Lord and Master (25 page)

Luna sat up in the bed.

‘I'm not much like either of my parents. My, um, mother was an amateur singer – that's how they met. They were both very creative, artistically inclined.'

She slid down from the bed and walked into the bathroom, turning on the cold tap and staring at her face in the mirror. At her father's eyes. She poured herself a glass of water, drank half of it and poured the rest out in the sink. She walked back to the bed and he was out and waiting for her, lifting her up onto the mattress. She turned on her side, facing away from him, and he put his arm around her waist.

It hadn't been enough for him, her answer. She could tell. And yet she had nothing more to say.

Stefan was away for two weeks after that, two weeks when she learned what it was to miss him.

She knew, of course – he had told her before he left – that he was working in Munich and Berlin before returning to Stockholm for a week. And she was sure that had she phoned him he would have made time for the call, and asked her in that usual, pleasant way of his how she was, whilst telling her almost nothing of how he was or what he was doing. So she didn't call, just as she had accepted impassively his assurance that he would have more time to spend with her in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

‘It's fine,' she had said, standing in the front hall of the Dower House with him surrounded by his luggage, her poised like a bird for flight. ‘You don't have to—'

Only for him to pull her into his arms, cradling her sling gently and kissing her. ‘Please look after yourself until I come back, Luna. No more injuries, yes?'

The sling was gone within the week at any rate – Luna soon found she had no patience for it. Indeed, her shoulder was so much improved that she managed to decorate the Marchioness's office for Christmas as a surprise one afternoon. She was just putting the finishing touches on a garland she'd hung around the mirror behind Lady Wellstone's desk when her boss returned with Isabelle from a shopping expedition in London.

‘Oh, my dear, that looks lovely,' her Ladyship said, putting down her Harrods bags and removing her leather gloves.

Isabelle, meanwhile, collapsed dramatically on the sofa and announced, ‘I am literally gasping. Get us some tea, will you, Luna?'

‘Bella!' Lady Wellstone said sharply. ‘You forget yourself.' To a doe-eyed show of bafflement from her younger daughter, who looked at her as if to say,
I'm just treating the help like the help, Mummy.

During the second week of Stefan's absence the entire family went off to the estate's hunting lodge near Loch Lomond, a suggestion from Florian that he and his brother take one last opportunity to go salmon fishing before the season ended. Luna was surprised, really, at how much time Florian had been spending with the family lately. He and his Lordship had a somewhat strained relationship even at the best of times, particularly given that Lady Wellstone and Florian didn't get on, but Florian seemed to be genuinely making an effort.

Luna was returning from her morning run the day after the family left when her mobile rang. Smiling at the name on her caller ID, she answered, ‘Sören! This is an unexpected pleasure.'

‘My very lovely friend Luna, how are you?'

‘I'm well, and you?'

‘Very well, very well.'

At which Luna laughed and said, ‘You sound exactly like your son. Or is it he who sounds like you?'

‘Oh, he like me for sure. What is it you English say, the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree?'

It occurred to Luna that she had no idea whether Stefan had told his father of their involvement, and even if he had she didn't want Sören thinking she was some silly girl who lived to talk about his son. Reverting to business mode, she said, ‘So, Sören, what can I do for you?'

‘Ah, this is the right question, Luna. I have phoned to ask you for a very big favour. My associate Dagmar and I have scheduled a meeting with a potential supplier for my business, a gentleman travelling down from Scotland to London to meet with us. And I would like to have the meeting at Arborage, if I may…'

Sören told her that this supplier was based in the Shetlands and raised a rare breed of sheep that produced wool of extraordinary quality. Dagmar, who was one of Sören's buyers, wanted to establish an exclusive relationship with him for a new range of men's outerwear for his stores. ‘As is so often the case with small suppliers, this is more tricky than it first appears,' Sören explained. ‘So Dagmar and I want to meet him, woo him a little.'

Luna nodded and pulled out her notepad. Sören Lundgren was the one person on earth with whom she believed the Marchioness would happily share her PA's services, so it was with no hesitation that she got to work making arrangements for the meeting.

