luna thought that he underestimated Florian, that years of largely cordial family relations across the North Sea had blinded Stefan to his cousin’s essential malice, and the dark joy she knew was leaping in his breast at the prospect of having all of Arborage at his feet. But there was no way to say this without sounding paranoid, or worse, giving the impression she thought Stefan was naïve, so she kept her views to herself.
Chapter Thirty–Two
‘…we have a right to make ourselves heard,’ Helen was shouting in the hallway outside the state dining room. The board meeting was due to start in five minutes, and the Marchioness’s two daughters had chosen this moment to stage a protest.
Helen was dressed in business attire, a jacket, matching skirt and ruffled blouse, while Isabelle had opted for a silvery wrap dress. Both were holding papers – Luna could see that Helen had a copy of the agenda for today’s meeting, and it didn’t take too much guesswork to know who would have given her that.
Luna swiftly moved to shut the dining room’s heavy oak doors, praying they would stop the noise from travelling to where the board members sat, waiting on the arrival of the Marquess and Marchioness.
The Marchioness placed a placating hand on Helen’s shoulder. ‘Girls, we’ve been through this with you.’
‘Your mother and I are going to make things right for you two,’ the Marquess added.
Helen shrugged her mother’s arm away furiously. ‘You’re just trying to shut us up.’ She jabbed a finger in the direction of the door Luna had just closed. ‘They deserve to know the reality of what Stefan is planning. How he’s going to change Arborage from a country estate with real links to its heritage into…a theme park.’ She practically spat these last two words.
‘Yes,’ Isabelle chimed in, eyes brimming with tears. ‘You say you’re going to make thing
s right for us, Daddy, but how can you possibly compensate us for the loss of our livelihoods? My shop means everything to me…’
‘You cannot do this now,’ the Marchioness said firmly. ‘It isn’t the time or place.’
‘If not now, when?’ Helen shouted. ‘When you turf me out of my own stables?!’
‘They are not yours,’ the Marquess said quietly. ‘That is what you misunderstand, Helen.’
At that moment, Florian appeared in the hallway and everyone stopped talking for a moment. Helen looked towards him expectantly, but if she thought he was going to back her up she was in for disappointment. Her uncle simply glided past them towards the dining room, refusing to meet his niece’s eyes. As the door shut behind him, she began to flounder.
‘We…we have a right to be heard,’ she repeated limply. But the fight had clearly gone out of her. Sören stepped in at this point and put his arms around her and Isabelle.
‘Cousins, please come and talk with me. Your mother is right that this meeting isn’t the place for you to air your concerns, but that doesn’t mean you have been forgotten.’ He squeezed Helen’s shoulder. ‘Please.’
The sisters allowed Sören to lead them away and the Marchioness sagged against her husband, who laughed quietly and said, ‘Nothing like a little family drama to start the day, eh, my dear?’
At a few minutes after 10am, the Marchioness rose from her chair in the dining room and cleared her throat. The assembled board members stopped chatting and gave her their full attention.
‘Our first order of business today is one which has been more than two years in the making: the culmination of Project Mercury.’ Lady Wellstone paused and looked around the table. ‘This is probably the last time we will meet in this room. This time next year, as a result of Project Mercury, Arborage will not close to tourists for the two weeks leading up to Christmas – or indeed for any private events in future – so the public rooms will be unavailable to us.’ She clasped her hands together and continued, ‘The time has come for Arborage to fully move into the twenty-first century.’
The Marchioness turned to look at her husband and added, ‘John and I have always said that we are but custodians here. We have been fortunate, so fortunate, in the support we have had from all of you, without which none of the changes we are proposing would be possible…’
Project Mercury. Suddenly things were clearer to Luna. The inception of Project Mercury predated her arrival at Arborage; oh she’d heard about it at board meetings, but always in passing, a cryptic footnote at the end of the meeting. It had sounded so innocuous that she’d never thought to question the Marchioness about it, assuming that it was just another restoration effort, or an archive scheme – there were so many of them, it was hard to keep track.
Now she saw, as Lady Wellstone gave a potted history of Project Mercury, that Stefan and his company had been involved at a much earlier stage than she’d realised. It was Stefan who had suggested getting rid of the old accountancy firm which had managed Arborage’s books for thirty years. And it was Stefan who had worked with the new firm to lead the forensic P&L investigation that preceded his meetings at Arborage that autumn.
Florian, too, seemed taken aback by the level of involvement by the Swedish branch of his family. Luna could see the back of his ginger head turning towards his brother at each new revelation of just how long Stefan Lundgren had been quietly working to change the status quo at Arborage. The head remained still, however, as the Marchioness briefly related the details of Paul Walker’s sacking the previous day.
‘In my mind, as regrettable as this situation was, it points to the invaluable service Stefan has performed for us. Two years ago we simply didn’t have reliable information to confirm this kind of malfeasance by a manager. It’s a credit to Stefan and to everyone around this table that we now do.’
By the time Sören finally joined the meeting an hour after it started, giving a brief reassuring nod to the Marchioness, the board was ready for its vote on whether to proceed with the next phase of Project Mercury. The motion passed by a vote of twelve to zero.
