Lord and Master (5 page)

But instead she interjected lightly, ‘In which case you would promise never to inappropriately flirt with me again?'

At this Stefan made an inarticulate noise, turning to face the wheel. Studying his hands for a moment, he eventually said quietly, ‘I cannot promise you that, I'm afraid, no.' And then smiled that smile of his, the one that must have gotten him out of countless scrapes with his father.

Luna couldn't resist – she burst out laughing. Stefan, too, started to laugh.

Eventually, she opened, ‘So, what would you like—'

‘I would like you to call me Stefan,' he interrupted bluntly. ‘And I would like to call you Luna.'

‘Okay,' Luna agreed, nodding slowly. And then, apropos of nothing, asked, ‘Are you hungry, Stefan?'

Twenty minutes later they were sat in front of the fireplace in The Glove in Hand, a gastro pub on the outskirts of Newmarket. The Glove was part of the estate portfolio, along with a Michelin-starred restaurant in Chieveley and a coaching inn and restaurant in the Highlands, and, Luna reasoned to Stefan, he might as well see it as part of his fact-finding mission.

‘The food here is also excellent,' she smiled, ‘but that's by the by.' She actually preferred this to Le Oiseau in Chieveley; less formal, more filling. With its simple wood tables, Windsor chairs and flagstone floor, it was inviting, as was clearly evidenced by the bustling lunch trade it was doing. A young waiter dressed in black with an Arborage green apron came and took their order, depositing half a lager and a glass of white wine on the table.

‘So, I have been wondering,' Stefan said, taking a sip of his beer. ‘Luna is an unusual name. Not common, I think.'

‘No,' Luna said, slightly embarrassed. ‘And it's not even my full name.'

Stefan looked at her expectantly and she drew a breath, adding reluctantly, ‘Stellaluna Gregory, that's what's on my birth certificate.'

‘Star and moon,' Stefan said, lifting his eyebrows. ‘You must have been a…much anticipated baby.'

‘I am reliably informed that seraphim and cherubim descended from heaven to the birthing suite upon my arrival,' Luna responded solemnly, pleased to elicit a laugh from him. And then, because the path this conversation was taking was uncomfortable for her, she added, ‘My form tutor in sixth year insisted that Stellaluna was too long for her to pronounce. She was threatening to call me Stella, so I took matters into my own hands.'

‘It suits you very well…Luna.' He had a way of saying her name; something about the way he pronounced the ‘u' that was similar to his father's, but affected her in an entirely different way. She could actually perceive the movement of blood to…places it hadn't been in a long, long time.

In an effort to distract herself, she changed the subject completely. ‘What were you hoping to achieve in your meeting with David Martin this morning? If you don't mind my asking.'

‘I don't mind your asking at all,' he said, pausing to consider his response. ‘The rents paid by Arborage's tenant farmers make up the majority of the estate's income, by quite a long way. But they have been viewed in the past as…hmm, the term is “cash cow”, yes?'

Luna nodded.

‘And there's nothing wrong with that, but I think there is more that can be achieved there, with a bit of lateral thinking. David is a good strategic thinker, as well as a farmer, and I wanted to get his opinion.'

Luna sensed that there was more to this than Stefan was saying, but then their food arrived and the moment for further probing passed.

*

They arrived back at Arborage House in the late afternoon, leaving her with too little time to trust the train to get her into London by 7pm, when she was meeting Kayla. So in the end she suited up and took her motorbike, reliably the fastest way to get from Berkshire to Soho.

The expression on Patrice's face when she walked into his loft, boots clomping against the reclaimed wood floor, was priceless.

‘Isn't this the look we're trying to get
away
from?' he asked, stroking his precision cut, three-millimetre-thin beard. His jet black hair was similarly short, lending him the air of an illusionist. Which wasn't far from reality, as far as Luna was concerned. Kayla had first brought her here on her return from living in Miami, where her work clothes had amounted to a series of LBDs, her previous boss having been a hotel magnate with…interesting ideas about uniforms for ladies. Luna had been bemoaning her woeful lack of clothes appropriate for the rarefied milieu of Arborage House when Kayla had snapped her fingers.

