Lord and Master Trilogy

by Jagger, Kait

  Sören nodded thoughtfully and said, ‘I shall consider this.’ Then added as a casual aside, ‘A shame she and Stefan don’t get along.’ Looking into her employer’s twinkling blue eyes, it didn’t escape Luna that he seemed markedly… unsurprised by the recent turn of events. Suddenly her entire Shetland assignment began to feel less like an act of charity and more like part of a matchmaker’s covert master plan.

  But the larger Wellstone family’s response to their engagement? Well, Luna could only judge from Stefan’s silence on the matter.

  Following her move to London, the two of them lived mostly at his apartment in Southwark. They observed an unspoken pact: for as long as possible, they would pretend to be a normal couple, not the Marquess of Lionsbridge and his betrothed. Stefan split his time equally between his business and Arborage, heading off at the crack of dawn to either his office or the estate. Luna took on various freelance assignments, including one for Patrice setting up a database of his many clients.

  In her spare time, she temporarily luxuriated in the role of domestic goddess, wallowing in the grateful expression on his face every time the penthouse lift opened and he stepped out – never later than 7pm, he made sure of that – to find her working away in the kitchen. ‘You spoil me, flicka,’ he murmured the night he came home to chateaubriand, looking entirely like a man who enjoyed being spoiled.

  And she spent time with her friends, Jem in particular, who took the crown as ‘most delighted of all’ at news of their engagement, appearing at the apartment one afternoon bearing a bottle of champagne and, to Luna’s horror, a stack of wedding magazines.

  Stefan rarely spoke about Arborage or his dealings with Augusta, though Luna knew that she remained sequestered in the family’s private quarters and that this was both a blessing and a curse for him. A blessing because it freed him to ‘get on with the job’, as he tersely put it. A curse because it left her daughters at large.

  Helen, who refused point blank to take part in the ongoing redundancy process at the equestrian centre, was now briefing against Stefan to anyone on the staff or in the horsing fraternity who would listen. And Isabelle? Stefan volunteered next to nothing about her, but one evening when he returned to the apartment after a long day at Arborage, Luna caught a whiff of Guerlain in the air. Later that night, as they lay next to each other in bed, she ventured, ‘Isabelle… she thought I was just… she had no idea about you and me, did she?’

  ‘She does now,’ was all he would say.

  Much as she might have wished to, Luna couldn’t entirely avoid Arborage. Weekends in particular were no longer her own; Stefan had official commitments on the estate and he insisted on her coming with him. ‘No,’ he said when she suggested over dinner one night that she wouldn’t mind him spending the occasional night alone at Arborage. ‘No more of that.’ His steadfast gaze making it clear that this wasn’t a matter for debate.

  So she came with him, and tried her best to maintain a low profile in the house, pouring cold water over Caitlin’s suggestion that they make a formal engagement announcement. She found quiet places to work well away from the family quarters, rebuffing Stefan’s invitations to use her old office. She wasn’t ready to impose herself on the Wellstone family, having gleaned from Isabelle’s rant in the chapel that the narrative surrounding her departure from Arborage the previous winter had somehow been linked to Florian’s removal as heir of Lionsbridge. She believed – no, she knew – that Augusta would never have done this. So that left only Florian, whispering in her daughters’ ears, spreading poison.

  She had confirmation of this early one Saturday just a few weeks after her return from Shetland. Finishing a run in the grounds, Luna was approaching the wrought-iron gates that marked the start of the formal gardens when she felt something brush against her leg. She looked down to see Regina, the Marchioness’s King Charles Spaniel, running beside her.

  Dropping down into a squat, she cried delightedly, ‘Hello, sweetheart!’ as Regina placed both paws on her leg, licking Luna’s face and practically wagging her tail off. ‘Yes, yes,’ Luna chuckled. ‘I’ve missed you too.’ She stroked Regina’s silky ears and asked, ‘Where’s your mummy, eh? Where is she?’

  Shortly thereafter, Luna climbed the stone stairs that led to the family’s private quarters, Regina in her arms. She knocked softly on the door to the Marchioness’s sitting room, which opened to reveal little Tilly Waverley.

