Wanted: Mail-Order Mistress (16 page)

Those words took her breath away. A surge of love for him swept through her so powerfully that it made her want to laugh and weep and dance all at once. She knew what it must have cost Simon to set aside his stubborn vow never to wed again. And for him to trust that she would not betray him.

She wanted so desperately to accept and she would as soon as she recovered her voice.

Struggling to rally her composure, she glanced down at the locket. She was touched that Simon had gone to such lengths to recover it and that he’d chosen to use this most precious of objects to honour her with his proposal.

But as she stared at her father’s likeness, his expression appeared changed from what it had been only a moment before. It seemed to warn her that marriage was no guarantee of love. His resemblance to Hugh reminded her of her family duty—an obligation so vastly at odds with her desire to be Simon’s wife.

It was a duty she could not abandon when she was so close to finding out what had become of her beloved brother.

Why didn’t Bethan answer?

As Simon awaited her reply, his belly twisted in tight knots as if he’d just taken the most reckless risk of his life.

She had been about to accept—he’d seen the answer sparkling in her eyes. Or was that only the reflection of the paper lanterns?

When she looked up from the locket, her fresh, vibrant beauty was shadowed with distress. “You swore you’d never marry again.”

“I know I did.” Pride and caution warned him not to beg. Her hesitation hurt him enough. He did not need a bitter dose of humiliation on top of that.

Still he could not keep from trying to persuade her. “But I’ve changed my mind.
You
helped me make that change, along with a great many others. Rosalia has become very attached to you and I see now that she needs a mother. I know you are nothing like Carlotta or my stepmother. I can trust you.”

Words that should have caused her to smile or look tender made her flinch instead. Why was that? In spite of what he’d just said about trust, dark suspicion reared its ugly heads. It was like a hydra—whenever he lopped one off, two more grew in its place. Did Bethan sense that? Did it explain her reluctance to marry him?

“You don’t know how much it means to hear you say that.” Her gaze met his for an instant, then fell. “But why can’t we just go on the way we are?”

“Why are you balking now?” Simon’s anger rose, as
it always did to protect his wounds. “You came to Singapore to wed me. You only went to bed with me the first time because you thought we were going to be married. What has changed since then? I was a stranger, but now you know me better than anyone. Did you not like what you discovered? Would you rather have a
perfect
stranger than a familiar man with flaws?”

“No!” she cried with a ring of sincerity Simon yearned to believe. “You’re a fine man and everything I’ve found out about you has only made me care for you more.”

“Why don’t you say ‘yes’ then? I know my first proposal was a great deal less than civil, but I thought…all this…” Simon caught her stealing a glance at the locket. He was beginning to wish he’d never recovered the cursed thing. “Is it your father? Are you afraid being married will lead me to stray and abandon you like he did?”

Again she flinched.

Simon dropped his voice to a whisper in case any of his servants or neighbours might be listening. “If that is the problem, you need to realise I am no more like him than you are like Carlotta. I honour my obligations. I always have. I took her back even after she’d betrayed me. I raised Rosalia even when I thought she might not be my child.”

He had meant to reassure her, but his words seemed to have the opposite effect.

“I don’t want to be an
obligation
to you, Simon!” Bethan stumbled up from her chair. “Kept around on sufferance no matter what your feelings for me, because your child needs a mother or you’re worried what people will think of you keeping a mistress. Is that why you proposed to me? You thought you wanted a mistress, but
once you got one, it made you feel like those vile mutineers who took the women away on that ship. Well, you can put that notion to rest. You didn’t force me to become your mistress. It was my choice.”

How could he answer that? Simon could not deny guilt had played a part in his decision—guilt and possessiveness and fear of losing her to another man if she were free. But there was more to it than those mean motives, wasn’t there?

Bethan seemed to take his silence for a confession.

“I thought so.” She backed away from the table. “Thank you for returning my locket. It puts me even more in your debt. But I can’t go into bondage for it, just to ease a load of guilt you needn’t feel.”

“That isn’t…” Simon sputtered. “I didn’t…”

“I know what an honour it is for a man like you to offer the respectability of your name to a girl like me. But I wouldn’t have any respect for myself if I became your wife on those terms.”

