Wanted: Mail-Order Mistress

The sound rose again from among the brightly flowering shrubberies below, this time accompanied by a similar one, deeper and warmer in timbre. Together they created a beguiling harmony. With a start, Simon realised he was hearing the clear, merry laughter of a woman and child. Had he not heard that sound for so long he’d forgotten it?

An instant later Bethan Conway burst into view, her vibrant auburn hair streaming behind her as she ran. The fluid grace of her movement reminded him of a wild antelope he’d seen in India. Her winsome peal of laughter seemed to reach into his chest and strike a reluctant trill over the cords of his heart.

As he fought to subdue that foolish reaction, Rosalia appeared from behind the rhododendron bush and called out to Bethan. Her accent, which mingled Portuguese and a trace of Cantonese, sounded very much like her late mother’s. Had the child grown taller since the last time he’d seen her?

That thought dealt Simon a faint stab of guilt. Ever since he’d taken sole charge of Vindicara, he’d had little time to spare for Rosalia. After they’d moved to this spacious new house from the old one beside the godown, he’d seen less of her than ever.

His attention was so tightly fixed on the garden below that he did not notice Ah-Ming standing beside him until she spoke. “Mr Hadrian chose well for you. The lady is polite and cheerful. She will make you a good wife.”

“She is not here to be my wife,” Simon replied firmly in Cantonese. “I mean to take her as my…concubine.”

He knew that was not precisely the right word, but it was the closest he could come in her language.

“Aiyah!” Ah-Ming shook her head. “You will take a concubine before a wife?”

“Instead of a wife,” Simon growled. He was sick to death of the constant, subtle pressure to remarry from his housekeeper and Rosalia’s amah. “One marriage was more than enough for me. I will not wed again.”

The housekeeper responded with a smug chuckle. “Mr Hadrian and Mr Ford said they would never marry, but something changed their minds.”

“My partners and I are very different men.” Simon turned and strode away.

Perhaps Hadrian’s remarriage should not have surprised him so much. After all, his partner had been happily wed once, but lost his wife and child in an epidemic. It made sense that one day his grief would ease and he would risk trying to recapture what he’d lost. As for Ford, he’d inherited an estate and title that would require an heir. His marriage might have been a matter of necessity.

Simon had better reason than either of them to be wary of marriage and he was by nature far more cautious. He’d already begun to wonder if taking a mistress might be too great a risk. Meeting Bethan Conway had done nothing to ease his misgivings.

But her beauty had roused long-stifled desires that ached for relief. What else could he do with her now that she was here? It was not as if he could pop her on another ship tomorrow and send her back to England. Sea traffic could not sail west again for several months, when the winds shifted. He was not about to subject her to an eastward voyage across the vast Pacific and around the treacherous tip of South America, simply because he had second thoughts about their arrangement.

Having brought her all the way from England, he had an obligation to take care of her. If he did that, everyone in Singapore would assume she was his mistress. And if it got out that she was not sharing his bed, he would be the laughing-stock of the European community, not to mention what the she might think of him.

He was in too deep to back out now. He must go forwards with assurance and make it clear to his imprudent young mistress that he would not tolerate any nonsense.

What had Simon Grimshaw been thinking as he stood on the veranda, glowering down at her and his daughter? Bethan mulled over that question as she dressed for dinner. She’d spied him out of the corner of her eye as she chased about the garden with Rosalia, but pretended not to notice.

Had he been looking her over, trying to decide whether he should call off their wedding? Was he pleased to find her getting on so well with his daughter or did he disapprove of their noisy laughter? The latter, most likely, by the look of him.

She hoped he wouldn’t spend the whole evening finding fault with her. She’d never been able to accept correction in the proper meek spirit, even when she deserved it. Unfair criticism made her bristle like a cornered cat.

Once she’d fixed the final pin in her hair, Bethan hesitated at her bedroom door. She was half-inclined to avoid this encounter with Simon Grimshaw by snuffing out the lamp and crawling under the insect netting into bed. But the mouthwatering smells wafting up from the kitchen tempted her out. After months of shipboard rations, it would take worse than her forbidding host to keep her from a good meal!

