Beauty Tempts the Beast
Page 26
“I think the butler did it.”
Beast looked up from his writing to the rosewood writing desk he’d moved out of one of the bedchambers not yet in use two days earlier—the morning following the night when she had accepted his proposal of marriage—because he’d wanted her near. Always wanted her near. He liked being able to get up and kiss her whenever he wanted. He especially enjoyed when she would get up and come over to kiss him. But he enjoyed most when she locked the door on her way over.
They had yet to discuss the details of their wedding because he had yet to give her the second proposal. He wanted to do it in a memorable way that would make her smile whenever she relayed the details of it. And she had yet to tell him when and where.
Now she was looking quite pleased with her deductive skills. While she usually spent her time at the desk determining what remained for her to teach Lottie and Hester, today she’d begun reading his manuscript. “The butler,” he repeated.
“Yes. I know your inspector suspects Lord Chadburn of killing his best friend—after determining it wasn’t the grieving widow—I like her by the way.”
As did he. She very much resembled the woman sitting in his study.
“But I think it’s the butler. He’s so unassuming, always in the background. Always so quiet. He could easily sneak up on people.”
“Possibly, you’re correct.”
“You’re not going to confirm it?”
“No. I want you to read it without knowing who the murderer is so you can let me know if I’ve provided enough information so you can believe he’s the murderer.”
She tapped her pencil on the edge of the desk. “How much longer before you’re finished?”
“A few more days.”
She didn’t seem happy about that, which served to assuage his worries that it wasn’t holding her attention. “Another matter. Your Lord Chadburn. His name very much resembles that of an earl I know.”
“Does it?” He feigned surprise, which only caused her to narrow her eyes at him.
“Why would you use a name similar to that of someone you loathe?”
Because he was going to take great pleasure in writing the scene where the man was hanged. Or he might become a victim. He hadn’t really decided yet. Either way, gruesome ending for the bloke.
“Oh, my God, he’s the murderer,” she suddenly blurted.
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“I think it would be a great twist if it was the inspector.”
Only he liked the inspector. The man was methodical, unemotional, and skilled at deduction. He wanted him to solve the murder in the next book as well. It was strange how he thought of these characters as though they truly existed.
A rap sounded on his door.
“Come in.”
Jewel opened it and peered in. “Beast, a fancy gent is here to see you. His name is Ewan Campbell.”
The name wasn’t familiar. “Did he say what he needed with me?”
“No, but I think you’re probably going to want to talk with him.”
With a question in his eyes, he glanced over at Thea, who looked at him, studied him, slowly shook her head. “I don’t know him.”
“Well then, I guess I need to see what he’s about.”
Shoving back his chair, he stood. Since he was on his feet, he decided to take advantage of it, walked over to where Thea worked, bent over, and captured the mouth she’d tilted up to him. He’d never get enough of her kisses. Never get enough of her.
When he lifted his mouth from hers, she gave him a seductive smile. “Don’t be too long. And lock the door on your way back in.”
Chuckling, he strode into the hallway. Life had never been so sweet, so full of promise. His visit with the gent was going to be the shortest he’d ever experienced because he was already primed to return to the study and lock that door.
He quickened his steps as he went down the stairs to the front parlor. He’d barely crossed the threshold before coming to an abrupt stop at the sight of the man standing with his back to the doorway, his head bent as he studied either his shining boots or the fire dancing on the hearth. His visitor was large, as tall as himself, with shoulders just as broad. His black hair streaked lightly with silver brushed across his shoulders.
“Mr. Campbell, you wished to have a word with me?”
The man turned around slowly, and Beast had the sensation of his world tilting precariously, making it a challenge to retain his balance. It was like looking at his reflection in a mirror. Everything within him went still, quiet, hushed, his mind devoid of thought, his lungs battling to draw in air. He didn’t know what to make of this man who reminded him so much of himself, the man staring at him as though he’d just encountered an apparition recently risen from the grave.
“You’d be Benedict Trewlove, then,” Mr. Campbell said with a thick Scottish brogue. In his large hand, based on the shade of the cloth covering the hard binding, he was holding a copy of Murder at Ten Bells.
“I would be, yes. Are you in want of my signature in your book?”
Campbell looked down at his hand, seemingly surprised to find himself grasping the novel, as though he’d forgotten he had it. But he clutched it so tightly his knuckles had turned white. “Nae. I brought it as an excuse in case my Mara wasnae correct. But I’m thinking she has the right of it.”
Beast couldn’t make any sense of what the man was saying. “I’m sorry, Mr. Campbell, but I’m not certain why you’re here.”
“Do you know when you were handed over to Mrs. Trewlove?”
A cold shiver of dread skittered down his spine. “November.” The tenth, to be exact, but he didn’t see how it was any of this man’s business.
“The year?”
“I don’t see—”
“The year.”
Suddenly, he didn’t like that the man’s hair was as black as his, his eyes as dark. That he had such a strong jaw, a broad brow. “Campbell, I don’t know what the hell—”
“Have you seen three and thirty years?”
