Royal Indiscretion, chapter 30 (Patreon)

Doing a bit of fanfic seems to have done the job. I found it much easier to then work on the profic without the depression I’ve been struggling with dogging my steps.  So, here is the new chapter.

Yves held his phone in his hand and took several deep breaths. He had stopped calling the duke about the time he’d figured out that he would never please the man. Calling him now felt more than a little masochistic. He seriously hoped this helped his aunt.

He took several deep breaths, straining to pull air in until his lungs ached. He could do this. He could. And if he didn’t act, Doug’s life would be ruined simply because he had the bad luck to treat Yves with a little human kindness. 

Afraid of waiting too long, Yves dialed the familiar number—not to his father. No. He didn’t have the Duke’s direct number. He dialed the duke’s office. On the second ring, a familiar voice answered.

Yves feigned a calm he didn’t feel as he said, “Hagan, I would like to speak to my father.”

Hagan didn’t bother pretending to look for Yves’s father. “The Duke is not available right now.”

“Oh, I have no doubt he would like to be unavailable,” Yves said dryly. Now that Yves understood the source of the Duke’s discomfort with his youngest son, Yves had no doubt that he would like to be permanently unavailable. “I read the newspapers and I can guess who gave them the story about Mr. Wasso.” Hagan started to respond and Yves spoke louder. “So whether the Duke would like to be available or not, I am going to talk to him. The question is whether I'm going to talk to him over the phone or whether I'm going to come down there. Just think of all the side trips I could make if I were to travel south.” Sadly, Yves was already thinking of the places where he could buy drugs.

“You are being unreasonable.”

“I am,” Yves agreed. “It’s a family trait. Feel free to tell my father we share that.”

That caused a long pause. No doubt Hagan was waving at subordinates, showing them notes, trying to plot the best way to handle an errant young lord. Yves waited. “No matter what anger you might feel or what you think the Duke may or may not have done, none of it is worth risking your sobriety,” Hagan eventually said.

“Yes, because I'm going to take advice from you. You are the Duke's mouthpiece, so I am just as angry with you. In fact, I assume you're the one that made the call to the reporters. The Duke made the decision to ruin Mr. Wasso, but it was your voice that wielded that weapon. You can admit now.”

“I cannot reveal what I have or have not done as part of the Duke’s staff.” That was pure Hagan, as formal and proper as always.

“Of course you can't,” Yves said with infinite derision. “The I was ordered to defense. How unoriginal. Just in case you didn't know, being ordered to be a horrible human being is no defense against the charge of actually being horrible.”

Again, there was a silence. “Have you been drinking?” Hagan asked.

“I haven't. I'm just so angry that I no longer care what you think. Now, get my father.”

“He may not be able to come to the phone.” Hagan sounded uncharacteristically hesitant now.

“Then he can come to the phone and tell me that he can't come to the phone.”

Yves fully expected Hagan to call him out on that bit of illogic. Instead, after another awkward silence, he said, “I shall see if the Duke is available.”

“Excellent. You do that.”  

A mechanical tone meant the call had been put on hold, and Yves was filled with a strange sense of elation, a power that he had never felt before. It might be a dull imitation of the sort of jubilation he got from drugs, but at least this feeling wasn't going to wear off, leaving him with a horrible headache and no money. 

Rather, it would leave him suffering from the Duke’s anger and a severe reduction in life choices. Hopefully the Duke would not retaliate against Nick, but his dogs were in demand across the globe, so Nick could handle himself.

Yves, on the other hand, had a long and storied history of not taking care of himself. He stood at the end of a long line of failures, but hopefully Doug's publicist could teach him how to turn his family name into an asset that he could leverage. At least until he could learn to make a living another way. He didn't even know how people made money, other than the obvious professions: teacher, doctor, lawyer, politician. 

And then there were servants, not that Yves had the ability to do that sort of work. But whatever happened, he would figure something out. Either that, or he would be homeless. He understood there were many people who survived homelessness, and at this point, he was not convinced that homeless was a less pleasant option than returning to the Duke’s house. The phone line buzzed again and Yves braced himself.

