Lord and Master (8 page)

‘Well, it's a source of ongoing sadness for my friends that you aren't still on it. Jem particularly.'

‘So,' Stefan shifted in his seat, tapping his fingers on the table. ‘You have known Jem and Rod since university?'

‘Yes. I lived across from Jem in the halls of residence. I was there the very night she first met Rod.'

‘And was she always so lively?'

Luna gave that some consideration. ‘No, her look is deceiving. Jem can be very shy. She must like you, to be so relaxed around you.'

Stefan smiled, and it pulled at Luna inside a little that he cared what her friends thought of him.

‘At uni we always said Jem was the kind one of our little group of friends,' she went on. ‘She's still that way.'

‘And you? What were you? The hot one?'

Luna gave him an
are you mad?
look. ‘No. That was my roommate Nancy. She was also the determined one. And the sometimes slightly scary one.'

‘So what were you, Luna?'

‘I was the quiet one.'

*

Later that night, having no particular plans for the evening, Luna decided to take a leisurely bath and read her copy of
Grazia
magazine. Annoyingly, her bedroom wasn't en suite and the sole bathroom on her attic floor was located at the end of the hallway. The bathroom had been installed in the early twentieth century, the very ultimate in modern convenience at the time, but now, with its water tank and chain pull above the loo, ancient claw-foot bath and tiles that looked like they'd come directly from a Turkish bath, it slightly unnerved Luna. Living, as she did, on her own in the attic, she got into the habit of leaving the bathroom door open when she bathed – particularly at night, when something about the dim lighting in the bathroom spooked her.

Not that she believed in the abundant ghosts said to haunt Arborage, heavens no. Still, she thought as she poured a generous measure of bubble bath into the tub and hopped in while it filled, the open door was a comfort. If the door was open, there was no way an axe followed by a crazy man were going to come through it. (One time when Jem and Rod spent the night, Rod left Luna a little souvenir in the form of
REDRUM
, finger-drawn onto her bathroom mirror for her to discover the next time she took a shower. A prank she had yet to forgive.)

Settling into the bath, she lifted her hair from her nape and dropped it over the roll top edge of the bath. After the shaving incident in her teens, she'd regrown it with grim determination till it regained its previous length touching the base of her spine. Even if she did always wear it up,
she
knew how long it was and she liked the weight of it at that length.

She'd just opened her
Grazia
when she heard the sound of music from downstairs and remembered that Isabelle had guests, who were now clearly getting into party mode. Isabelle's outings to Arborage were a source of slight tension between her and her mother. Her friends had a bad habit of thinking the entire house was at their disposal, and after they broke an expensive vase from a display in the east wing one weekend, the Marchioness firmly restricted future parties to the west wing. Fortunately, there were over twenty bedrooms in the west wing, and the Marchioness's own suite was situated well away from the second-floor bedrooms where Isabelle would have placed her guests. Luna heard laughter on the stairs and wished her own rooms were similarly isolated, her irritation growing into alarm as the noise got louder and two drunken men stumbled into the hallway just outside her bathroom.

The first, a tall, toffish young man dressed entirely in Jack Wills and carrying a decanter of sherry, took one look through the bathroom door and drawled, ‘Hel-
lo
, what do we have here?'

His mate, a slightly dumpy man-boy with a pathetic patch of fluff on his chin, had the good grace to mumble a quick apology and quickly back his way back down the stairs, but Jack Wills stopped and put his head into the bathroom, eying Luna lasciviously.

‘It's a veritable water nymph. A selkie sent to tempt me…' he began, as Luna rolled her eyes and sank deeper into the tub. She was just preparing to deliver a stinging retort when a disembodied arm grabbed him.

To her combined amazement and amusement, she heard Stefan's voice saying, ‘Sorry, but this part of the house is private,' over the protests of his captive as they descended the stairs. Luna sat up in the bath and dropped her magazine on the floor, hand stretched out toward her robe on the towel rail in readiness for a quick escape. Hearing nothing more in the ensuing moments, however, she sunk back into the water and closed her eyes.

‘Everything alright here?'

Luna jerked and sat bolt upright again. It was Stefan, leaning against the doorframe, casually taking in the view.

‘Oh for f—' she fumed, before realising that the bubbles weren't providing complete coverage to her assets. Lowering herself back into the bath, she said, ‘Yes, everything's fine. Thanks for that.'

