Lord Stanton's Last Mistress

by Lara Temple

  ‘Like your mother.’

  ‘Transparent, isn’t it? I wondered if you, too, would become like her as you realised it wasn’t enough, caught and filling with such hate you would destroy what you had. I told myself it was just my own foolish fancy. And it was foolishness, wasn’t it? Not merely because you weren’t married, but because you are far too level headed to go down that path. You have done very well for yourself. Made yourself indispensable to the King and his daughter, secured their trust and affection. If only my mother had been as sensible and hard-headed as you, she might still be alive.’

  The gentleness of his words hid the slide of the sword as it slashed through her ribs and ripped into her heart. She pulled her hand away, but he caught her wrist, his eyes locking with hers.

  ‘You can be as soft and warm and as inviting as the Mediterranean, but underneath you are also as hard as granite, aren’t you? You wouldn’t run like she did. You stand firm, like that damn motto. But it’s dangerous, all that passion, crushed downwards into diamond sharpness. When it escapes it will slash anything that gets in its way.’

  His attack was so sudden and harsh her cheeks stung as if the words had been a slap.

  ‘You have no right to say such things to me. You don’t know me!’

  ‘There’s that anger you keep so tightly capped. I keep wondering what will set it loose.’

  She moved to push past him, but he shifted, creating a barrier between her and the others, shrinking the universe to just them, his hand rising briefly to touch the ridge of her cheek and the intensity faded from his eyes. Now he looked much more annoyed at himself than at her. ‘No, don’t stalk off, not yet. I apologise. I am being a fool; none of this is your fault. Forget I said anything.’

  ‘Forget?’ Her voice squeaked upwards in disbelief.

  ‘That is a bit much to expect. Forgive, then. To err is human and to forgive divine, which would put you on the moral high ground where you obviously belong. Truce?’ He smiled and again her anger foundered. She might not understand him any more than he could read her, but she had no defence against real contrition. But when he held out his hand the urge to grasp it and cling was so powerful she stepped back, bumping into the Chippendale chair and sending it rocking. His lips tightened at her withdrawal, but he merely reached past her, steadying it.

  ‘Tina? Is everything all right? Did you trip?’ Ari hurried towards her as the rest of the party made their way back.

  ‘The chair is a little uneven,’ Alex replied, as if that explained everything.

  ‘Oh, dear.’ Lady Albinia said abstractedly. ‘Do have a look at it when you can, Alexander. Well, that is enough of these stuffy portraits. Why is looking at paintings so much more wearying than a brisk walk through the fields, I wonder? I for one am quite ready for a rest and I suggest you do the same before we leave for Oxford, your Majesty.’

  * * *

  Christina glanced over her shoulder. Not that there was anything wrong with what she was doing. Ari was resting and there was still an hour before their departure for Oxford. Christina was free to spend her time as she wished and she wished to see Lady Wentworth again.

  It wasn’t Reynold’s superior skill that drew her. She felt a kinship with the condemned woman though she was nothing like her—neither beautiful nor privileged nor deceitful. Part of her felt a furious contempt towards a woman who could abandon her son, marking him for life, but she could not help feeling a fascinated sympathy. The thought that this woman had been around her age, already a mother of an eight-year-old boy and probably feeling so trapped a devious spy convinced her to risk everything for a love that probably wasn’t even real... It was unthinkable but it had happened.

  She leaned on the chair by the painting, staring at the undeniably beautiful face with its undercurrents of stubbornness and even a hint of ferocity and she wanted to reach through time and shake that woman and tell her to find another way to bring warmth into her life that wouldn’t hurt the people who depended on her and loved her.

  ‘Do you think you will find the clue to her perfidy if you stare long enough?’

  She gasped and whirled around, and the much-abused Chippendale chair rocked precariously on its spindly legs before settling back on the wooden floor with a clacking tattoo. Alex stood by one of the recessed windows leading out to the garden, dark against the sunlight streaming in. She felt like the worst of interlopers, every statement he had said about her intrusions confirmed.

  ‘I came... I wanted...’

  He approached, his strides long and purposeful, as if he meant to sweep her straight out of the gallery.

  ‘To gawk at the scandalous Lady Wentworth, obviously. Well, you aren’t the first. Her tale is quite a curio for guests. Like those agony advertisements you used to read with such relish on Illiakos. Or like people who delight in watching a public hanging.’

  ‘What? You’re wrong! That’s not...’

  ‘No? Then why did you go straight to her portrait again? And why have you been staring at her for over five minutes? Excuse me for not believing this is a manifestation of your appreciation of Reynolds’s artistic skill.’

  The confirmation that he had been watching her all along made her blush turn to brushfire.

  ‘I was thinking about her. I felt sorry for her.’

  ‘Sorry for her?’

  She almost added she felt even sorrier for him, but that would likely bring further thunder and lightning down on her head if not worse.

  ‘Yes. I know it is merely a painting, but she looks like she wants to rise up and shout.’

  ‘Shout what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just shout. “I am here”, perhaps. “Look at me”.’

  ‘From what I heard she had enough people looking at her. She was the reigning beauty at the time.’

