Beauty Tempts the Beast (Sins for All Seasons #6) - Lorraine Heath Page 0,120

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 you so