*
With the board meeting out of the way, the final wind-down for Christmas began in earnest. The only major commitment left for the Marchioness was the Arborage children’s Christmas party, a much-loved annual event in the staff calendar.
Luna was standing with Caitlin in the music room, which had been lushly decorated for the occasion with poinsettias and greenery. There were around fifty children in attendance, among them Nigel’s two young boys, Marta’s four grandchildren and Helen’s daughters. The Marchioness was sitting on a settee near the French doors overlooking the snowy front portico, talking to her husband and Stefan as a magician performed tricks for his assembled audience.
‘Can you feel it?’ Caitlin asked, surreptitiously tipping a flask into Luna’s glass of punch.
‘What?’
‘The sugar rush, about to hit the little beggars.’
Luna snorted and sipped her drink. ‘Whew!’ She waved her hand in front of her face. ‘What’s in that flask?’
Caitlin nodded towards Lord Wellstone and observed a little sadly, ‘Himself looks tired.’ And she was right; he did look pale, though he was making his usual effort to be the charming host. At that moment the magician finished his final trick, producing a baby rabbit out of thin air for a delighted Tilly, and the audience began to break up. Luna saw the Marchioness put her hand on her husband’s knee and whisper in his ear, then look up at Stefan, who subtly held out an arm to his cousin, helping him to stand.
As Stefan and the Marchioness slowly accompanied the Marquess from the room, Luna was pained to see the look of shock on the faces of many estate staff; she forgot, working as closely with the family as she did, that not everyone knew just how sick he was.
And then her thoughts turned to matters at hand. She really, really didn’t want Stefan seeing what was about to come next, so now seemed like the perfect time to catch Roland’s eye and take one last swig of her punch.
In response, Roland clapped his hands and announced, ‘Miss Gregory and I need some volunteers for the next portion of today’s festivities!’ proceeding to divide the entire room into calling birds, ladies dancing, gold rings, etcetera. Luna sat down at the grand piano, a red velvet Santa hat perched atop her head, and began to play the introduction.
Roland and Luna were just finishing their fourth and final song for the afternoon, ‘White Christmas’, when Luna looked up from the keyboard to see Caitlin and Nigel standing together with tears in their eyes. A few other members of staff were looking misty too. It seemed like the end of an era, and when Roland took her hand and raised it to his lips, Luna instantly regretted every peevish thought she’d had about him during their many practice sessions over the past few weeks.
Marta appeared then with a beautifully decorated Yule log, upon which the children fell like ravenous wolves. The adults in the room began applauding, and the moment of sadness passed. Luna heard a piercing whistle and looked to see Stefan holding two fingers to his mouth. She blushed then, the girl who never blushed, and shook her head slightly at him. Ever the gracious hostess, the Marchioness came straight over to grasp Roland’s hands, exclaiming, ‘That was absolutely lovely!’ Whereupon Tilly tugged her grandmother’s sleeve and asked if she and some of the other children could go play in the snow.
‘I don’t see why not,’ Lady Wellstone declared pleasantly, prompting a veritable stampede towards the cloakroom. Most of the adults stayed put, watching as first a few and then a hoard of children streamed out onto the lawn and snow began to fly.
Luna was just taking a photo of Roland wearing her Santa’s hat, and some of his tour guides gathered around the piano, observing, ‘Now that is this year’s Christmas card!’ when Stefan approached from behind her, placing his arm around her waist. She stiffened involuntarily – it was one thing for everyone to know that they were an item, quite another to visibly demonstrate it.
‘I
had no idea you were so talented,’ he said intently, keeping his hand where it was.
‘Oh, shut up,’ she said, embarrassed by both his words and his proximity.
‘Will you come play in the snow with me?’ he enquired winningly, eyes dancing. He really was very hard to resist, in his black jumper with his hair looking uncharacteristically, and sexily, messy. Luna nodded silently.
And then he did it. Stefan Lundgren tightened his arm around her and swiftly, before she even knew what was happening, lowered his mouth to hers. For a brief second Luna’s body did the talking, responding as it always did to his. Then she pulled away, giving him a goggle-eyed, not here look. To which he smiled wickedly.
She looked around and thought at first they might have gotten away with it. But then she saw Caitlin lifting a glass in her direction, surreptitiously winking at her. And…the Marchioness, standing near the French doors, staring at the two of them. Not smiling. Luna’s heart sank, but then she realised that Lady Wellstone’s stare was directed solely at Stefan, who was giving her look for look. He pulled Luna closer to him and nodded to the Marchioness, then began leading Luna from the room.
‘What—?’ Luna began, but Stefan was pulling her so insistently she could only trail along behind him. And then they were out into the main hallway, standing under the scaffolding, and he was kissing her till she was breathless. And everything, the party, her colleagues, the Marchioness, all was forgotten, burned away by the heat between them.
Chapter Thirty–Three
‘Come in here, Luna,’ came the voice from the Marchioness’s office.
It was three weeks into the new year and much had changed. The Marquess had had his surgery and was still in the intensive care unit at the Royal Marsden. Stefan was in Germany, where he’d been since just after the holidays. He’d told her he would be there for most of the month, that it would be a busy time and she shouldn’t expect to hear much from him. He’d been as good as his word: she’d heard nothing. And Luna? Well, here she was, at her desk doing her job as usual, but…