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Lord Stanton's Last Mistress
Lara Temple
She saved his life…Now he can’t resist her!A Wild Lords and Innocent Ladies story: Lord Stanton’s stay on the island of Illiakos is shrouded in memories of fever and his mysterious nurse. Years later, an Illiakan royal visit to Stanton Hall reveals the princess’s chaperon Christina James is the woman who saved his life! Alexander is a master of control, but Christina makes him long to unleash the sinful side he’s buried…and unlock her passionate nature too!
She saved his life...
Now he can’t resist her!
In this Wild Lords and Innocent Ladies story, Lord Stanton’s stay on the island of Illiakos is shrouded in memories of fever and his mysterious nurse. Years later, an Illiakan royal visit to Stanton Hall reveals the princess’s chaperone, Christina James, is the woman who saved his life! Alexander is a master of control, but Christina makes him long to unleash the sinful side he’s buried...and unlock her passionate nature, too!
Wild Lords and Innocent Ladies miniseries
Book 1—Lord Hunter’s Cinderella Heiress
Book 2—Lord Ravenscar’s Inconvenient Betrothal
Book 3—Lord Stanton’s Last Mistress
“The second book in the Wild Lords and Innocent Ladies trilogy will thrill Regency fans.”
—RT Book Reviews on Lord Ravenscar’s Inconvenient Betrothal
“Temple has a delightful gift with words that is sure to have readers smiling as the story of blossoming love and Gothic mystery unfolds.”
—RT Book Reviews on The Duke’s Unexpected Bride
LARA TEMPLE was three years old when she begged her mother to take the dictation of her first adventure story. Since then she has led a double life—by day she is a high-tech investment professional, who has lived and worked on three continents, but when darkness falls she loses herself in history and romance…at least on the page. Luckily her husband and two beautiful and very energetic children help her weave it all together.
Also by Lara Temple (#u27a96bdb-6347-5195-9026-b229e81fbf41)
Lord Crayle’s Secret World
The Reluctant Viscount
The Duke’s Unexpected Bride
Wild Lords and Innocent Ladies miniseries
Lord Hunter’s Cinderella Heiress
Lord Ravenscar’s Inconvenient Betrothal
Lord Stanton’s Last Mistress
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Lord Stanton’s Last Mistress
Lara Temple
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07378-3
LORD STANTON’S LAST MISTRESS
© 2018 Ilana Treston
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Omer and Maya,
I am so lucky you are part of my home and my heart.
Contents
Cover (#u56510d5f-0fd1-5b27-87da-502c9356bf0a)
Back Cover Text (#u8fa1f8b5-4f9e-5305-8c0e-e386694b7aac)
About the Author (#u4ef560b6-d377-5b9c-98d7-956ba20ced2e)
Booklist (#u292234b0-84bf-53d6-8aa5-621f4d44890d)
Title Page (#ufff7c202-1a5b-59ac-a95d-39501a0a8bbc)
Copyright (#u220a1b06-e37e-57e1-b154-7611b937d3ad)
Dedication (#u0cbcdf7d-df9b-5d1f-b02c-ef8479c57fd2)
Prologue (#ue5ce295e-f1d2-5ee2-b90a-7adb81bb5bfb)
Chapter One (#u0969173d-5cb6-5665-a5cf-3bf89c35ba56)
Chapter Two (#u19c88102-61fc-5f6b-a52c-21464876e460)
Chapter Three (#u407e6d0e-aee6-5899-80c7-43d99b240cdd)
Chapter Four (#u929fabc8-97df-53a9-89d2-44d00e98b0a5)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#u27a96bdb-6347-5195-9026-b229e81fbf41)
Island kingdom of Illiakos, the Mediterranean —1817
‘Fools! Shooting into the fog like that. Two more minutes and they would have seen the Maltese colours! And if they must actually shoot someone, why not a Maltese? Why an Englishman? Now that Napoleon is finished the English navy rules the sea, which means it would be very inconvenient for me if he died.’
‘I am sorry for that, your Majesty,’ Christina said as she continued sorting through the herbs she and little Princess Ariadne had collected from the Palace Gardens.
‘Is he going to die, Papa?’ Ari asked, her hand sneaking into Christina’s.
From the first night the King had sent Christina to the royal nursery, the four-year-old Princess had struggled into her bed and curled into her heat, her soft plump cheek resting on Christina’s palm. That moment Christina had fallen in love, as thirsty for affection as the little girl had been. Each time Ari still reached for her hand, Christina’s heart would squeeze at this remnant of their shared childhood. She stroked Ari’s curls and handed her another bundle of herbs to sort.
