Lord and Master (12 page)

His penis was hard and hot and beautiful. Joining her thumb and forefinger, she circled his shaft, stroking it down to its base at the same time as he drew his two fingers closer to her clitoris, stroking the sensitive side of it. They moaned simultaneously, and Stefan rolled his eyes back into his head, trembling slightly. She cupped his balls and felt them tighten.

‘Condoms?' she asked. Stefan rolled onto his back, stomach muscles heaving and cock standing almost straight up. He flung his hand towards his trousers and Luna crawled over to them, purposefully swaying her derriere in his direction. By the time she'd located and ripped the condom out of its packet, he was behind her, pulling her butt up against him. Placing her free hand on the floor, she tilted her head upside down in the puddle of her hair and grinned wickedly up at him, passing him the condom. Then she scooted back against him, spreading her knees, readying herself.

‘Not yet,' he said, reaching both hands underneath her and parting her. She felt his fingers,
all
his fingers, playing along her sex, strumming her. Slowly at first, but as she began to twist beneath him his pace and the pressure of his fingers increased, spreading her, leaving no bit of her untouched. Lovely, so lovely…she was blooming, lifting and…she was gone, neck arched, thighs quaking, inarticulate noises escaping her.

He entered her immediately, holding her hips at such an angle that she had to go down onto her elbows, laying her cheek on the carpet. He gasped at the sight of this and all restraint was lost to him as he slammed his hips against her till he came, in one last driving push, head flung back, forehead furrowed in rapture.

She told him, sometime later, as they lay next to the dying embers of the fire, about her Ladyship's visit from Florian and her two daughters earlier that day. Like Stefan, Luna was still feeling her way along in terms of how much ‘inside information' she should share with him – and how much, as the Marchioness's loyal PA, she should keep to herself. But she reasoned that Lady Wellstone would certainly tell him about this herself. And something in Luna wanted him to know what was at stake here; not just Arborage's possible future, or his reputation, but the Marchioness's authority.

To all this he'd said nothing, merely nodding speculatively, till it occurred to Luna that he might think she'd used this as a gambit to extract information from him on his presentation. She sat up on the Oriental rug, locating her knickers and sliding them on, then reaching for her bra.

‘It's late, Luna.' He watched her from his prone position on the floor, expression inscrutable. ‘Why don't you just stay?'

‘No. I have things to do in the office tomorrow morning,' she replied, deciding against telling him that Lady Wellstone was off to Venice again. Besides, although she was prepared to have mind-blowing sex with him, actually
sleeping
with him was a bridge too far right now.

*

The following night Luna came over to the Dower House late again, having seen Lady Wellstone off on the latest possible flight to Venice. Yet again she found Stefan hard at work on his laptop. He had the grace to look slightly guilty when she lifted her tablet and said, ‘Don't rush. I'll just go upstairs and read.'

Climbing the main stairs and entering his bedroom, she kicked off her shoes, crouching briefly, then leapt up onto the mattress. She sat and scrolled through her usual news websites, none of which she'd had a chance to as much as look at over the past few days. Then she searched Kayla's forthcoming
Cats
premiere, which she, Jem and Nancy were going to attend the following week. There were a few negative bits of gossip about a former soap actor who was also appearing in the musical, who many in the business appeared to think wasn't up to the job. Luna yawned and looked at the time in the bottom corner of her tablet. 23:16. Stefan was clearly a night owl, and usually so was she, but frankly all this sex had worn her out. She switched off her tablet, resolving to close her eyes for just a few minutes. She wondered if Stefan had turned up the radiators in the room, which was blissfully warm. And very quiet…

When she woke later she was on her side, her fist pressed against her chin. She opened her eyes and saw Stefan lying next to her, watching her.

‘Hi,' she said groggily.

‘Hey,' he smiled, stroking her cheek.

‘What time is it?'

‘Around midnight.'

She stretched, yawning, and reached behind his neck. ‘How long were you watching me? Was I snoring?'

‘Not quite,' he grinned. ‘Breathing deeply.' He stroked her cheek again and she shut her eyes, rubbing her hand up and down the short hair at his nape. Stefan sighed and reached for her, but at that moment her phone vibrated on the bedside table. Pulling away from him, she turned and studied the display. It was the Marchioness.

‘Hi.'

‘Hello, Luna. I'm sorry, were you asleep?'

‘No, no, I wasn't.' She sat up against the pillows and smiled; this wasn't the first time she'd had a late night phone call from Venice. Something about going there brought out the vulnerability in Lady Wellstone, and it was as if talking to Luna about inconsequential administrative matters grounded her. ‘How goes it?' Luna enquired.

‘I'm sitting on the terrace at the palazzo, looking down on the canal. I'd forgotten how beautiful this view was, after all these years.'

