Lord and Master Trilogy

by Jagger, Kait

  ‘It’s like you’re Lord Peter Wimsey and I’m Harriet Vane!’ she’d declared to James when Luna sat down with them for a final briefing in the late afternoon, to a brief, game smile from James.

  The chamber orchestra on the terrace outside began warming up for the evening, and Luna was reminded that she, too, had a role to play that night. Swallowing her nerves, she straightened her shoulders and walked toward the terrace to begin playing it.

  Fortunately, many of the first guests to arrive were well-known to her, trustees and other long-time acquaintances of the Marchioness. She was talking to one of them, a businessman and friend of the Marquess’s, when Lady Wellstone finally joined the party, looking regal in a black satin sheath and matching bolero jacket, her silver bob shining beneath the Chinese lanterns strung out over the terrace. To Luna’s dismay, she found her heart trampolining in her chest at the sight of her former boss, now her… what? Future in-law? Adversary in waiting? And Luna’s apprehension only grew when Isabelle floated across the lawn a few minutes later, followed closely by Helen.

  The only person missing from the festivities was Luna’s fiancé, called away on urgent business, to the great unhappiness of Lady Wellstone. The pair of them had had a testy exchange that morning, wherein the Marchioness accused Stefan of failing to take his new responsibilities seriously.

  ‘You cannot simply palm your social obligations off on your fiancée. She isn’t ready for it,’ the Marchioness had argued.

  To which Stefan had replied succinctly, ‘I will accept no lectures from you on either my obligations or my fiancée.’

  Lady Wellstone was right, of course. Luna wasn’t ready. As guests continued to filter onto the terrace, she felt an entirely unexpected rush of longing for parties past, when she’d been expected to be no more than Lady Wellstone’s silent ‘shadow’. Perhaps the Marchioness felt the same, for as Luna exchanged pleasantries with St John Marsh, Arborage’s longest serving trustee, she came to join them. Standing beside her ex-employer, physically closer to her than she’d been for the past six months, Luna fancied she could hear the silent thoughts the older woman was sending her way. I know you, my dear. Don’t imagine for a second that I don’t.

  ‘You’ll have heard about Luna’s engagement to Stefan,’ the Marchioness was saying, dragging Luna back from her musings.

  ‘I hadn’t,’ St John said, looking between the two women in some surprise.

  ‘It’s wonderful news, during such a sad time,’ Lady Wellstone said, smiling genially. Impossible to know whether the smile was genuine, or just the Marchioness doing what she did best, playing the charming hostess, single-handedly generating party buzz better than Luna could ever hope to do. Luna began to suspect the latter as news of the engagement spread across the terrace like wildfire and she found herself besieged by well-wishers. How she wished then that she had Stefan, her shield, her protector, with her to deflect some of the attention.

  Not to be. For at that moment, if all was going according to plan, he was just under a mile away, sitting in the driver’s seat of a horse box, parked on the road leading to the equestrian centre.

  The chamber orchestra struck up the opening waltz of the evening and Helen’s husband Mark approached Lady Wellstone to request the first dance. Helen, looking extremely uncomfortable in her black organza dress, headed toward the punch table, only to be intercepted by James, who smilingly requested a dance. Helen would have liked to refuse, Luna could see, but how to say no to those lovely, melting brown eyes of his? Off she went with him to the dance floor.

  St John Marsh did the gentlemanly thing, then, extending his arm to Luna. ‘May I have the pleasure, Miss Gregory?’

  ‘I can’t promise you it will be a pleasure, Mr Marsh,’ Luna laughed self-deprecatingly, ‘but I shall try my very best not to step on your toes.’

  She finished her first dance and began her second, a foxtrot this time, with a partner so energetic it was all she could do to keep up with him. She caught a glimpse of Nancy, however, engaging Mark Waverley in flirtatious conversation whilst surreptitiously glancing at her mobile. From the slight nod her friend directed at her, Luna knew that phase two of tonight’s plan had been enacted by their head of security.

  For the next hour, as Luna employed every last one of the deportment lessons she’d endured at St Catherine’s Preparatory School for Girls, Nancy and James launched a no-holds-barred charm offensive on Helen and Mark Waverley. One which Mark seemed only too happy to endure, judging from the animated expression on his face as he and Nancy cut a swathe across the dance floor.

