Lord Stanton's Last Mistress. Lara Temple

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.

      But it wasn’t his looks that held her immobile. For a moment, as she stood over him, his eyes opened and latched on to hers. They were an ominous deep grey, shot with silver like clouds poised the moment before succumbing to a storm. His voice was rough thunder, a warning ending on a plea.

      ‘The snow...it’s freezing... Morrow shouldn’t have left her. Too late.’

      He was looking through her, but she grasped his hand to answer that plea.

      ‘It’s not too late.’

      ‘Too late,’ he repeated, and this time his eyes did fix on hers and she smiled reassuringly because even if he was dying, he shouldn’t do so without hope.

      ‘No, it isn’t too late, I promise. Trust me.’

      His gaze became clearer for a moment, moving over her, his pupils contracting until she could see the sharp edge of silver about them. But then his lids sank again and his restlessness returned, his hand pulling at the bandage, and she dragged her attention away from his face and focused on her duty.

      A look at the ragged and inflamed state of the wound and the sickly tint of his skin under the heat of his fever told her the doctor was not unjustified in his gloom. It would take more than a newspaper to revive this man.

      ‘He’s in bad shape, isn’t he?’ Yannis asked conversationally over her shoulder. ‘Told you. I told the King to put him on the next boat to Athens. Let him die there. We don’t need trouble with the English.’

      She unlocked her jaw. There was no point in being angry at Yannis.

      ‘And what did King Darius say?’

      ‘Nothing I can repeat to you, little nurse.’ Yannis grinned. ‘My punishment is to stand guard and help you see he doesn’t die. So. What do we do first?’

      ‘First you send for a large pot of water while I fetch my father’s bag and those foolish veils.’ There was no point in hoping the King would forget his stipulation.

      ‘Veils?’

      ‘The King said I must wear veils while I see to the Englishman.’

      ‘Good idea,’ Yannis approved. ‘Can’t trust a man without a name. Who knows what he’s running from?’

      She didn’t answer. Not because it was foolish to see ghosts where there were none, but because there was something in the Englishman’s eyes and voice that gave too much credence to Yannis’s half-joking words. It didn’t matter—all that mattered was that a man might be dying and perhaps she could save him and thereby repay some of the debt she owed to her adoptive family.

      * * *

      Thus began of one of the strangest weeks of Christina’s life. She came several times a day to tend to the Englishman while Yannis helped ensure he drank the broths she prepared. She even, though she felt rather foolish, did the King’s bidding and read the English newspapers to him every day. Within two days what she had thought would be an irksome task took on an almost superstitious weight. It was imperative he survive, not just for the King, but because it just was. She fought for his life with the same fervour as she would for Ari or the King had they been ill, which made no sense at all.

      The veils were a nuisance, but soon she found they had a peculiar freeing effect. Like a toddler who is convinced they can’t be seen when covering their eyes, Christina found herself free to truly watch the Englishman without worrying about being pierced again by his icy gaze. In the darkness imposed by the cloth, she didn’t have to avert her eyes from his face or magnificent physique, despite the shame of finding herself doing covertly what the female servants did overtly every time they brought provisions or tidied the room.

      ‘Isn’t he as handsome as Apollo? And look at those shoulders...’ they would sigh in Greek as Christina tried hard to ignore their raptures and her own internal upheaval.

      After a week, his pulse steadied and she noticed his expression change when she read the newspapers, his sharply carved mouth shifting as if in internal conversation with the topic. Politics would be accompanied by a frown and news of London society with a faint curl of his thin upper lip. But his face became most expressive when she indulged in her own fascination—the advertisements in the agony columns. She had never read these before, but when she exhausted the more respectable pages of the two newspapers she became completely enthralled in reading them. There was something so touching and perplexing about them—little snippets of drama and romance that would remain unexplained for ever. Without even noticing it she began discussing them with her unconscious patient.

      ‘Here, listen to this,’ she informed him. ‘This is a very passionate fellow. ‘“To M-A”—which I presume is Maria, or could it be Margarita? That would add an exotic touch. Anyway, he writes: “Do I deserve this?” In capital letters, too. I wonder if that costs more? Then he continues: “Is it generous? Is it equitable? If I hear not from you by Wednesday hence I will strike thy graven memory from my heart and endeavour to efface thy sweet smile from my soul. Orlando.” This was three weeks ago, so Wednesday has come and gone and I shall never know if Orlando has been blessed by his Maria or whether she has chosen someone rather more sensible. I think living life in capital letters might be a little tiring. Oh, no—here, this one is even worse! “To P. If you could conceive of the sorrow and despair into which I am plunged, you would not raise your head. With you I could suffer every privation. Alone I am all misery. A hint of kindness could obliterate all pain. S.B.” Goodness. Well, I think it is very brave to put such pain on paper, but I cannot imagine ever writing something so...’

      ‘Maudlin.’

      The paper scrunched between her hands. The word was faint but decisive and for a moment she searched the room for its source until she realised it came from the Englishman. He was awake, not the brief surfacing of the past few days, but truly awake and inspecting her. Lucid, his eyes were even more dramatic—as sharp and steely as a sword.

      ‘Where the devil am I?’ he asked as she remained tongue-tied, her pulse as fast as his had been at the height of his fever.

      ‘Illiakos.’

      ‘Illi... Hell. I remember. The storm. They shot at us.’

      ‘They thought you were pirates.’ She tried to be conciliating, thinking of the King.

      ‘We were flying Maltese colours. Clear as day.’

      ‘Yes, well, it wasn’t. A clear day, that is.’

      He groaned as he tried to shift on the bed.

      ‘I remember. The blasted fog. We rode up on the shoals. Why are you reading the agony columns? Out loud, too, for pity’s sake.’

      ‘King Darius requested that I read the English newspapers to you. He thought it would help you recover.’

      ‘That mawkish pap is more likely to send me into a decline. I had no idea people wrote such drivel.’

      ‘It is not drivel to them. Anyone willing to bare his or her soul like that deserves some sympathy, whether you approve or not.’

      His mouth relaxed slightly in what might have been the beginning of a smile. It was the first time she had seen that expression on his face and her pulse, which had begun to calm, went into another gallop.

      ‘You didn’t sound very approving yourself just now, so I don’t think you can claim the moral high ground.’

      Christina flushed, wondering how on earth they had reached the middle of an argument when she should really be summoning the doctor or doing something