Lord Stanton's Last Mistress

by Lara Temple

  He was. And of the answering reverberations it sparked in him, sometimes as painful and throbbing as the wound on his hand and even more unwelcome.

  As she spoke she turned to arrange a row of little wooden birds on a side table facing the stairs. They had been inexpertly painted by his sisters and looked a little like they were suffering from an exotic disease, but she handled them as lovingly as if they were made of spun glass, setting them in a circle, beak to beak.

  ‘What are you doing?’ He asked and her hands flew behind her, the picture of guilt.

  ‘Nothing. Arranging them.’

  He looked down at the congregation; one was slightly askew, as if hearing something outside the little grouping. Or perhaps watching out for them.

  ‘It is a bad habit of mine. When I’m nervous. Arranging things.’ She rubbed the heel of her palm along her cheekbone as if that would erase her blush and began to put them back into a row, but he grasped her hand and plucked the bird from it.

  ‘Do I make you nervous, Chrissie?’

  She shook her head, but it didn’t appear to be in answer to his taunt. She was staring at the figurines, her eyes wide and full of wonder, like a child seeing a magic trick for the first time.

  ‘You made them,’ she murmured.

  He stepped away from the table. He should leave now before revealing something he would regret. Again.

  ‘I must go and attend to some business. Thank you for your nursing skills, Miss James. Then and now.’

  ‘I love every one of them, they are so beautiful, but there is one I love in particular.’

  Vanity was a strange thing. He wanted to know and he didn’t. His mind was already rushing to defend his other carvings against her favouritism.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The girl in the window.’

  He should have known she would give the knife a twist.

  ‘Why that one? I made that ages ago. It is utterly graceless.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. I can see it doesn’t have the same skill as many of the others, but it is so...touching. The way her head is turned to look and her smile. I can’t explain.’

  ‘It was a birthday gift for my mother.’

  ‘She must have loved it.’

  ‘Must she? All I remember is that she asked me what the girl was so happy about.’

  Her eyes widened and when she spoke her voice was hoarse.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Why? It has nothing to do with you. And not much to do with me any more. It is ancient history.’

  ‘I am sorry for that boy. I hope I would never say such a thing to a child, no matter how much I was in pain. Or if I did, I hope I would at least have the strength of character to apologise. Where do you make them?’

  ‘I have a workshop.’

  ‘Oh. May I see?’ Before he could respond she flushed and the shine of curiosity fell back under the veil of her dignity. ‘I mean, I think Ari would find it interesting if you have no objection.’

  ‘If you want to see it you can see it now. I have to tidy up the mess I left. But there is nothing interesting about it. Just tools and blocks of wood.’

  He didn’t wait to see if she followed. He knew he was being surly, again, but he couldn’t help it. No one knew about his woodwork but the people closest to him. It was of no interest to anyone else. He didn’t want to show her his workshop. He wanted to show her the other rooms in his wing. One room specifically. Which was precisely why he should send her on her way.

  Chapter Twelve

  She must be mad.

  Had she really just asked to go to Alex’s rooms? She had. She had blamed him for misunderstanding her position, but within minutes of seeing him again she had jumped on the excuse to touch him and now she was practically begging to be alone with him in a part of the house everyone knew was sacrosanct. His territory.

  It was just that three days had never felt so long. When the King had decided to extend their stay in Oxford by a day she had felt like kicking something like a thwarted child and demanding to be taken home.

  Home.

  It wasn’t her home. Still, the moment the carriage had passed through the ornate metal gates of Stanton Hall earlier that day she had felt right—even her back had rested more deeply against the carriage squabs, as if she was settling back into her own skin.

  So she followed and when he opened the door at the end of the corridor which clearly marked the beginning of his domain and stood aside she walked past him without daring to pause, holding her breath over the threshold as if about to plunge into cold water.

  It reached her the moment she dared breathe—scents of the forest, dark brown and green around the silver thread of a stream. Smells of home and mystery all at once. She moved between the long tables bearing blocks of different coloured wood, looked at the tool cases laying open and displaying dozens of different shaped blades. At one end of the room were metal and wood contraptions with large dark steel screws and arms that looked like great birds of prey or perhaps dragons’ jaws waiting to sink their teeth into anyone foolish enough to approach too closely.

  By the smaller table a chair stood askew on a dusting of wood shavings and on the table was a little wooden boy. It wasn’t formed yet, just the beginning outline of a head, the line of a cheek and jaw and the curve of a mouth, but the eyes were there. He was looking up and the lines scored in the blank, still rough wood were full of expectation and wonder and she had no idea how that was possible.

  Alex strode forward and straightened the chair and turned the figurine so that it lay face down on the table.

  ‘I told you, there is nothing to see. Just tools.’

  She went and turned over the figurine. From here the boy was almost smiling.

  This was hers.

  Perhaps this was what some people felt when they saw a diamond necklace, or looked across a border to a kingdom they coveted. Looking down at the unformed but absolutely definite face of the boy, she wanted it. Much, much more than it—she wanted Alex, his heart, his children, she wanted to be his home, to make him as safe as she felt right now. She waited for the fierceness of her conviction to wash through her and recede before she spoke.