He, of course, looked his usual suave self in jeans and a dark blue shirt that served to complement the blond stubble on his cheeks. His eyes were sparkling, whether from drink or the tableau in front of him, Luna couldn't tell.

‘Right, well…' she began.

‘Would it be terribly inappropriate of me to say that you
do
look rather like a water nymph, lying there like that?' Stefan enquired.

‘It would, really.'

‘Or that I like you very much with your hair down?'

‘You're going to have to leave now.'

Stefan nodded, but seemed in no particular rush to comply. ‘How long
is
your hair, anyway? Very long, I think.'

At this Luna grabbed a bar of Pears from the soap dish and launched it at him. Stefan ducked just in time, laughing.

‘Goodnight, Luna,' he said, making his way back down the stairs.

Luna bent her head close to the Marchioness's ear and whispered, ‘That's Joan. She works for Tours and she's with her husband Allan. You've met him.'

Twenty-four hours after her surprise visitation in the bath, Luna was standing with Lady Wellstone in a receiving line outside the main gallery, where the volunteers evening was just getting underway. After a day of controlled frenzy orchestrating the final preparations, Luna was pleased to note that a lovely arrangement of Arborage-grown flowers and greenery awaited guests inside the gallery, along with champagne, hors d'oeuvres and a string quartet playing appropriately tasteful music. Apparently they'd hosted a less lavish, more relaxed thank-you barbecue four years earlier, only to be inundated with complaints; having few opportunities to get out their glad rags in their everyday lives, Arborage's volunteer workforce valued its annual black-tie event. A chance to rub shoulders with the family, for Lady Wellstone insisted that Helen and Isabelle attend.

Indeed, when Isabelle dropped by the office that morning to try and wheedle invitations for her hunting friends, the Marchioness somewhat crossly refused and instructed her to send her friends home. When Isabelle protested, the Marchioness sliced a hand through the air and said, ‘This isn't a negotiation, Isabelle. You've known about this obligation for months now and I insist you take it seriously.'

So Isabelle had slunk out of her mother's office, casting a baleful glance at Luna. Unfairly, really, Luna thought, because despite the fact that she'd enjoyed listening to the dressing down, it wasn't as though she'd had a hand in it.

And there Isabelle stood now, in a daringly low-cut black dress and silver stilettos, her blond hair shining like a luminous cloud around her beautiful face, chatting with Joan and her husband Allan, looking for all the world like a perfect daughter of the manor. Helen, standing nearby, seemed less comfortable in her fuchsia taffeta ensemble, but she too, knowing her mother's expectations, was doing her best to be outgoing.

Luna's sole purpose, meanwhile, was to stand slightly behind Lady Wellstone, invisible in her simple black gown, whispering the names of the volunteers to her boss before they got to her. The Marchioness liked to perpetuate the fiction that she knew every single one of Arborage's volunteers on sight. It was a challenge even for Luna, who knew many of them at least to say hello to, but who'd still had to spend long hours scrutinising the acceptance list for the party to ensure she had a face for every name.

Right on cue, the Marchioness took Joan's hand and said, ‘Hello, Joan, don't you look lovely. And…' Ah, Luna loved it when she pretended to try and place the partners. ‘
Allan
, isn't it? We've met before.' Oh, she was good.

Looking at the next in line, Luna leant forward slightly and said softly, ‘Ashley Eccles, works in the stables.' The pimply wonder, who'd made a real effort tonight, hair gelled to within an inch of its life, rented tuxedo sitting slightly askew on his gangly frame.

‘Hello there, Ashley,' Lady Wellstone smiled. ‘I see my slave driver of a daughter has given you the night off.'

There was a brief gap in the line and Luna straightened her spine, feeling the whalebone in her basque revert to its preferred shape. She'd been just a little shocked when she'd removed it from its satin-lined box that evening. It was made entirely of expensive black lace with a gauzy cream underlay. When she'd managed to hook herself into it, it fit her like a glove, hugging her curves and, as Patrice had implied, accentuating her B cup breasts. Looking at herself in the full-length mirror in her bedroom, clad in nothing more than the basque, a pair of black silk knickers and thigh-high stockings, she had a moment of doubt. Really, this was not the look she'd been trying to achieve, much as it privately titillated her. But then she lowered the dress over her head and zipped it up, and had to acknowledge Patrice's brilliance.

