Her Master's Servant (Lord and Master Book 2) (19 page)

‘Nancy—’ Luna began.

‘It isn’t love,’ Nancy insisted, ‘it’s sexual obsession.’

And if Luna privately thought that Nancy protested too much, in part because she herself remained locked in a sexually obsessive relationship with her own on-again-off-again boyfriend, Robert, she didn’t say so. The phone call was already going badly enough; she didn’t want to bring the full wrath of Nan down on her head.

She decided, after that, to go for a run to clear her mind. The house was eerily quiet as she headed out a few minutes later, pausing to lock the door. For she was now alone again on Shetland, Dagmar having decided to catch the same flight as Mika and his team that morning. Luna came to the airport to see them off, feeling as though the Scandinavian contingent’s departure marked an abrupt ‘beginning of the end’ to her own sojourn here on Shetland.

Try as she might, she found she couldn’t stay angry with Mika, who made a point of pulling her aside at the airport and giving her his home address in Stockholm, as well as, rather touchingly, his mother’s phone number.

‘In case I ever decide to leave my phone on the kitchen table again,’ he said, eyes twinkling, ‘you can always ring my mother and she will find me.’

Luna jogged out through the yard, past Malcolm’s field, where lambs were lying together in clusters of two or three, exhausted from a day of play. As she picked up the pace, Nancy’s damning accusation echoed in her ears. ‘Sexual obsession.’

Up until recently, Luna would have laughed at this charge, but now? Things had been…
different
between her and Stefan on Tuesday night. She pictured him sitting on the leather chair in the front room, staring at his fists. Remembered his hand, pushing her face down onto the bed. And her body’s response, which had been immediate and unequivocal. He had taken nothing from her that she wasn’t prepared to give.

Steadily climbing the hill that overlooked Malcolm’s farm, ascending into a carpet of green heather yet to flower, Luna ran along a narrow, muddy path, pushing herself to go a little faster.

And it wasn’t just the physical things Stefan had done to her the other night; there had been a mental game going on as well. After the last time he took her that night, her body still singing its thanks for the punishment he’d meted out, Luna reached toward her gloves on the bedside table.

‘You won’t need those,’ he said. And when she wavered, hand hovering above them, he shook his head and commanded, ‘Leave them.’ His expression brooking no dissent, silently compelling her to do as she was told. She slept the sleep of the dead for the rest of the night, waking to find no scratches on her chest. And wondered at what new power he wielded over her, that he controlled her body even when it was asleep.

It makes me want to punish you. To punish you, Luna.

To punish her. Not because of Mika and Dagmar; Luna didn’t for a second believe that Stefan was truly jealous of them. No, this was between him and her. It was clear to her now that no matter how much he claimed to understand her reasons for leaving him in January, the reality was that, for Stefan, two months’ separation had amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. Punishment he was now returning.

Did the dark seam of power and lust and control opening up between them trouble her? Of course it did. Enough that she was prepared to talk to Stefan, to examine their behaviour more closely and put a stop to it?

No.

No.

No. She didn’t want it to stop.

A half hour later, dripping with sweat, she sat down on a stile and waited till her breathing returned to normal, then pulled her phone out of the front pocket of her hoody.

‘Babe!’ Kayla answered after three rings.

‘Hey, babe, how’re you doing?’

‘Good, good. Just on my way to the theatre.’

‘Everything okay with you? With the show?’

‘Yeah,’ Kayla said, then enquired lightly, ‘What about you?’

‘I, um, phoned to let you know that I—’

‘—got back together with Stefan two months ago?’ Kayla finished for her.

‘Ah, you’ve heard.’

‘You think New York’s answer to Emmeline Pankhurst didn’t get straight on the phone to me, bitching about how you’ve set the women’s movement back by a thousand years?’ Kayla asked. Luna sighed and braced herself to begin the ‘sorry, I’m sorry’ game again, but her friend just laughed and said, ‘Look, you don’t need to make any excuses to me. All I want to hear is that he makes you happy.’

‘He does,’ Luna said adamantly. Then, voice softening, ‘I love him, Kay.’

‘Well, that’s good enough for me.’