“Yves.” His father's voice was cold and sharp.

Yves addressed him in a matching town. “Duke Gerard.”

“Do not speak to me in that manner.”

“Why not?” Yves put on a tone of confused innocence. “Do you truly expect that I will show you respect after what you have done?”

Again, silence filled the line. However, this time Yves could hear pen scratching across paper. The Duke was far less stealthy than Hagan. Eventually he asked, “And what is it I am supposed to have done?” The Duke’s voice had a dangerous edge now. No wonder Lady Anne worried about Yves safety. Now that Yves knew that his father had killed, his temper had a new edge. Or maybe Yves had simply been oblivious up to this point and everyone else had already seen the sort of person he was.

“I believe you know,” Yves said. He tried to keep his tone even, but fear nibbled on him.

“I would like to hear about my supposed sins from you.”

“You destroyed Doug Wasso’s reputation.”

The accusation elicited a sharp burst of laughter from the Duke. “Are you truly distressed about an American?”Yves stood straighter. He should should be inured to the Duke’s disrespect at this point, but he felt the tone like a knife.

“He's a good man.”

“He is a common American footballer. You are a count, a royal.”

“I am a decent human being who does not want another man ruined simply because he committed the crime of being nice to me. That's no reason to destroy a man's reputation.”

The Duke’s chuckle made the hair on Yves’s arm stand up. “I have done nothing to your precious American.”

“So is it coincidence that you enlisted Mr. Wasso’s assistance in getting me to give up my title days before someone leaked a story to the press proclaiming him a homophobe?”

“There is no evidence that the two events are linked, assuming that the events are even real outside of your drug-addled mind. Why would I want to take away your title?” The Duke was getting sloppy. Yves heard the shift in tone; the Duke cared about this answer.

Yves felt the ground shifting under him. His father was trying to figure out how much Yves knew. The Duke's relieved laughter at ease accusation suddenly made sense. He had assumed Yves was calling about his murdered mother. That meant someone in King Alphonse’s court had given the Duke some information, but they hadn't overhead the conversation.

It was the twenty-first century, and Duke Gerard was still playing royal court games that were more appropriate for the Middle Ages. Well, Yves had grown up reading about those games, and he could play them as well as his father.

“I can think of any number of reasons you would want my title. Did you know Doug Wasso and I visited the King? Mr. Wasso has wonderful ideas for how to turn the castle up here into a first class resort that will be in demand by the richest and most powerful people in the world.” Yves let his tone go up until it verged on hysterical. “My land is sitting in a place that has natural beauty and historical significance. This could become a place that people paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to stay in, and there is no way that Mr. Wasso is the first one to realize that this land is in a unique situation. There's no development. There's no town. There is nothing to interrupt the pure natural beauty, the view of the storm-swept sea and the northern lights. There is nowhere that can compare, and once that castle is renovated, the person who owns this land is going to have friends among the richest and most powerful people in the world. You can't stand that the person who will benefit will be me. It's my land. It's my title. I will never give either of them up to you for anything.” Yves stopped, afraid he had overplayed his hand.

He shouldn’t have worried. The Duke’s low chuckle suggested he believed every overly emotional syllable. “What fantasies do you have in your head? You were always like that – unrealistic and immature. No wonder you turn to drugs. There is something wrong with your brain if you think anyone wants that land or that castle.”

“And that’s why you hired Mr. Wasso to talk me into giving up my title? I should have told the king about that. Maybe I’ll go back and tell him.”

“I never hired Mr. Wasso to do anything. Of course, were I too want your title, it would be to protect you from all the bad decisions you've made. Not only have you brought incalculable shame upon this family, but your proximity to power and money has allowed you to turn yourself into a common drug addict.”

“Yes, and you had nothing to do with my choices,” Yves said sarcastically. It felt freeing to say all the things he'd always wanted to. He didn't need his father's love, and he could say that now that he knew he would never earn it. Now he had no reason to even try to earn the Duke's favor. “You raised me.”

“Governesses and nannies raised you, and clearly not well.”

“And you are the ones who hired them. You were responsible for the raising of your children, and you clearly did a poor job of it.”