  ‘Oh, you naughty dog!’ Tilly exclaimed. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere!’

  ‘She’s not naughty,’ Luna disagreed, kissing Regina’s domed head. ‘You’re just adventurous, aren’t you, girl?’

  She bent down and handed the dog to Tilly, who studied Luna unsmilingly. ‘You’re going to marry Cousin Stefan, aren’t you.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Luna replied.

  ‘And then you’ll be Marchioness.’

  ‘Oh,’ Luna said awkwardly. ‘That’s a long way off.’ She heard a door opening behind Tilly and straightened.

  ‘Who’s that, dear?’ came Augusta’s voice. And before Luna could make up her mind how or if to announce herself, Tilly, an acorn that had fallen not far from Helen’s tree, abruptly shut the door in her face.

  *

  ‘“Ecclesiastical, ambassadorial and armed forces ranks precede the ducal rank,”’ Luna read out the following morning. She was lying on her stomach, wrapped in a towel, atop the four poster in their bedroom at Arborage. Stefan was getting ready to attend a breakfast event in London, a reception hosted by the Earl of Wessex.

  ‘So,’ Luna concluded, looking up from her prized copy of Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage, ‘it’s Major General Gerald Grosvenor, Duke of Westminster.’

  ‘I think I will just call him Gerald,’ Stefan replied, inserting a cufflink into the cuff of his white dress shirt. Luna had been slightly shocked to discover how little he knew, or indeed cared, about the niceties of formal protocol and forms of address. She’d had to wheedle and cajole to convince him to meet with an etiquette tutor, the same one she’d used when she first came into her role as Augusta’s personal assistant, and he had done little to conceal his impatience.

  ‘It’s a job, Luna,’ he’d grumbled. ‘All this nonsense about courtesy titles and ranks—’

  ‘A job you’ve inherited,’ Luna rebutted. ‘You can’t simply ignore the parts of it that don’t interest you. These things matter to the people you’ll be circulating with now.’

  The only reason she’d even managed to convince him to attend this morning’s reception was as part of a covert poaching operation. Following the narrowly avoided debacle at the Marquess’s funeral, Luna had taken it upon herself to quietly put out feelers to a few events coordinators. The second in command of the company organising this reception, who she knew personally, was an outstanding prospect.

  Luna continued to page though her Debrett’s as Stefan approached the standing mirror, sliding a tie around his upturned collar.

  ‘I’ll go to the office after, and then I have a lunch meeting with a client,’ he said; rather sweetly, he’d developed a habit of running through his schedule with her every morning. ‘Then I’m back here for a meeting with Augusta.’ Luna’s eyes met his in the mirror. ‘To talk about the ball next week,’ he explained wearily. Arborage’s annual charity ball and auction on behalf of the Royal Marsden was another social obligation Stefan would have preferred to forego. He’d tried to persuade Augusta that it should be cancelled, in view of its proximity to Lord Wellstone’s death, but she wouldn’t hear of it.

  Stefan drew the knot of his tie up to his neck and readjusted his collar, then turned away from the mirror, climbing up beside Luna on the bed. He ran his hand along her towel-clad bottom.

  ‘I’m reading here,’ she protested unconvincingly as Stefan tugged the towel off her.

  ‘Don’t let me stop you,’ he replied, bending to kiss first one cheek, then the other.

  ‘You’re going to be late,’ she warned, smiling now.
/>   ‘Mmm, yes,’ he said. ‘Yes I am.’

  *

  Lady Luna??? read the text from Jem.

  Almost immediately, Luna’s phone pinged again. This time from Nancy: Lady Luna Lundgren. Try saying THAT 5x fast.

  Luna snorted. She’d set up camp in the staff cafeteria that afternoon after having lunch with Caitlin, Roland and his omnipresent sidekick, Alex. She was currently nursing a cup of coffee and trying to focus on a freelance French translation assignment, but the girls had other ideas.

  Another ping. Her Royal Booty-ness. Kayla, of course.

  Just then, Ashley Eccles approached Luna’s table, dressed in his new Arborage Catering uniform. Luna smiled and gestured for him to sit down. ‘You’re looking very smart,’ she observed approvingly. ‘How are things going?’