  ‘I thought it was strange that Alby never answered any of my questions about them. I even had my own story in my mind, but when you told me the truth about your mother I realised I wasn’t right.’

  He moved to stand on the other side of the table.

  ‘What story?’

  She smiled at him, curving her hands around the boy.

  ‘I thought perhaps your mother had had an affair with a carpenter on the estate and that he had made these for her and then it was found out and they tried to run away. That was before I heard about Moreau.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘It would have been preferable to the truth. A single betrayal only. But in that case we wouldn’t have kept the figurines in the house, would we?’

  ‘No. So I’m glad it wasn’t the truth.’

  ‘You prefer the version where she is a traitoress just so you can rescue the figurines?’

  ‘I still feel sorry for her. It’s hard for me to think of her as anything other than a sad, frustrated young woman. We can’t change the past.’

  ‘I never try. That is why I occupy myself with the future.’

  In which she had no role, Christina reminded herself. He would probably try to send her on her way now, but she didn’t want to go. She picked up the wooden boy, brushing her thumbs over the rounded cheeks.

  ‘How do you decide what to carve?’

  ‘I don’t. I never know what it will be and nothing depends on the outcome. I just sit down, pick up a piece of wood and stop thinking. When I start thinking I stop carving because then it will go wrong. There are no rules here like there are on the other side of that door. Here I do as I pleas
e.’

  ‘I envy you.’ She barely breathed the words and hurried on before he could withdraw. ‘How did you begin? Do you remember?’

  He looked around the workroom, frowning slightly, as if the answer was engraved in one of the wood surfaces. ‘I wanted a dog, but my father didn’t want any in the house. So one day I was watching the carpenter fixing the panelling and I took a tool from his box and made one from a block of wood lying there. When the carpenter saw it he told me to come to his workshop when I wished. It took me two months to gather the courage to go there.’

  ‘Ned, Matty Frake’s husband,’ she said, another piece of the puzzle falling into place.

  His eyes narrowed, but his mouth softened as he shook his head.

  ‘Do you know that is a very annoying trait of yours?’

  ‘What? Being right? Or am I intruding again?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘So where is the dog you made? You must still have it.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just do.’

  He stood for a moment as stiff as the oaks in the woods—the expression in his eyes was both wary and rueful. Then he turned and though he didn’t tell her to follow she knew this was the point at which she must choose. No woman expecting respect would walk of her own volition deeper into a man’s personal domain. She was already compromising herself by even being in these rooms alone with him. If she did anything other than leave she would be confirming everything he had once accused her of. But he would be right. For now she didn’t want to be the upright and proper Miss James or the obedient handmaiden. She was stepping outside of time, just for a moment. All too soon she would have to return.

  She breathed in, twice, and followed him to her fate.

  Her burning disappointment as she entered the next room was proof of just how far she had fallen. It was not a bedroom, but a study, simply furnished with two comfortable-looking chairs by a wide desk stacked with papers and walls lined with bookshelves where books shared space with more of his wonderful figurines.

  ‘Here. This is Boy.’

  ‘Boy?’ She stared down at the lump in his hand.

  ‘I named him after Mr Brickshaw’s sheepdog, he was one of our tenants and he called all his dogs Boy. Here, Boy. Go, Boy. Every time they bred I asked Father if I could have one of Boy’s boys and received the expected denial. So I made this.’

  She knew that note, light, self-deprecating, dismissive. He was nervous. So she pushed away her disappointment at not being the object of a seduction and focused on Boy, holding out her hand. He hesitated, but placed it on her palm as gently as if it was a soap bubble and she held it just as gently though it was a sturdy little lump. Its legs were just incised lines in the block and his tail was a few scratches, but she could see why the master carpenter had encouraged the young Alexander. Just like the other figurines he had captured an emotion in a few curves of wood. The snub-snouted face was raised to hers, the ears pointing up sharply and the eyes a little slanted. With a hint of a tongue lolling out the puppy looked full of unbridled joy.

  ‘Caught for ever in a moment of love,’ she murmured and saw his hands rise slightly as if to take Boy away from her, but he moved towards the desk instead. She kept hold of Boy, tucking him against her chest so she could feel the rough warmth of wood against her skin, drawing strength from the love and need that wasn’t only apparent in the carvings but in the fact that Alex treasured them, that his hands, his beautiful strong hands, had shaped them, handled them. She had no idea how to proceed, but she knew it was even more impossible to turn back. For the moment at least, Alex’s world was hers.

  * * *

  Alex went to stand behind the desk and watched her walk along the shelves, her hand reaching out to touch the figurines, her other hand still clutching Boy to her breast as if it truly was a living breathing thing and was burrowing into her warmth.

  God, he envied that wooden lump; he envied each of the figurines her fingers lingered on.

  ‘They are truly amazing, Al...Lord Stanton.’

