Free Royal Brit Bastard: a badboy stepbrother romance by Alice May Ball

very old fat folder full of papers. I said to Roger, “But, why on earth would Father have wanted to destroy the papers.”

    He said, glumly, “I can think of only one reason.”

    He took a pull on his port and cognac. “He’s desperate to prove that I’m a bastard. He would surely only want to get rid of the papers if they proved that I wasn’t.”

    I said, “And then you would be able to inherit, come what may.”

    He put his hand over mine, “But there’s no way on God’s green earth that you and I could ever be together.”

    When Whithers handed over the papers, Roger pulled them from the folder. Some ofthem looked incredibly old. With astonishment, he read, “It says here that Roger Percivant O’Cock, the first Lord Wimbush was a bastard.”

    “Really?”

    “O’Cock’s father had him with a lady from the tavern as his wife ‘would have none of him,’ according to this.”

    He snatched another paper from the pile and said, “So was the second Lord, it seems.”

    “I didn’t think that was allowed. Is it?”

    He looked sadly at me, “Tradition is that it happens, so long as nobody makes a fuss.”

    I pulled out a paper. “Hey, so was this one.”

    He said, “This one, too.”

    After a diligent search of the records, we discovered that every single one of the Lords of Wimbush up to the twentieth century was the son of the previous lord and a servant girl, somebody else’s wife, or in one case a “lady of the court,” all the way up until they reached the present lord.  

    He, it turned out, had been the product of a union between the former lord and the wife of a Russian attaché.

    “Now,” Roger said, wearily pulling out last two clipped pages, “Here’s me.”

    He read both sides of the pages in baleful silence. I asked him, “What does it say?” but he held up his hand as he went back to the start and began to read them again. He was quiet as he read, slowly.

    “Well?”

    He looked dazed as he stared around the room. Then at Wimbush. Then at me. “WELL?” I demanded, “Was Hardforth your father or not?”

    “No,” he said, “He was not.”

    “So,” I sagged. All this way, all that we’d been through and all of it for absolutely nothing. “So you aren’t a bastard after all.”

    “I am.” A confused mixture of a smile and a look of wonder lit his face, “Aren’t I, Whithers.”

    “You are, son. You most certainly are.”

    I spun around to Whithers, “Whithers?” I stared, “Whithers! So, you?” he nodded gravely, “And so, you and Lady Clarissa…?”

    “As was, Miss, yes. Spectacular woman she was. Still is to this day, I’d be willing to bet.” And he dabbed his white glove under his eye.

His strong hands held me and I was where I wanted to be. The fact that it happened also to be on a thick, fluffy four poster bed in what would eventually be our fourteenth century English estate was just a bonus. But him. I felt so close to him, like I really could get what I’d panted and pined after, all these years.

    As I stretched up to nuzzle my nose into his unfamiliar chin, his pulse deepened and quickened against my soft, squashed breasts. We had never been so physically close. I couldn’t stop touching him. And he couldn’t stop touching me.

    “You’re not my brother at all.” I kissed him, long, soft and deep and he crushed me to him.

    “And you’re not my sister,” he kissed me so warmly, so completely. “sis.”

    “You’re not even my half brother. Not even my step brother, really.” I kissed him again and licked and nuzzled his neck.

    “And you’re a fake sister. An imposter.” The beat of his heart and the pump of the blood in his throat made me sigh and pull him closer to my body.

    His hands came slowly, naturally to life. His breath, his lips found mine and I opened for him. Then, as our mouths joined and our tongues danced; our bodies knew the moment was here. We were free at last.

    “You,” I said, rubbing