Navy, he’d been caught in a most compromising situation with his admiral’s wife. The fact that he’d just been cited for extraordinary heroism in one of the last naval battles of the Napoleonic wars didn’t mitigate his disgrace. In short order, he’d been dismissed from the Navy, ostracized by society, and shunned by a rigidly disapproving older brother. Undaunted, he’d purchased his own ship and charted a course of dissolution and dissipation ever since.
His brother had died some years ago, Sarah had learned, and the cashiered naval officer had become Third Viscount Straithe. His brother had avenged himself on the black sheep who’d disgraced him, however, by selling the family estate to a land-hungry squire just before he died. Straithe now held the title, and nothing else.
It went against Sarah’s grain to turn to such a man for help, but he was her only hope. Unfortunately, he hadn’t shown the least sign of wanting to aid her. He’d ignored her repeated notes requesting his presence at the Mission House on a matter of some urgency. When she’d tried to contact him through his man of business, Straithe had instructed the clerk to palm her off with a donation to the Mission and the excuse that the captain was too busy to concern himself with the affairs of the colony.
Evidently he wasn’t too busy for regular visits to the House of the Dancing Blossoms, Sarah thought in some pique. Well, at least Straithe’s disgusting habits had given her the means to track him down.
Tipping her hat back, she glanced around the small room. The chamber wasn’t particularly well equipped for the serious discussion she needed to have with Straithe. Aside from a low, lacquered table in one corner that held a porcelain teapot, several handle-less cups and a plate of fruit, the only other piece of furniture in the room was the bed. Canopied and enclosed on three sides by curtains painted with scenes that brought the blood rushing to Sarah’s cheeks once more, the massive platform dominated the chamber.
She turned away from its erotic splendor, reminding herself that she was no schoolgirl to be shocked at such vulgar displays. She’d nursed her mama during the childbed fever that eventually claimed her. She’d tended to her brothers and sisters and many of her papa’s flock. She’d seen more sickness and death than many women of her age and class. Nevertheless, she had to fan herself with her sleeve for some moments before she felt composed enough to face the man she’d come to see.
When the door slid open long moments later and he stepped inside, Sarah’s first, uncensored thought was that the phrase “as black as sin” might have been coined to describe his hair. The disordered locks gleamed with a dark luster that caught the lantern light and made her fingers itch to smooth it back from his brow, much as she did Charlie’s when he came to her flushed and panting after a hard game of cricket.
Her second thought was that the bed, as huge as it was, would hardly hold him. Having glimpsed Straithe at a distance once or twice, she knew he towered over most other individuals. Until now, though, she’d never appreciated just how big the man was.
For a wild moment, she wondered how in the world he managed to fold those long legs encased in tight, buff-colored trousers and black boots into the Chinesesized bed. Not that he’d be wearing his boots when he occupied that curtained platform, she reminded herself, then flushed again at the direction of her wayward thoughts. Giving up all hope of controlling what she knew was an unbecoming wash of color, Sarah lifted her chin and waited for him to acknowledge her presence.
He certainly took his time about it.
Slipping the pale, nervous nephew a coin, he slid the door panel shut. Sarah saw him wince when it banged against the door frame. His black brows lowered into a frown, as if the mere sound of the bamboo striking bamboo pained him. When he turned and saw who stood at the foot of the bed, his frown deepened into a decided scowl.
Sarah stiffened as startlingly blue eyes raked her from head to toe. When his gaze lingered far too long on the slope of her bosom, evident even under the loosely fitting blue cotton robe, her hands curled into fists inside the wide sleeves.
His gaze returned to her face at last, and the dangerous look on his face lifted the hairs on the back of Sarah’s neck. She found herself quite unable to break the silence that stretched between them. After a long, tense moment, Straithe shrugged out of his green frock coat and tossed it onto the foot of the bed.
“I take it Mei-Lin is indisposed,” he drawled. “I hope you know her repertoire. I’ve developed a decided partiality for her version of the Fluttering Butterfly.”
Sarah wet her lips. Obviously, Straithe was not at all pleased to find someone other than his chosen paramour awaiting him in this decadent chamber. Before she could respond, he lifted a brow in mocking inquiry.
“Perhaps you have your own specialty?”
Sarah shook herself out of her uncharacteristic timidity. He was only a man, after all. There was no reason for her flesh to raise into goose bumps at the mere sound of his voice. Deciding to let her actions speak for her, she drew herself up to her full, if not particularly impressive, height and tugged off the concealing straw hat.
As she’d known it would, her hair drew his eyes like a lodestone draws iron filings. Sarah realized that the heavy mass must be frizzing in its usual undisciplined manner all over her head. The humidity of Macao’s summers defied her every attempt to subdue the stubborn mass. An undistinguished color somewhere between brick and ginger, it was hot, heavy, and the bane of her existence. One of the banes, she amended, remembering her father. At the thought of The Reverend Mr. Abernathy, she lifted her chin.
“I’ve come to speak with you, Lord Straithe.”
“Have you, Miss Abernathy?”
The fact that he knew her name took some of the starch out of Sarah’s spine. It was one thing for her to recognize the rogue who caused a veritable storm of gossip whenever his ship appeared in the bay. It was something else again for the dissipated lord to recognize her.
“How do you know who I am?” she asked, curiosity overcoming her nervousness at his rather sinister expression.
“Why shouldn’t I know you? You appear to know me.”
“I hardly think the one leads to the other.”
“Does it not, Miss Abernathy?”
Sarah stiffened at the mockery in his deep voice. Gathering her dignity, she met his sardonic look with a steady one of her own. “Macao is a small community. It would be strange indeed for me not to recognize someone of your reputation.”
That black brow went up another notch.
“And it would be stranger still,” she continued, “not to notice someone of your…generous…proportions. Which explains how I know you, my lord. Now perhaps you’ll explain how it is that you recognize me?”
The saturnine expression on his face deepened. One corner of his mouth curled downward as he crossed both arms, straining the shoulder seams of his linen shirt.
“As you say, Macao is indeed a small community. There aren’t more than a handful of Englishwomen in residence. It would be difficult for any man not to notice someone of your…generous…proportions.”
Sarah didn’t care for the way he’d turned her words back on her. She’d never enjoyed anything close to Abigail’s sylphlike slenderness, but until this moment she hadn’t considered herself more than well-boned. She soon realized, however, that Lord Straithe considered only a particular portion of her anatomy generous. His blue eyes traveled