Dagmar Bergqvist turned out to be a tall, angular woman with red hair, eyebrows and eyelashes so light they looked blond. She struck Luna as painfully shy, though that could also have been the language barrier – unlike practically every other Swede Luna had met, Dagmar's grasp of English was tenuous.

‘Thank you,' she said to Luna when she came to meet her at the portico on Thursday morning. Looking out onto the lawn, she added, ‘This will be good for our meeting.'

‘I hope so,' Luna said with a smile. ‘I'll show you where you'll be dining, shall I?'

Luna had arranged for them to use the restaurant in the old stable block, usually closed in the evenings but available for private hire. With its exposed brick walls and reclaimed oak floors, she thought it set the right tone. ‘But we've also arranged for a private tour of the house. Would you like to take the tour as well, Ms Bergqvist?'

‘No, not for me, old English houses,' Dagmar replied. And Luna chose not to take offence, in view of the language barrier and the fact that Dagmar reminded her of a certain awkward sixteen-year-old Swedish boy she used to know.

Still, she had to admit that she was relieved when Sören finally arrived in the mid-afternoon. Dressed in a lovely ankle-length black wool coat and an olive tweed suit underneath, he was slightly shorter and thinner than his son, but otherwise very much like him, with the same bright blue eyes and easy smile.

‘Beautiful Luna, our saviour,' he exclaimed, kissing her on both cheeks and hugging her for good measure. Again, like his son, Sören had natural charisma, one of those people others liked to be around – the office actually seemed to become a few degrees warmer with him in it.

‘When did you grow this?' Luna laughed, gesturing to his slight goatee.

‘Ah, what do you think? I am trying facial hair on for size. My son, he does not approve and I am not so sure myself. You see how grey it is,' he said, rubbing his chin. ‘It gives my age away.'

‘No, I think it's very attractive. Don't listen to your son.'

It was extremely gratifying, as it always was for Luna with first-time visitors to Arborage, seeing the overawed expression on the supplier's face when he walked up the portico steps two hours later. He had arrived at the perfect time of day, with the sky tinted purple in the sunset, reflecting off the windows in the west wing. Luna and Sören had come out to meet him, Dagmar having decided to join them later in the stable restaurant. Holding out his hand to Sören, the supplier said, ‘The photos I've seen of Arborage don't do it justice.'

‘I'm glad you like it. My family is very proud of its heritage here,' Sören said.

After handing them over to Roland for their tour, Luna retired to her rooms, waiting until 9.30 to go check on them in the restaurant. They were seated at a small table near a window overlooking the cobbled courtyard, decked out in twinkling fairy lights for the festive season.

‘I hope you'll at least consider our proposal, Malcolm,' Sören was saying as Luna came to stand behind him. The supplier, a large, slightly florid man, smiled noncommittally. Dagmar, meanwhile, looked as if she'd been sitting on the edge of her seat all night.

On a larger table next to them, the supplier had laid out several sample books and swatches. He saw Luna looking at them and smiled at her. ‘May I look?' she asked.

‘Of course,' he said, standing and joining her. Luna could practically feel Dagmar sagging with relief behind them, exchanging a few words in Swedish with Sören. The samples were a variety of chunky wool fabrics in various natural shades, including a lustrous black she thought she recognised.

‘This is what your coat is made of, isn't it?' she asked Sören, who smiled and nodded.

‘The coat is a prototype, one we'd like to produce on a larger scale,' he said.

‘It's incredibly soft,' Luna marvelled, stroking the fabric. ‘It hardly even feels like wool…'

The supplier grinned broadly at that, rocking up onto his toes. ‘It's the breed of sheep we raise. And our finishing process for the wool, of course…'

Sören shrugged eloquently when Luna asked him, after the other two had left for their hotel, how the meeting went.

‘The tour and meal were perfect, and thank you again for arranging these. I don't think Malcolm is convinced by our proposal, but…sometimes they go not so well, these initial meetings. The trick is to persevere.'

