Wanted: Mail-Order Mistress

by Deborah Hale

  “Please, sir,” said a sturdy, handsome lad who looked to be their leader, “Mr Northmore sent us. He said there’d be work for us with his company.”

  Before Simon could reply, a gangly lad with a shock of red hair cried, “The boat let us off on the wrong side of the harbour!”

  “And we’ve lost Bethan!” added a third fellow. “She was right behind us…and then…she wasn’t.”

  They all started jabbering at once, so that Simon could not make out what they were trying to say.

  “Quiet!” he ordered at last, silencing them with a fierce scowl. “You say Mr Northmore sent you. Why didn’t he come with you?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” admitted the leader. “Perhaps he explained it in the letter he gave Bethan.”

  One of them had mentioned that name earlier. Could she be the mistress Hadrian had engaged for him?

  “But she’s lost!” The rusty-haired lad pointed back toward the quay. “We’ve got to find her!”

  “So we do.” Simon marched towards the quay, his heart hammering against his ribs. “This part of town is no fit place for a woman alone.”

  Especially not a European woman, of whom there were only a handful in the whole settlement. “Where did you last see her?”

  “I thought she was right behind us when we crossed the bridge,” said a lumpy lad with overgrown teeth. “But now I’m not sure.”

  They’d reached the quay by this time, heading for the bridge with as much speed as Simon could muster. “You left her on her own in Chinatown? If any harm comes to her, none of you will be working for me, I don’t care what Northmore promised you!”

  Work? Simon fumed. They’d be lucky if he didn’t have them all flogged. Though Singapore was a place of great opportunity, violence always lurked beneath the surface. Piracy had been a way of life in these waters for centuries and it wasn’t much safer on land. Since coming here, he’d witnessed riots and outlaw raids. Murderous rampages were common enough that there was a term for them in the Malay language—such attackers were said to run amok.

  As Simon marched across the bridge and on to the south bank of the harbour, crowds of labourers parted to let him pass like waves cloven by the sharp-angled prow of a ship. The four English lads scrambled along in his wake.

  “Where is the white woman?” he demanded in Malay, then again in mangled Cantonese. “Did anyone see which way she went? If any harm comes to her, there will be bad trouble!”

  Answers came hurling back at him.

  “She was accosting strange men on the quay.”

  “She ran after Jin-Lee, shouting at him like a savage with no manners.”

  “She chased him into the Chinese kampong,” a Malay speaker informed Simon, “up Oxcart Road.”

  What sort of brazen harlot had Hadrian procured for him? Simon was half-tempted to let the hussy face the consequences of her scandalous behavior. But he could not bear to have another woman’s death on his conscience.

  One of the English lads tugged at his sleeve. “Please, sir, what did they say? What’s happened to Bethan?”

  Simon could not deny the genuine note of concern in the young fellow’s voice. He and his friends obviously cared about this woman. That did not tally with what he’d just heard of her actions.

  “This way.” He charged up the wide dirt path, which lead away from the south end of the bridge, pausing only to seek further information.

  People were eager to talk, venting their outrage over the woman’s forwardness. Simon sensed a gloating satisfaction at their being free to criticize a member of the small but powerful European community.

  He and the boys followed her trail down a side street rife with gambling houses and opium dens. Simon had supported the efforts of Sir Stamford Raffles to ban such places, but Raffles’s more pragmatic successor had insisted on licensing them as a source of revenue. Simon shuddered to think what could happen to an unprotected woman in this part of town.

  Then he glimpsed a billow of ruddy hair amid a sea of straw-sedge hats. Curls of that colour did not belong to any true native of Asia. Simon waded into the crowd, shouldering the gawkers aside, issuing all manner of dire threats about troops being summoned. At last he reached the woman.

  There she stood, backed against the timber wall of a gambling house, surrounded by a crowd of angry Chinese. Her bright hair had come undone, tumbling over her slender shoulders. She held a wide-brimmed bonnet in front of herself, like a flimsy shield. Her face was flushed bright red and misted with sweat. Her eyes were wide with fear. She was the perfect picture of a damsel in distress.