Covered by the dress, the basque became something else entirely. Patrice was right, it certainly made her stand up straight, but more than that, it made the dress sit differently. Made it cling slightly in all the right places. And the fabric of the dress's bodice was just sheer enough that it hinted at what was underneath without actually revealing it, for anyone who bothered to look. Even Luna had to admit that, aided by the basque, her breasts looked phenomenal in this dress, the high neckline precluding any hint of cleavage so that the eye focused only on their shape, high and rounded above the integral belt that sat at her waist.

She kept her accessories simple as well, opting to wear only a pair of small, square-cut diamond earrings left to her by her mother. But her hair she lavished extra time on, pulling it back tight from her face before arranging it in two roped loops in back, her ‘special occasion' do.

She'd loved the way the entire ensemble felt as she made her way down to the gallery earlier that evening, skirts whispering against her stockings. Ironically, though, she only had its impact confirmed by the most unlikely of sources.

Florian Wellstone had chosen to make an unexpected appearance at the event, arriving shortly after the first guests and making a beeline for the Marchioness, who looked less than pleased to see him.

‘Fox,' she smiled over-brightly. ‘What a pleasant surprise. I didn't know you planned to come tonight.'

Florian bent to kiss his sister-in-law's hand, his scalp gleaming under its sparse covering of rust-coloured hair. Fox really was an appropriate pet name for him, Luna thought, with his colouring and diminutive stature, though he affected the same air of cultivated degeneracy that was his elder brother's stock in trade.

‘I was in the visssinity and I thought, why not,' he purred, and Luna's skin crawled at the slight, sibilant ‘s' in vicinity. Florian Wellstone grated on Luna. High-handed with the staff, short-tempered when denied his ‘due', and, above all, rampantly, fatally jealous of his brother and all he possessed, he was everything she hated. A man with no occupation of his own, who lived to make life difficult for those who did.

As if he felt her disapproval, Florian turned to her next, his small, darting eyes drawn immediately to her chest.

‘And the ever charming Miss Gregory, your faithful assssistant,' he murmured. Luna nodded to him, a ghost of a smile on her lips. A member of the catering staff approached the Marchioness to ask a question and Florian added softly, eyes devouring her, ‘Augusta's shadow…I sssometimes wonder what would become of you if she wasn't here. If you'd just fade away into nothingnesss.'

Luna fixed her coldest stare on him and he yelped with laughter. ‘Oh, the Ice Princesss emerges from her frigid lair. How delightful!' And slithered away to get himself a drink.

An hour later, with the party in full swing, Florian was holding court next to the bar, a slick of sweat on his upper lip as he regaled a group of young female volunteers with stories from his youth at Arborage. Helen and Isabelle, too, had headed off to help themselves to champagne while Luna and Lady Wellstone continued to man the doors.

‘I think we're at full numbers now, Luna,' Lady Wellstone finally pronounced. ‘You go get yourself something to drink.'

Luna was standing in the queue for drinks a few moments later when she saw Stefan enter, looking utterly magnificent in his tuxedo. She hadn't really expected to see him tonight, and it made her happy to see Lady Wellstone laugh at something he said, clearly a compliment because she immediately looked down at her emerald silk dress as if to say,
What, this old thing?
Stefan appeared to confer with her briefly, quickly scanning the room before walking up to an elderly docent stood on her own and introducing himself. Luna smiled and, as if he felt it, Stefan's eyes briefly swung in her direction over the head of his companion. He was in the middle of saying something, some pleasantry no doubt, and though she couldn't hear him, Luna could swear he hesitated in mid-sentence. And returned her smile.

‘Good evening, Luna. I must say you look rather lovely.' Luna turned to see Tours Manager Roland White, dressed in a rather natty tartan bowtie and matching waistcoat.

‘Roland,' she laughed, ‘flattery will get you everywhere.'

And so the evening continued. Luna had one glass of champagne, got collared by three managers hoping to get time in the Marchioness's diary the following week, and offered to take no fewer than nine group and couple photos.

‘Squeeze in, or one of you will get cut out,' she instructed a gaggle of young gardeners she'd positioned in front of the floral display. Framing them in the screen, she clicked a series of photos, then gave them the thumbs up and handed back the phone. Stefan, in the meantime, appeared to be on a one-man mission to befriend the shy and awkward. At that very moment he was dragging a blushing young girl over to speak with Lady Wellstone, who, bless her, immediately grasped both the girl's hands and squeezed them, chatting away.