She found Mr Grimshaw in the sitting room, planted in front of the open windows with his hands clasped behind him. He looked the very picture of severity.

Refusing to be cowed, she breezed in as if she had not a care in the world. “Am I late? You should have sent someone to fetch me.”

He hesitated a moment before answering, his icy blue eyes fixed upon her. Was there a stain on her dress? Something wrong with the way she’d done her hair?

“You are not late.” The words burst out of him, followed by others, stiff as starch. “Ah-Ming will inform us when dinner is served. I hope she took good care of you this afternoon and that you found everything to your satisfaction?”

“She couldn’t have been kinder. She drew me a bath and washed my hair. She and Ah-sam were so pleased to hear about Mr Northmore getting married.”

Bethan knew at once she’d said something wrong by the way the line between Simon Grimshaw’s brows deepened. “I suggest in future you refrain from gossiping with the servants. The European community is very small and private matters can too easily become public tattle.”

There! Just as she’d expected. Almost the first words out of her mouth and already he was finding fault.

“I wasn’t gossiping.” Two spots on her cheeks blazed with heat. “Ah-Ming asked me about Mr Northmore and I told her. I don’t know why his marriage should be a secret. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

What about her speculating that Mrs Northmore might be breeding, her conscience demanded, not only to the servants but in front of his young daughter?

“Perhaps I don’t know my place as well as I should,” she admitted. “I was in service myself, back in Newcastle, so I’m more at ease with servants than masters.”

What would Simon Grimshaw make of that?

“Were you?” The news did not seem to surprise him as much as she’d expected. “In what capacity?”

“I was a nurserymaid.” She threw the words down like a challenge, daring him to sneer at the honest work she’d done.

“That might explain what you were doing out in the garden with Rosalia.” From his tone it was clear he objected to that as well.

“I like the company of children,” she retorted. “They don’t mind about position and fortune and they don’t look to find fault with everything you do.”

Mr Grimshaw’s firm jaw clenched tighter and his deep-set eyes narrowed.

Bethan wished his severity made him look sour and ugly, then she might not have a single regret over what he was about to do. More the pity, he still looked far too attractive for her liking. “Go ahead and say what’s really on your mind, Mr Grimshaw.”

Her words seemed to catch him off guard, but he soon rallied. “Do you presume to know my mind, Miss Conway? Perhaps you should tell me what I am thinking.”

“Very well. You’re thinking Mr Northmore made a bad choice and I don’t suit you at all. You want to send me back to England. Well, let me tell you, after the way you’ve treated me today, I’ll be glad to go!”

Her feelings all churned up, Bethan spun away from Simon Grimshaw, only to find his housekeeper standing in the wide, arched entry. Ah-Ming looked calm and composed, as if she hadn’t heard a word of the bristling exchange between them.

“Dinner is ready.” The housekeeper bowed. “Cook has prepared a fine feast in my lady’s honour.”

“Thank you, Ah-Ming,” Mr Grimshaw replied. “We will be along shortly.”

The servant bowed again, then padded away.

“You must stay and eat.” Mr Grimshaw didn’t sound the way Bethan had expected—outraged or disapproving.

“Is that an order?” Keeping her back to him, she flung the words over her shoulder.

“More a sort of…plea.” He sounded almost amiable. “There will be no living with Cook if he went to all that trouble for nothing. One of the other merchants might finally succeed in hiring him away from me and that would be a domestic disaster.”

While Bethan was deciding how to reply, he added, “You see, servants are not without power in my house.”

She steeled herself against the hint of wry humour in his tone. “All right, then. But only because the food smells so good and because I don’t want to hurt your cook’s feelings. And I have one condition.”

“What might that be?”

“I don’t want a nice meal spoiled by carping and quarrelling. If you can’t say something pleasant to me over dinner, don’t say anything at all.”

“Agreed,” Mr Grimshaw replied after a moment’s hesitation. “You could have driven a much harder bargain than that, you know.”

He walked around to stand in front of her. “I admit I had doubts about your suitability. But you are wrong to assume I intend to send you back. I fear we got off on the wrong foot today. Is it too late to put that behind us and start again?”