  James was clearly finding Mark’s wife a tougher nut to crack. Marriage and the subsequent procreation of two children notwithstanding, Helen Wellstone-Waverley had little truck for male companionship. ‘He’s in trouble,’ Nancy observed to Luna during a break between dances, watching James standing across the terrace with Helen and some of her horsey friends. His target was distracted, it was plain to see, frequently checking her mobile for messages, frowning to find none.

  ‘Give him a chance,’ Luna replied. ‘He has a secret weapon.’

  A weapon he’d just decided to deploy, if Luna was any judge. For in that split second, James adjusted his glasses and said something that caught Helen’s attention. And that of her horsey friends, judging by the way they suddenly moved closer to him, like moths to a flame. Helen, too, was leaning toward him, eager to catch his words. Smiling, even.

  The two of them walked past moments later, horsey set in train, talking a mile a minute. ‘…he’s actually a very down-to-earth chap, no airs and graces with him,’ James was saying, eliciting a nod of enthusiastic assent from Helen. Nancy turned to Luna in mystification, but Luna simply nodded in the direction of Mark Waverley, who was heading their way, a pair of drinks in hand and a spring in his step only New York’s hottest PR exec could inspire.

  ‘Once more into the breach,’ Nancy winked, and sashayed off to meet him, lips parting in a dazzling smile.

  The younger Wellstone sister, meanwhile, camped with a dozen or so of her Chelsea friends in a corner of the gallery, neither dancing nor mixing. Dressed like an exotic swan in a form-fitting Vera Wang gown, with Tarquin glued to her side, Isabelle appeared instead to be indulging in her favourite blood sport: laughing and whispering with her friends, looking down their perfect noses at everyone in the room who wasn’t as tawny and Botoxed and bronzed as them.

  Sometime later, Luna stood behind a few of them in the queue for the loo and listened to them engage in desultory conversation. God, they were boring. ‘I don’t know how Bella stood growing up out here in the middle of nowhere. I can’t even get one bar on my phone,’ drawled one ochre-hued brunette, prompting a deluge of concurrence from her companions. All holding their glowing but inoperative phones aloft, their hopes of sharing photos of the wonderful time they were having with the wider world dashed.

  Luna knew a moment’s trepidation then. For these people were now an unavoidable part of her future, pampered trust fund babies with whom she would be forced to socialise when she became Stefan’s wife. She wondered if this was a life she could ever be truly at home in. Or Stefan, for that matter. Oh, he could play the part of Marquess with the same louche abandon as his predecessor, but that wasn’t really what he was, was it?

  No, her Stefan was a man of action. By now Ashley would have given him the signal to drive into the horse yard, and the two of them along with two members of the security team would be in the midst of loading Helen’s five horses into the wagon. That being the crux of Stefan’s plan: stop Helen’s occupation of the stables before it started by clandestinely removing her remaining horses and locking her out.

  The orchestra was just finishing a Viennese waltz when Nancy came and stood beside Luna at the edge of the terrace, raising a reassuring hand. ‘Don’t worry. He’s gone to fetch me another drink.’

  ‘And…?’

  ‘Hook, line and sinker,’ Nancy grinned. ‘Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a m
an so floored by a little female attention. He must not be getting any at home.’

  Luna nodded and glanced around the terrace. ‘Have you seen James?’

  ‘Last I looked, he was at a table inside, with Helen practically sitting on his knee. He’s a bit of a dark horse, that one. I don’t usually go for beta men, but in his case I might make an exception…’ Nancy trailed off speculatively, lifting a single, perfectly contoured eyebrow at Luna.

  Right on cue, James’s amplified voice rung out from inside the French doors. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, honoured guests, if you would care to join me for the auction portion of our evening, cheque books at the ready?’

  Partygoers began to filter into the Orangery, and James continued, ‘Before I start the bidding, we are aware of the problems with phone reception many of you have been experiencing and are working to resolve this. I am reliably informed that there is reception at the main house, if you care to make the ten-minute walk there.’ He smiled impishly, brushing the hair away from his forehead. ‘I advise against it, however, as you may miss the incredible opportunities to benefit the Royal Marsden I am about to offer you.’