As she spun around and marched away, fear gripped Simon. He wanted to go after her and make her listen, the way he had that night in the experimental garden. But he could not risk driving her out into the night again. This time he might not find her.

Besides, he could not escape the poisonous suspicion that there was something more behind her rejection of his proposal. Something she was hiding from him.

B
ethan spent a miserable night in the little room off the nursery. Again and again she reached for Simon in her dreams, only to find her arms full of orchids—beautiful to look at, but cool and waxy to the touch, with none of the sweet fragrance of humbler blossoms.

Last night had been so close to what she’d hoped for when she agreed to become Simon’s mistress. She’d imagined him slowly letting down his guard enough to fall in love with her,
then
asking her to marry him. By that time she might have discovered what had happened to her brother and found a way to tell Simon about Hugh. Then nothing would have stood in the way of their happiness.

She’d never expected Simon to propose so soon, and now she wished with all her heart he’d waited. She didn’t want him to marry her out of obligation or to provide Rosalia with a mother. Those might be worthier reasons that the ones that had prompted his first proposal, but they were still not enough. Had her father wed her mother for reasons like those, only to find that
marriage without love was a trap from which he’d had to escape, no matter who else got hurt?

But perhaps she’d been too hasty in refusing Simon. This time he would have no reason to feel she’d forced his hand nor any cause to suspect she’d tricked him into marriage. If he did not feel pressured or deceived, perhaps he could still learn to love her as wife rather than a mistress. At least he
might
, as long as that whole business with her brother did not scuttle her plans.

The moment that thought passed through her mind, Bethan regretted her selfish disloyalty. She was still committed to finding her brother, wasn’t she, even if it meant leaving Singapore to continue her search?

But what if Hugh was not alive to be found? What if he had died in the fire aboard the
Dauntless
, or drowned trying to escape it? What if he’d survived only to be captured and hanged for his part in the mutiny? If she knew for certain he was beyond her help, she could find comfort with Simon and Rosalia.

“There’s no use thinking of all that, now,” Bethan muttered under her breath as she crawled out of bed and prepared to face the day. “First you have to find out what’s become of poor Hugh.”

She must call on Dr Ellison and hope he could provide her with answers that would light her way forwards.

Once she was dressed and groomed, with her locket fastened around her neck where it belonged, she tiptoed out into the hallway, her senses alert for any sign of Simon. After their quarrel last night, she could not bear to face him until she was certain what her future held.

She managed to steal out of the house unseen by anyone, only to find the
jagga
man guarding the door.
Since the outlaw attacks, Simon had taken the precaution of having the place guarded night and day.

“Good morning, Jodh.” She opened her parasol to protect her from the sun and the chance of sudden showers that often fell before noon. “I’m off for a little walk. I should be back soon.”

The big man looked troubled. “Mamhud took master to work. I go with you, missy?”

“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. I’m not going far.” Bethan tried not to let it bother her that Simon had gone to his office as usual after what had happened between them last night. After all, the business had always his refuge from the turbulent events in his personal life.

As Bethan headed up North Bridge Road, she found the street busier than she’d ever seen it. A party of Malay men carried a
palanquin
toward the square while several servants scurried past in the opposite direction, carrying baskets of produce from the market. Bethan shrank to the edge of the street when she saw a line of convict labourers marching toward her, their chains making an ominous clatter.

“Senhorita Conway?”

She gave a violent start when someone called her name, but relaxed at once when she recognised Mr Quintéra in his gharry.

“Can I offer you a drive?” He cast a pointed glance at the convicts as they trudged past. “I’m surprised Mr Grimshaw would permit you to go out alone these days. Did you hear the outlaws made away with the East India Company cannon last night? Impudent devils!”

The news sent a shiver through Bethan that defied the
tropical heat of the morning. She’d seen the gun Mr Quintéra spoke of, near the shore only a stone’s throw from where she now stood, guarded by
sepoys
night and day. The outlaws were growing bold indeed.

“Thank you for your kind offer…” she bobbed the merchant a curtsy “…but I don’t want to delay you. I’m not going far and I plan to head straight home after. I doubt the outlaws are foolish enough to strike in broad daylight.”

