Royal Bastard (Instantly Royal 1)

…

True to his word, Mace arrived the next day in the first rental car in a caravan of small buses and vans that drove down the high street and caught the attention of every villager in town. Nick was fixing the wonky fryer at the chip shop when the first strains of grinding gears filtered in through the open window.

“Do they not have manual transmissions in America?” Paul, the chip shop owner, asked as he peeked out the window at the parade of cars making their way in jerks and fits up the street.

Nick shook his head at the sight. “You mean stick shifts? Yeah, we have them, but not very many.” Another groaning protest from one of the cars’ gears sounded and he turned back toward the fryer. “Okay, so I’ve upgraded you so you’re on an automatic timer that will lower the basket at the touch of this button and lift the basket out when the time is right so you can take orders and still check and make sure everything’s done to your liking.”

Paul gave the contraption now attached to his prize fryer an assessing look. “So no more having to fish them out from the big vat of fat? Or dealing with the splash back when I drop them in there because all I have to do is hit the button?”

Nick nodded. “You got it.”

The shop owner rubbed the tips of his fingers, shiny from the aftereffects of minor grease burns and gave Nick a rare Yorkshire appreciative grin. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“How about you tell me more about your dog’s habits.”

As if the corgi knew he was the center of a discussion, the little beast began to prance around in the cordoned-off section of the kitchen closest to the door leading to the fenced yard and farthest away from the fryer. Still trying to work out the kinks in the voice-calming doggie collar, he’d gotten a few names from Brooke of villagers with dogs who hated to be away from their owners. She’d recommended Paul, who had a fryer problem that had been the perfect distraction to stop Nick from thinking so much about Brooke since that kiss. He’d been planning to wait, to get her to admit that scratching the itch that had them both so out of sorts wasn’t just a good idea, it was the best idea. However, something about the quiet intimacy of that dinner in front of the cold fireplace, the fact she’d trusted him enough to tell him the story about that asshole Reggie, and her sweet falling all over herself after she thought she’d poked some mythical wound in his psyche had gotten to him. And he’d repaid her by kissing her—giving in to the want gnawing at him that hadn’t gone away. So here he was, a man in a chip shop trying to put a woman out of his mind by diving into any work he could find.

“Webster’s a good boy,” Paul said, dragging Nick’s attention back to the distraction at hand. “But he gnaws on the table leg a bit while we’re gone.”

The dog, obviously thrilled to be discussed, was doing that waggle thing only corgis could do that made their butts vibrate.

“That’s why you take him to work?” Nick asked, trying not to

laugh at the dog’s excited antics.

“Yep.” Paul nodded. “He’s right as rain whilst faffing about in the little garden back there as long as he can see me through the glass in the door and hear my voice.”

“Have you ever left voice recordings for him when you leave?” There had to be something in that experiment that he was missing; he just couldn’t put his finger on it.

Paul looked at him like he’d just swallowed a handful of dirt. “Can’t say that I have.”

“Would you try it out for me?” Okay, it was a weird request, but he needed to figure this puzzle out. He grabbed the ancient tape player/recorder and cassette he found in the village secondhand shop from the table next to the fryer. “Just for a few days and let me know what happens.”

“What am I supposed to say to him?”

Nick shrugged. “Whatever you want. It’s just your voice that matters. I’ll come back by in a few days to find out how it went.”

“I’ll give it a go,” Paul said, taking the player-recorder as Webster did the wiggle-waggle thing in front of the door leading to the yard.

Nick left Paul tossing a ball in the yard with Webster behind the chip shop and made his way toward the Fox. He’d barely had to get the door open to confirm that he’d find Mace inside. The place was packed with locals and strangers who had to be movie folks packed in together like sticks of gum in a new pack. They weren’t kidding about Americans being loud. The volume in the pub had gone up significantly, but no one seemed to mind. Even the old dudes who camped out at the table by the bar like the grumpy guys in the balcony in the Muppet movies were smiling. The possibility of financial security tended to have that effect on a person. He could speak from personal experience. The difference in the set of his mama’s shoulders when she walked in the house on payday as opposed to a week later was always noticeable.

“Dude!” Mace hollered across the pub and then bolted up from his seat and marched over.

They did the man-hug thing where there was lots of extra-hard clapping on each other’s backs, but Nick couldn’t deny that it was good to see his buddy from the bad old days again. Since Mason lived in California and traveled with the movies he was tied to, they didn’t get to see each other much. Their chess game before he’d left for England had been a stop in for a few days between locations.

Once they made it back to the bar and each had a pint in their hands, Mason gave him a grin and raised an eyebrow. “So this is the place that kidnapped you.”

“Village-napped,” Daisy corrected, unabashedly following the conversation in the mirror. One sassy wink later, she grabbed three pints and headed down to the other end of the bar.

Nick followed her progress. Of course, that meant he got to scope the premises for another blond Chapman-Powell. His gaze hit on her immediately. Brooke stood on the other side of the massive Riley, who was always near Daisy. As soon as their eyes locked, her fingers went to her mouth, brushing across her lips as if she was haunted by that kiss as much as he was. Red bloomed in her cheeks and she dropped her hand to her pint, gripping the handle with white-knuckled intensity. Someone was definitely hot and bothered by the kiss. Good to know he wasn’t the only one.

“So we drove by the house,” Mace said, seemingly oblivious to the by-play in the mirror. Too bad Nick knew better. The man never missed a damn thing. “According to what I could see from the road, it’ll be perfect. Agnes Groves and Carter McDavies—or McPain in the Ass, as we call him—will be here tomorrow.”

“They’re the leads?” Nick took a drink of his stout, unable to look away from Brooke, who refused to return his gaze again, and somehow ended up setting down an empty pint glass.

“Yeah, it’s a small but well-funded project. The director’s a real up-and-comer. Give her a few years and she’ll be bringing home the golden statues and purple dragons in tutus.”

By the time the ridiculousness of Mace’s statement hit, it was too late. Nick’s ass was roasted and he knew it. He shook his head and looked down at his refilled pint (thank you, Phillip, the best bartender ever).