‘Mmm, sounds lovely,' Luna said softly, as Stefan shifted slightly in the bed beside her. ‘So, everything's okay then?'

There was silence on the other end of the line, but finally she heard the Marchioness say briefly, voice tight, ‘No.' And then…Luna strained to hear, sitting up in the bed. Soft, strangled sounds. The Marchioness was
crying.

‘What is it?' Luna asked, sliding down from the bed and walking out into the hall. ‘What's happened?'

After some seconds, the Marchioness tried to compose herself. ‘I'm sorry, Luna, I shouldn't have phoned you this late.'

‘No, no, of course you should. Tell me, what do you need? What can I do?' Luna's heart was pumping furiously. The Marchioness had never, ever cried in her presence and it pained her to visualise it.

‘There are some things I need you to sort first thing in the morning. Can you be in the office early?'

‘Of course. Are you sure there's nothing I can do now? I could…I could…' She stopped. She didn't know what she could do.

‘No, not in the middle of the night. I'll phone you tomorrow at seven-thirty your time.'

‘Okay.' Luna wanted to add something more, something reassuring like ‘don't worry', but the sound of the Marchioness this upset had thrown her. She rang off and walked back into Stefan's bedroom, starting to put her shoes on.

Stefan sat up in the bed, looking at her strangely. ‘Who was that?' And if Luna had been less distracted, less worried, she'd have heard the edgy note in his voice.

‘The Marchioness,' she said briefly, to his apparent surprise.

‘Is something wrong?' he asked.

Luna considered what she should tell him and decided that it was nothing. ‘She needs me in the office first thing tomorrow. I have to go.'

He followed her down the stairs, watched as she pulled on her coat.

‘Are you sure there's nothing wrong?'

‘She just needs me there early, to sort a few things out.'

‘Okay,' he nodded. ‘So, I'll see you tomorrow night then?'

‘Um, no, I forgot to say, I'm out with friends in London tomorrow night. I'll, ah, I'll phone you this weekend.'

And she was out of the door, striding into the night. In her mind, she stretched her hand out toward the drawer in her apothecary chest marked Stefan. And slammed it shut.

Divorce. That was the only thing Luna could think of that might have brought Lady Wellstone to tears the previous night. Luna was back in the staff cafeteria again, this time collecting a bowl of porridge and a coffee to take to her desk. She looked at her watch. 7:12.

But why, after all these years of relative equilibrium, equilibrium that had allowed him to live exactly as he liked, with the funds to do it, would the Marquess demand a divorce? Luna could only speculate that he'd finally succumbed to the demands of his most recent mistress – others, she knew, had pressed him to sever himself from his wife, but in the past this had always been a prelude to his ending the relationship. John and Augusta Wellstone had a silent, unspoken pact: their marriage was a paradox, both finished and insoluble.

Luna carried her breakfast up to the office, noting the relative darkness outside, the sun just sitting on the horizon. At 7.30 on the dot her office line rang.

‘Good morning, Luna,' came the Marchioness's voice, sounding audibly calmer than it had the previous night. ‘I want to apologise for last night…'

‘No, no need—' Luna began.

‘I was tired and emotional and I shouldn't have taken it out on you. I'm sorry. I hope you weren't worried.'

‘I was, a little,' Luna confessed.

‘Well, things look a bit better in the bright light of day. My dear, I need you to help me with something. John has lost his passport. We looked everywhere for it last night and it was nowhere to be found. So I need you to…do whatever you need to do to get it replaced.'

Luna was scribbling in her notepad, mentally anticipating what she'd need. ‘His birth certificate—' she began.

‘Is in the safe in my office. You know the combination. As to passport photos, I don't think we have anything recent…'

‘Don't worry, leave it with me. You'll both be at the palazzo this afternoon, right? I can sort something out.'

‘You're an angel.'

Luna was slightly disconcerted. She honestly hadn't anticipated that last night's phone call could have been precipitated by something as inconsequential as a lost passport. She started to smile at the way she'd let her imagination run away from her when the Marchioness continued, ‘And, Luna, once that's sorted out we'll need to book flights for John to come home. He's been having some…health problems, and I want him to see Dr Andrews.'

Luna's pen paused over the notepad. ‘When were you thinking?'

‘In just over two weeks. We were talking about him flying out on the eleventh.'

‘And returning…?'

A slight hesitation on the other end of the line. ‘Just book the outgoing flight for now. We'll see about the return flight after he's seen Dr Andrews. Oh, and, Luna? See if you can get the doctor on the phone for me later today. I'd like to have a word with him.'

‘No problem,' Luna said, finishing her notes. ‘I'll get to work on this.'

‘One last thing. I don't want the girls finding out about this. It'll just worry them, probably needlessly.' The Marchioness hesitated, and added, ‘Or Florian.'

‘Of course. It stays between these four walls,' Luna said. ‘Is that everything?'

