Beauty Tempts the Beast

by Lorraine Heath

  Her head was resting in the crook of his shoulder. Turning slightly, she pressed a kiss against his skin. “Not every time, but occasionally, because I like when you lead, too.”

  He’d enjoyed every minute of what had transpired after he’d walked into the room, but sometimes it had felt as though there was almost a desperation to it, as though everything needed to happen because it would never happen again. Which made no sense whatsoever.

  “What you did earlier . . . your mouth . . . my cock . . . did Jewel teach you that?”

  She lifted up until she could gaze down on him. “In a way.” She blushed. “But not really. I’ve been thinking about it, wondering if it’s what people did, because more and more of late, I’ve been wondering what it might be like to . . . taste you. So tonight I asked her about it.”

  “She taught you what to do?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. She told me to just do whatever I thought I’d enjoy doing.”

  He threaded his fingers through her hair near her temple. “You thought you would enjoy doing that?”

  Bobbing her head, she smiled. “And I did.”

  “Lucky me.” He skimmed his thumb over her cheek. “In the future, you can always ask me if there is something you want to try. It doesn’t matter if other people do it. It only matters that you want to.”

  Averting her gaze, she placed her head back against his shoulder. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  But he was left with the impression he’d said something wrong. “Thea, is everything all right?”

  “Of course it is. Did everything work out for you today?”

  He wished he could rid himself of the sensation that something was amiss. “It seems my father is a very powerful man, which I suppose explains how my grandfather was able to do all the damage he did. Whenever we walked into a building, an office, a room, everyone jumped to do his bidding. It was extraordinary. My siblings and I are formidable, but this was something more.”

  “He’s nobility. It’s not only his character or his temperament or his disposition. His title carries weight. The more revered his title, the more revered he is, even if it’s undeserving. Like your brothers’ father, Lord Elverton. He always made my skin crawl, but people bowed down to him as though he were a saint. Now that you’re a lord, you’ll exert more power than you do now.”

  “I’ve always known the nobility was treated differently. I suppose I never noticed it with Thornley or Rosemont because they regarded me as an equal. Although to be honest, I’ve never seen them outside of the family. My father didn’t demand that anyone treat him differently. They simply did.”

  “You’ll get used to it. Eventually, you won’t even notice that everyone offers you such reverence. I never did. I just accepted it as my due.”

  He didn’t know if he’d ever get used to the bowing and curtsying, the servants coming in to stir the fire, someone always on hand to take his coat, hat, and gloves. “I don’t know if I’ll ever feel completely comfortable with it all.”

  “You will.”

  What he did know was that it would all be easier with her at his side. He skimmed his fingers up and down her arm. “They want me to go back to Scotland with them. For a few weeks, so they can show me around and introduce me to my other family.” He still wasn’t accustomed to the fact that he had another family. Uncles, aunts, and cousins who were anxious to meet him. “You need to tell me when and where you want that second proposal because I want us to be officially betrothed when you go with me.”

  She went still, so very still. It was uncanny, the way he could detect the smallest of changes in her, especially when something was amiss. “Thea?”

  She unfurled herself from around him and pushed herself up, bringing the sheet with her so the most delectable parts of her were covered. “I can’t marry you now.”

  As his heart slammed almost painfully against his ribs, he shoved himself up to a sitting position. “What do you mean you can’t marry me now?”

  “You are part of the aristocracy.”

  “Which you wanted to return to. You will return to it with me.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. She gave her head a small shake. “I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to you. It wouldn’t be fair to your parents.”

  He slapped his hand against the headboard. The sting assured him that he was awake, hadn’t fallen asleep and succumbed to some nightmare. “Explain how marrying the woman I love—more than life—would be unfair to me.”

  She dashed at the tears that rolled onto her cheeks. Blinked, blinked, blinked. Cleared her throat. When she once again looked at him, not a tear was to be found. “You’re going to have a difficult enough time being accepted because people know you as a Trewlove, not a Campbell. Ben, I’d just be a liability. No one would look favorably on you if you married the daughter of a traitor.”

  “I don’t give a bloody damn. I love you, Thea.”

  “I love you. And that’s the reason I can’t marry you.”

  He shot out of the bed, crossed over to where his trousers rested on the floor, and jerked them on. He couldn’t have this conversation in the nude. Grabbing his shirt, he tossed it at her. “Put that on.”

  Because neither could he have this conversation with her in the nude or in that bloody corset.

  Pacing, he fought to gather his thoughts. He heard the bed creak. Glancing over, he saw her sitting on the edge of it and refused to acknowledge how adorable she looked with his shirt swallowing her. “We can make this work.”

  “We can’t. You don’t know Society. I do.”

  “I’m not going to have a bunch of bloody nobs determine whom I marry.”

  She stood up and the hem of his shirt fell to her knees. “What of our children?”

  “What of them?” Other than the fact he wanted every one of them to look like her.

