“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 appreciationthat 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 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.”
“I’ll move out.”
“No need. I’ll no longer be residing here.”
“Where will you live?”
He shrugged. “I don’t yet know. I just know it can’t be here.”
