Wanted: Mail-Order Mistress. Deborah Hale

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