Lord Stanton's Last Mistress

by Lara Temple

  Lady Albinia shifted her shoulder and smiled.

  ‘Not quite so badly as before, thank you, my dear. You know I always find it hard to settle after a trip.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It was kind of you, but there was no need for you to travel with them to Oxford.’

  ‘Nonsense, I had a grand time. It is quite incomprehensible, but I have never been to the Physic Gardens before. I brought back a few interesting samples of sage and tarragon and Mr Dunn, who oversees the gardens, promised he would look in on our own gardens when next he is in Berkshire and see what is to be done about my pennyroyal.’

  ‘I see. That is nice.’ The slightest shift of colour in her cheeks made him keep his answer as bland as possible. He would mention to Sylvia that Mr Dunn would be encouraged to stay if he did indeed call at the Hall. ‘You should go rest nevertheless. I thought that was the point of having an early dinner.’

  ‘I am about to, but I was considering what we should do for the last day before our guests leave and I have a request.’

  Alex turned a chair for her and sat down himself. Alby rarely came with requests. Every so often he wondered if she resented her position at the Hall and wished for a different existence, but the one time he had convinced his father to offer her alternatives they had been met with an uncharacteristically firm rebuff.

  ‘She’s not like you, Alex,’ the Marquess had told him afterwards. ‘I’m not like you. Well, most people aren’t like you. We like a steady, predictable life. That’s what she has here. It’s a good life and she likes the responsibilities and helping Sylvia with the housekeeping.’

  A steady, predictable life. His father hadn’t needed to add that his life had been anything but steady and predictable while the first Lady Wentworth had lived and that Alex himself had been anything but steady and predictable at the time. It never needed to be said to be heard.

  He wished he was more like the rest of his family at his core so that he would be rid for ever of this drive to go beyond what was comfortable. He kept it on a very short rein, but it was always there, sometimes dormant and sometimes rearing up like an ill-mannered brute of a horse.

  Like now.

  He shoved that thought away. Again. Eventually it would stay down. He was different now, by choice. It just required reaffirming. Forceful reaffirming.

  ‘What is this request, Alby? You know if there is anything I can do, I will.’

  Lady Albinia’s vague eyes crinkled in her sweet smile.

  ‘Of course. But you must tell me if this is not convenient. I wanted to ask you to teach the Princess to ride.’

  ‘To ride.’

  ‘A horse.’

  ‘I presumed that. Did she make the request?’

  ‘Oh, no. We saw you riding Thunder on our way back from Matty and she said she had never learned to ride. I thought it would be nice as a last excursion before they must leave.’

  ‘Nice... Alby, I don’t know what Uncle Oswald and you think, but if this is some last minute attempt to convince me to offer for the Princess, it will not work. I have no interest in her.’

  Albinia snorted.

  ‘Of course not. The girl is a hibiscus.’

  ‘A what? Never mind. And now that you remind me, Miss James mentioned you took her to one of your gatherings at Matty Frake’s.’

  ‘Oh, yes. We had a lovely time. The Princess was a little overwhelmed by Matty, but she and Miss James hit it off very nicely with Penny and Mary.’

  Alex rubbed his jaw and the stubble scraped against his palm, the sensation grating on his sensitised nerves. Hell, he was tired. He wished everyone would just stay in their place and leave him alone so he could find a stable centre again. It probably wasn’t Chrissie’s fault that Alby had taken them to Briar Rose Cottage, but it felt like another invasion of his domain. He had spent so many hours in Matty’s garish floral parlour as a boy he knew every uneven floorboard and fringed rug and already his mind was inserting Chrissie’s image into that space. It was as if she held a map of the Hall and its surroundings and was methodically marking areas that were not meant to be infiltrated by strangers, pushing him further and further into a corner.

  ‘You do know her father might not approve of your introducing his daughter to an illegitimate midwife and the daughter of a scandalous divorcee?’

