Her Master's Servant (Lord and Master Book 2) (15 page)

Luna quietly glided into the room, raising a hand when Stefan looked up at her, his expression dark with anger. ‘I’ve just come to get this,’ she said, retrieving her inhaler from next to the salt grinder on the table.

She started to head back out when he said, ‘You heard that?’

‘Just the tail end.’

He was silent, and after a few seconds Luna began to move away again, briefly squeezing his shoulder in passing. But Stefan swiftly grabbed her hand before she could get any further.

‘Will you sit with me for a bit, Luna?’ he asked, pausing. ‘I would like to take your advice.’

This was new. As far as she could recall, Stefan had never asked for her advice before. Her opinion, yes. Her agreement, certainly. But actual counsel? Never. And perhaps he was only asking for it now as another way of proving that he was willing to change, to share more of his life with her. Notwithstanding, she felt she needed to take this seriously, so she sat down next to him at the table. Stefan opened his mouth to speak and she lifted her hand again. Taking a long drag on her inhaler, she coughed, then nodded, eyes watering.

‘On the weekly Arborage management call this morning,’ Stefan said, ‘Helen announced that she has negotiated a deal with English Eventing to host a three-day eventing competition next spring.’

Luna lifted her eyebrows, knowing what was coming next.

‘She has done this completely in secret, without checking with me, or her mother, or, as far as I can tell, any member of the board of trustees.’ Stefan ran his hand through his hair in vexation. ‘And it flies in the face of Project Mercury.’

Stefan’s modernising blueprint for the estate, which had been rubber stamped by the board at the end of the previous year, called for the loss-making equestrian centre to be wound down and its substantial grazing acreage converted to farmland. Luna could well understand Stefan’s frustration at this rearguard action by Helen.

‘To make matters worse,’ he continued, ‘it is a terrible deal she has struck, with no profit to the estate in the first year and only the vague promise of a return in future years. Oh, she
claims
that there will be ancillary benefits. New patronage for the equestrian centre, horse sales, use of our conference facilities. But really—’

‘Really she shouldn’t have done the deal at all,’ Luna interjected, ‘because the centre is slated to close.’

‘Exactly,’ he nodded. ‘And by springing this on me in front of the other managers—’

‘Augusta wasn’t on the call?’ Luna asked.

‘No,’ he frowned unhappily. ‘Anyway, I think Helen is testing me, trying to see how firm my resolve is.’

‘This deal…’ Luna began.

Sensing where she was going, Stefan said simply, ‘A handshake agreement.’

‘So it could be stopped.’

‘It could.’ He tapped his fingers on the table. ‘But I fear it would mean all-out war with Helen.’

‘And…’ Luna hesitated. Really, she had worked so hard since January to train her mind not to think about Arborage; it caused something akin to physical pain to plunge herself, even briefly, into the family’s internecine affairs. ‘Isabelle,’ she said finally. ‘How has she taken the loss of her shop?’ Another loss-making business in Arborage’s portfolio, a boutique in pricy Knightsbridge which Luna knew had now shut, Nancy having admitted to picking up a few bargains in its closing down sale the last time she was in London.

Stefan shrugged. ‘I gather John and Augusta have made restitution to her. You know Isabelle, the shop was just a plaything for her.’

Luna nodded. ‘It’s different for Helen,’ she said. ‘You say she’s testing you, but try to look at it from her perspective. She lives and breathes horses. Her entire life revolves around that equestrian centre. Perhaps she’s trying to prove that she can think like a businesswoman. It’s the sort of thing Augusta would do, offer to host an initial event gratis, in the hope of attracting long-term business.’

Stefan considered this for a moment. ‘So, you think I should let this go,’ he said heavily.

‘No I don’t.’

He looked at her in surprise.

‘The decision about the future of the equestrian centre has already been made,’ Luna said adamantly. ‘You’ve made your recommendation, John and Augusta have backed it, and the board has approved it. Regardless of any justification she may offer, Helen had no business negotiating with English Eventing. And I think if you let her proceed with this event next spring, it’s as good as saying the equestrian centre can stay.’