“I hope not.” Mr Quintéra consulted his pocket watch. “If you’re certain you do not want a drive, I should be on my way.”

“Quite sure, thank you.”

Once he pulled away, Bethan hurried the last few steps to Dr Moncrieff’s house.

“Doctor
sahib
is out,” announced the Indian manservant who answered her knock. “Come back tomorrow, please.”

“It’s Dr Ellison I’ve come to see,” she explained. “Is he away as well?”

“He is here.” The servant beckoned her inside.

She gave him her name and waited while he went off to enquire if the doctor would see her. A few moments later, the servant returned and led her upstairs to a deep veranda, like the one around Simon’s villa. A short, dark-haired man put down a book and rose from his chair when she appeared.

“Doctor Ellison?” She curtsied. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“My pleasure, miss.” He motioned her toward a cane-backed chair opposite his. “I must confess I’m not accustomed to being sought out by young ladies. How may I be of service?”

Now that she was so close to the answers she’d sought for the past two years, Bethan could scarcely master her nerves to ask the question. “I—I was told you were a passenger aboard the
Dauntless
on her final voyage. Is that true?”

The doctor nodded.

“Could I trouble you to tell me what happened to the ship and her crew? I heard there was a mutiny and a fire. Were you the only survivor?”

“May I ask the reason for your interest in such a gruesome subject, Miss Conway?” As he said her name, a flicker of recognition crossed the doctor’s face. “I say, you aren’t any relation to the Conway who was second mate aboard the
Dauntless
?”

His question made Bethan’s pulse pound so loud she wondered if he could hear it. She hadn’t reckoned on him remembering Hugh by name. That made it all the more likely he would know for certain what had become of her brother.

“Please, Doctor,” she cried, “there is something I must confess. But you have to promise me you will not tell anyone else!”

“You have my word I will keep it in the strictest confidence.”

There was no use trying to keep her secret now that Dr Ellison had guessed most of it. So she took a deep breath and blurted out the truth she wished she had dared tell Simon. “Hugh Conway was…
is
my brother. I came to Singapore to find out what happened to him. Can you tell me, please?”

The way the doctor’s brow furrowed, she knew the news would not be good. She braced to hear it with the
thought that at least it would end her uncertainty and let her get on with her life.

The doctor stared off into the distance just as a sudden rain shower began to fall. “There was trouble between the captain and crew of the
Dauntless
long before we sailed from Singapore. I don’t know how it all started, but I could feel the mutual hostility from our first day out. It built and built like a great storm brewing—a storm that finally broke off the coast of India.”

Bethan leaned closer, straining to catch every word above the sound of rain that had started and was cascading off the tile roof.

“The captain ordered the ship brought closer to shore than the helmsman deemed safe,” Dr Ellison continued. “The next thing we knew, he was set upon by some of his crew while the officers and passengers were herded below decks at gunpoint and locked in the hold.”

“And Hugh took part in that?” The thought horrified Bethan far more after hearing Simon’s account of the
Sabine
mutiny.

“Your brother seemed like a decent fellow, Miss Conway. He was good humoured and obliging and had a far more civil tongue than the rest of the crew. That is why I recall him so clearly. I never saw him take an active role in the mutiny, but I cannot swear he was out of it altogether.”

“Can you at least tell me whether he lived or died?”

The doctor shook his head. “I wish I could. I never saw his body, but then so many were lost in the fire or drowned. I feel certain he must have been among them, for I never saw him after that day.”

So Hugh
was
dead. How many times during the past
two years had Bethan thought he might be? Still, Dr Ellison’s words struck her like a spring mudslide thundering down a Welsh hillside. She clutched her chest and let out a strangled whimper. How could she have been so wicked as to half-hope for this, so she would not be forced to make the difficult choice between Hugh and Simon?

The doctor pulled out a handkerchief and offered it to her. “I am grieved to be the bearer of such distressing news, Miss Conway. You have my deepest sympathy.”

Bethan refused his handkerchief. She was too dazed for tears yet, though she knew they would come. She did not want to let them fall in front of a stranger, no matter how kind.

