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Convenient?

Could such a blessed thing be arranged?

Suddenly finding the well-thumbed documents before him of acute interest, Mr. Philibius Oswald cleared his throat. “But you, my lord, are indisputably the next in line. I informed him as much, unequivocally. You needn’t fear he’ll supersede you.”

“How did he take it?”

“I beg your pardon?” From the solicitors gaping jaw and buggy eyes, Broden might have asked him when he’d last swived.

“Was he upset?” He was in no temper to dance around the point or use flowery phrases.

“Naturally, he was—ah—somewhat nonplussed.” Oswald chose his words with obvious care. “But, I believe, he understands the rules governing ennoblement, the letters patent, and the specifics of the remainder are beyond our control. Which is to say, he cannot inherit as long as you are alive.”

Och, well, there went that idea all to piss.

Broden didn’t miss the pinched expression tightening Oswald’s thin face as he admitted that fact. The Englishman assuredly would’ve preferred his countryman inherit the title, rather than an uncouth, lowborn Scot of questionable comportment and an even more questionable liking for the English.

“His name?” he asked, tempering his impatience.

But only just.

“Mr. Edwin Archibald Wiggins McGregor.”

Pompous. Traditional. Unimaginative. A worthy Sassenach name except for the family surname, that was. McGregor, after all, was a derivative of the Gaelic MacGriogair. Scots through and through, no matter how much Oswald would prefer it otherwise.

“He attended Oxford,” Oswald added with the merest haughty sniff.

La de dah.

“He’s well-traveled and already acquainted with several members of the peerage,” the attorney droned on as if listing Edwin’s stellar attributes ought to impress Broden.

Or did Oswald prattle on to jab a particular point home?

To demonstrate how much more Edwin was qualified for the title?

As Broden didn’t give a hog’s teat about Edwin Archibald Wiggins McGregor, not even to pity the man his unfortunate third name, Oswald’s intentions missed their mark.

“Ye dinna say?” Each word dripping with sarcasm, he schooled his features into a false expression of suitable admiration. “He sounds like a paragon of society.”

Och, I’ve been to England and France, and I count a half dozen Scots lairds as my friends. I dinna suppose the skinny turd cares about that, though.

“Mr. Archibald McGregor is an investor.” If Oswald lifted his nose any higher in self-importance, he might well drown when he left the house.

If that meant Broden might be free of the mammoth burden just dumped upon him, he could be persuaded to look the other way and permit the man to suffer the consequence of his arrogance.

That thought brought him reluctantly ’round to the matter at hand once more.

He was an earl. And, by Odin’s toes, he very much didn’t want to be.

Mouth cinched into a grim, unyielding line, he leveled the solicitor a steely stare.

“Pray tell me, Mr. Oswald, why I am just now learnin’ of my change in circumstances via this?” Broden jerked his hand up, uncurling his fingers around the mashed missive with its dangling black ribbon and seal-imprinted crimson wax. “My predecessor died over a year ago.”

Oswald, a gangly fellow, all lanky arms and legs and spindly fingers flicked a disinterested look at the balled paper before bringing his keen, hazel gaze up to scrutinize Broden’s features. He examined him for an extended moment, taking in his soiled and mended work clothing, scuffed boots, unkempt and unbound hair, and beard-stubbled face as if searching for something.

For what?

“You do bear a vague resemblance to the late earl.” He wiggled his twiggy fingers near his angular face. “In the angles and bone structure of your chin and jaw, though your physique is much more…ah…,” he lowered his assessing gaze to take in Broden’s shoulders and chest, “robust.”