‘I know just the man to sort you out,' she'd cried. So she'd brought Luna to see Patrice, an old friend of hers from art college who was in the process of forging a career for himself in costume design after years as a stylist to the fashion-challenged of Essex.

Patrice had taken one look at Luna in the most demure of her LBDs, which still stopped somewhere short of her knees, and shook his head. ‘This is
not
the look you should be going for.' Subtlety, even modesty, Patrice argued, should be her watchwords from now on.

‘You have an unusual look,' he said, indicating her eyes and hair, which at the time she wore in a tumbled mass of unreconstructed curls down her back. ‘But you need to rein it in, leave more to the imagination.'

He'd taught her the classic silhouettes that suited her ‘endomorphic' figure best, and drilled into her the need to pay more for quality, picking out a capsule wardrobe of tailored dresses, trousers and accessories that would form the foundation of her new Arborage wardrobe. And it was Patrice who'd first suggested that she wear her hair up.

‘You look too young. Vulnerable,' he'd said, standing behind her in front of the large full-length mirror in his loft. Scooping her hair off her shoulders and twisting it above her head, he said, ‘There, that's Luna Gregory, personal assistant to the Marchioness.
That's
a woman to be reckoned with. Think of it as if you're playing a role, and the way you dress, the way you do your hair, your makeup, these are all tools to keep you in character.'

He'd been right. Looking the part had been key to Luna's confidence coming into her new job. Now, two years later, she actually felt slightly uncomfortable wearing her hair down.

‘So, I have a few things for you to try tonight,' Patrice said, kissing her lightly on both cheeks, only to be interrupted by Kayla bursting out of his loo in a blaze of colour and light, multiple bangles jingling along both wrists as she threw her arms around Luna.

‘Look at you,' Luna marvelled, holding Kayla at arm's length and raising a hand to touch her massive semi-fro. ‘You look like a lioness!'

‘That's the idea, babe,' Kayla laughed. Kayla's father was West Indian and her mum was pure East End. As far as Luna was concerned, with her slanted green eyes and perfect, mocha-coloured skin, Kayla was a perfect combination of them both. And for someone whose best male friend was a stylist, Kayla was admirably wayward in her fashion choices, a magpie who happily mixed boho with Bollywood, with a little dash of Marvel Comics superhero thrown in.

‘Come and look at Patrice's lovely onesies for the show,' Kayla enthused, dragging Luna over to a rail full of furry catsuits.

‘I keep telling you, they are
not
onesies,' Patrice sighed.

‘Mmm, feel, Luna.' Kayla ran her hands along the length of multi-coloured costumes. ‘It's like the wardrobe to Narnia.'

Snapping his fingers impatiently, Patrice held out a dress for Luna to try made of gauzy, slightly stiff black fabric. Patrice's loft, Luna had discovered, had no changing room, so she started removing her Gore-Tex jacket, reminding herself that with fashion there was no shame.

‘
Really,
Patrice? Black?' Kayla complained.

‘Your friend insisted.'

‘I'm supposed to fade into the background at these events,' Luna said, depositing her jacket on the floor and easing her braces over her shoulders. ‘Like I'm not there.'

‘How boring. I could never do your job.' Kayla's eyes widened as Luna dropped her Gore-Tex trousers. ‘Stellaluna Gregory, what are you wearing under there?'

In truth, after getting back from Norfolk in the late afternoon, Luna hadn't had time to do much more than strip out of her work clothes and hop straight into her motorcycle gear. She now stood clad in no more than Brazilian knickers, bra and white vest.

‘I was in a rush,' she mumbled sheepishly.

‘You naughty, naughty girl!' Kayla cackled.