  ‘Well, we needn’t tell him the particulars. I was merely trying to make their stay more enjoyable. These are friends of ours, Alexander. They were family to you during our worst hours.’

  ‘I am well aware of that, Alby, and I will never forget their kindness.’ He winced a little at the use of Chrissie’s...Miss James’s choice of words.

  ‘So will you take them riding?’

  ‘Yes. I will take the Princess out on Marigold.’

  ‘Miss James could ride Charis.’

  He leaned back, detaching his gaze from the window seat.

  ‘I agreed to take the Princess out, Alby. Teaching a new rider is tedious business. I am sure Miss James would rather rest or read.’

  ‘Perhaps we should let the Princess decide what suits her?’

  ‘That’s no choice. You know full well she follows Miss James about like an adoring puppy. They are inseparable.’

  ‘It is hardly surprising she has a deep affection for the woman who has stood in her mother’s stead for many years. I cannot quite understand why you are making such a fuss about something so simple.’

  Alex moved towards his desk.

  ‘You are right. It doesn’t matter. Do whatever you see fit. Now I have work to do.’

  ‘It is very late, you shouldn’t tax yourself so. You no longer need to prove anything, you know.’

  He stopped at the edge of the desk and smiled at her.

  ‘I am fine, Alby. Thank you for taking such good care of them.’

  ‘You are welcome and it is no hardship. I like them.’

  ‘I’m glad. Goodnight, Alby.’

  She paused at the door.

  ‘I still haven’t resolved my conundrum, though.’

  ‘What conundrum?’

  ‘Whether Miss James is an herb or a flower. It is quite vexing.’

  ‘Perhaps she is neither. Goodnight, Alby.’

  ‘Perhaps. Do you have any thought on the matter?’

  None that was repeatable.

  ‘None. Just that she isn’t fennel.’

  ‘Of course she isn’t fennel. That isn’t in the least helpful. Well, never mind. Goodnight.’

  Alex breathed in the silence as the door closed behind her. Vexing was one way of putting it. Swiftly approaching unbearable would be nearer the mark.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘He is a good teacher, yes?’ the King asked as they watched Ari’s delight at completing her first canter and Lord Stanton’s warm smile as he encouraged his pupil. Despite her initial fears, Ari was proving to be a natural in the saddle and, as much as Christina enjoyed being back in the saddle herself, she wished Ari and the King hadn’t insisted on her accompanying them because she was discovering an aspect of herself she had never even suspected existed before meeting Alex—jealousy. Nasty, bitter and green as the greenest pond slime.

  For a whole hour she had watched as Lord Stanton encouraged, smiled at and generally charmed Ari while he had barely directed a word at her beyond what propriety demanded of him. As if those moments in his rooms had happened to someone else. She had already seen the regret on his face the moment they had come down to dinner last night. He had become thoroughly Lord Stanton—polite and a little stern and clearly disappointed in his lapse of control. He had tried to speak with her, but she had evaded him, unable to bear another apology. It had been more her fault than his after all, coming to his rooms like that, entering his bedroom, for heaven’s sake. If his valet had not come...

  She leaned forward to pat the mare’s neck
, closing her eyes against the stinging, and forced an answer to the King’s observation.

  ‘Yes. He is a very good teacher.’

  ‘They look good together, too. Look how he is smiling at her. If only she would not treat him like a brother. He is used to the most beautiful and experienced of women. We are leaving tomorrow, but perhaps there is still some chance they will change their minds. You must tell her to flirt with him.’

  ‘If you want her to flirt with him then you tell her.’ As soon as the words were out Christina gasped at her own audacity. The King was similarly shocked because he pulled on his reins, gaping at her. Before she could even formulate an apology he burst into laughter.

  ‘I keep forgetting how English you are, Athena. There is nothing wrong with some games between men and women.’

