Royal Bastard (Instantly Royal 1)

Brooke flipped it open and scanned the paper on top, one detail jumping out and making her pulse tick up. “He’s American?”

The earl looked back out at the moors. “One of many unfortunate realities about Nicholas Vane. He’s legitimate but only just. He has refused to speak to the investigator. He earns his living as an inventor, but according to that report, he spends most of his days lounging about. He has no sense of propriety.”

Her stomach sank. “And how would you like me to approach him?”

“The how is not my concern,” the earl said, somehow managing to make his upper-crust accent sound both dismissive and threatening. “The only thing that matters is that you ensure my heir is at Dallinger Park and prepared to be the next Earl of Englefield within a month. According to the solicitor, we need to have this entire unsavory process completed as quickly as possible in order to ensure I’m able to testify in court about the validity of his parentage, if it is challenged in court. Should that happen after I have…” The earl paused, his gaze turning back to the moors as if there was a better future out there than the one he faced inside Dallinger Park. “Progressed by then, there’s no way to guarantee the outcome for Dallinger Park, Bowhaven, or McVie.” He turned back to her, his eyes as clear as his intentions. “But absolutely nothing about my condition is to be shared outside of this conversation with anyone—including my grandson. Do you understand, Ms. Chapman-Powell?”

She nodded. Of course he wouldn’t want anyone to know about his health. In addition, she worried that if anyone found out, his fortune and the town’s health could be in jeopardy, so this was an easy secret to keep. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He sat down behind his desk. “You are dismissed.”

Gripping the folder in her clammy hands, Brooke walked out of the study, unable to shake her suspicion that getting sacked may have been the easier way out.

…

25 May

Dear Mr. Vane,

I apologize for this missive coming via email. However, after you refused inquiries posed in person by the Earl of Englefield’s solicitor and investigator, I have been forced to resort to this method to extend an invitation to your family’s ancestral home, Dallinger Park. The earl, of course, will cover all transportation costs, if that is part of your concern in not responding to our many overtures. Your grandfather is most eager to introduce you to society as his heir.

Faithfully yours,

Brooke Chapman-Powell

Personal Secretary, Earl of Englefield

Sitting out on his front porch outside the small town of Salvation, the lake on his left and some Virginia woods on his right, Nick Vane hit the trash-can icon on his phone a little harder than necessary. The electronic crumpling was loud enough to drown out the leaves waving in the breeze and the birds chirping at the squirrels, but it wasn’t enough to sweeten the bitterness burning in his gut.

Turning his gaze, if not all his attention, back to the chessboard sitting on a buffed and varnished stump next to his chair on the porch, he shook his head at the mess he’d made of things. If he didn’t start focusing, Mason was going to hand him his ass—and that couldn’t happen since it would be months before he could earn back bragging rights. Nick nudged a pawn forward, not noticing until it was too late that it had been suicide for the defenseless piece.

Mace picked up Nick’s pawn and set it down on the floor near his beer. “Don’t tell me your latest girl canceled via email and threw you off your game.”

Nick snorted. “We both know that’s not likely.”

“I know,” his friend said, rolling his eyes. “It’s not your fault you’re so pretty.”

“You forgot rich and relaxed,” Nick shot back, making his move and then sat back relaxing in his chair as he pushed all thoughts of his asshole grandpa to a dark corner of his mind.

“You left out ‘pain in the butt,’ too.” Mace picked up one of his bishops and slid it right into one of Nick’s rooks, a shit-eating grin on his face. “But I thought we were trying to be nice to each other.”

Fuck. He was off his game if he hadn’t seen that move coming. “Why would we ever do that?”

“Exactly. So you keep being distracted by whatever has your panties in a twist and I’ll keep beating you per usual.”

There wasn’t any point in trying to deny the question Mace was asking without asking. The man was as nosy as a gossipy old woman. Also, he was the closest thing Nick had to a brother. They’d arrived at the group home as teens within months of each other. At first, being friends had just been survival. By the time they both left at eighteen, though, they were brothers in all but DNA. So, keeping a secret? Yeah, not gonna happen.

“It was another message from my grandfather—really, h

is secretary.”

Mace picked up his beer and grabbed an unopened one out of the small cooler next to the stump and handed it to Nick. “The old man still hasn’t reached out himself?”

“Better things to do with his life, I guess—not that I give a shit.” Nick twisted off the cap and took a drink. “After what that asshole did to my mom, there’s no way on God’s green earth I’ll ever answer to a damn thing that man asks.”

“Why now?” His friend moved his knight forward one and over two. “He’s the dickhead who refused to acknowledge you or let you live with him so you wouldn’t have to go into foster care.”

Nick shook his head. Maybe if Mace hadn’t been so distracted by trying to get Nick to talk about his feelings (as if that was going to happen), he wouldn’t have left his king vulnerable to attack.