  ‘Good, really good,’ he said, but his expression was uneasy. Luna tilted her head at him and he glanced around the cafeteria, then took his phone out of his pocket, whispering, ‘They’ve forgotten to take me off the distribution list at the stables.’

  Five minutes later, Luna practically ran up to her and Stefan’s room, climbing the steps two at a time. Pacing the floor of their room, she tried ringing him, but it went straight to voicemail. She folded her arms together and tapped her fingers on her elbows, looking out of the mullioned windows onto the garden and forest beyond. Then went to the wardrobe.

  The elderly farmer unlatched the metal gate and swung it open, and Luna lifted her hand to him as she drove through on her Enduro, heading off through a field of barley along a small farm track. Stefan had insisted on booking a transport company to get the bike back from Shetland, and now she was glad he had. She was on a mission. Possibly a foolhardy one, she acknowledged to herself as she pulled up to the fence that marked the boundary between the farmer’s land and the pasture adjacent to the equestrian centre.

  Instead of her usual Gore-Tex gear, Luna had opted to wear jeans and Stefan’s leather jacket, which she unzipped as she squatted next to the fence. As she hoped, this vantage point gave her a bird’s eye view of the stable yard where Helen Wellstone Waverley was currently addressing a gathering of around a dozen people. Horsey folks, clearly, judging from the array of Burberry and Joules on display.

  Her husband Mark was standing next to her, nodding in agreement as Helen spoke animatedly to her audience. Though Luna was too far away to make out her words, there was no mistaking the anger in her deep voice. Then there came a sudden round of applause and Helen beckoned to someone in the audience. Luna watched in fascinated horror as a red scalp sparsely covered with rust-coloured hair moved through the surrounding heads, and Florian Wellstone came and put his arm around his niece’s shoulders.

  As Luna drove up the main drive on her return journey, she spotted Stefan’s Land Rover ahead of her and pulled up close behind it, motioning for him to pull over. She climbed off her bike and removed her helmet, wiping a strand of hair from her eyes to find Stefan standing beside his 4x4, giving her outfit an appreciative, carnal once-over.

  Extracting her phone from her pocket, she held it out for him to see.

  A Call to Action, read the subject line in the email Ashley had forwarded to her. The long message from Helen that followed outlined plans for an ‘occupation’ of the stables at Arborage, whereby she would refuse to remove her remaining horses, and her equestrian friends would help her to resist eviction. We will stay as long as we need to, to protect this last remaining vestige of Arborage’s glorious heritage, the polemic read.

  As Luna went on to describe the equine war council she’d witnessed from the field that afternoon, Stefan’s face went pale. He handed the phone back to her and walked over to a small wooden sign pointing toward the garden centre.

  ‘Jävlar!’ he seethed, aiming a vicious kick at the sign. ‘That bloody—’ Another kick and the sign splintered in half. Luna watched in silence as an American tour group in khaki shorts, plaid shirts and bum bags walked past, looking askance at the man in the suit with anger issues.

  Stefan stalked back to her, pointing a finger in her face. ‘It will last for months, this. Years, maybe, with your English legal system and so-called squatters’ rights. And the fucking PR nightmare that will doubtless ensue. “Swedish businessman evicts Englishwoman from her ancestral home…”’ He kicked his foot into the lawn, dislodging a piece of turf, then wheeled round to look back at the house, shoulders working under his suit jacket.

  After some moments, he turned back to her, running his hand down her upper arm and briefly clasping her elbow in wordless apology. And then said quietly, ‘Do you think you can arrange a meeting between me and Ashley? Tonight?’

  The meeting took place at a pub in Deersley, and included not only Ashley but Arborage’s head of security and one of the estate’s lawyers. Stefan didn’t return to the house until after midnight, entering their bedroom to find Luna waiting up for him in the armchair beneath the windows. He took the wooden chair from James’s desk and placed it in front of hers, then sat down and loosened his tie.

  Reaching for her hands, he drew them onto his knees and said, ‘Flicka, I need your help.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Luna stood in the middle of the estate’s 18th-century Orangery, the calm in the centre of a storm of preparation. Around her, catering staff were working at a pace to ready the room for the imminent arrival of around 120 specially invited guests for the charity ball.