  “Did you not hear what Chadbourne said the night we bested him? How our children would have suffered because their grandfather was a traitor? As much as I’m loath to admit it, he was correct. I hated him for turning his back on me, but I would have hated him all the more if he hadn’t, if we’d had children and they had to grow up with taunts and unkind barbs. You know what that’s like. You experienced it. You know how much it hurts. I can’t do that to my children. Our children.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. With an almost unbearable ache, he wanted those blonde, blue-eyed girls and those black-haired, dark-eyed boys. He wanted to put them on his shoulders so they could place the star on top of the Christmas tree. He wanted them to have adventures with his nieces and nephew. And any others that came along. He wanted to see his mum cradling one of them in her arms. He wanted them to hear the stories his father had told him tonight. He wanted them to sit on his strong and protective mother’s lap.

  Swallowing hard, he opened his eyes, held her gaze, and forced out the words through the knot in his throat. “Then we won’t have children.”

  “You’re breaking my heart, Ben.”

  “It’s only fair. You’re breaking mine.”

  She turned away from him. He heard her release a shaky breath. When she again faced him, he saw standing before him the haughty, arrogant lady who had appeared in the dressmaker’s shop and confronted Lady Jocelyn what seemed eons ago.

  “You are a lord. Your first order of business is to provide an heir to inherit the titles and properties you will inherit. Your parents will expect it of you. The Crown will expect it of you. Society will expect it of you. I will expect it of you. Not having children is not a choice you have.”

  Bloody damned hell. Bollocks. Through his mind, he ran a few other choice words he’d learned from men working the docks. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “We already have,” she said as though she were a queen laying down an edict. “I will not marry you.”

  He thought he actually heard his heart crack. He knew he felt it. “When did you make this decision?”

  Some of the haughtiness left her. “Last night, whil
e I watched you sleeping.”

  He swung his arm out to encompass the entirety of the room. “And all this?”

  “Was goodbye.”

  Chapter 28

  Standing by the fire burning brightly in his mum’s small house, as he waited for his siblings to greet each other, hug their mum, pour themselves a drink, and settle into their favorite spots around the room, Beast reflected on the irony of his life.

  For a good long while, as the Beast of Whitechapel, he’d not thought himself deserving of a woman’s love, of a wife and children. He’d worried about the shame he’d bring them because he knew nothing at all about from whence he’d come, a bit self-conscious regarding what he viewed as an imperfection. Because he never expected to marry, it had never bothered him to own a brothel. Through it, he was able to help some attain better lives. Although he’d also known it wouldn’t give a wife cause to boast about her husband’s undertakings. But again, it hadn’t mattered, because he’d envisioned himself with no wife.

  Then Thea had come into his life with the strength of a storm that could so easily leave destruction in its wake, and she’d managed to blow away all the reasons he’d thought he wasn’t worthy of her until he’d finally realized that he was. He’d asked for her hand, she’d said yes. He’d never known such satisfaction, such joy.

  Now he was heir to a dukedom. He had obtained the power to grant her dream. Marriage to him would return her to Society, first as a countess, in time as a duchess. But now she wouldn’t marry him because of the shame she thought she’d bring him—and more important, their children. That her presence in their life would make it more difficult for him and them to be accepted.

  Bollocks.

  How could he ask his parents not to publicly recognize him as their son? How could he break their hearts when they’d already been broken once before because of him? How could he turn aside the inheritance they were proud and overjoyed to pass on to him? He wasn’t even certain the law would allow it.

  He felt the way he’d assumed he would have if he’d stayed on the ship heading out to sea—untethered, unmoored, desperately searching for a safe harbor. He didn’t seem to know who he was any longer. The path he was on was full of brambles, and he didn’t know how to navigate his way around them without first encountering the bite of their thorns.

  The ache in his heart was nearly unbearable. And he knew of no way to keep others from tumbling into the brambles with him.

  It was the clearing of Mick’s throat that stirred him from the uneasy musings. His family was gathered around him, the ladies sitting in cushioned chairs, their husbands perched on the arms. Except for his mum, who had never remarried, had no interest in doing so, had devoted her life to raising the children of others.

  His heart squeezed so tightly that it caused an ache to spread through his chest. He loved these people with every fiber of his being. For thirty-three years, until Thea, they had been the best part of his life. Shoving, arguing, taking a switch to his backside. Sharing confidences, protecting his back, standing firm at his side. Giving him a difficult time on occasion—especially Aiden—but always ensuring he knew they’d never let him down, they were all on this journey together. They would never leave him behind.

  His siblings’ faces were a combination of anxiousness in their eyes or smiles they were fighting to hold back. All day he’d practiced what he was going to say, and now the words scattered like dead leaves blown by the wind.

  “We all know you’re going to marry Althea,” Aiden finally said into the quiet. “You don’t have to be nervous about telling us. We approve of her.”

  If only that was it. He sighed. Shook his head. “Actually, it appears I won’t be marrying her, but that’s not why I asked you all to come. I’ve recently learned who I am.”

  At the widening of their eyes, he shifted his stance. That wasn’t right. He knew who he was. He was Beast Trewlove—only he wasn’t. He was supposed to be Benedict Campbell. He appreciated that everyone held their tongues, didn’t bombard him with questions, gave him time to realign his thoughts.