  Distress she had brought upon herself with her brazen behaviour. And yet…

  As he got a closer look at her, Simon found she was not at all what the onlookers’ reports had led him to expect. There was nothing coarse or common about her features—indeed, they were uncommonly delicate. Her nose was dappled with freckles that lent her an air of wholesome innocence. Her lips, full and pink as hibiscus petals, looked as if they had never been properly kissed.

  That thought sent a bolt of heat surging through him to settle in his loins, where it smouldered. An ominous silence jolted him out of his dangerous distraction. He needed to get this woman and her four young friends back across the river before this unfortunate incident turned even uglier.

  “There you are.” He seized her by the arm and began to scold her loudly in Cantonese, for the benefit of their large, hostile audience. “Have you gone mad to act so shamefully? Come with me now or you will be sorry!”

  He must make the onlookers believe she would be harshly dealt with. Then they might leave her punishment to him rather than taking matters into their own hands. If he made sufficient fuss, it might distract the crowd long enough to get her and the boys to safety. Simon’s left leg was beginning to throb with familiar pain, but he ignored it, hoping it would not slow down their retreat.

  In this situation, any delay could be very dangerous indeed.

  Chapter Two

  When the broad-shouldered man with brown hair and a stern, handsome face waded through the angry crowd to her rescue, Bethan had never been so happy to see anyone in her life. For as long as she could recall, she’d secretly hankered for a chivalrous protector like Tristan or Sir Gawain from the old Welsh hero tales. Her knees grew weak as she pictured the stranger sweeping her into his arms and carrying her off to safety.

  Those soaring fancies crashed to earth when instead her gallant rescuer grabbed her by the arm and began ranting at her in a language she could not understand. The harshness of his tone and the severity of his stark blue gaze did not frighten her the way the sullen hostility of the crowd had. Instead it ignited a blaze inside her, part indignant anger, part a strange fevered yearning she’d never felt before.

  Compared to the native Asians, he appeared tall and imposing. He was smartly dressed in buff-coloured trousers and a tan coat. A wide-brimmed straw hat cast a shadow over his straight, jutting nose and chiselled cheekbones. His lips were neither too full nor too thin, but set in such a rigid line that Bethan fancied they might shatter if he tried to smile.

  “Let me go!” She struggled to throw off his iron grip, but couldn’t quite manage to. “It’s no use jabbering on at me that way, for I don’t understand a word you’re saying. You’ve got no call to be vexed with me and neither do any of these people!”

  Her bold words did a better job of loosening his grasp than her squirming had.

  Leaning towards her, he muttered, “Save your protests and come with me, now, while there’s a chance we might get away in one piece! If you give me any more backtalk, I swear I’ll leave you to your fate.”

  The insistent pressure of his hand and the urgency of his tone convinced Bethan to abandon her defensive position against the wall. She sensed he was a man of strong will, whom others crossed at their peril.

  From the moment she’d first glimpsed him striding towards her, she’d had eyes for no one else. Now, as her forbidding rescuer marched her down
the street, Bethan suddenly realised he’d brought Ralph and the other lads with him. Whatever happened, she did not want her young companions to suffer for her folly. If that meant she had to obey the stern orders of this overbearing man, she would. But she didn’t have to like it.

  As they moved down the side street and out on to the main road, he continued to berate her in that other language, now and then slipping in a few words of English. “Keep a steady pace. If we look like we’re on the run, some of them may pounce. Keep your eyes downcast. Pretend you’re ashamed of yourself, as you should be.”

  “I’ve got no call to be ashamed,” Bethan protested, but she did bend her head as if burdened by the weight of his reproaches. “One of those men stole something from me. I went after him to try to get it back.”

  “I don’t care if he stole every penny you own.” The man pitched his reply for her ears alone. “You should have stayed with your friends and not gone chasing into Chinatown. You could have lost a good deal more than whatever that thief took. And you still might, so stop arguing and keep walking.”

