Lord and Master (34 page)

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.

She got all the way to the edge of the estate where it backed onto farmland beyond before she stopped. She hadn't felt the cold till now, but when she looked down she saw that her hands were white, almost bluish, and she was shivering. Chest roiling, she clasped her hands over her arms, trying to steady her breathing.

When she returned to her desk later that morning, the Marchioness heard her and called out, ‘Luna! Luna, I need you!'

Luna looked at her pad and pen, sitting on top of her desk, and left them where they were, silently walking into Lady Wellstone's office and shutting the door. Her Ladyship was sat behind her desk, reading glasses perched on her nose, looking at the printed diary Luna had left for her the previous afternoon. Just like any normal day…

‘You've asked David Martin to come on Monday morning,' her Ladyship said. ‘But I've got the lawyers coming first thing. If David came at lunchtime, that should be fine. And is 6.30 the earliest Gus can do a call with Stefan and me today?' She looked at Luna over the rim of her glasses, her expression a mirror image of Stefan's earlier.
Do as you are told, Luna.

‘How long has Stefan known?' Luna said.

‘What?'

‘You heard me,' she said curtly. ‘How long has he known about your plans for him?'

The Marchioness frowned. ‘I don't think that's any of your concern.'

Luna leant forward, placing both hands on Lady Wellstone's desk and fixing her iciest stare on the older woman. ‘It isn't a difficult question. How.
Long
.'

The Marchioness relented, adjusting the silk scarf around her neck. ‘Since November. I spoke with him after he made his first presentation to the board.'

Luna cast her mind back, remembering the triumphant look on Stefan's face as he stood in front of her just a few feet away, his presentation successfully completed, the Marchioness waiting for him in her office. And then…Kayla's opening night, and the stilted phone message from him.
Something has come up,
he'd said.

A business opportunity.

‘Luna, there are things you don't understand,' Lady Wellstone began.

‘You keep saying that,' Luna replied coldly. ‘But I understand well enough. Did you tell Stefan? Did you tell him
how
you were going to hand Arborage to him? What it would take to achieve that?'

Lady Wellstone opened her mouth and shut it.

‘No. No, I don't think you did. You took that upon yourself. And me. You left me at that monster's mercy while you and Cartwright schemed.'

‘Luna, believe me, had I known—'

‘Had you known you'd have done
nothing
different,' Luna said. ‘Please, please don't insult me by denying it. I think you would do anything, sacrifice anyone, to keep control of this place. The Dowager Marchioness in waiting…'

‘You forget your place, Luna.' The Marchioness's tone was stern, as though somehow she could re-establish her moral authority, squeeze shut the Pandora's box that had been opened.

‘My place,' Luna replied, voice strangled. ‘My
place
.' She began to turn away, but then stopped as a horrible realisation dawned upon her. ‘It was you who told Stefan about my parents. My father.'

The Marchioness said nothing.

‘Why?' Luna asked, pain at last creeping into her voice. ‘Why, Augusta?'

‘I— I was trying to protect you.' The Marchioness couldn't even meet her eyes now.

Luna shook her head sadly. ‘No, you weren't.' She walked out of the office, unwilling to listen to another word.

She was climbing the main stairs when Stefan came down them in a hurry – late, Luna thought, for the 11am meeting she'd scheduled with Roland, back when she thought it would be Sören doing the meeting. He slowed when he saw her, reaching his hands out to her.

‘Luna,' he began.

She looked at his hands, then at him. ‘Get away from me, you
liar,
' she hissed, sweeping past him up the stairs. She kept going till she got to her room, where she shut and locked the door. She remained there for the rest of the day.

*

She rang him a few minutes before 5pm, as snow was just beginning to fall outside.

‘We need to talk,' she said.

Stefan exhaled in relief on the other end of the line. ‘Yes, of course. I'll be finished down here by seven and then I'll come up.'

‘No,' she replied. ‘Not in the house. You have a break in your schedule at six. I'll meet you outside then. At the Rose Temple.'