  ‘That isn’t what I meant. You know that.’

  He turned his shoulder to the painting.

  ‘Wasn’t that what Princess Ariadne said about you? That you are the mistress of the silent shout? Perhaps you are merely applying your own frustrations to your image of my mother.’

  ‘That is nonsensical. I am nothing like your mother. I have neither wealth nor beauty and though I was a burden for my own family, I had the good fortune to be embraced by people who care deeply for me. There are no points of comparison.’

  ‘You make a strong case, yet that silent shout stands. Why is that?’

  ‘Perhaps you are merely applying your own frustrations to your image of me, Lord Stanton?’

  He smiled at the words she tossed back at him.

  ‘The difference between you and me is that I don’t deny them, Christina James. I knew full well what I was doing when I turned my back on my hedonistic way of life. Frustration and silent shouts are part and parcel of that deal with the angels. It is called compromise and it is the curse of growing out of boyhood.’

  ‘Was your hedonistic phase so devoid of silent shouts and frustration, then?’ She challenged. The man she remembered from six years ago had hardly been the care-for-nobody his words implied.

  His hand rose slightly and fell back. It was a strange gesture and her own hand twitched in a mirror response before she subdued it.

  ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘There were times of rather severe frustration, especially towards the end. At least they helped me realise I was no longer comfortable with a life of indulgence and danger. The Foreign Office suits me. It is a fine balance between Sinclair and Stanton with the Sinclair engaging in the occasional silent howl, but the Stanton having the last word on all matters of importance. It works well. I recommend it.’

  ‘To me? I hardly face the same challenges as you, Lord Stanton.’

  ‘Yes, you do, Christina James.’

  The coldness in his eyes faded and his voice sank to a rumbling purr and she took a physical step back, glancing at the painting as she groped fo
r a distraction.

  ‘What is your mother holding? Those are paintbrushes, aren’t they?’

  His smile turned wry at her diversion, but he answered her question.

  ‘Yes. She loved painting. Watercolours. The house used to be littered with them.’

  ‘I haven’t seen any watercolours at all. Were they put away?’

  ‘My father had them destroyed.’

  ‘Oh, no! How could he do that to you?’

  ‘To me?’

  ‘He should have left you something of her. She was your mother, even if she made a selfish mistake. People make mistakes all the time, that is no reason to...to erase them. That is a terrible message to a child—if you disappoint me you will cease to be. I am sorry for your father, but that is just unfair. No, it is cruel.’

  ‘There is a price for betrayal, Miss James. She betrayed not only her husband and family, but was also clearly willing to betray her country. Moreau was a French spy and when she ran away she helped him take some sensitive documents belonging to my uncle. Each act alone would be unforgivable. Together...’

  She still felt a desperate need to protect the woman in the portrait.

  ‘If she is such a villain, if he has erased everything else of hers, why keep her portrait?’

  ‘To remind me. Like my grandmother, my father is a firm believer in cautionary tales for the young. He wanted me to always remember to subdue the Sinclair traits I share with her and to focus on whatever Stanton characteristics managed to survive her toxic influence. Judging by my physical appearance he didn’t have much hope for me, which is why he often sent me to my uncle when I wasn’t in school. Oswald is a master at subduing the wild side of the Sinclair nature. I don’t think he has made an impetuous move in his entire life. Brutal, yes, impetuous, no.’

  ‘You cannot be serious. That is...that is sheer and utter poppycock!’

  ‘Is it? He was right, though. I lived up to his worst expectations before returning meekly to the Stanton fold. If it hadn’t been for my stepmother and my sisters I wouldn’t have set foot in the Hall during those years. It was too depressing watching the portentous gloom on his face as he resigned himself to his only heir’s descent into the Sinclair pit of iniquity.’

  ‘Well, if that is the way he acted I am surprised you didn’t behave much worse. He certainly deserved worse for sending you away to your uncle when you had just lost your mother and needed the safety of your home...that was unconscionable!’

  He shrugged and adjusted the chair with the tip of his boot.

  ‘He wasn’t in any shape to care for anyone for quite a while.’

  Christina’s dislike of Lord Wentworth increased a notch. She was rather glad he wasn’t in residence at the moment. She knew she should feel sorry for him as well, but she didn’t. She wanted to kick him. And the Dowager. But mostly she didn’t want Alex to stop talking.

  ‘When did he remarry?’

  ‘He met Sylvia at Harrogate the following year.’

  ‘Lady Albinia said she is very nice. She looks nice.’

  He glanced down the gallery towards the portrait of the plump young woman, the edges of his mouth softening and rising into a kind of smile she had not yet seen except in her imagination. She felt a twinge of jealousy, which was absurd.

  ‘She is. Everyone likes her. I tried to dislike her for a whole year and failed miserably. She is kind and quite clever. When Anne was born she asked Alby to bring me in to see my sister before she even sent for my father.’

  His gaze focused back on her, narrowing. This time the heat that coursed through her wasn’t embarrassment or outrage or empathy. The spectres of the Stantons and Sinclairs on the wall behind her ceased to exist. Just the man, his outline gilded by the sun streaming in the long windows overlooking the garden.