Having served his purpose, Stefan's eyes wandered again, seeking and finding Luna across the room. This time he made absolutely no effort to conceal the leisurely journey of his gaze from her face down the length of her body and back again. Had Luna been the blushing kind, her face would have been on fire from the intensity of it, the way he looked at her. As it was, she gave him look for look, and lifted her champagne glass to him. Cheerily, she hoped.

This seemed to spur him into action. Briefly touching the Marchioness's elbow, he moved in Luna's direction, never taking his eyes off her. She felt her heart thumping against its lace cage as he edged gracefully through the crowd towards her. She parted her lips, trying to think of an opening gambit other than
you're so beautiful you make my sex ache.

He was within fifteen feet of her when out of nowhere Florian cast himself in his path, eagerly taking his hand and smiling his most unctuous smile. If Luna wasn't mistaken, he'd been waiting for this opportunity all night and he wasn't going to give up his prey easily. Stefan fleetingly cast her a helpless look and she lifted two fingers to her right eyebrow in salute –
good luck, skipper
– and turned away.

She stuck it out at the party for another twenty-five minutes, till just gone 10pm. And then, inexorably, a familiar feeling settled in. Partly because she was Lady Wellstone's PA and thus neither a member of the family nor truly a member of the wider staff, and partly because of her innate reserve, Luna found prolonged socialising at Arborage a strain. Give her a job to do and she was fine. But standing alone in a room full of people, even people she dealt with every day, and Luna felt…separate.

Even more so because the party was now in full flow, just the right amount of alcohol having been consumed to grease the wheels of good fellowship. She could see Stefan talking to Florian and Isabelle, who was hanging on his arm. And every word, apparently, from the rapt expression on her face. She saw the Marchioness consulting her notes for the speech she would make shortly. She saw happy people all around her, gathered in groups of three or more, drinking and talking and smiling…

Which meant, for Luna, it was time to go.

Perhaps, she thought as she made her way out of the gallery, Florian was right about her. Out of the Marchioness's orbit, she could fade away without even being noticed. Which is why she thought nothing of taking a concealed route, a door cleverly hidden in the wood-panelled hallway outside the gallery, behind which a spiral stone staircase led to the upper stories of the house.

Lady Wellstone herself had first shown her the hidden staircase years ago and it had special associations for Luna. The staircase was not included in the house tour and, to Luna, it always felt like a bit of a private treat to use it. Tonight its prime advantage was the fact that two flights up there was a small landing with a metal grill overlooking the gallery. From there, Luna could watch unseen as the Marchioness gave her speech.

Closing the door behind her, Luna lifted her skirts carefully and climbed the darkened, tightly winding stone steps till she got to the landing. Leaning against the high stone ledge, she looked down on the gallery from behind the ornate metalwork, wondering if some long-dead marquess had installed the grill for the very reason she was here now, in order to be invisible, a fly on the wall of his own party.

She heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs and turned to see Stefan climbing toward her. So she wasn't invisible after all, at least not to him.

Luna lifted a finger to her lips. ‘The acoustics are strange in here,' she whispered as he came to stand behind her on the landing. ‘No one can see you, but if you talk too loudly they can hear you.'

‘I will be very quiet,' Stefan assured her. ‘I had forgotten this staircase was here till I saw you making your escape.' After a moment's silence, he said, ‘Are you hiding, Miss Gregory?' and she could hear rather than see his smile.

‘No, not hiding. Just on my way out. Sometimes I like to come this way. You have to admit, it's a pretty incredible view of the gallery.'

‘You're leaving very early.'

Luna shrugged, feeling her dress brush against his jacket. ‘My work is finished,' she said quietly.

‘Ah, work.'

‘And…' she trailed off.

‘And what?'

‘I'm not very good at parties.'

‘You surprise me.' His mouth was so close to her ear that she could feel his breath. ‘You looked at home to me. By the way, you are very beautiful tonight.'

‘You look beautiful too,' she responded honestly and felt him rumble with laughter.

‘Miss Gregory,' he sighed, his nose touching her ear. ‘You are…disarming.' Encircling her waist with his arm, he murmured, ‘I like very much this dress,' burying his nose in the spot behind her ear where she applied her perfume. Standing as they were in the enclosed space on the landing, Luna realised that Stefan had the better of her. She could neither turn to face him nor prevent, or indeed reciprocate, his explorations. She felt his hand running up her side, heard a slight intake of breath as his fingers traced the whalebone in her basque. ‘Ah, I wondered…'