“Your brother and sister—”

Yves cut him off. “Were largely raised by Duchess Martha. Left on your own, you are incapable of raising a child. That's what people think when they look at me. They look at me and say, that poor Duke Gerard. Without his wife his home certainly fell apart.”

“Do not speak the Duchess Martha's name,” Duke Gerard snapped.

“She's my mother, I will speak of her any way I wish,” Yves shot back, practically daring his father to contradict him. “And you will not destroy Mr. Wasso’s life over this. The charge of homophobia is a serious one, one that can cost him his career. Just because he chose to bring me the plans with the castle is no reason to destroy the man.”

His father gave one of his patented sniffs—the universal expression of looking down on others. “I don't have to destroy Mr. Wasso. He has enemies of his own. Perhaps one of them gave the press these stories.” He paused. “Or perhaps your relationship with him grew difficult. Perhaps you told the press that he had verbally attacked you in order to get revenge on a lover who abandoned you, and now you regret turning on the American. After all, some men won’t have much use for you beyond the novelty of sleeping with a royal. Maybe you didn’t learn that lesson with young Lord Sava. I don't know what is happened with you and Mr. Wasso, nor do I care.”

“Well I do care.”

“Beware how far you push this new attitude of yours,” Duke Gerard said in a cold tone that Yves knew too well. This was the tone he used right before he broke some treasure Yves valued, or right before he took away some privilege that Yves desperately wanted. This was the voice that had informed Yves that he would not be allowed to go with his brother to the boarding school because he was not worth the fees. A year ago, the tone would have sliced through Yves’s soul, but righteous indignation had strengthened him.

“I will push it as far as required to get you to reverse this course of action with Mr. Wasso.”

Yves could practically feel the danger oozing through the phone line. The silence was so intense that Yves could hear the Duke breathing and count the inhalations. They were oddly out of sync with the pounding of Yves’s heart. After a dangerously long silence, the Duke said, “If you are not respectful, I will send Hagan up to close that land and put Nick and those dogs and you on the road.”

“You wouldn't dare,” Yves said. He didn't have to fake the tremor in his voice. He knew that Nick would find another kennel in hours. He probably already had plans. After all, the Duke had a reputation for being a bit of an asshole, and Nick didn’t trust humanity. However, Yves didn’t want his actions to make Nick’s life more difficult.

“I most certainly would,” the Duke said with unvarnished glee. “I will not have a drug addicted urchin threaten me. You are not my social equal and you will not address me as one.”

Yves let his breath grow ragged. He wasn’t faking emotion as much as he was allowing years of repressed feelings to bubble up. He knew his father could hear the shake in his voice. “This is between you and me. It has nothing to do with Nick, no more than it has anything to do with Doug.”

“Doug.” Duke Gerard spat the name out. “He used you, and that fairy tale about the castle was the lure he used to trick you into his bed. You have always so soft, so foolish. Well, let me make this clear. Either you watch your tone, or those around you will suffer your lack of manners. Maybe that's the only way I can get through to you since clearly you do not care about propriety or family. But your friends… You seem to care a lot for your friends. Rudy Sava, Nick, and now this Mr. Wasso. Your friends means so much more to you than your family.”

“When one looks at my family, is that difficult to understand?” The bitterness was genuine.

“You have been blessed with one of the greatest families in the world, and you continually spit on the reputation and honor of this family.”

“This family has no honor. You've all but destroyed Mr. Wasso’s life and now you're going to threaten Nick.”

“This is a simple conditional statement of logic. If you do not stop this behavior immediately, you, Nick, and those dogs will all be out.” The phone went dead. Only once his father had hung up the phone did Yves realize that he had started shaking.

Giving his father a sense of his own authority had been part of the plan. Yves didn’t understand the plan, but he trusted that his aunt had some scheme in mind beyond giving Yves one more chance to feel small and powerless. His finger itched with the need to do something. Instead of following his urge to escape into chemicals, Yves headed out into the brisk summer night. The dogs would be settled into their kennels, and Yves needed to bury his fingers in thick fur.