The snow was still coming down as Luna exited the staff entrance an hour later. She paused to wrap her scarf around her head, walking out through the garden. Although the snow was beginning to stick, she could still make out the small path that led to the temple, a scale model of the Temple of Vesta built by the 12
^th
Marquess in honour of his dead wife. In summer months, it was one of Luna's favourite places in the entire estate, its cool marble walls and small, burbling fountain a welcome retreat, and the view back towards the garden and house nothing less than stunning.

She climbed the steps of the temple and looked back on that view now. She tried to imagine, not for the first time that day, what the Marchioness had said when she told Stefan about her parents.

It was an absolute tragedy, Stefan. Luna was in a bad way for a long time afterwards…Go carefully with her, she isn't as strong as she appears. Walk away if you're not serious.

But he had been serious. The Marchioness had misjudged that part of the conversation, if not the bulk of it. Perhaps she'd really thought Stefan would turn his attentions to her daughter, a more acceptable choice and one which would have cemented her future role as Dowager. But there was more to it than that. Luna thought of Stefan's expression, that day during the staff Christmas party when he'd kissed her in full sight of Lady Wellstone. She saw now that he'd been sending a message to the Marchioness, informing her of his intentions – intentions that had clearly worried her for reasons that had nothing to do with Isabelle.

Luna was looking at the statue of Rose, the 12
^th
Marchioness, as Stefan approached from the house and climbed the steps to join her.

‘He refused to pay for it, originally,' she said, nodding to the statue of a young woman dressed in Roman style, head inclined towards the ground. ‘The 12
^th
Marquess,' she clarified. ‘He said it didn't look anything like his wife and he wouldn't pay. It turns out that the sculptor used his daughter as his model. There are statues of her all over Europe, apparently, at every age – as a cherub in Versailles, an angel in a cemetery near Milan, the Virgin Mary in Rome. The sculptor said she was the most beloved creature in the world to him, and that his hands could only fashion stone in her image. It's a rather lovely story, isn't it…'

Stefan didn't reply and Luna sighed, turning to face him.

‘So,' she began. ‘Is it everything you'd hoped for?' At the blank look on Stefan's face, she added, ‘Becoming the future “lord and master”, I mean. Of course, it's early days yet. I'd watch my step if I were you. Augusta could always decide you don't fit the bill and then it's on to number four…Crispin, isn't it? In Peebles?'

‘Sarcasm doesn't become you,' Stefan said wearily.

‘Yes, yes, so I'm told,' she replied, something akin to hysterical laughter rising in her throat. ‘I've forgotten my place, apparently.'

Stefan closed the gap between them and took her by the shoulders, shaking her slightly. ‘Stop this, Luna. I can see that you're angry with me, but you called me a liar earlier and I want you to know that I never lied to you.'

She looked at him incredulously. ‘A business opportunity, you said.'

‘Strictly speaking, that's what Arborage is, what I've always said it is. A business.'

‘Nothing to do with me, you said.'

‘It wasn't. At least, not this part.'

‘How can you say that?' she cried. ‘It had
everything
to do with me. This place is my livelihood. I
live
here, for God's sake.'

‘I'm afraid that in this regard, I had to treat you like any other Arborage employee. Augusta swore me to secrecy.'

‘Oh, I daresay she did.'

‘And I had to honour that agreement, even if it meant concealing some things from you. I'm sorry if you feel I unfairly excluded you.'

Luna pulled away from him, going to stand next to one of the Corinthian pillars that supported the temple's miniature rotunda.

Stefan's voice came quietly from behind her: ‘I know you won't believe this, but I was trying to protect you – protect
us –
from all this. I wanted what was growing between us to be separate.'

‘So, when you guilt-tripped me out of working on my CV, that was protecting me, right?' she said bitterly. ‘And when you pumped me for information on which managers might be doing the same, that was for my own good, was it?' Her voice rising, she continued, ‘How long after that did it take for you to go to Roland and tell him not to fret, his job was safe? And never a
word
to me about
my
job, even though you knew how worried I was.'

‘I had an agreement with Augusta,' he reiterated.