‘I think that's enough to be getting on with, don't you?' the Marchioness said lightly, and Luna was relieved to hear the trace of humour in her voice.

Health problems. After they ended the call, Luna pondered on what Lady Wellstone had said, and what she'd left unsaid. She was wary of letting her imagination get the better of her again, but she assumed these problems must be relatively serious. Serious enough, at least, that the Marchioness was assuming control of tasks – replacing passports, booking flights – for a husband she wouldn't have countenanced involving herself with even a month ago. Luna remembered once offering to resolve some minor administrative problem for the Marquess during one of his rare visits home – a replacement SIM card for his mobile, something like that – and being abruptly pulled up short by Lady Wellstone.

‘You work for
me,
Luna. No one else. If his Lordship wants a Sherpa, he can look elsewhere.'

It didn't sound that much when you wrote it down as a list, as Luna had. But arranging a photographer to go to the palazzo to take passport photos, completing all the paperwork for the replacement passport, getting it signed by the Marquess and messengered to the British consulate in Venice, organising flights for him…well, it pretty much took Luna the entire day to unravel the knot Lady Wellstone had tied for her.

It didn't help that the Marchioness kept ringing ‘just to check in'. She did this, Luna had found, when she was anxious, but it was a distraction Luna didn't need. Eventually she had to tell her Ladyship rather more firmly than she'd have liked that everything was in hand.

So it was almost seven o'clock before she escaped the office. Knowing how long it would take to get to Soho by train and public transport, she decided she was better off taking the bike.

She got to Nancy's club, Dumbarton House, at almost 8pm, entering via a nondescript doorway on a small alley and walking up a narrow flight of stairs to the reception desk, which sat on a large landing on the first floor of the three-story Edwardian townhouse. Two impossibly cool-looking young things manned the desk, batting nary an eyelid at Luna's biking gear.

‘Your name?' asking Cool Thing Number 1.

‘Gregory,' Luna replied. ‘I'm here to meet the Richards party?'

‘No,' said Cool Thing Number 2. ‘Your first name.'

Luna blinked. When she'd visited before she'd always come with Nancy – she had no idea about the forenames-only policy.

‘Luna.' She cleared her throat, looking at their guest list. ‘Or maybe Stellaluna. Or Lou.'

Cool Thing Number 1 ran a finger down the guest list and located her. ‘Your friends are upstairs in the study.'

As Luna pushed open the door to the club proper, there was an inviting hum of voices mixed with tinkling glasses. The place was packed with more media darlings than you could shake a stick at, all winding down for the weekend. Dumbarton House had been designed to mimic an old school gentlemen's club, with leather chairs and Chesterfield sofas, bookcases and a variety of discreet nooks and crannies for privacy. Nancy used the club as her extant office when she visited London, meeting clients there, conducting press interviews.

Luna scanned the room till she saw Jem, Kayla and Nancy in a corner, drinks in hand. As she walked towards them, Nancy stood up, shouting accusingly, ‘You're late!' only for Luna to set her helmet on the table and throw her arms around her.

At just under 5 feet 7 inches tall, Nancy Richards was slightly shorter than Luna, with shoulder length, immaculate blond hair. Pretty much everything was immaculate about Nancy, from her translucent, always carefully made up skin, to her expensive wire-rim glasses, which probably would have cost Luna a month's wages. She was wearing her customary black, with a Chanel scarf tied chicly around her neck. Their grown-up friend, Kayla liked to say – behind Nancy's back, of course.

Nancy took one look at Luna's biking pants and polypropylene thermal shirt and frowned. ‘Were you delivering packages on the way here or what?'

‘This is actually a very expensive shirt, I'll have you know,' Luna began.

‘Hey,' Kayla cried, setting down her cocktail glass and standing up to reveal a shimmering gold playsuit. ‘Stop taking the piss out of my biker girl here. If you could see how little she was wearing under that suit the
last
time I saw her, you'd know this is a big improvement.'

Then Jem, ever the forceful peacemaker, jumped up and smacked Nancy and Kayla in the arms. ‘Hey! In case you haven't noticed, we're all here now.' Luna looked at Kayla, and Nancy looked at Jem, and then the four of them put their arms around each other, squealing and laughing.

‘Ladies, can I get you anything else to drink?' asked their waiter, to four simultaneous, ear-shattering assents.

‘I think that would be a yes,' Luna confirmed quietly, once she'd uncovered her ears.

Within minutes, she had been delivered not one but two ‘Mother's Ruins', a gin-based cocktail that Nancy insisted they all try. ‘You need two because you have some catching up to do,' she'd said to Luna. Nancy, who was literally surrounded by Liberty bags, was showing off some of her purchases, to appreciative oohs and aahs from Luna and Jem.