Luna had found that Patrice tended to lead with his preferred choice, so she paid special attention to the way the dress felt as she lowered it over her head. It was crisp, almost, with a concealed zipper that ran the length of the back all the way up to its high neck. The sleeves were long and close fitting and the skirt was floor length and full. It made an evocative rustling noise when she moved.

Luna walked to the floor-length mirror and studied herself. The dress was certainly demure, monastic even. But the bodice skimmed her waist in an interesting way.

‘It's the undergarments that will make this,' Patrice said, running his hands up the curve of her side to cup her breasts in a way Luna would find thoroughly outrageous if she weren't convinced he was gay. ‘I have something special I can order for you, a basque, which will correct your posture and show these off to their best effect.' He looked back to Kayla, who was studying the dress sceptically in the mirror. ‘It will be quite something, I promise you, black or no black.'

And so it was decided. After sorting out the particulars of how Patrice would get the dress and basque to her, Luna and Kayla went to a small Italian eatery down the street from him in Soho, where Kayla had a Campari and Luna had a slice of pizza. By 10pm Luna was back on her bike, and just under an hour later she was pulling onto the drive at Arborage.

She pulled slowly into the barn, dropped her feet and carefully backed her bike into its usual corner, then hopped off, popping the kickstand. She'd realised about halfway home that the lack of underclothes had been a mistake, as the trousers started to chafe against her thighs. Removing her helmet, she unzipped her jacket and wrestled it off, relishing the cool air on her shoulders and slightly sweaty hairline.

She'd fancied she heard a slight chatter in the bike's chain on the way home, so she squatted next to it for a better look.

‘So it
was
you,' came Stefan's voice from the darkness. Luna yelped in surprise and fell straight back on her bum.

‘Bloody h—' she started. ‘You scared me.'

She'd somehow missed him as she'd driven in. It looked as though he'd just removed the tarp from his Lamborghini in preparation for going out. He was wearing a dark grey suit and black shirt, and even from her vantage point on the floor of the barn, he smelled heavenly. Acutely conscious of her vest and braces, and sticky hair in a braid down her back, Luna scrambled to her feet.

‘What is that, an Enduro?' Stefan asked.

‘Yeah.' Luna patted the seat.

‘Very nice.' He walked over to get a better look. ‘I must say, Luna,' – there it was again; she was going to have to get used to him using her given name without melting into a puddle – ‘you are full of surprises.'

‘It gets me where I want to go.' Luna shrugged, briefly recounting the story of her university boyfriend and the road to the Lake District.

‘So, I got the Enduro and he upgraded to a Ducati…and a hotter girlfriend,' she concluded with a wry smile.

‘Oh, I find that hard to believe,' Stefan replied with a slightly uncomfortable look.

Luna was pretty sure she knew what that look meant. ‘You own a Ducati, don't you.'

‘I do.'

‘I'll bet it's red, too.'

‘Does it come in another colour?' he quipped. Really, he had the nicest smile, and standing this close to him, Luna was acutely aware of just how little she had on underneath her biking trousers. ‘Do you think less of me, for my lack of imagination?' he murmured.

‘No,' she said. ‘I'd own a red Ducati too, if I were you.'

‘But your parents, they can't approve of their little Stellaluna's chosen mode of transport,' he said. To Luna's regret, because the conversation had been going so well.

‘Ah, unfortunately my parents are dead,' she replied, bending to retrieve her jacket and helmet.

‘I'm sorry, Luna.' Stefan touched her shoulder, clearly angry at himself. ‘That was thoughtless of me.'

She shook her head. ‘You weren't to know,' she said, and began to walk away. And then, because he looked so genuinely stricken, she said over her shoulder, ‘You're right though. My mother wouldn't have approved.'

The Marchioness returned the following morning from Venice. Although it was a Saturday, life at Arborage didn't follow a traditional working week pattern, so soon after Lady Wellstone's car returned from the airport Luna headed down to the office. Her one concession to the weekend was her clothes: black leggings, boots and a chunky grey jumper. Her hair she wore in its customary French twist, a tool of her trade she was loath to forego.