The Wellstone family’s estate on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond, which had the rather grand Gaelic name Maisterbel, but which the family referred to simply as ‘the Lodge’, had indeed started life in the mid-nineteenth century as a simple hunting lodge. Inspired by the holiday travels of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to the Scottish Highlands and their subsequent purchase of Balmoral, the Wellstone family decided to follow the monarch’s lead and buy land in Scotland. Photos from the time show a rather simple but charming granite house on the site where the current house sat.

In 1872, however, the then Marquess of Lionsbridge, who fancied himself an architect in addition to being a fanatical hunter, undertook a massive building project, essentially obliterating the old structure and replacing it with a much larger mock-Tudor edifice. A fifteen-year labour of love that obsessed the Marquess to the point that he ended up virtually relocating to Scotland, spending little or no time at Arborage, to his wife and family’s dismay.

Surrounded, as it was, by 4,500 acres of forest with views over the loch and Aughengavin Burn beyond, it was an idyllic spot, but Luna’s memories of her sole visit to it the previous winter were tainted. She had been compelled to come here by Florian Wellstone, ostensibly to support him administratively during the Marchioness’s leave of absence. In reality, Florian had ground her under his heel, forcing her to perform ever more humiliating duties and portraying her as his concubine to his Russian lender, Viktor Putinov, and his entourage.

Florian’s voice came back to haunt her as her driver pulled off onto the three-mile gravel approach to the lodge – ‘Please try your best to be charming, Luna.’ She could picture him, leering at her as they drove down this same track in January. ‘I’m sure a human heart beats somewhere underneath all that ice.’

At least the weather was better now, she thought to herself, with only a few scattered clouds scuttling across the wide open Highland sky. The track drew level with a small river that intersected the estate and Luna’s eye was drawn by what appeared to be threads of gold sailing through the air. She looked closer, then said, ‘Can you drop me off here, please?’

Exiting the Bentley, she hefted her backpack onto her shoulders and walked down to the river, where two men stood surrounded by rapidly flowing water up to their thighs, fly fishing rods in hand.

‘Hey! Luna!’ shouted Gus Walsh, Arborage’s diminutive, balding Scottish estate manager, who promptly waded in her direction. His companion stayed put, lowering his rod and reeling in his line.

Luna leant as far as she dared out over the water, exchanging a precarious hug and kiss with Gus. ‘Salmon?’ she asked, nodding toward his rod.

‘Aye. No luck yet, though,’ Gus laughed. They continued talking for a few minutes, her briefly filling him in on her sojourn in Shetland, Gus pointing out some improvements that had recently been made to the fishing course. As he gestured in the direction of a new clubhouse currently being constructed a quarter of a mile upriver, Luna covertly glanced at his companion.

He was a certifiable knee-trembler, this man, dressed as he was in waders and braces, with a torso-hugging long-sleeved thermal shirt underneath, his dark blond hair shining in the sunlight. Fishing gear, running clothes, jodhpurs… was there no end to the sporting apparel Stefan Lundgren looked hot in?

Gus rattled on, oblivious to the shameless ogling going on next to him. And Stefan chose to ignore her at first, expertly casting out his line above the water, tempting passing fish with the promise of a tasty flying insect. But he felt her looking at him, Luna knew he did. And when he finally glanced her way, she locked eyes with him, communicating telepathically,
You are the most beautiful man I know
.

‘We’ve given staff up at the house the weekend off, like you asked,’ Gus was saying. Luna smiled and nodded absently, then left them to it, heading off down the track, which after a mile or so led to the white and black timbered lodge.

Entering the main hall, decorated with no less than five stags’ heads, assorted birds of prey and a massive bear rug on the floor, Luna found a note from the cook saying there was food in the fridge. She headed straight to the kitchen, suddenly starving, and helped herself to a plate of cold meats and cheeses, followed by a generous slice of homemade Victoria sponge.

Afterward, she wandered around the ground floor, walking past portraits of sundry Wellstones past, all either in the process of killing animals or posing with dead ones. She tried a few doors, some of which, like the drawing room, were locked, others opening onto disused rooms, draped in drop clothes. Approaching the parlour adjacent to the snooker room, scene of her humiliation under Florian, she heard his voice again, ringing out over the drone of his Russian guests.

‘Fetch me a whiskey, like a good girl.’