This was so like something Stefan had once said that Luna had to stop herself from remarking on it. Sören gestured to the bottle of Cabernet on the table, which was three-quarters full.

‘It seems a shame to let this excellent wine go to waste. Will you sit and have a drink with me, Luna?'

They spoke at first of casual things: how work was going for both of them, the weather in Sweden (neither father nor son could seem to resist this topic), her recent trip to Miami, of which he was clearly aware. Again, not knowing whether Stefan had discussed their relationship with his father, Luna was careful not to speak directly of him until she raised the matter of his recent work for the Marchioness.

‘Do you mind me asking what your view on Stefan's presentation was?' she asked, toying with the stem of her wine glass.

‘I think it is pretty clear that Arborage must modernise and I agree with the broad thrust of the presentation. Possibly I am more conscious than Stefan of the roadblocks we may face. It's all very well, for example, to talk of transforming our relationship with the estate's tenant farmers, but English law makes it very difficult to actually impose any changes on them. Not that we shouldn't try. But it will be a long-term process.'

Luna liked the way Sören took her question seriously, and didn't talk down to her in his response. She imagined he might be quite someone to work for, and wondered whether Dagmar thought the same.

‘Of course,' he continued, ‘if anyone could convince them, it would be Augusta. I believe she could charm the birds from the trees, if she was so inclined.' He took a sip of wine, smiled at Luna and said, ‘Shall I tell you the story of when I first met Augusta?'

Luna nodded eagerly and waited while he gathered his thoughts.

‘My cousin married Augusta in…1978, I think it was, and they decided to take part of their honeymoon in Sweden. They came to visit us in my family's summer house in Gotland. You must understand, Luna, at that time we had had very limited contact with that side of the family for many years. As you may be aware, my father and John's father did not get along. I won't go so far as to call it a feud, but the bitter feelings on both sides ran deep. Me, I think it was Augusta's idea to come to Sweden, to mend fences in her new family…'

Sören paused to top up Luna's wine glass and his own. ‘At any rate, they came to visit us. I was fifteen, maybe sixteen at the time, the youngest of three boys – an “afterthought” by my parents, I think you English would say? – and otch, when I first saw John and Augusta together, it was like the wind had blown something exotic to our country house in Visby. Sweden is many, many good things but glamorous is not one of them, and John and Augusta were glamorous – very cosmopolitan, very cultured. They met at Studio 54 in New York, did Augusta ever tell you that?'

‘No,' Luna said with a laugh. ‘I had no idea!'

‘And let me tell you, Bianca Jagger had nothing on Augusta. She was a stunning woman, still is a stunning woman, and to a one, we all fell in love with her. Even my father, who could be an irascible man and who was most unwilling to be charmed, even he fell under her spell…'

He hesitated, as if considering his next words. ‘Have you ever wondered, Luna, how it is that John and Augusta have managed to retain control of Arborage, when so many others in this country let their family heritage fall to wrack and ruin, or sell out to the National Trust, or create trusts of their own and give up day-to-day control of their birthright?'

Luna looked at him seriously. ‘I have.'

‘Well, I believe Augusta came to Sweden not only to mend fences but with a plan. A plan to restore Arborage's fortunes. My uncle had died two years previously and with your country's ruinous death duties, the estate was on precarious footing. So before she left Visby, Augusta somehow convinced my father to loan her the money to pay off Arborage's debts.'

Luna blinked. ‘It must have been a fairly substantial loan…'

‘It was. And on very favourable terms, I might add. Oh, I believe my father insisted on the transfer of a few family assets as part of the arrangement, but really, it must have been a quite extraordinary exchange between the two of them, one my brothers and I have long speculated about. It taught me a lesson: never underestimate a beautiful woman. Augusta has a will of steel under that pleasant exterior…the things she really wants, she gets.'

Luna was in bed later that night, still thinking about her exchange with Sören, when her mobile rang. Nancy.

‘Hey,' she said groggily.

‘Well, he's done it, Lou. He's gone and fucked it all up.'

‘Who?'

‘Robert. He's been cheating on me. For
months
.' With that, her strong, slightly scary friend began to cry.