As Luna entered her anteroom, Regina came bounding out of the Marchioness's office, tail wagging furiously. Luna knelt next to her briefly and rubbed her silky ears.

‘Hello, girl. I've missed you.'

Lady Wellstone was at her desk as Luna entered, herself dressed comparatively casually in a Chanel sailor top and navy trousers. She didn't acknowledge Luna, instead continuing to stare out of the window at the long queue of tourists snaking around the house, waiting to buy tickets for the tour.

Luna was used to this. The Marchioness often returned from her trips to Venice in an uncommunicative mood. So Luna sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk and waited – their usual routine. Studying the older woman's profile, Luna thought she looked drawn. Tired.

John Wellstone, 16
^th
Marquess of Lionsbridge, lord and master of Arborage House and all its holdings, had left English shores thirteen years before, taking residence in a palazzo the family owned in Venice and effectively refusing to return, save for very occasional visits. Luna herself had only met him a few times and as a matter of loyalty she had refused to like him, though even she had to admit he was a very charming man, as was evidenced by the series of Italian mistresses he'd gone through over the years. That he made absolutely no effort to hide them from his wife had sealed Luna's enmity, though under other circumstances she could have pitied him. Pitied them both.

For it had been a family tragedy that had placed John and Augusta Wellstone on the path to estrangement: the death of their beloved son James thirteen years previously. James had drowned in a boating accident at Cambridge, a night of drunken revelry followed by an ill-advised attempt at punting. The sort of stunt that should have formed the basis for happy university memories, but had instead ended in horror. Luna could remember the photos of the family in the papers, the Marchioness practically collapsing against her husband on the way out of the church following James's funeral. Luna knew from personal experience that death was as likely to drive families apart as to bring them closer, and so it was for the Marquess and his wife, and to some extent their surviving daughters.

There were times still, many years later, when those events came back to place a ghostly hand on the Marchioness's shoulder, to remind her of all she'd lost. And so Luna sat and waited. Waited for the Marchioness to come back to her.

After some time, Lady Wellstone turned away from the window, lifting, then dropping the thick folder of papers on her desk. ‘All signed, Luna,' she said briefly.

Luna stood to pick them up, then sat again, hands clasped over the folder. When the Marchioness said nothing more, she enquired, ‘Tea?'

‘Tea would be lovely,' Lady Wellstone sighed. So Luna headed off to the staff kitchen, a slight, sympathetic ache in her throat.

Later, when they had finished the better part of a pot of Earl Grey and jointly agreed on a to-do list for the beginning of the week, the Marchioness seemed keen to hear how Luna's week with Stefan had gone. Luna listed the managers they'd met with, summarising some of the questions Stefan had asked, as well as the observations he'd made to her.

‘Yes, but what did you think of him, Luna? Do you think he's up to the job?'

Luna hesitated. ‘I do…but I'm not sure you'll be happy with some of the recommendations he makes.'

The Marchioness waved her hand. ‘I was a bit sharp with him the other day, I know. But I'm a big girl. I can take a little…brutal honesty.' Both women laughed, and the Marchioness leaned forward in her chair towards Luna. ‘He's quite attractive, don't you think? I seem to remember he and Isabelle having a bit of a penchant for each other when they were younger.'

Luna remembered it slightly differently, though she didn't say so and chose not to give her own opinion on Stefan's attractiveness.

It would have been too much to say that she missed him the following week. Missed the spice a change to her routine had added to her life, more like, Luna told herself. As it was, she and the Marchioness ticked along nicely, and if she'd enjoyed her time with Stefan, well, she also enjoyed the return to stability, predictability in the form of Lady Wellstone. Besides, with him still ensconced in the Dower House, his work for the estate still in progress, he remained a fixture in her life, albeit a slightly elusive one.