‘So,’ he smiled cheerlessly. ‘War then.’

‘Not with you,’ Luna replied firmly. ‘Helen’s fight is with her parents. It’s for Augusta to have this out with her.’ And when Stefan opened his mouth to disagree, she said, ‘You’ve asked for my advice and that’s it. Helen won’t hear it from you. She won’t hear it and she’ll spin this thing out, and work to consolidate her position, make herself very difficult to dislodge. But she’ll listen to her mother. And ultimately she’ll take orders from her.’

Stefan considered her words for a moment, then slowly nodded. ‘Thank you, Luna. This has been helpful.’ He stood and said, ‘I’ll make us some coffee before you go back to the lambing shed.’

Luna watched as he measured coffee into the cafetière, pouring hot water from the kettle into it. She opened her mouth, then shut it.

‘There’s another thing,’ she said finally. Stefan turned from the cupboard, two coffee mugs in hand. On seeing her expression, he sat back down at the table. ‘The way she’s done this, negotiating behind your back and springing it on you in front of the other managers, it doesn’t sound like something Helen would have come up with on her own. She may be stubborn and self-centred, but she’s not devious.’

Stefan’s face darkened again. ‘Florian.’

Luna exhaled in relief. She’d been worried it would sound paranoid, coming from her. They had mostly skirted the issue of the Marquess’s brother since reuniting. She knew that Stefan had attempted to convince Augusta to take the evidence regarding Florian’s exploitation of underage girls to the police, and had been bleakly unsurprised to learn that the Marchioness had categorically refused to do so; she’d made a deal with the devil and she would honour it. Luna could tell Stefan wasn’t willing to leave it at that, but when she questioned him more closely he cut the conversation short, saying, ‘No, Luna. This one thing, I want you to leave it to me.’

Luna felt certain that Florian must be using Helen, whipping up her sense of injustice in order to remain a thorn in his sister-in-law’s side. ‘And that’s another reason Augusta needs to step in,’ she concluded. ‘It isn’t fair to expect you to deal with it on your own.’

She felt… angry, all of a sudden. Angry and fiercely protective of Stefan, who didn’t deserve any of this. The way these emotions manifested themselves, however, was in a low-level anxiety she worked hard to mask from him for the rest of the weekend. She didn’t want him thinking she had any doubt in his ability to resolve the matter with Helen.

So, when he commented on her quietness, she stretched for an excuse, saying she was worried about the shoot with Mika Salonen the following week.

At which Stefan shook his head reassuringly. ‘It will be fine,
flicka.
You will like him.’

‘I hate him,’ Luna silently repeated to herself for what felt like the umpteenth time as Mika Salonen lifted his index finger to her from the middle of Malcolm’s field. Mika wasn’t much of a talker, she had found, but he had other ways of communicating his needs.

Hoisting herself over the metal gate separating the field from Malcolm’s yard, Luna squelched across the apron of mud surrounding the entrance. She passed a quartet of cavorting black lambs and a gaggle of ‘team Mika’ members – his stylist, a make-up artist and lighting person – moving to where Mika stood talking to his two models. In English, for within twenty-four hours of arriving on Shetland that Monday, Salonen decided he was unhappy with the well-groomed Swedish male model hired for the shoot, whom he replaced with a local trawlerman, a regular at the Fisherman’s Rest.

‘
Mer verkligt
,’ he’d said to an alarmed Dagmar when she questioned this move – ‘More real.’ Indeed, Luna could see the grime underneath the trawlerman’s fingernails as he lifted a hand-rolled cigarette to his mouth and nodded at some instruction from Salonen. But she took the Finn’s point; with his black curly hair, artful stubble and grey eyes, the fisherman – Sean was his name – was definitely attractive, and very real.