She pictured a bead of sweat running from his mottled brow down to his russet sideburn, his face moving closer to hers…

Suddenly tired of exploring, Luna carried her backpack up the stairs. Initially flummoxed as to which of the twelve bedrooms was theirs, she spotted Stefan’s leather bag in a large room overlooking the loch and approached the bed to find a note from him with a large arrow pointing right.

Your room is two doors down. I will be waiting for you in the drawing room at nine.

Luna consulted her watch. Only 5.30. He was going to make her wait more than three hours to see him? And, separate bedrooms? On the other hand, she reflected with a yawn as she made her way down the hall, she rather fancied a nap.

Her room was brighter than his, and homelier, with William Morris wallpaper and a gorgeous poppy-coloured quilted silk bedspread. It was also – Luna saw as she stepped inside, heart fluttering and legs beginning to shake under her – full of roses. A vase containing at least two dozen on the bedside table, another atop the mantle, and another on the windowsill. The latter two were the blood red, furry kind he’d given her in the past, but the vase on the table was full of pink Arborage roses. How he’d gotten them up here looking so fresh and perfect she didn’t know.

She bent down to smell them and noticed that there was a sandalwood box on the bed. It was the size of a large case and was delicately engraved. She lifted the lid on it to find a beautiful and doubtless extremely expensive silk and velvet devoré robe. Blood red, like her roses. And… something else. Her knees wobbling now, Luna sat down on the bed.

She didn’t nap, in the end. Impossible to sleep. Instead, she took a long bath, exfoliating and moisturising herself. Then sat at the dressing table next to the bed and brushed her hair, twisting it up on top of her head and fixing it with a single tortoiseshell horn pin.

She considered her make-up for some time before deciding to wear almost none, applying only a dusting of translucent powder to her face and some tinted balm to her lips. No jewellery, either. Perfume she did apply; to her wrists, just behind her ears (number five on Stefan’s list of favourite Luna body parts, she had discovered), and along her bikini line, just at the start of her nether hair.

She stared at herself for some time afterward, the setting sun illuminating the side of her face.

And then reopened the box Stefan had left for her.

Luna approached the drawing room door from the main hall at exactly 9 o’clock, finding it unlocked. She entered into near darkness; the room was wood panelled throughout, its unlit chandelier swathed in cheesecloth and velvet curtains drawn. The only light came from a fire in the large stone fireplace at the far end of the room, in front of which sat a long, leather tufted Chesterfield.

Shutting the door behind her, Luna padded silently across the room toward the sofa, where Stefan sat. He was wearing dress trousers and a tailored white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his hair still damp from the shower, cheeks newly shaven… legs crossed in that rather fetching way of his, with one arm resting along the back of the Chesterfield.

She came to stand in front of him, back to the fireplace. There was not a sound in the room, save for the occasional hiss and crackle of the fire.

The robe he had chosen skimmed and clung to Luna’s breasts and thighs like it was made for her, falling to a puddle on the floor. Blood red. It wasn’t a colour she’d have picked for herself and now she wondered why, why it had taken him to see how perfectly it would contrast with her alabaster skin, pale eyes and dark hair.

Was he pleased with her? She couldn’t judge from his expression, serious yet observant. And expectant.

In answer to his unspoken command, Luna raised her hand to the sash at her waist and loosened it, then gripped the front of the gown and allowed it to fall down her shoulders… revealing the rope tied around her neck not once, but twice, culminating in a slipknot at the base of her throat. She lowered the robe further, exposing the taut line between her breasts down to her waist. Another knot there, a rather ornate figure of eight holding in place the belt of rope cinching her waist. Unseen, there was another knot against her spine, which dropped into a final loop of rope around her hips.

Luna allowed the robe to fall to the floor, stepped out of it, then turned slightly to reveal the two tassels trailing down her back. He had created it all using one long piece of thick, combed cotton rope – rope she recognised, being an ex-Catholic girl. A cincture, she thought it was called, though she doubted any devout Franciscan monk would approve of the uses to which Stefan had put it.

His expression hadn’t changed, but his eyes… his pupils were so dilated they looked black and the hair on his arm was standing on end, glistening in the firelight. Yes. He was pleased with her.

Taking a step closer to him, Luna reached up and removed the clip from her hair, allowing it to fall in a coil down her back.