His firm, determined lips spread into a smile that came and went as swiftly as a flash of summer lightning. Like a bolt from the blue, its potent force jolted Bethan’s heart and made her breath catch.

Simon Grimshaw wanted to give her another chance? Didn’t she owe him the same after the way he’d come to her rescue? Besides, while she chafed at criticism, she had never been very good at holding a grudge.

“It can’t be too late already, can it?” She returned his sudden, fleeting smile with one of her own that blossomed more slowly but lasted longer. “We should give it at least a week before we decide we can’t stand each other.”

Her quip coaxed a bark of rusty-sounding laughter from him. “I agree. We should not become sworn enemies on the strength of anything less than a week’s acquaintance.”

“Can we start over properly, then,” she proposed, “and pretend like I just arrived in Singapore this minute?”

He nodded. “An admirable suggestion.”

“I’m pleased to meet you at last, Mr Grimshaw.” She thrust out her hand. “My name is Bethan Conway.”

“Allow me to welcome you to Singapore, Miss Conway.” Instead of shaking her hand, as she’d expected, Simon Grimshaw bowed over it. Lifting her fingers, he grazed them with his lips as if she were some elegant lady. “Or may I call you Bethan? I think I might be allowed that familiarity under the circumstances. Don’t you?”

The velvet brush of his lips sent a strange warmth tingling up her arm. When she tried to speak, her voice came out husky. “You may call me whatever you please.”

He straightened up. “And you are welcome to call me by my given name, if you would care to.”

The turnabout between them, in the few minutes since she’d entered the room, was enough to make Bethan quite dizzy. “Thank you…Simon. I think I would.”

His name sounded so appealing, spoken in Bethan’s clear, lilting voice—almost like an endearment.

She was a most unusual woman in Simon’s experience, so forthright in her manner. She didn’t say one thing while meaning another, then expect him to guess what was on her mind. And when he’d made an effort to put things right between them, she’d accepted without sulking, wiping the slate clean to begin afresh. Perhaps Hadrian had made a better choice for him than he’d first thought.

“We have a lot of getting acquainted to do.” He offered Bethan his arm. “Tell me, how was your voyage from England? Not too great an ordeal, I hope.”

“Not at all.” She tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, a sensation he had not experienced in a very long time. “It was a great adventure! The seas were rough at first and the lads from Durham were sick as dogs, poor fellows. But as we sailed further south and the seas grew calm, they got better. They all complained it wasn’t fair, me not being ill a minute. But who would have looked after them if I’d been seasick too?

“I loved the smell of the ocean and the rocking of the waves,” she continued as they entered the dining room and Simon held out her chair. “I’m glad your house is near the sea so that I’ll still be able to hear it. Though I never expected the place to be so big and grand!”

“This villa is a far cry from our first quarters in Singapore.” Simon rounded the table and took a seat across from her. “Hadrian and I, and our third partner, Ford, built our first house out of timber with a palm-thatched roof.”

That was one part of his past he didn’t mind revealing. “Until recently, no one was allowed to own land or erect permanent buildings, because it was feared the Dutch would invade or the government would order us to leave. Once we got word that a treaty had been signed to make Singapore a British possession, there was a great scramble for land and a building boom. Hadrian was a canny fellow to have invested some of our profits in a brick kiln.”

Simon caught himself. “Forgive me. I meant to find out more about you. Instead I am boring you with all this talk of business and politics.”

Carlotta had often chided him and his partners for continually turning dinner conversation towards their two favourite subjects.

“Don’t stop on my account. I want to learn all I can about Singapore.” Bethan’s rapt expression assured him her interest was genuine. “It sounds like such an exciting place with so much going on. How many ships stop here in the course of a year?”

Before he could answer, Ah-Ming padded in and set shallow bowls of steaming soup before them.

Bethan seemed to forget her question as she inhaled deeply. “This smells very good. What kind is it?”

“My favourite—turtle.” Simon sipped a spoonful of the broth, relishing its hearty flavour.

“I’ve never had that before.” Bethan seized her spoon and began to consume the soup with the sort of gusto some English ladies might have considered unmannerly.