  Being relatively narrow and punctuated with orange trees, the glass and brick building was perhaps not the perfect venue for this type of event. It was on the verge of reopening following a multimillion-pound renovation, however, so the Marchioness had insisted on using it. Even in bereavement, her eyes always on the prize of showing off the jewels in Arborage’s crown.

  To outward appearances, Luna was entirely self-contained, smoothly composed. Her dress was black, of course; anything else would have been inappropriate for a house still in mourning. A simple black empire line dress with a single asymmetric strap over the left shoulder. No jewellery, save for her engagement ring. Only her hair hinted at extravagance. Three hours, it had taken the hairdresser – three hours, a welter weight of hairpins and the better part of a canister of hairspray – to arrange it in Grecian style with a trio of sparkling bands pulling it back into a deconstructed bun with loose, artful curls trailing down her neck.

  A sudden squeal of feedback rang out across the long, high-ceilinged gallery, followed by the sound of tapping over the PA system. At the far end of the room, Stefan’s friend and office manager James MacGregor was testing the microphone. James’s father was an auctioneer at Sotheby’s and his son had clearly picked up some tricks of the trade. Dressed in an immaculate white dinner jacket and looking entirely at ease behind the rostrum, he recited from his notes, ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is James MacGregor and I’ll be your host this evening.’ He glanced at the sound man, who rolled his hand to indicate he should keep talking. ‘Thanks to the generosity of the late Marquess’s many friends, as well as the friends of Arborage and the Royal Marsden, we have a veritable cornucopia of covetable items to offer you tonight…’

  The sound man gave a thumbs up and James tucked his notes back into the breast pocket of his tuxedo. As he stepped down from the lectern, a familiar, raspy voice at Luna’s side groused, ‘This titty tape is killing me.’

  Luna stifled a laugh and turned to look at Nancy, resplendent in a black, backless, halter-neck dress. Her friend was in town that week for meetings with some of her UK clients, but the minute she heard about the ball she wasted no time in 1) inviting herself, 2) muscling her way onto Stefan’s planning team for the event and 3) dragging Luna out on a whirlwind hairdressing expedition.

  ‘This is your first big shindig as a Marquess’s fiancée,’ she insisted that afternoon when Luna objected to all the back combing her hair was being subjected to. ‘You need to look the part.’ Predictably, however, when the time came for Nancy’s breasts to be lashed to the
proverbial yardarm, Luna was promptly demoted from aristocrat-in-waiting to wardrobe assistant.

  ‘Tighter!’ Nancy exhorted as Luna crouched in front of her naked torso, lingerie tape in hand. ‘No, tighter than that. Zero movement, that’s what we’re going for here.’

  Luna frowned with concentration, devoting herself to her task, while Nancy extended her left hand, which was currently sporting Luna’s engagement ring. ‘I’ll say this for Stefan, he’s got good taste in jewellery,’ she observed, reluctantly removing the ring and handing it back to Luna, who smiled wryly. As ever, Nancy wasn’t one to let her ongoing grudge against Stefan obscure the really important issues, like colour, cut and clarity.

  ‘There.’ Luna rocked back on her heels and studied her handiwork. ‘How’s that?’

  Running her hands along her taped breasts, Nancy jumped up and down a few times, then nodded her satisfaction. ‘Help me into the dress,’ she instructed.

  Two hours later, guests were beginning to arrive on the terrace adjoining the Orangery, where catering staff were now circulating with trays of champagne. Still, there was no sign of the Marchioness or her daughters, and Luna’s stomach roiled at the prospect of seeing them.

  ‘Everything okay?’ James enquired, sidling up to Luna and Nancy, his brown wavy hair falling onto his forehead. Nancy quickly grabbed two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter, handing one to him. ‘It is now,’ she said, chinking her flute against his.

  Although Nancy had not admitted as much, Luna strongly suspected that following the oral sex-related revelations during his birthday weekend, her on-off relationship with Robert had reverted to ‘off’ mode. How else to interpret the house on fire swiftness with which her friend and James, two people who’d never met before this week, were getting on? Nancy in particular had been delighted with their undercover assignment for the evening.