When I heard someone clear her throat, I turned around to find Ms. Cartwright standing directly in front of me.
“Is that Wren Whittaker, or should I say Kennedy King?” she asked, looking beyond me to the table where Wilder and Wren were seated.
I leaned down and got right in her face. “Who she is or isn’t, is none of your bloody business. You report one word about anyone in the Whittaker family, and I’ll see to it that you’re imprisoned for treason—that’s if I can’t manage to kill you first.”
I backed away, folded my arms, and waited for her response.
“Okay, okay. You don’t have to be so threaten-y. You know I found out through Darrow.”
Darrow. Wilder’s younger sister and my former “girlfriend.” Although with as many times as we’d been on and off and then on again in the last few months, it was hard to keep track of which we were at any given time.
“Have you found her?” Ms. Cartwright asked, bringing up yet another subject I had no intention of discussing with her.
“No comment.”
“Off the record, then. You know she and I have been mates since primary school.”
The concern I saw in the woman’s eyes was genuine enough that I shook my head.
“She’s been gone a week’s time now, right?”
To be precise, it had been ten days since Darrow Whittaker disappeared from her residence on the estate that had been in her family for generations, five days since I found her, and three days since she disappeared again, only this time with my help.
Of course I couldn’t talk about any of it with someone outside of her family, especially not a reporter.
“I know how upsetting this must be for you.”
I looked down where her hand rested on my forearm, growling as I wrenched it away. Having concern was one thing; gumshoeing was another.
“The ice you’re walking on is exceedingly thin. I suggest you turn around and leave of your own volition, unless you’d prefer I toss you over my shoulder and carry you out.”
“Wait, I have another—”
I leaned my shoulder into Ms. Cartwright’s stomach and wrapped my arm around the back of her knees. As threatened, I tossed her over my shoulder and carried her out to the pavement.
“What are you doing?” she screeched, pounding on my back. When she tried to kick her legs, I tightened my hold.
I made eye contact with one of several agents also at the pub to bid farewell to Wilder and Wren, who nodded in acknowledgment as I unceremoniously set her feet-first on the pavement in front of the pub.
“Go home!” I spat, turning to go back in. I heard her shout at me to wait, but I ignored her.
Once back inside, I needed a minute before joining the party. I pulled out a stool at the bar, ordered a pint, and took a deep breath. Not the smartest thing I could’ve done, given the beguiling reporter’s scent lingered on my skin.
“I’ll take a whiskey,” I said to the barmaid.
“Looks like you need a double,” she responded, setting a glass and the bottle in front of me.
With such close proximity to Vauxhall Cross, otherwise known as SIS headquarters, the pub’s staff were trained not to ask questions of their patrons. They did, however, seem to innately know when one of their regulars needed an extra shot or, in this case, two or three.
It wasn’t this specific run-in with Ms. Cartwright that had me rattled. I could handle the reporter side of her. It was the female beneath the ink slinger’s tough exterior that got under my skin.
I tried my damnedest not to look at her pouty, bee-stung lips or let myself think about how much I wanted to lick off the bright-red lipstick she wore.
I raised the glass, inhaling her scent again as I tossed the drink back. The woman smelled like none other I’d ever known—as mysterious and provocative as spicy and floral.
Today her long sandy-blonde hair was pulled back from her face in a tight bun. She wore a dark-colored pencil skirt that skimmed her knees, a loose-fitting white silk blouse that did nothing other than accentuate her mouthwatering curves, and the sexiest damn black heels I’d ever seen.
Having her in my arms, albeit slung over my shoulder, almost did me in. I longed to take her home, strip her bare, and linger over every scrumptious inch of the body that so regularly invaded my dreams.
“Bugger me,” I muttered as I had when she walked through the door earlier. Esland Cartwright wasn’t just an annoying reporter on my beat, she was one of Darrow’s best mates, and that meant hands off.
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The Commoner and the Correspondent
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The Lord and the Spy Page 19