  With that, he launched into his auctioneer’s patter, seeking an assistant from the audience and accepting no demurral from Helen, who joined him on the dais to present items including a pearl and diamond necklace and earrings donated by the Queen’s jeweller, a customized Mini that had been used in an episode of Dr Who, and a bespoke Kieffer saddle ‘courtesy of my generous assistant’ James said as Helen blushed like a schoolgirl. Looking on in the audience, Luna shuddered to imagine how the schoolgirl would transform into an angry dragon later that night when she arrived at her farm in Chieveley to find her five horses tethered in the paddock, placidly chewing oats.

  ‘What am I bid for this exquisite, ultra-limited edition crystal punch bowl, donated by our friends at Waterford?’ James was saying as Helen held a large cut-glass bowl aloft. ‘Am I bid five hundred pounds?’ James smiled and pointed to an elderly lady standing with the Marchioness. ‘Thank you, madam. Am I bid five hundred and fif—? Thank you, sir. I am bid five hundred and fifty pounds. Do I hear six hundred?’

  ‘Six hundred,’ Mark Waverley shouted, standing with Nancy toward the back of the crowd.

  ‘Clearly a man of taste,’ James observed. ‘A gift for my lovely assistant, perhaps?’

  ‘Not me,’ Helen interjected bluntly, provoking a swell of laughter from the audience.

  ‘Or for yourself,’ James continued blithely. ‘A man can never have too much crystal.’ To louder laughter and applause.

  As the bidding continued, Arborage’s head of security materialised beside Luna, bending down to whisper in her ear. Whispering her response, she caught the Marchioness staring quizzically in their direction and smiled coolly at her as if to say, It’s nothing. Nothing to worry about.

  The head of security remained by Luna’s side, however, and two more members of the security team appeared at the margins of the Orangery as Stefan’s plan entered its most critical phase. Having settled Helen’s horses, he and his crew returned to the equestrian centre to collect the sole remaining horse, which belonged not to Helen but to a successful show jumping contemporary of hers. According to Ashley, the prize-winning gelding had been sent to Helen for schooling, a common practice in the horse fraternity.

  It had been a delicate matter, making alternative arrangements for this gelding. Stefan was forced to call in a few favours, convincing a friend of a friend, one of the British Show Jumping Association’s most highly respected trainers, to take it in. Unfortunately, the trainer’s stables were in Hickstead, a hundred-mile drive away.

  Luna later learned that, despite Herculean efforts by Stefan and his men, the horse initially refused to enter the horsebox. Eventually, driven by desperation and a ticking clock, Stefan decided to saddle it and ride it into the wagon himself, head bent down into the horse’s mane; an incredibly dangerous manoeuvre. It worked, but the minute he dismounted the horse began to whinny and scrape the floor of the box with its hooves.

  They were no further than a mile down the road when they heard a series of almighty clangs from the back of the wagon; the gelding was kicking against his stall with such force it risked doing itself an injury. Ashley quickly pulled the trailer over and Stefan hopped in the back, spending the rest of the drive down to West Sussex standing next to the horse, stroking its flank, tickling its nose, whispering sweet Swedish nothings in its ear. Whatever it took to keep it calm.

  Back in the Orangery, the auction was drawing towards its conclusion. A palpable level of drunken rowdiness had descended upon the room, with bidding becoming more and more vociferous as James moved into the ‘experiences’ portion of the night’s offerings: outings on private yachts, a day’s tuition from an ex-Formula 1 driver at Silverstone and the like.

  The final item of the night was a suggestion from Isabelle, a luxury weekend cruise to see the Northern Lights in Sweden, capped by a gourmet meal in Stockholm with the new Marquess himself. Stefan had expressed extreme scepticism about it, observing that morning to Luna, ‘I don’t see anyone paying to spend time with me.’

  As it transpired, he underestimated the number of businesspeople and sycophants looking to curry favour with Arborage’s new lord and master. James started the bidding at five hundred pounds and the bids swiftly came up to two thousand. And then Isabelle showed her hand.

  ‘Twenty-two hundred pounds,’ she declared, fanning herself with her programme.