  ‘Papa, isn’t it wonderful? Look!’ Ari cried out as she turned her horse and trotted towards them and the King moved towards her, full of praise, while Alex pulled up beside Christina. Astride his enormous black stallion he looked more imposing than usual and Matty’s tale of the Wild Hunt Club came back to her. Her hands tingled inside her gloves and she shifted in her saddle, her mare responding immediately and shying away from Thunder. Alex reached out and grasped the bridle, a soft word calming the mare. Embarrassment added to the heat in Christina’s cheeks, but he merely caressed the horse’s gleaming neck and made no comment. She searched for something, anything to say.

  ‘You are a good teacher, Lord Stanton. The Princess was quite worried at the beginning, but look at her now.’

  He didn’t. He was watching her and she wished he wouldn’t because she could feel the burn of her blush and it wouldn’t quiet under his scrutiny.

  ‘I am glad she is enjoying it. She has a natural aptitude for riding. It is a pity there isn’t more time for her to explore it.’

  The sting of jealousy slipped further under her skin and she pulled her reins, but he shifted as well, his stallion blocking her mare’s path.

  ‘Wait. I have been wishing to... I owe you an apology. Again.’

  Oh, she had known this was unavoidable. Still, it hurt.

  ‘Please. There is no need...’

  ‘Yes, there is. I keep crossing lines with you and then blaming you for my weakness. You have every right to be angry at me.’

  ‘I am not angry.’

  ‘Yes, you are. I’m not the King, you don’t have to tiptoe around me. I am surrounded by politicians. A little plain dealing is welcome.’

  He sounded so exasperated she couldn’t help smiling. ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘I might regret it later, but for the moment I promise you I am sincere.’

  Christina waited out the stabbing ache in her chest at his answering smile, resisting the urge to lean towards him, just touch the hands resting so easily on his horse. She might not dare ask for what she really wanted, but surely she could ask for something little for herself before this idyll was over.

  ‘Do you think it would be acceptable for me to take Charis for a gallop when we are done? This is my last chance to ride before we return to Illiakos. Perhaps a groom could be spared to accompany me?’

  His smile gathered back in, the grey in his eyes deepening like the shifting winter skies over the Mediterranean.

  ‘Of course.’

  Then he spurred his horse towards Ari.

  * * *

  ‘No, Miss James won’t dismount yet, Henry. Charis here still needs some exercise so I will take them out to Norton’s Field. Wait with her in the courtyard while I see our guests to the Hall.’

  ‘Oh, Tina, will you have a lesson, too?’ Ari clapped her hands together, clearly still delighted with her success. ‘I would come with you, but I am already dreadfully stiff and I’m afraid if I don’t get out of the saddle now I shall have to be pried from it like a barnacle from a ship’s hull. Oh, Papa, I have done marvellously, haven’t I?’

  The King considered Christina for a moment and then took his daughter’s arm and led her towards the Hall.

  ‘You have, little star. You were born to ride. You must be part English.’

  Christina remained in the stable yard, trying to subdue the rumble of anticipation.

  ‘Ready?’ Alex asked and again her mare shied at her abrupt movement. She stroked the lovely animal’s thick neck, calming herself as well.

  ‘Ready.’

  Her nervousness began to fade as they trotted down the lane and then faded utterly when they reached a long flat field cropped clean of its stubble of harvested grain by a flock of sheep now huddled in the shade of a chestnut tree at its centre. She cast a quick glance at Lord Stanton. He was watching her, his mouth just curved up at one corner, his eyes hooded.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked again and this time she didn’t bother answering.

  By the time the mare slackened from her gallop at the other end of the field Christina was laughing and close to tears. She had forgotten what it was like to feel so alive and free. Just being, the way children were—without barriers between her and the sensations of her body and the utter joy of riding. But there were still barriers and they held her back from doing what she wanted most: to throw her arms around the difficult man who pulled his horse to a halt by hers. The impulse was so strong and felt so real and possible she slid off her mare, leaning against her neck.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She smiled up at him, she couldn’t help it. With the mare between them she was at least safe from her own folly.