  He switched easily back into the other language, scolding her more fiercely than ever. Was it only a show he was putting on for the benefit of the angry crowd? A grudging flicker of admiration stirred inside her for the man’s cleverness. If he’d rushed to her rescue brandishing a weapon, he might have made the situation worse.

  As if to signal that he did not mean the insults he was heaping upon her, the man rubbed the pad of his thumb against the sensitive flesh of her inner arm. It felt almost like an encouraging caress. That trifling sensation made Bethan’s knees grow weak. She almost stumbled, but her escort tightened his hold again to keep her from falling.

  At the end of the road, the bridge beckoned with a promise of greater safety on the other side. If nothing else, its narrow width would prevent them being followed by the crowd that had dogged them this far with dark scowls and darker mutterings.

  Her rescuer seemed to sense Bethan’s thoughts. “We aren’t out of danger yet. If we’re attacked, run across the bridge and keep going until you reach the sepoy lines. Tell the soldiers they’re needed here.”

  “What about you?” Bethan whispered back. “And the lads?”

  “We’ll slow down anyone who tries to go after you.”

  Slow them down, how? Bethan wondered, more anxious for their safety than hers.

  Fortunately her rescuer’s feigned bluster continued to divert the crowd and no attack came. When they reached the bridge, he called out something to the people behind them. No one followed as their small party crossed over the river.

  “What did you say to them?” asked Bethan. “It seemed to do the trick.”

  “So it did, thank God.” The man exhaled a sigh of relief. “I offered the entire community an apology for your disgraceful behaviour and assured them you would be severely dealt with.”

  “Apology?” Bethan sputtered. “Punished? For being robbed and threatened? What sort of mad place is this?”

  “Not mad—just different. These people have different ways than ours. We may not understand or approve, but if we hope to live among them in peace, we must try to respect local custom. We transgress upon them at our peril.”

  What did he mean? Bethan hated to look a fool by asking. Since leaving Wales she’d worked hard to learn English, but this man used some words she didn’t yet know.

  “Besides,” he continued, “I have no real intention of punishing you further for your folly. I trust you’ve learned your lesson.”

  The nerve of the man, to talk as if she were a naughty child!

  Before she could summon her voice to protest, Wilson spoke up. “Are you all right, Bethan? Nobody hurt you, did they?”

  “I’m only a bit shaken.” A shiver went through her as she glanced across the river to see the crowd breaking up. “I’m safe and sound now, thanks to all of you and Mister…Mister…?”

  Much as she resented his high-handed manner and gruff rebuke, Bethan could not deny she owed the man her gratitude. Wilson and the others could never have got her out of such a dangerous scrape on their own.

  Abruptly letting go of her arm, the stranger bobbed a curt bow. “Simon Grimshaw, of course. What other man in Singapore would have reason to storm into Chinatown and pluck you from the mercy of an angry mob?”

  Bethan’s mouth fell open. Why had she never thought her rescuer might be her intended husband? Perhaps because she’d never pictured him so young and fine looking. That was two of her three worries well scotched. She wished she could say the same of his temper.

  “Why are you staring like that?” Simon snapped at Bethan as he ushered the five young people into his warehouse. Her expression reminded him of a freshly gutted jackfish in the wet market—eyes wide and mouth hanging open. “I suppose I am not what you expected.”

  She shook her head slowly. “Nothing like it.”

  Had she been daft enough to imagine her keeper would be a handsome young buck? Perhaps. After all, she’d been daft enough to pursue a thief into the back alleys of Chinatown.

  “Well, you are not what I expected either,” he snapped, vexed with himself for giving a damn what she thought of him. “But there’s no help for it. I reckon that’s what comes of making such arrangements by proxy.”

  Her dazed stare changed to a look of bewilderment, as if he’d slipped back into Cantonese. “Speaking of my proxy, where the devil is Hadrian Northmore? I’m told you have a letter from him. I hope it will explain what’s going on.”