‘Come on, tell the truth,' Kayla said. ‘You didn't come over to meet with clients. You came over to shop.'

‘Not true, not true, I've had an exhausting day,' Nancy protested. ‘And if I had a few short hours at the end of it to do a little Christmas shopping…'

Their waiter, a young man with dark curly hair and sparkling black eyes – just the kind of arty-looking, unobtainable boy Luna might once have been attracted to – returned with another drink for Jem and some menus.

He gave Luna's outfit an admiring glance in passing and asked, ‘What do you drive?'

‘An Enduro.'

‘I've got a Suzuki Bandit.'

‘Ah, I take it you don't like getting dirty, do you?' Luna teased. ‘Stick to the tarmac, eh?'

After he'd gone off with their order, Luna leaned over to Kayla and observed, ‘He's a bit of alright, isn't he?'

Then she noticed the sudden silence around the table.

‘What?' she asked.

‘Alright,' Kayla said. ‘Out with it. What the fuck's up with you? You come in here looking like Angelina fucking Jolie in
Tomb Raider
. And you're flirting with the help, which you never,
ever
do…'

‘I was not flirting with him. Just making conversation.'

Kayla was not to be deterred. ‘And you're sitting there,
glowing
. What the hell is going on?'

Luna held up her hands helplessly and looked over at Nancy, who clasped her own together chastely like a schoolgirl.

‘What?' Jem said, looking between the two of them suspiciously. ‘What's she told you?'

Nancy gazed up at the ceiling. ‘I'm sworn to secrecy.'

‘What the fu—' Kayla began, but then Jem began jigging in her chair, pointing at Luna.

‘It's him, isn't it? It's Stefan. I
knew
it!' And the table erupted. Kayla bitching furiously about being the last to know, Nancy recounting the few details Luna had given her, adding a bit of salacious colour commentary of her own, all three of them pausing to reminisce reverently about Stefan's salad days on
The Triad
, and Jem assuring them all that she'd told Rod that
very night
that she knew something was up between Luna and her Swedish prince.

‘I knew it,' she crowed. ‘It's meant to be.'

‘Jem, stop,' Luna said. ‘It's early days and it totally isn't a serious thing.'

She was starting to feel uncomfortable and Nancy, who knew her better than anyone, swiftly cut in: ‘Besides, you girls know how I feel about the whole man thing.' She lifted her glass. ‘At the end of the day, you can't count on any of them. Remember my motto, ladies: “hos before bros”.' Nancy looked each one of them in turn in the eyes and the other three girls raised their glasses.

‘Hos before bros.'

After that it was back to the usual banter, Kayla regaling them with stories about rehearsals, which she said weren't going well, ‘so God knows what you're going to see next Friday', and Nancy describing a party she'd been to in Brooklyn recently where she'd seen numerous celebrities, including Brian Littrell.

‘You are shitting me,' Kayla said.

‘I am not, and let me tell you, he looked freaking amazing,' Nancy replied.

Luna and Jem looked at each other, and Jem rolled her eyes. When Kayla and Nancy had first met at university they hadn't exactly hit it off, both being alpha females. There was a fair bit of jockeying for position, for the attention of men and even for that of Jem and Luna. The two women had only finally bonded when they discovered their shared love for defunct boy band the Backstreet Boys, and Littrell in particular. It turned out that the two of them had both attended a Backstreet Boys concert in Orlando in 1998, a pivotal moment in both their prepubescent lives.

‘This is our cross to bear,' Jem said to Luna across the table. ‘You know,' she said in a slightly louder voice, ‘I don't even think Brian Littrell is that attractive.'

‘Hush your mouth,' Nancy warned.

‘Me neither,' Luna interjected, winking at Jem. ‘And I feel like I've read an interview with him recently where it said he was a born-again Christian…'

‘Ripe for temptation,' Nancy riposted, to cackles of glee from Kayla. This was the way it usually was, Nancy and Kayla holding court and Luna and Jem listening, with Jem occasionally issuing a dry comment or two and Luna just…happy to be with them all. Later, after they'd eaten, she sat next to Nancy on the sofa, resting her head on Nancy's shoulder, and asked again about Robert.

‘I don't know, Lou. He says he loves me, but…he doesn't want to get married. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm not sure I see a future with him.'

‘He's an idiot,' Luna said, surprising herself a little. ‘I mean, I love him, I think he's great, and I'm still expecting to dance at your wedding, but he's a complete tosser.'

‘My roommate,' Nancy said affectionately, patting Luna's knee.

Luna's phone vibrated in her pocket and she took it out, dreading another call from the Marchioness. But it was Stefan.

‘Hi!' she answered brightly, sitting up on the sofa and plugging her finger in her free ear so she could concentrate despite the din around her.

‘Am I interrupting?'

‘No, no,' she said. ‘I'm just with Jem and my friends Kayla and Nancy.'