by Deborah Hale
“Stepmother?” That word made Simon’s gorge rise and not only because of its unpleasant associations from his boyhood. “What are you talking about? You’re not Rosalia’s stepmother.”
“Not yet, maybe.” Bethan shrank a little at his sharp tone. “But I will be as soon as we’re married. Speaking of that, when should we have the wedding? It ought to be soon, I think, now that we’ve…”
As she glanced toward the rumpled bed, she blushed again. This time it did not make her look so innocent.
…as soon as we’re married…when should we have the wedding? Her words sizzled in his mind as if they’d been branded there with a white-hot iron. He’d gone to such lengths to secure a woman who would not complicate his life and look what he’d got instead!
He felt like the biggest fool in the whole East Indies for letting Bethan Conway worm her way into his life with her pose of wide-eyed innocence. “I have no intention of marrying you! That was never part of our bargain.”
“What do you mean?” She stumbled back from his bed in a dangerously convincing pretence of bewildered dismay. “You asked Mr Northmore to find you a wife and he sent me.”
“Not a wife!” The word burned on Simon’s tongue. “I told Hadrian to find me a mistress…as if you didn’t know.”
He could not confront her properly while lying naked in bed—it put him at too great a disadvantage. Simon scrambled up, keeping the linen sheet wrapped around him to hide his scarred leg and the straining evidence of his arousal. The last thing he wanted was to let her see the intensity of desire she provoked in him.
“Does it matter what name you give it?” Bethan asked in a tone of desperate entreaty. “Mistress of your house, wife—they’re the same thing…aren’t they?”
Her protestations of ignorance only fuelled Simon’s fury. How big a fool did the woman take him for? “Do not insult my intelligence with this transparent playacting! I’m certain you know exactly what a mistress is and what she does. For all I know, you may have been kept by half the men in Newcastle.”
“Kept?” Bethan seized on that word, which Simon thought strange considering some of the others he’d hurled at her. “You brought me here to be your kept woman? You think I’ve been kept by other men?”
“So you do understand.” He tried to ignore the soft glow of her auburn hair in the early morning light and forget its silken warmth beneath his fingertips. “Of course I want to keep you. And in fine style, I might add. But that wasn’t enough for you, was it? You want my name, too, and a claim upon my fortune. Tell me, when did you come up with this scheme to demand marriage? Was it after you saw the size of my house or did you plan it all from the beginning?”
If he expected her to break under his accusations and confess her deceit, he could not have been more mistaken.
“I’ve never been kept by a man in my life and I never mean to be!” Bethan took a defiant step toward him, her chin tilted proudly. “I thought I was coming to Singapore to be your wife. I would never have accepted Mr Northmore’s offer if I’d known what you really wanted. Come to that, how do I know it wasn’t you who tricked me?”
“I who—?” Her outrageous accusation struck Simon dumb for a moment, making it impossible to press his attack.
Bethan took advantage of his silence to continue her onslaught. “For all I know, you lured me out here, far from my home and friends, so I’d have no choice but to let you do what you wanted with me?”
She made him sound like a pirate, seizing a helpless woman from the protection of her ship to have his brutal way with her.
“That was never my intention,” Simon protested, galled that she’d succeeded in putting him on the defensive. “I offered a fair, straightforward exchange—your exclusive favours for my protection and generous terms of keeping. I have never taken advantage of a woman in my life. But neither will I allow you to impose upon me. I refuse to be lured or coerced into marriage. So I warn you, don’t bother trying!”
Simon wished he was as certain of that as he strove to sound—the luring part, especially. In spite of his shock and suspicion, desire for her still racked his body like a tropical fever.
Bethan took another step towards him and another, forcing Simon to stagger back until he mastered his astonishment and willed himself to stand his ground.
“Save your warnings, Mr Grimshaw.” She stood toe to toe with him and fixed him with a blistering glare.
Did she not realise the danger in which she’d placed herself? He had only to raise his arms and bend forwards a few perilous inches and she would be captive in his embrace again, his lips on hers, taking what they wanted.
Or did she know exactly what she was doing? Was she trying to provoke his lust to test how much power she could exercise over him? Every muscle in Simon’s body tensed with the effort to keep his hands off her.
“I am not the kind of woman you think,” Bethan insisted. “I would never have come to your bed last night if I’d known that was all you wanted from me. I suppose you assumed that once you ruined me I’d have to take what I could get from you, but you’re wrong. I may have been a green little fool for trusting you, but I’ll be no man’s whore!”
“I didn’t ruin you.” Hard as Simon clung to that certainty, a treacherous qualm of doubt slithered through his belly. “That was some other man, back in England—he forced you. That’s why you wanted me to take things slowly, which I did. We talked about it. I remember distinctly.”
His words seemed to shake her fierce certainty. “I never told you any such thing. I’d never…been with a man that way until last night nor even been properly kissed!”
With that, she stormed off, leaving Simon feeling as if he’d been lashed by a cyclone. What troubled him far more than her furious outburst was the mist of tears he glimpsed in her beguiling eyes when she fled from him.