For example, one morning as she engaged in her usual, tortuous run around the estate, she glimpsed him again in the distance, running through the forest. She herself stuck closer to home, noting that the clouds above looked ominous. Indeed, fifteen minutes into her run the heavens opened, and by the time she got back to the formal gardens she was thoroughly soaked. She spotted their head gardener Nigel there, pruning back some ornamental shrubs in preparation for winter and remembered she wanted to talk to him.

‘Morning, miss.' He tipped his hat as Luna ran to a stop, bending over and placing her hands on her knees, panting furiously.

‘Morning,' she gasped. ‘I just wanted to ask…' Luna straightened up and coughed, wringing the water out of her ponytail before resting her hands on her hips. ‘I wanted to ask if you think we can have estate flowers at the volunteers evening on Saturday.' Every October the Marchioness hosted an event for the scores of volunteer docents, tour guides and other support staff who gave their time to the estate, without whom, she often said, the place couldn't run. There were also several volunteers attending who worked in the gardens and wider grounds, and Luna thought it would be a nice touch to use Arborage-grown flowers.

‘I should have thought so,' Nigel replied, beginning to run through a list of what was still in flower this late in the year. While they were talking, Stefan ran past, looking fresh as a daisy and somehow even more attractive soaked to the skin. He slowed and did a double take at Luna, who frowned in return.
Yes, yes, we can't all be as lovely and fit as you.
And then he had the audacity to laugh, actually laugh, before continuing his run. The cheek of him.

She had another near miss with him later in the week, when she returned from lunch and could swear she smelled his cologne in the air. Sure enough, when the Marchioness called her in later, it turned out he'd dropped by over lunchtime. ‘We were talking, Stefan and I, and I wondered if you'd be willing to take him to see your friends, the video game ones, on Friday. Seeing as this is your brainchild…'

It was hardly Luna's brainchild, but it was true that she'd been the one to introduce Jem and her boyfriend Rod to the Marchioness a year earlier, when Rod, a games designer, had floated the idea of creating a game based in and around the Arborage estate. His magnum opus,
Remainers
, was due to be launched early the following year. But the direct income to the estate from sales of the game remained an unknown quantity. Luna was surprised Lady Wellstone thought it was worth Stefan's time, until she continued, ‘And after I've arranged for him to have lunch with Isabelle and see her shop.'

Luna swallowed a smile. Could it be that her boss was indulging in a bit of maternal matchmaking? Not that it was any of her business, she thought as she pinged an email to Jem, who she knew would be thrilled about the command visit.

Otherwise, Luna's week was fairly routine, apart from planning for the volunteers evening and dealing with the numerous papers the Marchioness had brought back from Venice, all of which needed to be scanned and sent off to various law offices and the like. One of the documents, an application for a government grant for the equestrian centre, required Helen Wellstone-Waverley's co-signature. Luna was reluctant to put it in the internal post; things that went to the stables had a way of getting lost, or coming back in no fit state to pass on.

So on Wednesday morning she popped her head into the Marchioness's office and said she was going to take the application down to Helen personally. Working at Arborage was good that way, she mused as she walked past the portico, where a crowd of primary school students in grey blazers and pinafores were posing between the two statues of lions on either side of the main entrance. Always opportunities to get out and about, if you looked for them.

‘Roar like lions,' the students' teacher shouted, holding her camera aloft to capture a photo. Luna smiled at the resulting chorus of high-pitched roars, catching the attention of one particularly cheeky little boy, who gave her a little extra roar as she passed. She rewarded him with an answering snarl and a quick display of her claws.

The equestrian centre was located on the boundary between the forest and the farmland beyond. Including an outdoor manège and an indoor school, as well as state of the art stables, it housed anywhere between fifteen and twenty horses at any given time. As well as being a professional show jumper, Helen also gave lessons and hosted camps for aspiring show jumpers.