  ‘I am bid two thousand two hundred pounds by the Right Honourable Lady Isabelle Wellstone,’ James said. ‘Am I bid—’

  ‘Twenty-three hundred!’ shouted Lilith, her cheeks flushing red.

  ‘Twenty-four!’ shouted Tarquin, as Isabelle looked toward Luna and smiled. Care to make a bid? Luna gritted her teeth and forced her lips into an answering smile; she wasn’t going to play this game, not least because she couldn’t afford to.

  She saw him then, emerging from the darkness of the garden, stumbling onto the terrace before startled orchestra members. Looking like a mad man, with rivulets of sweat streaming down his face, Florian Wellstone had clearly run the entire way from the stables. Luna quickly glanced at their head of security, but he was already on it, lifting a finger to his men.

  Florian almost made it. A few feet further and he’d have been within shouting distance of his niece, able to raise the alarm that her empire was under siege. But the two security guards intercepted him just outside the French doors.

  ‘Do something,’ Nancy whispered furiously into her ear. Luna looked at her in confusion and Nancy gestured toward Isabelle and her circle, who had raised the bidding on the Scandinavian cruise to four thousand pounds. ‘You’re not going to let that bitch win, are you?’

  ‘I can’t,’ Luna whispered back. Nancy shook her head in disgust and moved away through the crowd. A chorus of whoops erupted from Isabelle’s friends, fortuitously timed to draw the room’s attention from the unedifying spectacle of the security guards dragging Florian away from the terrace. Exhaling with relief, Luna nodded her thanks to the head of security, who headed off outside to join his men.

  She returned her full attention to the auction to see the Marchioness glaring at her daughter, frowning in disapproval of her antics. Heedless of her mother’s opprobrium, Isabelle cried out, ‘Five thousand pounds!’

  ‘I have a bid of five thousand pounds,’ James announced. ‘Do I hear any improvement on five thousand?’ Isabelle nudged one of her friends gleefully, making a show of rummaging through her clutch bag. ‘Going once,’ said James.

  Isabelle removed her chequebook from her bag, poised to collect her prize.

  ‘Going twice…’ James paused for dramatic effect and Luna felt a stab of annoyance, wishing he would bring her humiliation to an end.

  Gavel hovering in the air, James suddenly tensed. ‘Please excuse me,’ he said, reaching into his tuxedo jacket and retrieving his phone. The microphone picked up its ringtone,
Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’.

  ‘Ah, Agnetha,’ James sighed, to the hilarity of the party guests. He lifted a finger to them. ‘James MacGregor,’ he answered his phone. ‘Yes, we are… I see, yes.’

  James held the phone to his chest and announced into the microphone, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I have just received an offer of ten thousand pounds from a bidder who prefers to remain anonymous.’ A chorus of ‘ahs’ rose up from the room. ‘Do I have any further bids?’

  Isabelle’s friends looked at her and she shook her head. ‘Too rich for my blood,’ she admitted.

  ‘Going once, then. Going twice…’ James lifted his finger again and returned the phone to his ear. ‘Congratulations, madam! Sold for ten thousand pounds.’ And banged his gavel.

  Almost immediately a storm of ringtones, beeps and chimes erupted in the room.

  ‘Our phone service has been restored just as tonight’s auction comes to a close,’ James said with a smile. ‘It gives me great pleasure to announce that, when combined with the online auction we have been running for the past week, the total we have raised for the Royal Marsden comes to over six hundred and fifty thousand pounds, which makes this the most successful auction in this event’s twenty-two-year history.’

  The crowd rapidly dispersed after that, intent on checking messages, tweeting, or in the case of Isabelle’s mates, posting photos of themselves online. Luna and Nancy, meanwhile, made their way up to the dais to congratulate James.

  ‘You were magnificent,’ Nancy extolled.

  ‘I try,’ he replied humbly. ‘Truth be told, I’m ready for a—’ He was interrupted by the sound of Helen’s voice, rising agitatedly above the hum of the party.

  ‘You had no right, no right!’ she screeched, thrusting her phone in her mother’s face, only to be met with a look of total incomprehension from Augusta and a smattering of inquisitive glances from nearby partygoers. Luna was prepared for this and she and James moved swiftly in Helen’s direction, James taking one of her arms and Luna the other.