Royal Bastard (Instantly Royal 1)

“No.” The earl shook his head, something that looked a lot like regret pinching the corners of his mouth. “That’s what I was.”

Gone was the man who’d met Nick the day he arrived at Dallinger Park, the one who argued about fireplace mantels and our kind of people. He’d been replaced by someone with a grayish tint to his skin, weary lines suddenly appearing around his eyes. The man aged at least ten years before Nick’s eyes.

“I’ve never liked change,” the earl went on. “I like the old ways. The sure ways. The ways that make sense.” He swirled the last dregs of whiskey in his glass, the amber liquid sloshing from side to side; then he downed it. “That’s not an excuse, just an explanation. So when my son and heir ran off to America and got married, I was incensed. That wasn’t done. It. Just. Wasn’t. Done. But he had done it. I was younger then, more sure that I knew all there was to know about how and why the world worked. There were our kind of people and everyone else. To an extent, I still think that way. I’m too old to go changing completely.”

“Yeah, you’re just a beacon of tolerance and newfangled thinking,” Nick said, finishing off his own drink.

“No one would ever describe me as thus, but your father was. He always had new ideas, plans, options—they seemed never-ending to him. A more curious man I’d never met. Until I read the investigator’s file on you. You’re a lot like him, you know.”

Nick snorted, trying to cover the instant unstoppable feelings of yes and no fighting it out in his chest by aimlessly walking around the room and checking under the dust-covered sheets. “Let me know how and I’ll change it.”

“You both have an innate need to help others.”

“He sure didn’t help Mama and me.”

The earl sighed and glanced over to the desk littered with old letters and framed photos of a family that never existed in Nick’s memory.

“I didn’t give him a choice,” the earl said, his voice weary. “Go and his wife and child would be taken care of financially in perpetuity. Stay and he and his new family would be cut off completely. I made sure to let him know that I had connections everywhere. I could make it so he’d never be gainfully employed, could never provide for his family. Then I reminded him of his duty to Dallinger Park, to the family, and to the people of Bowhaven. He had a simple choice, I explained: return home and everyone got what they needed. Stay and no one would.”

Each word of the earl’s confession pierced Nick like an acid-tipped ice pick. “And people called me the bastard.”

“He was only back for a year when he died in a car crash.” The earl looked at his empty glass like he could will it to be full again. “I kept up the checks to your mother. Never told her of his passing. The letters kept coming until one day, they didn’t anymore. I thought it would be easier for everyone that way.”

“And when my mother died, you figured you’d dodged a bullet.”

The old man gave a noncommittal shrug. “And now, I’ve come to the point in my life when my list of glaring errors and miscalculations are longer than the time I have left to correct them. But I thought with you, if I could just bring you here, explain what had happened between your parents, that—”

“All would be forgiven?” The question came out like ground glass, leaving him bloody on the inside.

“I suppose so, yes. Making you my heir was just an excuse to get you here. The real reason I did it was to make you my grandson. I guess I’m still the selfish bastard I’ve always been.”

Trying to process everything the earl had just unloaded was making his brain swim. Everything he thought—everything he knew—had been suddenly ripped away like one of the dusty sheets covering the furniture in the study that had to have been his father’s. Who hadn’t wanted to leave. Who— It was all too much, so he welcomed the fury that poured over his confusion like lava.

“I’m flying out in the morning.”

The earl nodded, as if this had been expected. “Will you be back?”

“No.”

“I see.” The earl stood and walked over to the desk. “Ms. Chapman-Powell will be disappointed.”

The image of her in the pub’s back courtyard telling him to go flashed in front of him. “I doubt it.”

“Pain and fear make us say horrible things sometimes.”

“That woman’s not afraid of anything.” No matter what, she just kept going, refusing to give even an inch.

“Oh, we all fear something. You know that well.” The earl gathered up the letters from the desk and held them out to Nick. “These rightly belong to you now. You should take them with you.”

“What should I do with them?” The words came out in a snarl even as he took the letters that crinkled in his grip.

“Read them. Understand that whatever dark and dismal fairy tale you created as a hurt and confused boy to explain what happened to your parents, the truth was a different story. Maybe then you’ll understand, William.”

It was the last thing Nick wanted. He knew the truth already and the whys didn’t matter. “I don’t want to understand him.”

“Understand who?

” the older man asked as he looked around the room, his moves jerky and unsure.