‘And I'll bet she never let you forget it. I'll bet she was constantly reminding you of your agreement. Did it never occur to you to ask yourself why she didn't want you talking to me?' He was silent. ‘Here's why,' Luna said. ‘Because I'd have told you, whatever story she came up with to convince you that Florian was prepared to step down willingly, I'd have told you it wasn't true. And I wouldn't have stopped telling you until you believed me.

‘But instead you kept her secret,' she went on. ‘And you stood by while she pimped me out to him.'

‘I didn't know about that, Luna. If you had said one word to me—'

‘You weren't there to tell!'

‘
One word,
I'd have stopped it.'

‘Of course,' she remarked acidly. ‘I should have told my boyfriend, who doesn't really like talking about work and particularly about Arborage. Not with me, at least. I should have told him about my work troubles.'

‘If you felt that way, that you couldn't come to me, then I'm truly sorry, Luna. I never meant for you to feel that you were alone in this.' He was standing right behind her now, his heat radiating into her back, and Luna's body yearned towards him despite everything. ‘I can't help but notice,' he said softly, ‘that it seems to be Augusta you are most angry with.'

She lowered her head. He had hit upon the crux of it, no doubting that.

‘You're right,' she said eventually, turning to face him. ‘I am angry with her. But at the end of the day, it's her prerogative to keep secrets from me. She's my employer, and if I made the mistake of thinking our relationship was something more than that, well…more fool me.' Her eyes slid away from his momentarily as she added sadly, ‘Just because they call you “my dear” doesn't mean you are.'

‘Luna,' he said, reaching his hand towards her cheek.

Only for her to flinch away from him. ‘But you,' she said. ‘You told me you loved me.'

‘I
do
love you,' he protested. ‘You don't honestly doubt that, do you?'

‘I don't know,' she said, shaking her head. ‘Maybe love means something different to you than it does to me.'

‘No,' he said vehemently. ‘No. It means exactly the same.'

‘Let me tell you what it's been like for me, since I realised I loved you,' she said. ‘Since that day at the Globe, everything has changed. I've been so…happy. Every cliché they tell you about love – about how colours seem brighter, and the good things in your life feel even better and bad things seem less important – all of that's been true for me. Even the past month with Florian…' Luna's throat closed up. ‘Even that, I thought, well, it doesn't matter, not really, because Stefan loves me.'

‘Oh,
älskling
.'

‘I've been so happy, Stefan,' she said, a tear welling up unbidden and sliding down her cheek. ‘Happier than I thought it was possible to be.'

‘But I've felt that way too,' he said. ‘It's been the same for me.'

‘Between business commitments, you mean. And the demands of your birthright.'

Stefan exhaled in surprise, as if she'd slapped him. ‘That isn't fair, Luna.'

Luna half turned and reached her hand out beyond the columns into the darkness, watching flakes of snow fall onto it and melt. ‘If you had told me six months ago,' she whispered, ‘that I would want the kind of love my parents had, I'd have said you were mad. I've seen what loving someone that much can do, the harm it can cause when that person is gone. But…maybe I'm more like them than I was prepared to admit. I need to know that I come first, not third after Arborage and work. I need loving me to be the single most important thing in your life.'

‘It is.'

Luna shook her head. ‘No. You love me like a child loves a toy.'

Stefan grabbed her by her shoulders then, pulling her up till she was forced to look at him. ‘Take that back, Luna,' he commanded harshly, pulling the scarf down from her head and clasping her skull between his palms. ‘Take it back!'

When she wouldn't respond he released her, running a hand through his hair in frustration. ‘The man you fell in love with,' he said, ‘was a driven, successful businessman whose family birthright was Arborage. You didn't fall in love with me despite those facts – they were part and parcel of the man I was, and part and parcel of why you loved me. You can't expect me to stop being who I am.'

Luna looked at him, then down at her hands. She replayed his final words in her head and heard the logic in them. Her shoulders drooping slightly, she felt the fight going out of her. ‘You're right,' she said, her voice small. ‘I'm being unfair. It isn't reasonable of me to expect you to change.'

Sensing his victory, Stefan pulled her into his arms, kissing her forehead, her cheek, and her cold lips. And Luna allowed herself to melt into him as she always had, pressing her nose into the pulse in his throat.