  ‘If not for my father, I’m at least glad for her and my sisters’ sake I changed my life’s course. Though to be honest it wasn’t out of any concern for them that I did. If I hadn’t finally gone too far I probably would still be there, digging away.’

  ‘What happened?’

  She didn’t really expect him to answer, but she had to ask. She wanted to do more than that. She wanted to take his hand from where it was resting against the back of the chair. No, resting wasn’t the right word, it was as stiff as the wood, as if holding back the hordes of hell depended on it.

  ‘I almost killed a woman. Five years ago. It was sheer good luck that she was too small to climb over the parapet of the bridge so she tried to jump from the embankment where the Neva wasn’t deep and a soldier happened to see her and pulled her out of the water. That water is ice cold; she never would have survived.’

  She knew this particular smile, but she had never seen it so evident—it was hard, defiant and full of self-hate. She felt as cold as if she had been the woman plunged into the freezing river. Five years ago, a year after he had been on Illiakos. She could well imagine an impressionable young woman falling in love with him, she had done so herself and with probably less cause than he had given that woman. It was selfish, idiotic to feel jealousy. All she knew, without the slightest doubt, was that whatever he had done, he had not done out of malice.

  Another piece of the puzzle fell into place as Count Razumov’s words came back to her and with it another spear of jealousy.

  ‘Vera Vidanich. There was a duel.’

  ‘Gossip travels, doesn’t it? Yes, there was a duel. I deserved what happened to me; she didn’t. Her husband very rightly wanted to put a bullet through me.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘He missed. I deloped. That didn’t assuage his honour sufficiently so he broke form and decided to make his point with his fists and I let him beat me so he could at least regain some of his pride.’

  ‘That was probably more satisfying than putting a bullet through you.’

  He gave a small laugh.

  ‘I think he still would have preferred the bullet, but perhaps you are right. There is something more satisfying about drawing blood with your fists at close quarters than across twenty paces of snowy ground.’

  ‘Were you in love with her?’

  His gaze focused back on her, cynical and harsh.

  ‘No. I can’t even claim that in my defence. There wasn’t even an affair. Even in my Sinclair heyday I avoided women who weren’t completely up to snuff. It was worse than that. Vidanich was being manipulated by some rather unscrupulous French agents and I was in Russia to ensure they didn’t extract information from him that was of value to us until certain discussions were completed. Keeping an eye on him was as boring as watching water boil and it gave me too much time to observe his neglect of Vera. Very foolishly I thought I could play the knight gallant and force him to take notice of her. I should have known I hadn’t the skills for that. Rakes make very poor Galahads.’

  ‘She fell in love with you?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘She fell in love with an idea of herself, not with me. She had no idea who I was in truth and I doubt she would have cared to know. She was sweet, but not very mature, and I was a criminal fool. After the duel I left Russia and my...position and joined the Foreign Office instead. That whole period of my life feels like something out of a Greek play. Complete with washing up wounded on the shores of a Greek island. Every step leading inevitably down the path to destruction. Very Homeric.’

  ‘What happened to her in the end?’

  ‘She now has three children and I am told she and Vidanich appear content which is all anyone entering the blessed state of matrimony has the right to expect.’

  ‘I’m glad for her. Perhaps in a strange way what happened to her was all for the best in the end.’

  ‘Good lord, don’t make a virtue of my actions, Chrissie.’

  ‘Not of your actions, of your choices and hers after what happened.’

  ‘Hell, next y
ou’ll be patting me on the head.’

  She smiled. ‘You’re too tall.’

  ‘There are other ways you could show your approbation, you know.’ His eyes narrowed, his lids dropping as he surveyed her and she felt her skin heat, as if the sun had moved closer in its orbit. He was using charm to disarm and deflect again. She couldn’t stop the answering heat unfurling in her, but she could see through it.

  ‘I remember on Illiakos you also used to tease when you were uncomfortable.’

  ‘I am touched you treasure memories of our time together so faithfully.’

  ‘A case in point. But as you have seen, my memory is quite good at retaining all manner of trivial information.’

  ‘So it is. My uncle was very impressed with that trick of yours with the colours and I admit I’m curious as well. How does it work?’

  He took her arm as he spoke, moving with her towards the door, but without haste, his fingers shifting the thin fabric of her sleeve against her skin as they walked, lighting up the whole left side of her body. But inside her something was curling into a ball, preparing to be kicked.

  ‘It isn’t a trick and I don’t know how it works.’

  He stopped again and turned her towards him.

  ‘I noticed in the stateroom you were less than happy about the King revealing your talent. Why are you ashamed of it?’

  ‘I am not ashamed. I merely don’t enjoy being considered an oddity.’

  ‘Why on earth would that classify you as an oddity?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘My cousins enjoyed conjecturing why my parents didn’t want me to live with them in Edinburgh. They never accepted it was simply because my mother was ill and my father busy. When I was seven they discovered I saw colours where others didn’t. They spread the tale that I must be in hiding because I was accused of witchcraft. I became very popular in the village.’

  His hands tightened on her arms.

  ‘Didn’t anyone, your aunt or uncle, protect you?’