‘I don’t know.’ The King gave a huff of frustration. ‘I don’t trust that fool of a doctor. He says the bullet is out, but he doesn’t think the man will survive the fever. The poltroon sent for a priest. I want you to see to him, Athena.’
‘See to him?’
‘Yes. You always helped your father with patients. Use those herbs the women come to you for. I don’t like this. I’ve seen the man—everything about him says wealth and privilege and yet he carries nothing on him but gold, not even a letter. The Maltese captain says he paid above the asking price to be taken from Venice and that he saw him in the company of one of the Khedive’s top men in Alexandria. Someone like that, the English will come looking for. If he must die I would rather he does so elsewhere, so make him well enough to travel, Athena.’
The note of worry in the King’s voice distracted Christina from the enormity of the task and the knowledge she was wholly inadequate. She would do anything in her power for the King and Ari. She owed them more than her gratitude; she owed them her loyalty and her love.
‘You know I will do anything I can to help, your Majesty.’
‘I know that. You can be as stubborn as the Cliffs of Illiakos when you set your mind to something. So go and set it to getting this Englishman on his feet. Off with you now.’
‘Can I go and swoon over him, too, Papa?’ Ariadne said hopefully.
‘What in the name of Zeus do you mean by swoon, Ari?’ Usually people quaked when confronted head-on with the King’s anger, but twelve-year-old Ari clearly knew as well as Christina that her father’s bark was worse than his bite.
‘I heard the maids say he is as handsome as a god and they take peeks and swoon over him. So may I?’
‘No, you may not. There will be no swooning. But you have a good point. When your father died, Athena, I swore on Zeus’s head I would protect you just as I would my own daughter and that applies as much to your modesty as to your life. You will don veils while you attend to him and I will have Yannis stand guard. We know nothing of him, after all.’
‘But, King Darius, tending to a patient in veils is not very—’
‘And take some of my English newspapers to read to him.’
‘If he is unconscious, reading to him is hardly likely to—’
‘Must you argue with me over everything, Athena?’ the King interrupted, throwing his hands to the sky. ‘Perhaps hearing his mother tongue will remind him of his duties and revive him. Now go and see what is to be done, do you hear me?’
‘Half the castle can hear you, your Majesty,’ Christina replied as she brushed the remains of the herbs from her hands. ‘I will return soon, Ari.’
‘And tell me if he is really beautiful?’
Christina smiled at the King’s growl as she pushed back the tumble of dark curls from Ari’s forehead.
‘It isn’t a man’s beauty that matters, Ari, but his heart,’ she said, a little pedantically, and added for good measure as she went towards the door, ‘Not to mention his good nature and even temper.’
She didn’t wait to hear the King’s response to her mild impudence, but went directly to the prisoner’s room. She had no real expectation of being able to oblige the King by reviving the Englishman. She might share the King’s disdain for the doctor who took her father’s place, but she didn’t presume she could do better.
‘Hello, Yannis, the King sent me to see if there is anything that can be done for the Englishman.’
Yannis, one of the King’s most trusted guards, raised his brows.
‘Kyrie Sofianopoulos says he won’t survive the fever.’
‘Then I am not likely to do any harm, am I?’
‘Not much good, either. But if the King told you then of course he knows best.’
Christina smiled at the blind acceptance of the King’s infallibility and entered the room, preparing for the worst. As she approached the sickbed her mind did something it had never done before—it split in two. Sensible Christina assessed the hectic colour in the Englishman’s cheeks and all along the left side of his bare chest. The wound was just below the ribcage and was covered with a linen bandage stained orange and brown with dried blood. But even as she set to work removing bandages and cleaning the wound, a part of her that was utterly foreign raised its head and offered an opinion.
The maids were right. He might be dying, but he was the handsomest man she had ever seen.
She had sometimes watched the fishermen in the port stripped to the waist and though they, too, might possess impressive musculature, this man was on a different scale. Tall and lean, but with shoulders and arms that looked fit to topple a temple, and a whole landscape of hard planes and slopes, marred here and there by scars, several of which looked suspiciously like old knife wounds, including two rather deep gashes to his forearm. Aside from these imperfections he looked like a northern version of Apollo, with silky, light brown hair, like a field of wheat seen from afar. Even in his fever there was a tightness of action in his expression—his features were chiselled into spare lines, with no excess of flesh on the strong angles of his cheekbones and chin and the carved lines of his lips. His mouth was bracketed by two deep lines that put the final touch on a face that was more that of a statue of what Apollo might look like on a rather aggravating day of dragging the sun across the sky than an actual person.