As was his new Svengali. At five foot ten, Salonen wasn’t much taller than Luna, but what he lacked in stature he made up for in presence; his spiky white-blond hair, permanently aloof demeanour and casually distressed style, as evidenced by the battered, form-fitting leather jacket he was wearing now.

It was difficult to tell his age purely by looking at him, though Luna knew from his website that he was twenty-nine. He looked both older and younger. Older because of the lines around his eyes that crinkled on the rare occasions when he smiled, as well as a slight scar on his forehead that interrupted the line of his left eyebrow. And younger because, well, because Mika Salonen was fit, and he knew it.

As was his wont, Salonen ignored Luna when she came to stand next to him. He was holding his camera, a Logmar S-8, in one hand and gesturing with the other toward the beautiful blond female model, Britta.

‘Don’t look at her,’ he was saying. ‘Let her do the looking.’ The stylist stepped forward while Salonen was talking, quickly running a brush along the black wool coat Sean was wearing – the long version of the Lundgren coat – which fit him like a glove.

Luna, meanwhile, stood in silence, awaiting her orders. She’d been doing this a lot over the past four days, having become Salonen’s dogsbody and unofficial chauffeur, since he preferred not to drive but instead take in his surroundings, whether they be the peat bogs of central Shetland or the coastal approach to the Fisherman’s Rest, his de facto office and base for his support team for the duration of the shoot. At first she’d found it unnerving, driving with him next to her in the car saying absolutely nothing, except for the occasional terse ‘Stop’ when he wanted to pull over and do some filming, or take a few photos.

To make matters worse, he was staying at the cottage, sharing Dagmar’s bedroom, so there was no escaping his mute presence. Though, on the plus side, Dagmar had completely broken out of her shell since his arrival, seemingly delighted with his company. Which Luna found baffling, as she made clear to Stefan during their nightly calls.

‘What do you two see in him anyway?’ she asked in a whisper from her bed, the sound of Dagmar chatting away to Salonen drifting up from the floor below. ‘The man hasn’t said three words to me since he got here.’

‘It’s a Finnish thing,
flicka
, don’t take offence,’ he said, and Luna could hear the smile in his voice. ‘Why use ten words when none will do.’

‘Well, I think it’s rude,’ she huffed quietly. And maybe it was just her imagination, but she thought Stefan sounded almost pleased at her annoyance with his Finnish friend. Though, to be fair, he’d been unreservedly apologetic when he had to phone her on Thursday night to say he’d be trapped at Arborage that weekend.

‘Augusta has called a summit with Helen and she wants me there,’ he said heavily, as if this was the very last thing he wanted to do. ‘I’m sorry,
älskling.
’

‘No, no, it’s okay. I understand,’ she’d assured him, though she wasn’t looking forward to a weekend on her own with Mika and Dagmar. Plus, well, she’d miss Stefan; she’d gotten used to having him there and the next few days loomed like a giant black hole without him to fill it.

Stefan seemed to feel it too. ‘To make this up to you, I was wondering if you’d like to meet me at the lodge in Loch Lomond next weekend,’ he said, adding lightly, ‘once you’ve finished your indentured servitude to Mika.’

‘The end can’t come soon enough,’ she replied grimly.

Luna was starting to feel stupid, standing beside Salonen in the field, waiting for him to acknowledge her existence. She was on the verge, the very
verge
, of turning on her heel and stalking off when he glanced at her and said simply, ‘Water.’ And then looked at his two models and said, ‘Water?’ Not content with that, he queried his entire team. ‘Water?’

‘I hate him, I hate him,’ Luna muttered under her breath as she returned to the house to fetch four bottles of still Swedish water, two of sparkling. Happily, she didn’t have to stick around after that, having previously agreed to meet with a visiting representative from the Scottish Assembly in Lerwick. It was with great relief that she donned her Gore-Tex suit, climbed on board her Enduro and left Salonen and his minions in her wake.