But Ah-Ming beamed with approval.

“Mmm.” Bethan set down her spoon at last with a sigh of satisfaction. “That tasted even better than it smelled. I feel sorry for people who don’t like to try new things. They don’t know what they’re missing.”

“You should have been here a few months ago,” said Simon. “One of the Chinese merchants hosted a banquet of all their rarest delicacies. Shark fin and bird’s nest soups. Rashers of elephant tail in a sauce of lizard eggs. Stewed porcupine in green turtle fat.”

Bethan’s eyes grew wider with every dish he mentioned. He kept expecting her make a sour face at the thought of eating such outlandish foods. But her expression conveyed fascination rather than distaste.

“The highlight of the banquet,” he concluded, “was a dish of snipes’ eyes, garnished with a border of peacocks’ combs. I was told it cost two hundred Spanish dollars. That’s almost fifty pounds.”

“I could feed myself for years on fifty pounds!” cried Bethan. “Here now, you aren’t hoaxing me to see if I’m daft enough to believe you? When I first got to Newcastle from Wales, the other servants used to have great fun doing that.”

The miserable rascals, having a jest at the expense of an inexperienced girl! The rush of indignation he felt on her behalf surprised Simon.

“You should take some unlikely stories with a grain of salt,” he advised her as Ah-Ming removed their bowls and served a dish of Bengal mutton. “But I wouldn’t hoax you, I promise. You can ask anyone who attended the banquet. There was even a report of it in the newspaper. The snipes’ eyes weren’t bad, as a matter of fact. A bit like caviar without the fishy taste.”

Bethan cast him a puzzled look and it occurred to Simon that she’d probably never tasted caviar…perhaps never even heard of it.

“Mutton should be familiar to you if you lived in Wales.” He steered the conversation back to her again. “What part of the country do you hale from?”

Bethan took a bite of meat, rolling her eyes appreciatively. “I’ve eaten plenty of mutton in my life, but none as tender as this. I come from a little village up north on the River Aled. It’s as different from Singapore as can be—nothing but hills and sheep and lots of snow in the winter. What about you? Have you always lived in the Indies or did you come here from England?”

The silvery sparkle of interest in her eyes made Simon answer, in spite of his resolve to guard his privacy. “I grew up north of Manchester, in the Ribble Valley.”

It was a harmless enough scrap of information, yet it stirred up more memories that he preferred to forget. Bethan Conway had an unfortunate knack for doing that.

“Your village does sound very different from Singapore,” he continued before she could ask him another question. “What made you leave it to come halfway around the world?”

Bethan almost choked on the bit of meat she was trying to swallow. But a cough and a sip of ale got it down.

When she was able to speak again, she replied, “I was looking for a change, I suppose. Some place new and exciting, in the middle of things.”

Ah-Ming set another dish before them.

“This isn’t like anything I’ve seen before.” Bethan inhaled the mouth-watering aroma rising from the savoury jumble of food.

“Something else new that I think you’ll enjoy,” said Simon. The prospect of introducing her to all the novelties of Singapore appealed to him. “It’s one of Cook’s specialties—rice with duck, yams and shrimp.”

“Oh, my,” breathed Bethan after she’d savoured her first mouthful of the spicy-sweet-salty dish. “This must be what they eat in heaven!”

Simon nodded. Had Cook added some new, secret ingredient to his duck rice tonight? It tasted even better than usual. Or was it Bethan’s contagious enjoyment that made him feel as if he, too, were tasting it for the first time?

“When my mother died,” she continued between bites. “I had my own way to make and there was nothing more to keep me in Llanaled. I decided it was time to see the world and really live my life rather than letting it pass me by.”

Surely she didn’t expect him to believe she’d made such a long, perilous journey and sacrificed any hope of a respectable future in a naïve quest for adventure? Simon sensed Bethan was concealing something from him. The way she avoided his gaze and the note of false brightness in her voice gave her away.

The truth was not difficult to guess. Some man in Newcastle must have taken advantage of the green country lass eager to experience new things. Things like love, perhaps? Once her reputation was compromised, she must have decided she had nothing to lose by sailing to the Indies to become the mistress of a rich merchant.

