Wanted: Mail-Order Mistress by Deborah Hale

Singapore looking for her brother, now he wanted her to forget about Hugh and make a new life with him.
    It was a tempting prospect, she could not deny that. Simon had the means to give her a better life than anything she could have hoped for back in Britain. As his wife, she’d be mistress of a fine house with servants ather beck and call. She would get to live in a colourful, exotic land where luxuries like tea, coffee, silk, sugar and spices of the finest quality were plentiful. Besides all those material comforts, she would have a precious little stepdaughter and a husband whose kisses made her heart flutter and her bones melt. But even for all that, how could she abandon her brother—especially if he might be in trouble and need her help?
    Gradually Bethan fell into a restless sleep. Unable to escape her struggle, she spent the whole night dreaming about Hugh and Simon. In one dream her brother was drowning, calling out for her to throw him a rope. In another he was caught in a maze of high walls, crying for her to show him the way out. Each time, when she tried to help her brother, Simon appeared to distract her with the touch of his hand or the brush of his lips. Hugh’s cries grew weaker and weaker until at last they fell silent.
    She woke the next morning with her heart throbbing against her ribs and her stomach churning. Desperate for some distraction from the tug of war within her, she ate a hurried breakfast, then went to the nursery. There she found Rosalia watching with a woebegone expression as Ah-Sam packed her trunk. The child looked badly in need of a distraction, too.
    “Good morning, Rosalia.” Bethan held out her hand to the little girl. “Would you like to come for a walk with me?”
    The child jumped up from her seat beside the window. With quick but dainty steps, she flew towards Bethan. “A walk—where?”
    “I thought we might go down to the shore. I like being so near the sea.”
    Rosalia glanced back at her amah. “May I please, Ah-Sam?”
    “She can go.” Ah-Sam raised her forefinger. “One hour, then come home.”
    As they strolled away hand in hand, she called out in her language and Rosalia answered.
    “What did she say?” Bethan whispered.
    Rosalia broke into a grin. “Ah-Sam says I mustn’t forget to wear my hat or my nose will get freckles like yours.”
    Bethan chuckled. The other maids in Newcastle had twitted her about the dusting of freckles on her nose, but she didn’t see anything wrong with them. “When I was a wee girl, my daddy told me freckles came from fairies kissing me while I was asleep.”
    Rosalia’s forehead creased in a puzzled look. “What’s a daddy ?”
    “It comes from the Welsh word tad ,” Bethan explained. “It means father or papa.”
    Rosalia said nothing more while she and Bethan fetched their wide-brimmed hats and let themselves out the back door into the garden.
    “Is your daddy in England like Uncle Hadrian?” she asked at last. “Do you miss him being so far away?”
    The child’s innocent question hit Bethan like an unexpected blow. It took a moment to gather her composure. “I do miss him sometimes. He’s not back in England, though. He’s gone away to Heaven. But when I remember things he used to say, like the bit about fairy kisses, I feel as if part of him is still with me.”
    “Is your mama in Heaven too?” Rosalia’s small handclung tighter to Bethan’s as she opened a wrought-iron gate at the bottom of the garden.
    They slipped out on to the road that ran along the shore. The only traffic on it was a cart pulled by a black bullock.
    Bethan nodded in response to Rosalia’s question. “She’s been gone two years now. Sometimes that doesn’t seem like so long ago. But other times…”
    “My mama went to Heaven a long time ago. I can’t remember anything about her.” Though the child spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, her words brought a lump into Bethan’s throat.
    She was about to suggest Rosalia ask her father