The Misplaced Prince[COMPLETE]

The Heir Presumptive

Twenty three years later...

They called him the most beautiful man in all of London.

They also called him a bastard.

Joshua Dashwood, heir presumptive to the third Earl of Rochester, was a tall, six and a half foot man with midnight coloured hair and blazing golden hued eyes and a complete disregard for people's opinion, which was as unlike the short stout earl he had been born to as night was to day.

It had been his budding good looks—those that had inspired any number of novelist to model heroic knights and even more dashing villains after him—that had raised speculations from as early as his childhood as to whether the toady looking late Earl Rochester had really sired him, rumours which had culminated to fiery explosion when the late Earl's wife had taken to her deathbed rambling about her husband and claiming—or confirming, as some people whispered—that that boy had not been born of her flesh. She had wailed about how she had painfully endured hushed accusations of an affair all her life with quite forbearance. Moreover, she had claimed madly, that he had no relation to the earl either, not that many people were surprised. Gleeful, yes, but not surprised.

That boy, Joshua Dashwood, had stood quietly by the deathbed as she had pointed an accusing finger at him, fourteen at the time, his face stoic so that no would could gauge the effect the words had on him.

Having been the ramblings of a mad woman, they stood no test in court, despite the current Earl of Rochester and Joshua elder brother's assiduous tries. However, unlike the court, the ton and the rest of the London didn't need evidence to doubt what they felt within their very bones.

Joshua just didn't belong.

Twenty three years old he was now, and every path he took was followed by whispers of speculation. It was almost a sport, wondering about him. Women threw themselves in his path—he partook with a grin and wink—but never, no matter how people tried to dig deep, did they get too far with him. He never let them.

Growing up with a mother who loathed him and a brother who had been bitterly jealous, hadn't made for a man who easily trusted. He had been burned enough times to know better.

But what darkly amused Joshua was how it consumed the masses to find out where he came from, something they thought speculating, digging, and baiting him would answer. As if a fountain of truth awaited within him to be tapped.

When he didn't even know it himself.

He had probably been left squalling by a dumpster, he often imagined, and the Earl of Rochester—the only kind person in his life, despite the nasty way people described him—had probably come upon him and decided to take him home.

A terrible decision, if his ruined life henceforth was any indication.