A rush of hot anger swept through Simon at the thought of her innocence exploited.

In response to his outraged silence, she added, “That all sounds like a daft dream to you, I suppose.”

Simon marshalled his composure before replying with more gentleness than he’d thought himself capable, “Not daft. A big dream, I would say, carrying greater risks than you might have realised. Your little Welsh village may not have been the most exciting place, but at least you were safe there.”

Now that she had come to distant, dangerous Singapore, he felt an obligation to be her protector in every sense of the word. He suspected her greatest peril lay in her own impetuous, trusting nature.

Despite whatever trouble had befallen her in Newcastle, Bethan did not seem convinced that she’d have been better off staying in rural Wales. “No harm has come to me yet. And even if you were to send me home tomorrow, I’d still have seen and done more than my mother did in her whole life.”

Was she ashamed to admit what he knew must have happened to her? Simon wondered. Or did she truly not consider the betrayal of her trust and the loss of her virtue as harmful? He wanted to ask her, but he was enjoying this pleasant meal with her too much to risk spoiling it with such probing, judgemental questions.

“Let us have no more talk of sending you home,” he insisted. Though he still had doubts about Bethan Conway, the prospect of giving her up no longer appealed to him. “Besides, I couldn’t do it tomorrow, even if I wanted to.”

He explained about the fluctuating monsoons and how they prevented ships sailing westwards for part of the year.

“Fancy that!” Bethan appeared as delighted with this scrap of information as she’d been with the toothsome new foods he’d offered her. “So I shall have to stay in Singapore until November at least?”

He directed a warm gaze across the table at her. “I hope I can persuade you to remain here longer than that.”

She did not avoid his gaze this time, but met it squarely. Simon caught a glimmer of uncertainty in her changeable eyes, as well as a glow of wondrous possibility. A deep hum of awareness vibrated between them.

“Perhaps you can.” Her lilting murmur fell on Simon’s ears like a favourite melody.

It took only those words and that gaze to stir up the ashes of his long-suppressed desire and make the embers smoulder once again. Simon tried to blame it on the turtle soup, which the local folk credited as an aphrodisiac. But he knew better.

Chapter Four

She had five whole months in Singapore to find out what had become of her missing brother. Bethan could have kissed Simon for providing that precious assurance! But would she wed him for it? Her feelings on that question were sharply divided.

On one hand, he had paid her passage and she’d made an agreement with Mr Northmore on his behalf. If he still wanted to marry her, how could she refuse? But what if she discovered her brother had gone somewhere else? Marriage to Simon would leave her trapped in Singapore, unable to follow Hugh’s trail.

Aside from those practical matters there were other things to consider—such as her intense but confused response to Simon Grimshaw. His nearness, his touch and even his gaze stirred her senses in ways no other man’s ever had. Finally there was his young daughter. The child seemed starved for lively company and the affection of someone other than her father’s servants.

“Your daughter’s a dear wee thing,” said Bethan, as Ah-Ming brought the pudding. “A bit quiet at first, but I think she enjoyed our romp in the garden.”

“It sounded that way. I can’t recall the last time I heard her laugh like that.” Simon did not seem as pleased as she’d hoped.

For the first time since they’d agreed to begin their acquaintance afresh, Bethan sensed that stern Mr Grimshaw was still lurking beneath Simon’s amiable surface. “I suppose she misses her mother, poor thing. How long is it since your wife died?”

Simon’s fingers clenched tightly around his spoon and he stared down at his pudding as if it might be poisoned. His answer came out stiff and halting. “I’ve been widowed for more than three years. I doubt Rosalia has any recollection of her mother.”

“I’m so sorry for you both.” Bethan longed to reach across the table and give his hand a squeeze. She pitied his young daughter more than ever. “Rosalia must take after her mother, does she? She doesn’t look like you at all.”

Simon raised his eyes to hers and spoke with quiet but ominous insistence. “Rosalia is the very image of her mother. Now, if you please, I would rather talk about something else. As I mentioned earlier, I prefer not to dwell on the past.”

“Of course,” Bethan murmured, though she was fairly bursting with questions about his late wife.