‘
Min herre… min härskare
,’ she said, lowering her head, skin glowing in the firelight.

Stefan closed his eyes, exhaled, and shuddered. Then he sat up and reached for her, placing his hands on the bit of rope between her breasts, tugging slightly at the figure of eight knot at her waist.

‘Not too tight?’ he enquired huskily.

Luna shook her head. In truth, it had taken her some time to figure out how to put it on, despite the fact that he’d laid it out carefully in the sandalwood box. But once she had slipped it over her head and waist, and tightened the bits that needed tightening, drawing the slack into the final knot at the back of her neck, it had felt… dangerously good.

Satisfied with his craftsmanship, Stefan sat back on the sofa again and said, ‘I have been thinking about the other night and have realised that I was remiss.’

For one awful moment, Luna thought he was going to apologise for what had happened. And where would that leave her, who was standing there wanting more of the same? But he continued, ‘I was so busy taking my fill of you that I neglected your needs. I’d like to make that up to you.’

A log shifted on the fire, prompting a brief explosion of sparks.

‘Shall we try a little exercise, Luna?’

The effect of these words on her was immediate; she swore she experienced a moment of light-headedness at the rush of blood from her head to her erogenous zones. She nodded, mouth dry.

Then, rather to her bemusement, he patted the seat next to him. Luna raised her eyebrows at him and Stefan smiled, crooking his index finger and patting the seat again. So she sat beside him, only for him to place both hands on her shoulders and pull her down till she was lying with her head on his lap. He assessed her position for a moment, then lifted her head up and popped a pillow under it.

Looking down at her, his darkened pupils reflecting the firelight, Stefan buried his fingers in her hair. ‘Close your eyes,’ he said. Luna did as she was told, and for some time after that he simply massaged her scalp and stroked her hair, wrapping his hands in it and pulling it gently by the roots.

Eventually his hands slid away from her head down her neck, gliding along the cords there, grazing the sides of her breasts, covering and pressing down on them whilst at the same time capturing her nipples between middle and forefingers. It was intoxicating, the sensation of being compressed combined with that of her nipples being tugged upward between his fingers.

So absorbed was she with the feeling of it, she almost jumped when he whispered against her brow, ‘Open your legs, Luna.’ She complied and, at the sight of her laid bare before him, bound in his ropes, Stefan’s mood darkened. Clamping one hand on her forehead, he pressed the other onto her mons. Luna wriggled slightly and his hands bore down harder, pinning her in place.

‘Here is what I want from you,’ he said. ‘I am going to pleasure you, so…’ He inserted two fingers into her, then trailed them slickly up to her clitoris. ‘And so…’ He stroked her up and down, making her writhe in anticipation. ‘And when I bring you to the point of coming, you are going to tell me to stop. Do you understand?’

Luna opened her eyes and looked up at him questioningly. In response, he plunged his fingers back into her, holding her down again with his palm. Tightening his hand against her forehead, he repeated firmly, ‘Do you understand.’ Not a question. Luna closed and opened her eyes, silently assenting. He released her forehead, withdrew his fingers from inside her, and began to stroke her again. ‘Then close your eyes and do what I’ve told you.’

It didn’t take long, as well as he knew her body, as intuitively as his fingers navigated her clitoris, for the sweetness to begin to rise within her. She enjoyed it for as long as she could before saying, ‘Stop.’ At this, Stefan immediately removed his hand from her, leaving her hanging just long enough that Luna began to fear that this was one of those exercises she wasn’t going to enjoy. But soon enough his fingers came to rest on her again. ‘Remember what I’ve asked you to do,’ he said, and recommenced caressing her.

It took longer this time, Stefan taking it gradually, as if he was feeling her out, looking for her boundaries. But the feeling was greater, more intense, when she was finally forced to repeat, ‘Stop.’ After that, he seemed to have the measure of her; she found that he could often sense when she quickened, that his hand would still of its own accord, sometimes for just a few seconds, sometimes for longer. Time and place receded, evening passing into night as she relinquished herself to the ownership of his hand, bringing her to the point of orgasm so many times she lost count. Until finally, with his fingers hovering at the edge of her vulva, awaiting their opportunity to continue, Luna whispered, ‘I can’t—’