What she’d said couldn’t be true, could it? He expelled a shaky breath, torn between fiery outrage and icy foreboding. He plundered his memory for anything Bethan had said or done that would prove she’d been lying to him all along. Much as he hated to think he’d been duped, the alternative was far worse.
He gaze fell upon the bed, his delightful memories of their night together now tainted by dark doubts. The sight of a rusty red smudge on the bottom sheet made his lame leg go suddenly weak. For a moment he could not bring himself to acknowledge the truth of what he was seeing.
Not that he had any direct experience of such matters…until now. There had been no bloodstains on the sheets after his wedding night with Carlotta. Wanting to make their hasty marriage work, he’d tried explaining it away in a manner that did not question the innocence of his bride. But deep down, he had never believed those excuses. In that moment the suspicion that poisoned their marriage had been born.
Confronted with the irrefutable proof of Bethan’s accusations against him, Simon was forced to consider whether the rest of what she’d told him could be true as well. Had she sincerely believed he wanted to marry her? Or had she manipulated him to unwittingly take her virginity—counting on his honour to make him marry her?
If that was the case, she’d been right. It was one thing to make an offer of keeping to a woman whose virtue was already compromised. But to deflower a virgin left him with no honourable course but to redeem her reputation.
Even at the cost of another wretched marriage.
Chapter Ten
Hateful man! Bethan ran from Simon before she further humiliated herself with an outburst of tears.
She’d woken from the sweet, wanton dream of last night’s pleasures to a cruel nightmare. Simon, her gentle, considerate lover, had suddenly vanished, leaving in his place cold, contemptuous Mr Grimshaw. His ugly accusations had frayed her pride raw, while discovering his true dishonourable intentions towards her made Bethan sick with shame. All this time she’d been struggling to decide whether or not she could bring herself to marry him, when he’d wanted only to turn her into the kind of wicked woman she most detested—t
he kind who had stolen her beloved father and destroyed her family.
Hurrying blindly from his bedroom, she dashed next door to hers where she paced the floor and cursed herself for her wayward folly. What a gullible fool she’d been to surrender her body to a man like that! Her only relief was that she had not surrendered her heart to him as well.
From off in the distance came the muted rumble of waves striking the shore. Rather than calming her as it usually did, the restless ebb and surge of the surf only reminded Bethan how far she was from home and how completely in the power of a ruthless man who both attracted and repelled her. A few moments later, when she heard Simon’s door open and his footsteps heading briskly away, she breathed a sigh of relief followed by whimper of vexation. There he went, off about his business as usual, only mildly inconvenienced by an event that had turned her whole life upside down!
Part of her longed to crumple on to the bed and sob out her fear, hurt and shame. Another part urged her to flee his house and never look back. Much as those impulses appealed to her, she did not have the luxury of indulging either of them just now.
Rosalia was depending on her and Bethan refused to punish the child for the sins of her father. With all the recent upheaval in her young life, the last thing such a sensitive little girl needed was to lose another care-giver without warning. She might blame Bethan’s departure on some trifling misdeed of hers and feel worse than ever.
Determined not to let that happen, Bethan gathered the tattered shreds of her composure, cleaned up and changed her clothes. Then she went to the nursery and did her best to act as if nothing was bothering her. Fortunately, all the recent attention from her father had put Rosalia in high spirits. Chattering eagerly about her plans for future outings, she did not seem to notice Bethan’s distraction.
“Can we go down to the beach and look for pretty seashells?” she asked at breakfast.
“That sounds like a good idea.” Bethan seized upon the suggestion with desperate eagerness. An activity like that would keep Rosalia happily occupied, while giving her a badly needed chance to think.
As her young charge combed the shore that morning, Bethan scoured her memory in an effort to sort out the terrible confusion between her and Simon Grimshaw.
Had he brought her all the way to Singapore only to deceive and to use her? Though she’d accused him of it, she could not bring herself to believe it. She’d only wanted to give him a taste of the nasty lies he was heaping upon her, to see how he liked it.
She wondered if his partner might have somehow misunderstood what Simon wanted in a woman. Or…?
A spasm of guilt clutched Bethan so tightly she could hardly breathe. Had she brought this trouble upon herself, after all? Not from any devious purpose, but out of ignorance and desperation. The more she thought back on her interview with Mr Northmore and everything that had passed between her and Simon, the more likely it seemed.
Having no one but herself to blame did not make her situation any easier—quite the contrary, in fact. Now that she knew how this awful misunderstanding might have come about, she was forced to consider how she would deal with its consequences.
She’d told Simon she refused to be his kept woman, but would she have any other choice now that she had let him bed her? Even if she could bring herself to marry some other man, who would have her after this? Who would even be willing to give her a job or a place to live? She did not have a single friend in Singapore other than members of Simon’s household or people who worked for him. She could not ask them to risk offending him by helping her.
And what if Simon had got her with child last night? That possibility almost knocked Bethan to her knees. Much as she loved children and longed to be a mother some day, the thought of bearing a baby under these circumstances horrified her. She had no means of caring for a child on her own, which would leave her trapped in Simon’s keeping for as long as he wanted her. And when he tired of her—what then?
