Lord Stanton’s Last Mistress

Lord Stanton’s Last Mistress by author Lara Temple is 3rd and last in her Wild Lords and Innocent Ladies Series and I must say I’m truly sad to see this series end! I absolutely loved each and every book but this one truly grabbed my attention and didn’t let go! I caught myself picking up my Kindle throughout the day to finish another page or two…

Alexander and Christina met 6 years earlier on the island of Illiakos when Christina helped Alex recover after he was severely wounded. Christina wore a veil at the king’s request so Alex never actually saw her. Six years later our hero & heroine meet again…

As I’ve said in all of Lara’s stories, her characters are so much more than you first assume & I absolutely adored Alex and Christina. Such wonderful characters along with well written secondary characters made for an absolutely perfect story! I must say Lara did not disappoint in giving us a wonderful conclusion to this series! I highly recommend this book and the entire series!

What a finale!! This is wonderful and romantic series about finding love and conquering past ghosts is book three in the Wild Lords and Innocent Ladies series. I have been engrossed with the series and getting to know each of these characters and following them of their journey’s, each book takes the reader on a story that is both utterly devastating and brilliantly romantic. Temple has gifted readers with a thoroughly dazzling, utterly romantic and unbelievably layered and intricate plot.

The story open’s in 1817 where we see exactly what the cool and mysterious Stanton has been hiding away in his past, we see those scars that he has kept well-hidden and how he got them in the brilliant prologue. After being wounded Alex is stranded on the Greek Island of Illiakos, he is brought back from the brink of death by a mysterious nurse wearing a veil – or as Alex describes it; wearing a tent. There is an instant attraction between Alex and the mysterious ‘Nurse’, he is intrigued by her elusiveness and she is drawn to devilishly handsome Englishman. Let me just say the young Stanton is absolutely adorable, he is wolfish, mysterious and a real cheeky chap.

Six years later King Darius of Illiakos is visiting England and stops at Stanton Hall along with his beautiful daughter and her companion in tow, Alex is being forced back to the Hall to hold talks with the King –something he isn’t looking forward to. He see’s it all as a waste of his time, he believes he has done enough. But that all changes when he meets a beautiful young woman reading his library, a woman who he soon learns was the ‘tent wearing nurse’ who saved his life. A woman who he has been obsessing about for the last six years and suddenly here she is. Christina can’t believe it when she learns that she is to stay in the home of the very man she has been fantasying about for the last six years, a man who even though she refuses to admit it, she fell in love with while tending to him all those years before.

Now I knew Stanton was a man of mystery, but who knew that stoic, proper and unwavering Stanton would be such a rogue; Yes, I see him as a rogue! A charming if troubled rogue. He is so different to how I first imagined Alex to be, he is just as enigmatic but there is something else about him that catches the attention something dangerous and primal. I really, really like him, Alex is so much than I thought him to be he is intelligent, perceptive, hugely protective and now his story has been told and his secrets have been revealed his other persona is revealed and this one is cold, tormented and vulnerable. He is a man who doesn’t believe in happily ever after’s, he has become jaded to love and a little cut of from life too, and my heart bleeds for him. He makes you want to prove to him that; yes, he is a good man who is deserving of a happily ever after.

I knew that Alex had a secret, when you read Lord Ravenscar’s Inconvenient Betrothal there is ever so subtly added little sniffs of him in that story, I love how Temple did that she has tantalised us readers, it was so brilliantly done. She casted out the lure and once she caught you, she then reeled you in….(I’ve just realised the fishing metaphor!…This is finally where we get the answers to questions that for bee have been building up about him, the more she reveals the more you are hooked and entranced. Which as ever is so beautifully done!

Christina is a caring and intelligent young lady, she is a woman who has fire in her blood and an adventurous spirit. When we first meet her, I see a young woman whose head is full of youthful dreams but like Alex she too over the years has become withdrawn to her true desires and detached herself from the world, she doesn’t believe that girls like her are going to meet their prince charming. She doesn’t believe in fairy tales. Christina is an amazing character, she is very real and yet there is something very other worldly about her. She is beautiful, headstrong, with one heck of a brain and wise beyond her years. She has definitely become my favourite heroines from this series, like myself a lot of women can defiantly relate to her in some way or another. I love her active mind and calm intelligence, her thirst for knowledge and yet she doesn’t brandy her self around, she is very modest.

The chemistry between Alex and Christina is sweet and natural, but more than that they are fun together they can tease and play even when she is reading those ghastly agony aunt columns in the newspaper. The scene where Alex and Christina meet again in the library is so good and one that will stay with me, the image of her sitting in the window seat reading, with her shoes thrown unceremoniously on the floor is so vivid. That one scene is fun and the air sizzles and tingles with tension from both of them. Thank you, Lara for this beautiful scene!

Oooh, I l do love Rasvenscar! I was drawn to him in Lord Hunter’s Cinderella Heiress, I fell in love with him in Lord Ravenscar’s Inconvenient Betrothal there and you wouldn’t believe how pleased I am he has dropped by again. He is even more witty and charming then he was …love this man! And when the three of them; Hunter, Ravenscar and Stanton are all together is lovely, their familial joviality, the way they can tease and poke fun at each other is adorable…I am gushing too much, aren’t I? But, they are gorgeous!

Lord Stanton’s Last Mistress is a beautifully written, elegant and thoughtful story about two people who have been through the mill in one way or another and finding themselves unable to believe in happily ever after’s. Ms Temple has a real gift at created deeply emotional and passionate characters, which are both stunningly accurate and brilliantly developed. The story flows seamlessly, the tension between Alex and Christina builds up to an eruptive and romantic end. It is concise and crisp, there are multiple layers to the story that keeps you entranced and enthralled.

It is poignant, sentimental and expertly written love story.

So good, and highly recommended!