None of this held any particular interest for Luna, who frankly found horses unpredictable and unreliable. Give her a solid, dependable motorbike any day.

As usual, the various teenage stable hands toiling away mucking out stables paid her absolutely no attention as she carefully picked her way into the brick-cobbled yard, wishing she'd worn more sensible shoes. She eventually had to collar one pimply youth, who informed her disinterestedly that Helen was ‘hacking out' and might be back soon. Or might not, he didn't really know.

Luna was debating whether to risk leaving her document with the pimply wonder when she heard the sound of horses approaching on one of the forest trails. It was Helen, clad in quilted jacket and jeans, her light brown hair cut sensibly short and face still tanned from the summer. Like a larger, horsier version of Lady Wellstone. And with her was…Stefan. Judging from the sound of Helen's laughter, it appeared he'd melted through whatever grudge she had against him, at least for the present.

They entered the yard, Helen riding a chestnut mare while Stefan was on a gorgeous, even to Luna's untrained eyes, dark grey stallion. She was astounded Helen would let him ride what must be one of her best horses, till she noticed the stallion toss its head with a wide, crazy-eyed look that completely confirmed her distrust of his species. Stefan corrected it with a swift yank of the reins, and Luna realised why Helen had given him this horse: as a test.

Stefan and Helen were talking horsey talk, something about colic, which in Luna's experience all horsey people seemed obsessed with. This stuff went in one ear and out the other for her, even more so because she was transfixed not just by the stallion, but by its rider. Stefan was dressed in tan, close-fitting jodhpurs, a zip-front black jumper and suitably worn boots and chaps. He wore a black riding hat as well and looked like he was born to the saddle, completely at ease chatting with Helen, then bending down to slap the stallion's neck affectionately. He hadn't shaved yet that day, and Luna noted for the first time that his beard hair was ever so slightly lighter than the hair on his head.

From her vantage point next to an empty stable, Luna also had a bird's eye view of the hard line of his thigh and left buttock in the saddle, flexing as he squeezed his legs against the horse's sides. She hadn't really given Stefan's buttocks much consideration before now and, gracious, well, they were worth considering. Bloody hell – and a glimpse of the muscles in his forearms as he managed the reins. How did a man get that fit just from running?

Maybe Stefan's ears were burning because at that moment he turned his head in her direction and saw her standing there watching him, pitiful little stack of papers in her hand. She didn't think she was actually slavering or anything, but the look of amusement that settled on his face surely meant that she'd been caught out. Seeing as she couldn't play it off, she decided to go the full distance, raising her eyebrows and giving him her best
I'm impressed
look.

Helen, too, noticed Luna and came straight over to her after she'd dismounted. ‘Sorry, I did get your message about the papers. I'll just take them in the office.'

Luna moved to follow her, but Stefan called out to her, ‘Miss Gregory, a word please?'

She walked over to him as he dismounted the stallion and casually handed the reins to the pimply stable boy. As the boy led the horse away, Stefan removed his helmet, tucking it under his arm and running his free hand through his hair. Luna put her hands on her hips as if to say,
Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the show, but…
and immediately regretted baiting him when he abruptly leaned his face close to hers, eyes looking her up and down then locking with her own.

‘I should warn you,' he said softly, but with intent, ‘that if you continue looking at me like that, I'm going to drag you into one of these stables and—'

She never got to hear what Stefan planned to do to her in the stable because the grey stallion chose that moment to rear on its hind legs, emitting a high-pitched scream of a whinny. The stable boy cowered as the horse's front hooves danced above his skull, and Stefan cursed under his breath, then walked over to help get the horse under control.

‘Whoa there, lad,' Stefan said calmly, raising one hand to the stallion's neck as he tried to grab the reins with the other.
‘Duktig pojke, duktig pojke…'

At this point Helen emerged from her office with the countersigned document, which she practically threw at Luna before going to Stefan's aid. Luna took this as her cue to make a swift exit.