Royal Bastard (Instantly Royal 1)

“Is he mad?” The earl crumpled the latest in a long line of overdue invoices littering the top of his desk that no one knew about besides herself and the earl. “Does he not realize the significance of that fireplace?”

The earl stormed out of the room before she could explain the she had indeed told him that Queen Victoria herself had gifted the mantel to Dallinger Park. The pinch of annoyance around the earl’s mouth had been a near-exact replica of the one Nick had displayed when she’d informed him that the fireplace clogged up several times a winter. That was one of the many reasons why they didn’t open the house to paying visitors, as many of the other great houses in Yorkshire and across England had done to help finance the expense of running them. The main reason, of course, being the earl’s steadfast refusal to admit the funds were desperately needed.

She really should go out there and run interference between the two men. Calming things before they went to roaring level with the earl and whomever he was furious with wasn’t written in her job description, but it might as well have been. Still, she lingered in the room, taking a long look out the window at the spires of the village church barely visible in the distance. Tourists coming to tour the big house and leasing it out for movies and television would mean an increase in revenue for the pub, the sandwich shop, the weekend market on high street, and the local inn. If only she could get the earl to understand, but he hated change and was committed to pretending that it could always stay the same in their tucked-away hamlet. She wouldn’t be surprised if part of it was the need the earl had to exert control over his domain while he still could. The ghost of dementia making its presence known.

No matter what the reason for the earl’s attitude, though, that didn’t alter the facts. Something had to be done—and soon—or it would be too late for Bowhaven, McVie University, and Dallinger Park.

Straightening her shoulders with a sigh, she headed out into the hall where things, no doubt, were about to reach a boiling point.

…

Nick put the hammer down on the coffee table in front of the fireplace after delivering home the final blow to reattach the mantel and faced off against his grandfather. It was weird to think of the truly pissed-off man in front of him as that, but less weird than thinking of him as a ticked-off earl. The title thing was just…odd.

Gramps’s face was granite hard and just as impervious as he started in on Nick again. “When Queen Victoria—”

“I know, I know,” Nick interrupted, his palm stroking the carved surface of the mantel that could really use some quality time with wood oil, mentally adding it to his list of shit to do so he didn’t lose his mind in this worn-down museum. “She gifted this beautiful mantel, but it’s not going to do a damn thing for the place if it burns down around it because this wreck of a place goes up in flames.”

Frustration bloomed like a Virginia sunset on Gramps’s face. “You will not refer to your ancestral home as a ‘wreck of a place.’”

“But it is.” How could the man be in this much denial? “The wiring’s a mess. You’re losing a ton of heating through drafty windows. Maintenance needs to be done.”

“It’s not your place to do it,” the other man said with imperial finality.

That tone of voice had always gotten Nick’s back up. It was the same one the adults at the group home had used and that the judge had used when he’d handed down his decision to send an angry, grieving teenager to that dump. And why had he ended up there? Because of Earl Head In the Sand, who stood right in front of him as if he was lord of the manor. Which, technically, he was. And someday it would be Nick, if Gramps had his way. Not gonna happen. Lucky him, now was the perfect time to rub his face in that bit of fantasy.

“According to you, that’s exactly my place, or should I be watching it inch toward total dilapidation like you are?”

Brooke let out a little gasp from her spot on the other side of the coffee table where she was observing the spectacle like a woman driving by a car wreck. He didn’t like that. Usually she was ballsier than this, calling him on his shit and demanding he pay attention to all her how-to-be-an-earl lessons. As soon as Gramps appeared, though, she’d fallen into her subservient role. Sure, she was a pain in his ass in her Lady Lemons guise, but he did not get this deference to someone who was supposedly better than her because of an accident of birth. The English were weird.

Gramps walked over to the mantel, caressing the wood with his age-spotted hand. “Don’t be impertinent.”

“Really? That’s what you’re going with here? Calling me impertinent?” Shit. If he was the type to get his feelings hurt by names, growing up being called a bastard repeatedly from the age of five on sure would have left him curled up in a ball on the floor. It hadn’t then and it wouldn’t now.

After assuring himself of the mantel’s still-pristine condition, the older man turned and addressed Nick in a tone that reeked of upper-class snobbery. “People of our class don’t do manual labor.”

“Well thank God I’m American and not a classist asshole above doing what needs to be done.”

The vein in Gramps’s temple bulged as it beat out a fast rhythm and he narrowed his eyes. Nick prepped for the blow. It would be verbal, but Nick could take whatever the man who’d helped break his mama’s heart dished out. Bring it on, old man.

Instead of firing off a bomb, though, the other man made a sharp turn to face Brooke. “Ms. Chapman-Powell, your services will no longer be needed at Dallinger Park. I see that you aren’t up to the task of taking responsibility for my heir.”

Brooke’s blue eyes went wide and a little watery.

Oh hell. This was not where Nick had been going when he’d pushed every one of Gramps’s buttons that he could reach.

“I never agreed to be your heir.” The words shot out, redirecting the older man’s attention back to him and away from the woman whose shoulders had sunk.

“One doesn’t have the choice when it comes to one’s family.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Brooke take a step toward the door. He could just imagine the talk down in the village when they found out that the local try-hard got fired. Fuck. The woman was as tightly wound as a clock spring about to snap, but despite the resistance to her ideas from Gramps and the locals, she was dedicated to Dallinger Park and Bowhaven for some reason he’d yet to figure out.

“You get rid of Lady Lemons—I mean Brooke—and I’m on the first flight out of here.”

The words just sort of came out. He wasn’t sure which of the three of them was more surprised at the pronouncement. Brooke’s jaw dropped. Gramps’s stiff upper lip disappeared into a thin white line.

“Are you blackmailing me?” the old man asked, the first to find his voice.

He didn’t see any reason to deny it, even if he had no clue why he was doing it. “Yes.”