  He stepped forward, forgetting he was behind the desk, which was a good thing because even that little slip of hers was like a strike of lightning, piercing him. Among the many compulsions he was developing, the need to hear her speak his name outside his dreams was on the front lines.

  He leaned his hands on the cool wooden surface and called for calm, but he couldn’t think of anything to say and so he just watched her.

  ‘What did your father think of your talent?’ she continued and he focused on the bite of bitterness that rose at her question.

  ‘I didn’t tell him at the time and then when my mother died it wasn’t relevant. He was away at Harrogate with my grandmother most of the year, at least until he married Sylvia. She told him at some point, I think.’

  ‘You told your stepmother before you told your father?’

  ‘He didn’t need any added burdens. I was enough of a worry already and woodcutting was not a suitable pastime for the future Marquess of Wentworth.’

  ‘I don’t think I would like him.’

  ‘He is not a bad person; he just likes a straightforward world.’

  She glanced down at Boy.

  ‘This is anything but straightforward.’

  ‘For me it is. For my father it was another insult to his dignity. Another sign of Sinclair degeneracy.’

  ‘I have no idea about the rest of the Sinclairs. I have only met two, and another one indirectly, but you are nothing like your uncle and I don’t think you are like your mother, so I am not quite certain what that name appears to portend.’

  ‘Then you are alone in your ignorance. Ask anyone in the district, or in London for that matter, and they will answer that it portends self-indulgent sinfulness, not to mention a tendency towards self-destruction.’

  ‘You cannot possibly believe you are limited to being either like your father and uncle or a caricature of a dissolute hell raiser. That is just...childish.’ Her disbelief was so potent he felt himself struggling to cling to the distinction that had been so clear to him. ‘Your two friends, what are their names? Lord Hunter and Lord Ravenscar—they were also rakes, weren’t they? But I would wager you never thought of them in terms of good or bad, even if they did misbehave.’

  He couldn’t help smiling at the very mild term for some of their younger exploits.

  ‘That is different.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They aren’t Sinclairs.’

  ‘You do realise how silly that sounds, don’t you? Shouldn’t a good diplomat try to avoid the pitfall of preconceptions?’

  Her smile tugged at him, but he stayed where he was. ‘Yes, but a good diplomat should always be aware of his weaknesses and do his best to prevent them from dictating his agenda.’

  ‘Being a Sinclair is not a weakness.’

  ‘I prefer to think of it as a curse.’

  She sighed. ‘And to think I considered you a relatively intelligent man. How disappointing.’

  He couldn’t prevent an answering smile. ‘You don’t believe in curses?’

  She picked up a figurine he had made of one of his tutors, a curve of a stick man.

  ‘No, nor in fairy tales either, though I admit that as a child I did daydream I was a foundling and that one day my true family would discover me and tell me I was a lost princess and take me away to my magical kingdom.’

  ‘Perhaps you should believe in them, then. That is as close to a daydream realised as I’ve heard.’

  ‘I know. It is strange, isn’t it? When my father and I arrived in Illiakos that realisation terrified me. For years after we moved there I had horrible dreams that I would wake up one day back in Northumberland, with my cousins laughing down at me as usual. I worried that if it was true that I had conjured Illiakos through my daydreams it could be un-conjured. For that first year I wen
t to bed every night resolving to be perfect the next day so I wouldn’t do anything to shatter the dream and find myself back in my uncle’s house. It was like that story of a thousand-and-one nights—each day I had to earn the next. You deride me for being a tame handmaiden, but I would have done anything, anything to stay in the dream. At the beginning I was even too scared to allow myself to care for Ari. I thought—if I start taking anything for myself in this dream, I will eat away at it and wake up. In the end I couldn’t help it, though. She is very persistent. She would come into my bed in the middle of the night and curl up like a puppy under the covers.’ She caressed Boy absently and laughed. ‘In the end I slept better with her kicking and squirming in her dreams next to me than I had in my life, even if I had quite a few bruises.’

  ‘Are you still scared?’

  She glanced at him in surprise but the answer was in her eyes. Of course she was scared—that fierce control wasn’t manipulative as he had thought, it was the most basic form of self-preservation. He should know.

  ‘Yes. I can’t imagine...’ She shook her head. ‘When my father died I waited for them to send me back. No one said a word, but I knew the axe would fall, because without my father I was of no use to them. What on earth would they need me for? I stopped talking because I was afraid if I spoke I would be noticed and remind them they had to be rid of me. They let me be because they thought I was mourning my father. I think it took three months for King Darius to realise how scared I was and to tell me I was not being sent back, that I was to stay with them always. That was the one time in my life I fainted. Right in the middle of the great hall. It was very embarrassing.’

  He kept his reactions carefully sheathed. She wouldn’t welcome his pity and his need to gather her to him, wrap around her like she had around the little Princess, would likely lead down a very unplatonic path and that would not be right for her, either. Desire and anger did not mix well. He wasn’t even clear why the anger was so potent. There were no real villains in her tale—indifference and neglect and pettiness did not justify such boiling, choking fury. But if he could have reached through time to the people who had hurt her he would have wreaked hell on their heads.