After the meeting, which went unexpectedly well, she decided to reward herself with a long drive up the A970, arriving home feeling considerably more relaxed. Team Mika had already decamped for the day, but Salonen and Dagmar were standing in the yard talking to Liv as Luna parked up. Rather than join this latest meeting of the Nordic league, she intended to go straight into the house, but Dagmar stopped her.

‘
Hallå
, Luna! How was the meeting?’

Luna lifted her shoulders slightly, then smiled and said, ‘He’s going to recommend matching funding for the processing facility.’ At which her boss ran over then threw her arms around her, lifting her off her feet.

‘You see, Mika?’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I have the most smart assistant in the world.’

‘Oh, I didn’t do much,’ Luna said modestly, glancing at Salonen. ‘He mentioned the storyboard you sent him for the marketing campaign. I think that lit a fire under him.’

Salonen narrowed his eyes and replied succinctly. ‘We must celebrate.’

Plans were quickly made for Liv and Malcolm to come over to the cottage after putting George to bed. Salonen took off in the car, Luna assumed to go and fetch his team from the Fisherman’s Rest, but instead he returned alone a half-hour later, laden with shopping. She and Dagmar were sitting at the picnic bench in the small enclosed garden at the back of the cottage, metaphorically patting each other on the back, when he walked out of the back door, deposited three shot glasses on the table and filled each to the brim with vodka.

‘In one,’ he instructed, raising his shot glass.

Luna and Dagmar lifted theirs and Luna asked, ‘What do Finns say for a toast?’

‘
Kippis.
’

The three of them clinked glasses and Luna repeated, ‘
Kippis
,’ to which Salonen responded, ‘Cheers.’ ‘
Skåll!
’ cried Dagmar. And the three downed their shots.

That was the night when Luna began to see the point of Mika Salonen, and to appreciate that his spare way with words concealed a deadly dry wit and an unusually observant eye. By the time Liv and Malcolm showed up, he had stationed himself outside at the grill and was casually flipping burgers whilst Dagmar and Luna chatted at the picnic table. Liv, Luna noticed, had changed into a form-fitting wool dress and thigh-high boots, a far cry from her usual home-made outfits. And was she wearing lipstick?

‘Ah, Mika,’ she said chidingly, ‘you are grilling meat? I’ve told you Malcolm and I are vegetarian.’

‘Have you?’ Mika asked, eyes meeting Luna’s over the grill, expression completely blank. She was getting better at reading the many shades of Mika Salonen blankness, however, and this one was tinged with humour.

It was hard to tell exactly what lay hidden behind his poker face later as they ate their meal. Malcolm surreptitiously downed both a burger and two non-vegetarian sausages as an increasingly inebriated Liv prattled on to Mika about a prehistoric Norse settlement at the very southern tip of the island. ‘I could take you,’ she offered, before adding slyly, ‘unless poor Luna wants to do it. No Stefan this weekend, Luna?’

At that, Luna, who was not inebriated, gave Liv a cold-verging-on-Hallviken stare, one that despite Liv’s current state caused her to blanch before saying to Mika, ‘You know Luna’s boyfriend?’

To which he simply replied, ‘Yes,’ face devoid of expression, though Luna could have sworn seconds earlier that he was studying the stand-off between Liv and her with interest. Would that Malcolm would do the same, but he seemed blissfully unaware of his wife’s downright flirtatious manner. If Liv moved her chair any closer to Mika’s she’d be sitting in his lap.

Mika, meanwhile, continued to play the quiet host, topping up drinks, refilling plates, and listening as Malcolm described his plans for the wool cooperative. Luna noticed that something about the Finn’s very quietness encouraged people to say more than they would or perhaps should. She knew, of course, how invested Malcolm was in this project, but even she was unprepared for the passion in his voice when he spoke of a ‘united voice for Shetland’s farmers.’