  “Er…yes.” Bethan rummaged through a reticule that hung from her elbow. “Mr Northmore told me to give it to you.”

  Simon eyed her reticule with suspicion. “I thought you said one of the coolies stole that from you.”

  “Not this.” She fished out a sealed packet of paper and offered it to him gingerly, as if she did not want her hand to brush his. “A silver locket I’ve had for a long time that means a great deal to me.”

  Seizing the letter from her, Simon broke the seal and unfolded the paper. He wondered why a thief would have taken the locket but ignored her reticule. And how had the fellow managed to get her locket? The easiest way would be to yank it off her neck, breaking the chain. But that would have left marks and her lovely neck did not bear the smallest nick or bruise.

  While a brief inspection of that fair flesh made Simon’s breath quicken, it also made the hairs on the back of his neck bristle. Was she lying to him already, over something so trivial? His earlier misgivings about taking her as his mistress redoubled, even though the prospect stirred all his senses to a keen pitch.

  An awkward silence followed while he read Hadrian’s letter and digested the news. It seemed he would remain in sole charge of the company’s Singapore branch for the foreseeable future. Though he welcomed the challenge, Simon didn’t like being ambushed by this abrupt change of plans. That included taking on four new workers, none of whom impressed him a great deal at the moment. Not to mention a prospective mistress who provoked as much doubt as desire.

  While he scanned the last few sentences of Hadrian’s letter, one of the boys addressed Bethan. “I’m sorry we didn’t take better care to keep you an eye on you, lass.”

  “As well you should be.” Simon stuffed the letter into his pocket. “My partner confirms that he has promised you all employment. Considering how poorly you looked after Miss Conway, I shall be reluctant to trust you with much responsibility.”

  He’d learned Bethan’s full name from the letter, which also confirmed she was the woman Hadrian had hired to be his mistress. But it was already too late for Simon to think of her except by her given name.

  “Don’t be angry with them.” She stepped between him and the boys, as if to shield them from his anger. “What happened was my fault. I was so taken with all the strange new sights that I dawdled behind the others. I’ve lived most of my life in the Welsh countryside and they come from a little mining village in Durham. None of us had any idea how dangerous a place
this could be.”

  Simon’s opinion of her rose, for being willing to accept responsibility and defend her companions. “Now that you have discovered how easy it is to land in trouble around here, I trust you will all tread more carefully.”

  None of them answered with words. The boys hung their heads, duly chastened. But Bethan tilted her chin a little higher and fixed Simon with a direct, challenging stare. He was not convinced she’d learned her lesson.

  “Let us consider the matter closed.” He forced himself to look away from her bewitching grey-green eyes. “While I arrange quarters for my new workers, Miss Conway, I will send you on to my house to get settled.”

  Simon beckoned them to follow him, but when he took a step, shards of pain slashed through his leg, making him stagger and bite back a groan.

  “What’s the matter?” Moving too fast for Simon to evade, Bethan grabbed his arm to steady him, as he’d done for her on the bridge. “I thought you were walking with a bit of limp. Did someone in the crowd strike you?”

  He was not prepared for the warmth of her touch or the soft note of concern in her lilting voice. It had been a very long while since anyone had cared what happened to him. At the same time his pride chafed at being reminded of his slight infirmity by a beautiful young woman. Concern was too close to pity for his liking.

  “It’s of no consequence, I assure you.” He pulled away from her, with some difficulty. “An old injury I forget half the time—unless I’ve had a long day on my feet or I am obliged to move quickly on short notice.”

  “A battle wound?” Bright glints of silver and green sparkled in her eyes. “Were you a soldier before you became a merchant?”

  She sounded intrigued, admiring. The truth was far less heroic, but Simon had no intention of revealing it to her. He’d never told anyone about his ordeal and he was not about to start with a woman who’d thrown his well-ordered world into turmoil within minutes of her arrival.