Royal Bastard (Instantly Royal 1)

“He’s going to be the next earl,” she said in a harsh whisper—not that the entire pub wasn’t listening in on this exchange.

A quick look around confirmed just that. Only their dad at the other end of the bar seemed to not be hanging on every word.

“He’s also a man,” Daisy said, her voice carrying over the buzz of the other patrons’ chatter leaking in from the beer garden. “A very good-looking one.”

“He’s not just a man, he’s my bother,” Brooke grumbled.

“How’s that?” Riley asked after tapping the top of Daisy’s hand so she wouldn’t miss his question.

Then they both turned expectantly to Brooke. Bloody hell. Why did she have to open her mouth in the first place? There was no avoiding it now. Daisy was undefeatable when it came to getting the information she wanted. Sighing, Brooke traced the Quick Fox logo carved into the bar before giving in to the inevitable.

“Because I’ve been tasked with teaching him how to become a proper earl.”

But first she had to convince the aggravating man to stay. Not that anyone else needed to know that. Why add to their worries?

“And what do you know about becoming an earl?” Riley blurted out with a laugh. “You’re a publican’s daughter.”

“Yeah,” Daisy echoed after Riley repeated his words while she was looking at him. “But she’s as rigid as one of the toffs.”

“And bossy.” This from one of the regulars at a table nearby.

The bloke’s mate piped up. “And a know-it-all.”

Some days, she wondered why she didn’t just march out of the village and never look back. Okay, so she had a lot of ideas to improve Bowhaven and everything in it. Ideas that she wasn’t shy about sharing with others. Repeatedly if necessary. Did that make her wrong? No. She didn’t mean to rub people the wrong way; it just sort of happened. It always had. She’d get them to see her way one of these days, and when she finally did, wouldn’t they look at her differently when she came in the pub. They’d greet her the way they did Megan “Everybody Loves Me and My Psycho Dog” Page: with warm smiles and a hearty hello. Until then, she’d keep pushing away at it until she mowed them down with her brilliance and they’d realize that there was more to her than being the pushy Chapman-Powell sister.

“I have some good ideas,” she said, watching as her dad, who always seemed to know when his eldest was feeling down, started back toward their end of the bar.

“That you won’t ever stop shoving down our throats,” Daisy retorted.

Riley brushed Daisy’s hand so she turned and then said, “Like that idea for a regional pigeon racers festival.”

Annoyance bubbled in her chest like a fizzy drink. “Which was a brilliant idea.”

“Of course it was, poppet,” her dad said as he moved down. “Just not one anyone wanted to take on.”

She looked around at the people she loved most in all the world, who were looking somewhere else, obviously not wanting to add anything to her dad’s sweetly worded pronouncement. Okay. Fine. She had a new project to deal with anyway. One that was out in the beer garden playing with little wooden blocks instead of grasping ahold of his destiny—and that of Bowhaven’s—with both his big, strong hands. Not that she’d been ogling. That just wasn’t done, even if Daisy wasn’t entirely wrong about the idea of not kicking him out of bed if there were scone crumbs in the bedsheets.

…

Nick rubbed the back of his neck after eavesdropping on that exchange and tried to work out what in the world was going on here. These were the people Lady Lemons cared so much about that she was willing to get all wound up about him giving the earl the old heave-ho?

It didn’t make sense.

If anyone gave him even a partial side-eye, he was gone before they’d had time to blink. That’s what happened when a person had years of learning from shitty personal experience that they now put into action. Yet here she was, facing down a group of people who may love her but sure as hell didn’t believe in her. Instead of telling them to fuck off, she just screwed up her mouth and stared them down.

His plan had been to waste as much time as possible at the pub’s beer garden, figure out who he could hit up for a ride to the airport, and then get the hell out of Bowhaven. His feet declared an audible, though, and he was headed for the bar before his brain even had a chance to catch up.

“What in the world is this pigeon racing you’re talking about? Is that a euphemism? Weird British slang for car racing?” he asked as he bellied up to the bar close to Brooke before anyone could say anything else.

She startled like a tabby cat suddenly confronted with a demon-possessed lawn mower. Her hand went to the dip at the base of her throat. What was that called? He had no clue but was inspired to find out as long as he got to do some up-close-and-tactile research.

“How does someone your size move so quietly?” she asked.

“Years as an international spy. I can kill a man with only my thumb.” He flexed the digit for effect.

She rolled her eyes. “You watch too many movies.”

“And you still haven’t told me what pigeon racing is.”