The man might as well have thrown a bucket of cold water on him, the shock might have been less. He wasn’t one to go about giving people his age, so how the devil did Campbell know it? “The particulars of my life are none of your business.”
“You’d be wrong, lad. I’m thinking I’m your da.”
If Beast wasn’t composed of such sturdy stock, he might have staggered back under the weight of the anger that ratcheted forcefully through him. For the man to show up after all these years and deliver such a striking blow with such calmness as though simply announcing that it might rain. A knife going in his side had hurt less. “Why the devil would you think that?”
“By just looking at you. I see myself when I was younger. Your ma would agree.”
An anticipated rage burst through him at the casual mention of his mother by this man who had not done right by her, who had put her in the unenviable position of giving birth to a bastard and then having to give him away.
Balling his hands into fists at his sides, he took a menacing step forward. If duels weren’t against the law, he’d be meeting the man at dawn. Perhaps he would anyway. “What was she to you? Your mistress? Someone you used and abandoned when she no longer suited you, when you grew bored with her? A servant you took advantage of?”
He saw the anger flare in Ewan Campbell’s dark eyes, and just as quickly it was tamped down. “The love of my life.”
“You loved her so much you left her alone to bring your bastard into the world. I assume she was alone, with no means, and that’s the reason she gave me up.”
“I didn’t know about you at the time.”
He wouldn’t accept the excuse. If this man had truly loved his mother, how could he have not known she was with child? As hard as the words were to utter, he spit them out. “You can forget you know about me now.”
He turned on his heel—
“You’re my firstborn, my only son, my only child, my heir.”
“Not in England, no. But we’re Scottish. Perthshire is where you were born, and in Scotland if the father of the bastard marries the mother of the bastard—it doesnae matter if it’s years after the bairn is born—the child is entitled to inherit all he would have if his parents had been married when the babe came into the world.”
Most of the words were of no importance to him, but some felt like slices of ice pelting him. “You married my mother?”
“I did, lad, as soon as I found her, but it took me a while to locate her.” He shook his head. “Your granddad, my da, he was a right bastard.”
“Born out of wedlock?”
The laughter was deep but caustic, and Beast didn’t like realizing how familiar it sounded, how much it reminded him of his own laugh.
“Nae. But most likely spawned by Satan all the same. He didnae approve of the woman I loved. Her father was his sworn enemy, though God alone knows why. He didnae want her blood tainting the bloodline he was so damned proud of. He knew how desperately I wished to marry her. When he learned she’d brought my wee bairn into the world, he wanted to make sure you never inherited. He was consumed with hatred for her family. Don’t know if he would have seen you killed, but she wasnae willing to chance it. Shortly after she saw you safely delivered into the arms of another, they found her and had her committed to an asylum for the criminally insane.”
Beast felt another punch to his gut. He’d never considered her fate would be so horrid, and he had an urge to strike out and smash something.
Sadness and anger that mirrored his own marred Campbell’s handsome features. “The cruelty she suffered. Took me five years to find her and when I did, I wanted to kill every cursed one of them who had ever touched her. But what good would I be to her, dancing in the wind? Though I took pleasure in leaving some of them bloodied. Even took my fists to my da. Wasn’t much they could do to fix his jaw when I was done with him. No tears were shed when he drew his last.”
Beast was thinking he might have inherited the man’s temper. But the story he’d told sickened him, made him feel guilty for all the times he’d questioned why his mother had broken her promise and not returned for him.
“Your ma wants to see you.”
He glanced quickly around as though expecting her to emerge from the wallpaper or step out from behind the draperies. “She’s here?”
“Nae. She wanted to come, but I didnae want her disappointed if you turned out not to be our boy.”
“You don’t know that I am. You’re just guessing.”
He gave a quick nod. “What are you hiding beneath all that hair? The same as me, I suspect. Your ma told me you’d taken after me for certain in that one regard.” With a smooth, efficient flick of his fingers, he brushed back the strands on the right side of his head. “’Tis the Campbell curse. Legend has it that one of our ancestors was always pressing his ear to the door, spying on witches. They cast a spell on him and his descendants. Some escape it. You and I weren’t so fortunate. Although there are worse things to befall a person.”
It was an unlikely tale, but what caught Beast’s attention more was the reference to our ancestors. He had his family, bastards Ettie Trewlove had cobbled together into a unit that loved each other fiercely and fought just as fiercely for each other. But that family came with no ancestors—none that could be claimed or acknowledged anyway. Yet, now he was learning he had ancestors, ones who would be proud to claim him, ones with whom he sometimes shared the anomaly with which he’d been born. A heritage. A birthright—although he’d always viewed it as something wrong, not right. A legacy. If he was this man’s son . . .
How could he doubt it when he was gazing into eyes as black as his own, when he possessed the same square cut of his jaw, the same sleek nose, the same high sharp cheekbones?
What had he inherited from his mum? No, Ettie Trewlove was his mum, would always be so. This other woman was his mother, his ma, the word pronounced with a brogue that he wasn’t certain would ever feel natural on his tongue. He wasn’t who—what—he’d always believed himself to be: a babe abandoned, forgotten, unwanted.
