Read Online Her Master's Servant (Lord and Master Book 2) by Kait Jagger - Free Book Online

decay. Luna smiled and nudged Nancy, nodding in the direction of Kayla, who had also come dressed as a lake creature and was sitting on a gangly programmer’s knee for a photo, their combined bracken becoming tangled together.
    ‘I’ll get us some drinks,’ Nancy shouted over the strains of Take That as Luna made a beeline toward Jem’s family.
    Later, after Jem’s dad had insisted on taking copious photos of Jem, Luna, Nancy and Kayla together, Luna put her arm around Jem and observed, ‘This party is pretty amazing, Jemima Evangeline.’
    ‘Yes, but…’ Jem scanned the room unhappily and Luna could tell immediately what was bothering her. The room looked incredible, and there were some amazing costumes, but it all felt a little… tame. Maybe just the slightest bit flat. Sometimes that happened – heaven knew she’d seen it often enough during her time at Arborage, parties the Marchioness had hosted that hadn’t quite taken off. And some that had, despite inauspicious beginnings. It was alchemy, from what Luna could tell, what made an event like this successful or not.
    But she hated to see the worried look on her friend’s face, so she said encouragingly, ‘I really love what you’ve done in the anteroom.’
    ‘It was a struggle to get it ready in time, with no help from Arborage,’ Jem replied with tight lips, and again, Luna felt like she was directing this toward
her
. She was just opening her mouth to protest that she didn’t work here anymore when Kayla gave her a wide-eyed shake of her head.
    ‘She is completely bricking it,’ Kayla said moments later when she managed to pull Luna and Nancy aside. ‘She thinks the party is a failure and she’s let Rod down.’
    ‘But that’s silly,’ Luna protested as the strains of ‘Lady Marmalade’ began to play in the background.
    ‘Right,’ said Nancy, downing the rest of her drink and slamming the glass down on a nearby table. ‘Looks like it’s up to us, ladies.’
    With that, she strode off toward the dance floor, leaving Luna and Kayla staring in her wake. Only to turn back after five yards and bark, ‘Well, come on!’ Continuing on her way, she grabbed a tall, weedy fellow dressed incongruously in a Tommen outfit and directed, ‘You, dance with her over there,’ pointing to Kayla.
    Next, Nancy collared the man talking with Rod. Sweeping her hand toward Luna, she said, ‘This lady needs a dance partner.’ Luna smiled apologetically at the man, who was dressed in a Nazi uniform with fake blood and brains plastered all over the right side of his face (she later learned that Stefan had stipulated attendees could only come dressed as Nazis if they had their heads blown off). To his credit, he clicked his heels and offered Luna his hand.
    Nancy found her own partner on the edge of the dance floor, drinking a lager with his mates. One of the garden staff, if Luna wasn’t mistaken.
    ‘I don’t dance,’ he immediately demurred, holding his hands up. Only for Nancy to reach up and clasp one of them. ‘I’ll teach you,’ she assured him, backing toward the floor, coaxing him along with her.
    Midway through the song Nancy’s ploy began to work as others moved toward the floor and the mood in the room shifted up a gear. By the time Patti LaBelle segued improbably into Blur, there were several other couples dancing. Not Stefan, Luna could see; he was talking with her other closest friend on staff, Arborage’s press officer Caitlin Murray. His eyes swung in her direction and she imagined, for a moment, that he was looking at her. But then the moment passed.
    For the better part of the next hour, Luna danced pretty much constantly, either with Jem’s sisters or with Kayla and Nancy, or with the surprising number of men who approached to ask her. She began to realise that there was a reason for this when she saw Kayla pointing one in her direction.
    When she’d finished dancing with him, Luna grabbed two glasses of champagne and headed over to