  ‘Better than that. Oh, thank you so much. That was sheer heaven. I had forgotten what it felt like.’

  He swung off Thunder, gathering Charis’s reins from her as well and leading them towards the shade of the trees where he tethered them to a branch. She bent to pick a spindly stemmed poppy, amazed at the impossibly vivid red petals. Everything felt alive, expanded, yet comforting.

  ‘You must have ridden often as a child.’ He turned to run his hand down his stallion’s gleaming neck.

  ‘I did. That was the best part of my childhood. My uncle bred horses and exercising them was part of our duties. Whenever Ari asked me to tell her tales about my childhood I would tell her about the horses until she quite expected England to be full of them. I think that was one reason she was so excited about learning how to ride.’

  ‘She was very lucky to have you with her growing up. Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had had a brother or sister closer to my age. I used to envy my cousins Lucas and Chase, they were only two years apart and very close.’

  ‘But you had good friends.’

  ‘Yes, thank God. Hunter and Raven were the best thing that happened to me. I would do anything for them.’

  Just like she would for Ari and the King. That thought dimmed her pleasure, staining it with a sense of betrayal, though she had no idea why. She had done nothing wrong, just taken something little for herself.

  He turned at her silence, his brows drawing together.

  ‘What have I said to send you scurrying up your tree?’

  ‘Nothing. We should return. Thank you for the ride, Lord Stanton.’

  He didn’t answer. Just stood there with his hand on her reins and suddenly Matty’s description of the two-year-old Lord Stanton came back to her.

  Stubborn as a boulder... When he wanted something he didn’t scream and yell, he stayed put until he got it...

  Then the moment passed, but instead of helping her back on to her mare he pulled the horses towards a tree.

  ‘Come, whatever I did to ruin your pleasure, I didn’t mean it. To atone I want to show you something you might like.’

  Alex showing her things she liked had led her into trouble before. But when the path through the trees became uneven and he held out his hand to help her over a tangle of roots, it was the most natural thing in the world to place her hand in his. There was no
thing unusual about a gentleman offering a woman assistance over rocky ground, but in her mind at least this was no perfunctory hand clasp.

  ‘The forest marks the end of the valley,’ he explained. ‘They left the trees here because of these hills and how rocky the ground is. And for other reasons.’

  ‘I smell spring water,’ she said and he smiled at her. There was something almost boyish about him, as if they had been propelled back in time merely by crossing from the civilised field into the forest. She felt it as well—they might as well be children, off on an adventure in the woods. The oaks rose around them like petrified giants and the air was cool and sweet. Sound muted as they went, the birds were higher up and the buzz of insects was left behind in the fields. The scent of cool clear water became stronger and then the sound, like a breeze, carried to them.

  ‘Oh.’ She stopped just as they came around an outcropping of rock. It was like walking into a story. The clearing was wide and green, bounded on one side by a stream that sloped downwards in a series of tiny waterfalls and on the other by a tumble of stones that had possibly once been a dwelling, but now looked like a giant’s sofa, even more so because in front of it was a great stump of a tree, like a table waiting for the giant’s repast. Her exclamation startled two rabbits out of the tall grass and they vanished like fleeing fairies between the trees.

  ‘Your spring water,’ Alex said.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she whispered and he nodded.

  ‘We used to come here as children. We were convinced this was the remains of a great fortress and that it was up to us to hold it against the French.’

  ‘We?’

  He glanced at her, the smile she liked so much turning wry.

  ‘My Sinclair cousins and I. The Sinclairs’ land is on the other side of the hill, and two of my cousins were wild even then and they would sometimes ride over to escape their family and their tutors.’

  ‘You were friends?’

  He nudged one of the stones with his boot.

  ‘I suppose one could say that. At least until my mother died. By the time I returned to the Hall, Lucas and Chase had moved away with their parents because of some scandal. I frankly can’t remember the details, there have been so many scandals among the Sinclairs.’