Lord Stanton's Last Mistress by Lara Temple : All About Romance %

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Historical Romance

Lord Stanton's Last Mistress

By Lara Temple

Buy on Amazon

TEST

Lord Stanton’s Last Mistress is the final book in Lara Temple’s Wild Lords and Innocent Ladies trilogy, which features the members of the ‘Wild Hunt’, three men who have been friends since their schooldays and who served together during the Napoleonic Wars. In books one and two, Gabriel, Lord Hunter and Alan, Marquess of Ravenscar met their matches, and now it’s the turn of the enigmatic Alexander, Lord Stanton, a man whose iron self-control has been hard won and whose coolly confident demeanour hides a wealth of hurt and self-recrimination.

When we meet him in the prologue, Alex has been shot and wounded and is being cared for in the palace of King Darius of the small Mediterranean island of Illiakos. His wound is severe, and as he drifts in and out of consciousness, Alex registers he is being cared for by a woman shrouded in a voluminous veil. Once he’s regained sufficient strength to tease and flirt, Alex tries to get the woman to remove her ‘tent’, but she refuses and continues to tend him from beneath her covering. In spite of the fact that he can’t see her face, Alex is drawn towards the young woman who so cheerfully disagrees with him and puts him in his place, so much so that he impulsively asks her to leave the island with him when he is well enough to travel.

Christina James is an Englishwoman by birth who has lived at the court of Illiakos for the last eight years. After the death of her mother when she was ten, she accompanied her father to the island, and quickly became a dear friend and companion of the young Princess Ariadne who was then just four-years-old. Christina remained on Illiakos following her father’s death, and now aged eighteen, she is bound by ties of love and gratitude to Ari and her father, who has asked Christina (who has inherited her father’s skill as an herbalist) to tend to the wounded Englishman – and insists on her wearing veils to preserve her modesty and reputation. Rumour has it that the wounded man is as handsome as Apollo, and on first sight of him, Christina has to agree. But she’s drawn to him for more than his looks; he’s charming, vibrant and funny and Christina is very soon completely infatuated with him.

Six years later, and the impetuous, smilingly flirtatious young man of the prologue has disappeared. Alex got out of the spying game not long after he left Illiakos, but continues to work for the British government as a diplomat under the auspices of his uncle, Sir Oswald Sinclair. When Sir Oswald tasks Alex with hosting the upcoming talks between England, Austria, Russia and Illiakos that are designed to secure Illiakos as a naval base in the Mediterranean, Alex is not pleased at the prospect of opening his family home to the delegations. But his father, the Marquess of Wentworth, has agreed to the idea, so Alex has little choice but to agree and, a few days later, leaves London for Stanton Hall in Berkshire.

Arrived at the Hall in the company of King Darius and his daughter, Christina is dismayed to learn the identity of their host. She had only known Alex’s first name when she nursed him and had no idea that the Lord Stanton whose hospitality the royal party is to enjoy is the man on whom she’d had such a silly, girlish crush. With any luck, his lordship won’t realise who she is, given he never saw her unveiled, and she hopes fervently that he will remain in ignorance… but of course, it doesn’t take Alex too long to figure out that Christina was the ‘nurse’ he’s never quite been able to forget.

As Alex and Christina spend time with each other over the next few days and weeks, they begin to open up to each other about their pasts, and about their hopes and fears. I liked both of them, and had been intrigued by the glimpses of Alex we were given in the earlier books, but I have to admit to being a little disappointed when he turned out to be yet another of those stereotypical, marriage-shy bachelors damaged by his past that are so frequently found in historical romances. Much is made of the scandal surrounding his maternal family, the Sinclairs, and the fact that his mother ran off with her lover; we’re given to understand that Alex used to be somewhat wild, but since his return from Illiakos, he’s become a man who keeps himself under the strictest control. A love affair of his own that went badly wrong and ended with a duel seems to have been the catalyst for his reformation, and now he is continually at pains to suppress his scandalous Sinclair side in favour of the starchy Stanton one.

But somehow it’s all a bit… tepid. The battle between Alex’s warring natures is overwrought, and as a point of romantic conflict, it’s rather flimsy. His reactions and responses – his annoyance at the fact he’s fallen for Christina when he didn’t want to, for instance – seem disproportionate, and the idea of his having to continually smother his ‘sinful Sinclair’ side make little sense. He was a bit wild in his youth, but as far as I could see, he did nothing terrible – and then he grew up and started to think more about his actions. Isn’t that what adults are supposed to do?

Christina is a much more well-defined character whose motivations make a lot more sense. Neglected by her parents, she was brought up alongside Princess Ariadne; the young women share a sisterly affection, although of course, Christina is in that awkward situation of being neither flesh nor fowl, part of the family, but not part of it at the same time. Having spent most of her life being an afterthought, it’s not surprising that she is unwilling to throw caution to the wind and risk the life she has built for herself by running away with Alex when he asks her in the prologue, and it also explains her caution when she meets him again years later and realises that her fascination with him is as strong as it ever was. She’s sensible and practical; but finds the courage to reach for what she wants, and I appreciated the way the author shows that Christina is very well aware of the limitations imposed upon her by her sex and by her dependent situation.

I enjoy Lara Temple’s assured and intelligent writing, and I was pleased to note that she continues to display the talent for realistic, witty dialogue that I’ve mentioned in other reviews. The principals have strong chemistry and the secondary characters – King Darius, Ari and especially Alex’s aunt Albinia – are adroitly drawn. But while Lord Stanton’s Last Mistress was a pleasant read, I just couldn’t buy Alex as a deeply damaged hero, so the reasons separating him from Christina lack credibility and the romance is weakened as a result. Ms. Temple is a talented writer and I’ll continue to read her work, but this one didn’t grab me as much as some of her other books.