He’d been wanted, loved, protected. He wondered if that instinct to protect had been passed from his ma to him, if she was responsible for his nature more than his looks.
“Why didn’t you come for me after you found her?”
“She couldnae remember where she left you. Sometimes, I’d think she made herself forget so she wouldn’t be able to tell them where you were. I don’t know if it’s possible to do such a thing. To look at your ma, you might not realize how strong she is. I’ve never known anyone stronger, man or woman. So all these years, the one thing I did know was that wherever she left you, you were safe.”
He had been that, at least while he was under the care of Ettie Trewlove. His encounter with Three-Fingered Bill had been his doing. But even then, it had been his family who had sent for the surgeon, his family who had nursed him back to health.
“After all this time, all of a sudden, she just remembered?”
“Nae. It was your book. I bought it for her when I was in London a couple of weeks ago. She likes mysteries, and I thought she’d enjoy reading one written by an author who carried the same first name as our son—only it was the Trewlove that caught her attention. Her memory of that night was that the woman with whom she’d left you had promised to love you true. But seeing Benedict Trewlove on the book . . . it unlocked something within her. When she slept, unlike all the other times she’d dreamed of that night, this time it wasn’t so blurry, she saw the details of it. She thought maybe the woman’s name was Trewlove. She convinced me to come have a word with you. I went to your publisher to find out where you lived, and here I am. And glad of it.”
He was still struggling with it all, taking apart what he’d known of his life and reassembling it to include what he was now learning.
“Will you come with me to meet your ma?” Ewan Campbell—his father—asked.
Beast could do little more than nod.
Then the man whom he’d spent a good many years wondering about strode forward and held out his hand. A hand the size of ham hocks, a hand Beast could clearly see working the docks, lifting and hauling cargo. He knew if he placed his own against it, he’d be recognizing the man’s place in his life, would be acknowledging his acceptance of who he himself was.
Yet, when their palms touched, he had the sense that he’d come home.
When his da drew him in close, wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and gave his back a thump, all he could do was blink back the tears suddenly burning his eyes.
“Welcome back into the family, lad. And I apologize because I don’t recall giving you a proper introduction when we met. I was stunned by seeing you, seeing myself in you. I’d be the Duke of Glasford.”
His father was a bloody duke. Did that mean his inheritance included a dukedom? Christ, he had noble blood running through his veins.
He recognized Mayfair when the coach bearing the ducal crest in which he was riding entered the area. Since climbing into the conveyance, he and the duke hadn’t spoken a word as though all the emotions that had swept through them with the handshake and embrace were simply too large and grand. Yet, in the silence they’d been assessing each other. He felt like he was moving about in a dream comprised of thick treacle that caused every action to be slow and difficult to navigate. At any moment he was going to wake up to discover it was all simply a bad and elaborate jest, perpetrated in cruelty.
Then the vehicle turned the corner and passed through wrought-iron gates, and he glanced out the window to see a massive manor, the sort in which he’d dreamed of living when he was a lad, crowded in a bed with his brothers. The kind of house that his years of hard work had put within reach, but he hadn’t wanted to wal
k through it alone. Now he would walk through it with Thea.
“You should know you carry one of my titles as a courtesy,” his father said quietly. “You’re the Earl of Tewksbury.”
A blasted earl. A blasted lord. What did he know about being a lord? “It doesn’t seem real.”
“I suspect it won’t for a while. I’m having a hard time believing it myself. We searched for you for years.”
Every time the duke revealed something, his chest tightened a little bit more. To have been wanted to such an extent they’d searched for years. A part of him wanted to simply say no to all this, hop out of the carriage, and make his way back to Thea. He’d left without talking to her, without telling her anything. The shock of it all, he supposed. Or perhaps he simply needed more confirmation that it was true before he told her. What words would he use to explain all this? “I assume you have a ducal estate.”
“Aye. Lovely place, but the manor house there makes this one look like a doll’s house.”
He couldn’t imagine it. Hadn’t earned it, wasn’t certain he wanted any of it. The title, the estate, being heir to a dukedom. Shouldn’t he have had to do something to be worthy of it other than being born and surviving?
The coach came to a stop and a footman immediately appeared to open the door. With ease, the duke leapt out and Beast imagined him riding and striding over his lands, keeping himself fit. He followed him out and up the steps. Once more a door was opened. This time by a butler who bowed slightly. “Your Grace.”
“Bentley, is the duchess in the gardens?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This way, lad.”
They strode down a long corridor with portraits dotting the walls. So many portraits, and Beast imagined he saw himself in many of the faces. He wanted to stop and study each one, learn their names and history. “How many dukes have there been?”
“You’ll be the ninth.”
He felt it like a punch to the gut. The words were said with no doubt, simply absolute conviction. Yet, he couldn’t envision himself as a duke, as a lord of the realm. A man welcomed and respected simply because of his birth. He’d spent his entire life defending his birth as a bastard—and now he was legitimate. His skin suddenly seemed too tight, as though he no longer belonged in it, as though he no longer knew who he was.