  “I’ll try to make a long story short. My parents are Ewan and Mara Campbell, the Duke and Duchess of Glasford. I’m their only son”—he shook his head—“their only child. Heir to the dukedom.”

  “Bloody hell,” Finn said quietly. “You’re nobility. Legitimate.”

  “Apparently so, yes.”

  “How do you know they’re your parents?” Gillie asked.

  He felt as though he was abandoning her, leaving her as the only one who knew nothing at all about how she’d come to be.

  “I’m the spitting image of him, and the duke and I”—Beast waved his fingers by the right side of his head—“it seems this is a common trait in the family.”

  “You don’t seem very happy about all this,” his mum said gently.

  “To be honest, it’s an upheaval in my life. It’s like a storm that comes in and changes the shoreline. Some of it is the same, some is gone, and some is just different. I haven’t quite sorted it all. They want to visit with you. They want me to return to Scotland with them for a few weeks, until they come back to London for the Season.”

  “You’re a Scot?” Aiden blurted.

  He’d intended to be methodical in the telling, giving them all the important details. Instead, he was omitting things. “Born in Perthshire.”

  “Why did they give you away?” Fancy asked.

  He gave up on keeping the long story short and shared with them all the duke and duchess had told him.

  “Christ,” Aiden muttered when he was done.

  “Your language,” Mum admonished.

  “Sorry, Mum, but Christ. I thought this sort of intrigue only happened in books.”

  “I wish that were the case.”

  “You’re going to make a wonderful duke,” Gillie said.

  “I know Glasford,” Thorne said. “Not well, but we have crossed paths. As I recall he has other titles. I assume he’ll give you one as a courtesy.”

  “Earl of Tewksbury.”

  “So now we have to call you my lord?” Aiden asked.

  “Only if you want me to hit you. I don’t want anything here to change.”

  But even as he said it, he knew everything would.

  The following afternoon Beast sat at his desk while Jewel read over the document he’d handed her.

  Earlier, he’d taken the duke and duchess to visit with his mum. The camaraderie between them was instantaneous, perhaps because they’d showered his mum with gratitude for keeping him safe, and she had expressed appreciation that he’d been one of her lads. They’d wanted to hear tales from his childhood, and she’d been only too happy to accommodate their wishes.

  As he knew all the tales, he’d bid them a farewell in order to see to some business that needed to be tended to before they left on the morrow. Tonight his mum and siblings would be dining at the duke and duchess’s residence.

  With confusion in her eyes, Jewel shook her head. “It says the building is mine. Why are you giving it to me?”

  “I’d always intended to when it was time for me to move out. That time has arrived.”

  “But why?”

  “Do I need a reason?”

  “I’d feel better about accepting the gift.”

  “Because you’ve taken care of things here. You deserve your dream of having a boardinghouse.”

  She scooted up to the edge of her chair. “I don’t want a boardinghouse. I only chose it because it sounded respectable. I want this place to be for other women what it was for me: a haven. But they’ll have to understand that if they’re staying here, they can’t be spreading their legs anymore. So many women don’t have a choice. I did. I chose to do it. I chose when to stop. But that second choice—I had it because you’d given me a place.” She held up the document. “Now you’ve given me another.”

  “I like your idea of not having a boardinghouse. I’ll designate all the profits from one of my ships to always come to y
ou so you have the means to run it.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Jewel, you’re carrying on what I started. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

  “What if we call it the Sally Greene Refuge for Tarnished Ladies? Within these walls we’ll polish them up.”

  He gave her a tender smile. “I like that.”

  After he and Jewel completed their business, he went to his room and stuffed what little clothing he had into a cloth traveling bag he’d purchased before returning here. He tossed in his shaving items and his brush. Glancing around, he saw nothing else he needed. His most precious items, the timepiece, the miniature of Thea nestled in its cover, and the match safe, he always carried with him. All else could stay. He was going to miss the place, miss the people. But an earl could hardly reside in a former brothel.

  He couldn’t imagine living with his parents, although their residence was large enough that he could go days without seeing them. Perhaps he’d purchase or lease his own. He hadn’t yet decided. He knew only that he could no longer reside within these walls.

  He’d asked Jewel where he’d find Thea, so it was with certainty that he knocked on her bedchamber door.

  When she opened it, he was surprised to see the blue shadows beneath her eyes as though she’d gone without sleep, the slight swelling of her lids as though she’d wept. He didn’t want what he had to say to her to echo down the hallway. “May I come in?”

  She moved back. He set his bag down in the corridor before striding in and closing the door behind him. She stood only three feet away, but she might as well have been in France for the distance that stretched between them. He held a package toward her. “The remainder of your salary and the extra for reaching the three-month deadline.”

  When she opened it, she’d find the additional thousand for his not teaching her to be a temptress. If he told her now, she’d object, and he didn’t want to argue about it.

  “Why give it to me now?”

  “I wanted things settled between us before I leave for Scotland tomorrow. We’ll return in early March, just before Parliament begins its session.”