Royal Bastard (Instantly Royal 1)

…

Brooke had never wanted someone to answer and not answer the phone so much in her entire bloody life. No matter what happened, the outcome would be horrid. Blast her inability to function in the mornings.

She’d read the email no less than sixteen times before sending it because she knew exactly how faulty her brain was at six in the morning. An almost immediate phone call from the earl’s heir was the last thing she’d been expecting. After weeks of his silence, an actual response, let alone a voice on the other end of the line, was not what she’d imagined would happen. And she’d cocked it all up.

Hands clammy, she gripped her phone tighter as the trans-Atlantic ringing continued. Then he answered. Not that he said anything—but he was there. She just knew it.

She held her breath, trying to figure out what to say—something she really should have figured out before she’d hit call back. Really, it was most unlike her.

“Figured it out, huh?” The sleepy rumble of Nick Vane’s voice managed, somehow, to be soothing despite the fact that he was using it to torment her for her mistake.

“Mr. Vane,” she said, pacing her small bedroom. “I do apologize.”

A million times. Maybe even a billion. Too much was riding on this to have her morning muffle head make a mess of it all.

“What time is it there?”

That wasn’t a “you’re forgiven,” but he hadn’t hung up on her, so that was a tick in the plus column. “Ten past six.”

“That’s early,” he said, almost sounding sympathetic.

She was nodding in agreement when her brain caught up with what he was obviously getting at. It had to be around midnight there. That wasn’t sympathy in his voice; it was subtle sarcasm—her country’s native tongue.

Of course, he was the one who had called her when she had simply emailed like a civilized person. Being in the right didn’t mean she didn’t have to apologize, though. Nicholas Vane was the earl’s grandson and heir, and that meant she’d probably be apologizing for the next twenty years if she didn’t get sacked first. Oh joy.

“I look forward to being able to offer my apologies in person,” she said, not realizing until she glanced in the mirror above the dresser that she’d lifted her chin in defiance. “Do you have a preference on flights?”

“I’m not coming.”

Shit. Shit. Shit. Panic and dread did some sickening tango in her stomach as she glanced out her window and saw Bowhaven starting to come to life even at this early hour. The flower committee members were hanging baskets of floral arrangements from the posts dotting the sidewalk on the high street. Abigail Posten was opening the door to the bakery a few doors down. It would only be a matter of time before the smell of fresh bread wafted up to Brooke’s room above her family’s pub.

“Sir,” she said, making every effort to keep the worry out of her voice. Never let them see you crack, Brooke, not even for a minute, or it will be Manchester all over again. Utter public humiliation. Willing her panic into remission, she set her shoulders and steeled her spine. “I respectfully request that you provide another answer.”

“Ask all you like, but my answer isn’t changing.” He paused before letting out an annoyed grunt. “And stop calling me ‘sir.’”

She shut her mouth tight a half second before the word “sir” was about to come out, took a breath, and said, “I understand this all comes as a shock, since you were born and raised away from your family estate, but you are needed here, sir.”

Ugh. That one had slipped out.

“You make it sound like it was my mom’s choice to be a single parent and mine to be a bastard in all but legal terms,” he said, each word tearing through the phone. “And cut the ‘sir’ shit. I’m Nick. That’s it. Nothing more.”

Outside, Robert McClung was strolling toward the charity shop he managed that was, unfortunately, one of the busiest shops in the village. Bowhaven had been hit with one economic calamity after another since the Pepson Factory had closed down and unemployment went through the roof. Nick Vane staying away wasn’t an option. Every one of the people living in and around the village needed him here even if they—and he himself—didn’t know it.

“But you are more than just Mr. Vane, and if you’d accept the earl’s invitation, you’d understand.”

A derisive snort came through loud and clear all the way from America. “I don’t care why he forced my parents to annul th

eir marriage or why he now has decided to acknowledge me. I don’t need him. I certainly don’t want to talk to him. And there’s about a million things I’d rather do—including walking down Main Street buck naked while singing ‘Jingle Bells’—than fly across the ocean to see him.”

Brooke sank down on her bed, her legs not steady enough to stay upright.

“Please, sir,” she said, trying not to sound like she was begging when that was exactly what she was doing. “Think of it as just a short holiday. You really are needed, and not just by the earl, who is…” She stopped just in time. “Who is the earl.”

Yes, six in the morning—the time where competency went to die.

The fact that she couldn’t tell him more than that without breaking the earl’s confidence or his direct order ate away at her. Even estranged, the heir should know what was going on with his grandfather’s health. No matter what, family was at the heart of us all.

“Sir, the village is of some consequence. There are many here who, if you refuse, well, we—they—could be out of a job should you continue to refuse.”