Seduced: The Scandalous Virgin by Deborah Hale

Chapter One
    Singapore, December 1820
    â€œA toast to my old friend, Blade Maxwell.” Ford Barrett raised a glass of potent Batavia arrack. “Perhaps it is no coincidence that the two greatest mischief-makers in the history of our school should meet up again so far from it. Though I am sorry to see him go, I wish him a happy return to civilization.”
    â€œTo Maxwell.” Ford’s business partners, Hadrian Northmore and Simon Grimshaw, drank the toast while Blade nodded his thanks for their good wishes.
    He could not pretend he was sorry to leave Singapore. The British trading post had been founded on this tiny island less than two years ago and conditions were still primitive. Though Ford and his partners had made their fortunes as free traders, they all lived together in this simple, palm-thatched dwelling they’d built beside their warehouse. All food had to be imported, making it expensive and often unpalatable. The coming of winter would only relieve the oppressive heat by a degree or two. After three years’ exile in the sweltering East Indies, Blade longed for the familiar amenities of Penkensey Manor and a bracing Atlantic breeze.
    At the same time, he tried to forget the price he would pay for those comforts.
    â€œTo your safe voyage.” Hadrian Northmore regarded Blade with greater cordiality than usual, now that he was about to leave. A North Countryman of humble origins, he’d made it clear he had little use for the son of an earl. “May your ship be spared from storms and reefs.”
    â€œPirates and mutinies,” added Simon Grimshaw in a fierce tone Blade was at a loss to explain.
    â€œAnd may you not expire from boredom,” Ford concluded with a wry chuckle. “Though I doubt there’s much fear of that provided your fellow passengers include at least one fair female between the ages of eighteen and eighty.”
    Blade grinned and hoisted his glass. “To the ladies of the good ship Hartwell and the last few wild oats I have left to sow!”
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    Ten long days later, Blade thought back to his last evening in Singapore as he gazed from the Hartwell’s starboard railing toward the Coromandel Coast of India. The ship had stopped to take on additional cargo and passengers from Madras before resuming its long voyage to England. Since this part of the coast lacked a proper harbor, everything had to be ferried out from the shore by native massoulah boats.
    â€œLet there be just one likely lady among them,” Blade muttered under his breath.
    The voyage so far had been deadly dull. The only female passengers were a middle-aged vicar’s wife and her niece, an empty-headed chit of seventeen who’d made a few awkward attempts to flirt with him. Though the girl was not ill-looking, Blade went out of his way to avoid her. Despite a well-deserved reputation as the black sheep of his family, he did have a few scruples about the sort of women he seduced. Happily wed wives were strictly off-limits, as were innocent virgins.
    He sought the company of women for mutual pleasure. He did not want his conscience burdened by the loss of some poor girl’s reputation and the lifetime of misery she might endure as a consequence. Neither could he risk being forced to wed one of his paramours. His family had made it clear that taking a wife other than one they chose for him would result in his being disowned and disinherited. No woman was worth that.
    Watching the rickety-looking boats struggle from shore through the pounding surf, Blade wished they might bring him just one lonely widow to console, or perhaps an estranged wife looking for a bit of excitement to enliven the coming weeks at sea.
    His hopes quickly faded as the new passengers were brought aboard. Neither of the women came close to meeting his modest standards. Much as he longed to get back to his comfortable life in England, he wasn’t certain he could settle down properly without