“Thank you, Doctor.” She lurched to her feet. “At least now I know. It’s better than wondering.”

That was a lie. In time it might get better. But for now, she would have given anything
not
to know.

The doctor rose from his chair. “If it is any consolation, your brother was probably more fortunate than those crewmen who did survive. They were all hanged.”

It was no consolation, but Bethan did not say so. Instead she mumbled a few more words of thanks and fled from the house while her trembling knees would carry her.

It was still raining out, though not as hard. Opening her parasol, she stumbled back down the street toward Simon’s house, muffled in a fog of misery so heavy she could not imagine anything making her feel worse.

Then, behind her, she heard the clop and splash of hoofbeats and Simon’s voice. “Bethan, what were you doing at Dr Moncrieff’s?”

On top of her grief for her brother, the prospect of
explaining the situation to Simon was more than she could bear. How could she bring herself to tell him that, like so many other women he’d known, she had used and deceived him?

What
had
Bethan doing at the doctor’s house? The possibilities that rushed through Simon’s mind included a few he was ashamed of thinking, but he could not help himself.

Motioning for his driver to stop the gharry, he climbed out from beneath the carriage’s bonnet into the rain. Then he waved Mahmud to drive on while he walked Bethan back to the house.

With none of the pleasures he’d anticipated to keep him in bed this morning, he had risen early and gone in to work. Business was a good deal less complicated than what he was dealing with at home, yet, lately, he had a nagging suspicion it was a good deal less important as well.

In any case, he didn’t intend to bury himself in his work, as he had for the past several years, to hide from his personal problems. He would find no escape from his feelings for Bethan there. Nor any insights into their future. He only stayed long enough to leave orders about what work needed to be done. Then he hurried home, hoping a good night’s sleep might have made Bethan readier to listen to reason.

He didn’t know what to think when he spied her emerging from Dr Moncrieff’s house. He only knew he wanted answers.

She didn’t turn when he called out to her, but kept on walking.

“Bethan, did you hear me?” He caught her by the elbow. “I asked you a question.”

Her steps slowed and she glanced toward him. There was a look in her eyes like nothing he’d seen in them before—a heartrending compound of pain and sorrow that did not belong there.

“Are you ill?” A garrotte of fear tightened around his throat. “Is that why you went to see the doctor? What is it? If Moncrieff can’t help you, I’ll take you to Penang or Calcutta. I’ll—”

“It’s nothing like that. Oh, Simon, I’m so sorry for the things I said last night! I should have known better. Can you ever forgive me?” Her lower lip trembled and her eyes flooded with tears, as swiftly as the Singapore sky with rain showers.

Overcome with relief to hear she was not ill, Simon gathered her into his arms. The easing rain pattered down upon them while she wept as if her heart would break. Their public embrace drew some curious stares from passers-by but Simon did not care.

Ever since she’d arrived in Singapore, Bethan had offered him advice and comfort. It felt good to be able to return the favour at last, striking a vital balance between them that had been missing until now.

“There’s nothing to forgive.” He rested his chin against the brim of her hat. “You aren’t the only one who said things you wish you could take back. It seems marriage isn’t an easy subject for either of us to talk about. I shouldn’t have sprung my proposal on you out of the blue like that.”

Another reason occurred to him why she might have paid a call on the doctor. Was she carrying his child? Her tearful outburst made him suspect so. Perhaps that explained her emotional reaction to his proposal. She
hadn’t wanted him to think she would use a child of theirs the way Carlotta had, to manipulate him.

It was not a subject he wanted to quiz her about on a public street.

“Come along,” he murmured as her weeping eased. “Let’s get back to the house. We can talk better there.”

He fished out his handkerchief and press it upon her without breaking their embrace altogether. While Bethan wiped her eyes, he wrapped his arm around her waist and steered her towards the house. By the time they reached it, the sun had come out again and vapour was rising off the wet garden. Bethan had wiped her face and regained her composure.

Ah-Ming appeared when they entered, but withdrew discreetly when Simon shot her a warning glance. Leading Bethan out to the veranda, he eased her down on to the wicker settee beside him.