Never in his life had Simon put in a longer day at work!
Usually there were not enough hours for him to deal with everything that needed to be done. Business occupied all his energy and all his thoughts. Since Bethan’s arrival, he’d become more and more distracted until today he could not keep his mind on his work for five minutes together.
What a fool he’d been! Blinded by desire and his daft weakness for damsels in distress, he’d ignored all his suspicions about that infernal creature to cast her in the role of an innocent victim. He’d come to discover she was only innocent in a purely physical sense. And she had made him the victim of her scheme.
There was one thing she’d been right about, however. He should not have tried so hard to avoid any memories of his troubled past. To forget what he had suffered only doomed him to repeat his mistakes and reap the wretched consequences all over again.
All day he brooded about how Bethan had manipulated and duped him. He cursed himself for falling into her snare so easily. There was no question that she had him trapped. Like Carlotta, she’d quickly gauged his weakness and set about turning it to her advantage. Hard as he tried, Simon could see no way out—at least none that would allow him to face himself in the mirror every morning.
Heavy as the time hung on his hands at the office, he delayed returning to the house that evening. For one thing, he could not bring himself to capitulate to that woman a moment sooner than he had to. For another, he did not want to risk having Rosalia sense his seething frustration and rage. Only when he was certain she would be asleep did he venture home to confront Bethan.
She was waiting for him in the parlour with such a haunted look in her green-grey eyes that he’d have been tempted to pity her under other circumstances. Simon reminded himself that he was the one who’d been deceived and manipulated.
Resisting the inclination to take a seat, he crossed his arms tightly over his chest and scowled down at her. “I suppose we should get this sorry business thrashed out here and now. For the life of me, I cannot fathom how two people could come to such a vast misunderstanding in their expectations of one another.”
Unless, as he was certain, one of them had been lying through her teeth.
Inhaling a deep breath, Bethan rose from her seat and met his baleful glare. “I know you think this is my fault and you’re right.”
The last thing Simon had expected from her was such a frank, disarming admission of guilt. It left him off balance and lost for words. But he maintained his rigid stance, certain she would exploit any sign of weakening.
“It’s not what you think, though.” She took advantage of his astonished silence to continue. “It was an honest mistake. I didn’t mean to trick you and I swear I’ve never let a man bed me before last night. I only let you do it because I thought you were going to marry me. Truly, I came to Singapore believing it was a wife you wanted.”
What sort of riddles was she trying to spin? Simon steeled himself against the persuasive ring of sincerity in her voice. If she had not intended to deceive him, how could the situation be her fault?
Bethan must have guessed his thoughts for her gaze faltered. “It was a mistake, though it might not have been altogether honest. I should have told Mr Northmore when I met with him. But I was afraid if he knew, he’d choose someone else instead.”
So she had managed to deceive Hadrian as well. That knowledge made Simon feel a bit less of a fool. “What was it you should have told my partner?”
“That I didn’t understand everything he said to me.” Bethan caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Back then, my English wasn’t as good as it is now and Mr Northmore used some hard words I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have pretended I did.”
“You claim you didn’t understand what Hadrian meant when he told you I was looking for a mistress?” Simon wasn’t sure which was worse—that she expected him to credit such a preposterous story or that part of him wanted to swallow it whole.
More contemptible than either of those was the wanton yearning for her that
he could not suppress, in spite of the way she’d taken advantage of his desires. It enraged him to realise she still wielded that power over him and he could not break free.
“It’s more than a claim,” Bethan shot back. “It’s the truth! Even this morning when you talked about me being your mistress, I didn’t know what you meant. To me a mistress is the kind of woman I’d work for—the lady of the house, a gentleman’s wife.”
“You knew what a kept woman was, though.” Simon seized on that damning inconsistency. “How is that?”
“Because that’s what I’ve heard them called.” The blush that crept into Bethan’s pale cheeks made her look every bit as innocent as she professed—and far too appealing for Simon’s comfort. “As well as some nastier names that I never wanted to be called. I suppose I’ll have to get used to them, now.”
Guilt gnawed at Simon’s conscience and refused to stop. Even when he reminded himself that he hadn’t intended to take her virginity and that she had confessed to being to blame for the whole misunderstanding, he could not escape the crushing weight of responsibility for what he’d done. No doubt she’d counted on that. Her wistful reproach was surely calculated to shame him into taking the action he’d been so desperate to avoid.
“Don’t fret about your reputation.” He spat the words out as if they were poison. “There is one of your assertions I am forced to credit. Much as it astonishes me, I cannot deny you came to my bed a virgin. After last night I have no honourable recorse but to marry you, so we might as well get it over with as soon as possible. I will speak to Reverend Turnbull tomorrow if that suits you. In a place like this, the church is not so particular about the niceties of banns and special licences. But it will all be perfectly in order, I assure you.”
Bethan flinched from his scorn, but she could not conceal the avid glint of elation that flashed in her eyes at his mention of marriage. “You still want to wed me? Even after you got what you wanted and I’ve told you the whole mix-up was my fault?”