Dagmar too, was a revelation in Salonen’s presence, laughing and joking, sharing reminiscences from their youth in Stockholm (his family had moved there from Finland when he was nine), speaking with pride of her friend’s accomplishments, which most recently had focused on promoting the work of an up and coming New York documentary maker.

‘Mika has been to Sundance, Venice, Cannes…’ Dagmar reported.

Luna’s ears pricked up at the mention of Cannes, and she found herself asking, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever met a British filmmaker called Rafe Davies?’ She felt foolish the minute the words came out of her mouth. Places like Cannes were doubtless crawling with media industry types; what were the chances of Mika knowing him?

She was in for a surprise, however. Narrowing his eyes in the way Luna had come to realise was characteristic of him, he replied simply, ‘Yes, I know him.’ Nothing more. Luna could see Dagmar and the others looking at them, waiting for one of them to elaborate. But Mika merely stared at her in his blank way and Luna returned the stare in her own characteristic, cool manner.
I am not Malcolm or Dagmar
, she silently communicated to him.
I will not be lured into confidences by you
.

The moment passed quickly, and the rest of the night went pleasantly enough, Malcolm and Liv leaving, over Liv’s protests, at just after midnight, and the remaining three settling down in front of the fire in the front room. Luna felt pleasantly buzzed, lounging on the settee, sipping from the tumbler of Scottish whiskey Mika had broken out. She gazed out of the window at the still Shetland night, the sky tinged pink as the island headed for the summer solstice. She heard the sound of lambs calling to their mothers in the field. She smelled smoke from the peat fire combined with the elusive scent of spring in the air.

Luna looked down at Mika and Dagmar, then, lying in front of the fire, both tapping messages into their phones. And laughed. They both looked up at her with identically blank expressions, which only made her laugh harder.

‘Here we are in one of the most rugged, beautiful islands in the world,’ she shook her head, ‘on a beautiful night, in good company, stomachs full of good food, and there you two are, glued to your phones.’

‘Yes,’ Dagmar replied, ‘I am tweeting what a good night it is.’

‘And I am replying to a message from Britta, who is also having a good night,’ Mika said.

Luna took another sip of her whiskey and lay down flat on the sofa, stretching her arms behind her head. ‘It just seems to me that we ought to savour these moments.’ She gestured outside. ‘Life is going on out there.’ Then gestured to Dagmar’s phone. ‘Not in there.’

The two of them looked up at her, then at each other. Dagmar opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it. Mika studied his phone for a moment, and said simply, ‘Deep.’

Luna snorted, then chuckled. She saw Dagmar’s shoulders moving up and down and realised she, too, was silently laughing. And that did it. The two women collapsed in laughter and Mika, his mission accomplished, laughed too – an endearingly goofy laugh, one which only made the moment funnier.

She was still rolling around on the sofa, clutching her ribs when she felt her phone vibrate in her jeans pocket and heard its muffled ringtone. Dagmar did a double take and pointed to her accusingly as Luna quickly pulled the phone out of her pocket. It was Stefan. Still laughing, she walked swiftly out of the room and answered, ‘Hi.’

‘Luna,’ came Mika’s voice from the living room. ‘Life is happening in here, not on your phone.’ To a shriek of laughter from Dagmar.

‘Sounds like you are having a good night,’ Stefan observed as Luna climbed the stairs to her bedroom, phone pressed against her ear.

‘
Such
a good night,’ Luna agreed.

*

She woke early the next morning, the sun flooding down onto her coverlet. Standing on top of her bed, Luna opened the skylight and looked out to see a glorious, clear blue sky. Down in the yard, the car was gone; someone else in the house had risen before her.

Fifteen minutes later, Luna was standing in the kitchen, washing last night’s dishes, earbuds firmly in place.

‘
Jag har tre systrar
,’ came the voice on her Swedish language course.

‘
Jag har tre systrar
,’ repeated Luna, rinsing a wine glass and placing it on the drying rack.

‘
Hur många bröder har du?
’ said the voice.

‘
Hur många bröder har du?
’ Luna said.