The Lord and the Spy Read online

  The Lord and the Spy

  Heather Slade

  The Royal Agents of MI6 Book Two

  The Lord and the Spy

  Copyright © 2021 by Heather Slade

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN: 978-1-953626-33-2

  Contents

  The Lord and the Spy

  Part I

  1. Wilder

  2. Wren

  3. Wilder

  4. Wren

  5. Wilder

  6. Wren

  7. Wilder

  8. Wren

  9. Wilder

  10. Wren

  11. Wilder

  12. Wren

  13. Wilder

  14. Wren

  15. Wilder

  16. Wren

  17. Wilder

  18. Wren

  19. Wilder

  20. Wren

  21. Wilder

  Part II

  22. Wren

  23. Wilder

  24. Wren

  25. Wilder

  26. Wren

  27. Wilder

  28. Wren

  29. Wilder

  30. Wren

  31. Wilder

  32. Wren

  33. Wilder

  34. Wren

  35. Wilder

  Epilogue

  Want more?

  The Commoner and the Correspondent

  About the Author

  Also by Heather Slade

  The Lord and the Spy

  Part I

  1

  Wilder

  “Cor blimey,” I muttered when my secretary announced my four-thirty appointment had arrived.

  I’d picked up the phrase up from Wellie, the head groundskeeper at my family’s estate in Bedfordshire, and I’d make no apology to anyone for using the cockney expression. Alcott “Wellie” Fulton was one of the finest men I knew, and anyone who judged him differently could be damned.

  “Sir?”

  “Right. Sorry. Um…I’ll just be another minute. Tell whomever it is to wait in the vestibule.”

  “I don’t think so,” said the woman who waltzed in and sat on the edge of my desk.

  “What in the bloody hell?” I muttered under my breath.

  “Wren Harlow,” she said with an accent that sounded straight out of Texas, holding out her hand as though I was expected to shake it.

  Instead, I leaned back in my chair and studied her.

  “Well, ain’t you as pretty as a Georgia peach?” I said in my best Southern drawl.

  “Wrong part of the States, Mr. Whittaker, but you said I was pretty, so I won’t criticize your accent too much.”

  “Remind me why you’re here, Miss Harlow?”

  I caught the eye of my secretary standing in the doorway, looking panic-stricken. “What’s wrong, Mrs. Udele? You look as though you’ve swallowed a cockroach.”

  “Nothing, sir,” she answered, clearing her throat and leaving my office.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Now you’ve gone and upset poor Mrs. Udele. Shame on you, Mr. Whittaker.”

  “As you can see by the pile of files on my credenza, I am a very busy man, Miss Harlow. So if you’d please cut to the chase, I’d appreciate it ever so much.”

  “I’ll do so over dinner.”

  I sat back in my chair in the same way I had when she first walked in. “I’m previously engaged.”

  “Change your plans.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “You don’t have any idea who I am or why I’m here, do you?”

  I thought about looking at my desk to see if Mrs. Udele had left me a note as to why I was meeting with Miss Harlow, but the pretty Texan would likely call me out on it, so I didn’t.

  “As I suspected. Well, Mr. Whittaker, I am here on behalf of the United States Department of Homeland Security.”

  That’s right. Now I remembered. She was here to talk to me about Matthew Caird, currently being held at Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh on several murder and terrorism charges.

  While the powers that be at Secret Intelligence Service headquarters agreed that Caird was more a deranged sociopath suffering from borderline personality disorder who had it out for my family specifically, the US DHS refused to relent. The bomb he’d planted in California at the home of two former CIA operatives and current contractors for the agency, meant America wanted their pound of the man’s flesh.

  Miss Harlow’s task was to extradite Caird to the States for crimes he’d committed on their soil. It was my job to convince her otherwise and to keep the wanker imprisoned here in the UK.

  “I don’t know what you consider the appropriate time for dinner in your part of the world, but in the UK, we’re barely out of teatime,” I said.

  “I can wait.”

  I opened the calendar on my laptop. I had nothing scheduled for the rest of the day, although I had planned to meet up with a few mates for drinks later.

  “Whatever your intention may be, Miss Harlow, I can assure you that a cocktail and a decent meal will hardly sway SIS in their intransigence, nor me. Caird not only killed several of our best agents, his actions specifically targeted my family. The mere planting of a bomb at a California beach house pales greatly in comparison.”

  “As I anticipated, you haven’t been briefed about his other crimes.”

  I sighed. As far as I was concerned, the woman’s reason for being in my office was inconsequential. SIS would never give in, no matter what Matthew had done, didn’t do, or planned in America.

  However, spending an evening looking across a table at the gorgeous woman whose luscious behind was currently planted firmly on the corner of my desk might not be the worst way to kill a handful of hours.

  I scribbled an address on the back of my calling card and handed it to her. “Give this to the doorman when you arrive. I’ll be waiting in the bar and will instruct him to escort you inside.”

  Miss Harlow raised an eyebrow, but I caught a quick glimpse of a grin. She should be smiling quite broadly, given where I was taking her this evening. The establishment at Five Hertford Street was typically a place solely for the likes of George and Amal Clooney, Sir Paul McCartney, or a member of the British nobility—which I was.

  2

  Wren

  I, Finley “Wren” Harlow, had been chosen very specifically for the assignment I was currently undertaking. According to my superior at DHS, there was no one on the team as efficient or fastidious—just like my code name indicated.

  However, the government hadn’t given me the nickname that became used universally in my line of duty. It was my father who’d first referred to me by the name of the active little bird whose symbolic Celtic meanings include abundant activity, vibrancy, and alertness.

  “A wren is never seen resting on her laurels,” he’d told me when I graduated first in my class at the University of Virginia. “See to it you aren’t either.”

  I hadn’t been, either before that day or after. One was only as good as the result of their last mission, which meant I had no intention of lowering my reputation with a failure on this one or any other.

  Sutton “Wilder” Whittaker had been on my radar since I began working for the United States Government. His older brother, Thornton “Shiver” Whittaker, former MI6 and now retired as a duke, was far more well known. It was Wilder, though, who had always intrigued me.

  I’d heard through the intelligence grapevine that SIS was trying their hardest to get him to switch over to their international unit, Section 6, but
so far, he hadn’t moved. I wondered if Wilder had turned the job down primarily because of the man I was there to extradite. Tonight I intended to find out.

  Whittaker stood, perhaps waiting for me to do the same, but I wanted to see what he’d do if I didn’t. He didn’t disappoint.

  The swoon-worthy, handsome agent leaned all six feet three inches of his powerful body on the hand he placed on his desk almost close enough to touch my bottom. He moved so I could see his eyes which looked almost black from a distance, were really brown with flakes of gold and green. His wavy dark-brown hair had strands of blond and maybe even some gray mixed in. But mostly, his scent—a mix of sandalwood, citrus, and something else that smelled almost of aristocracy—filled my nostrils with an undeniable want.

  Without needing to reach, I could slide my hand inside the folds of his jacket and run it over what I knew were the rock-hard pectoral muscles in his chest, then to his powerful shoulders, and up to cup his cheek and run my finger over the smirk on his lips.

  “I’ll see you at eight, Miss Harlow,” he breathed, moving closer to me still. “In the meantime, think long and hard about how you want this to play out.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Just because they call me Wild doesn’t mean I don’t know how to be subdued, controlled, even civilized. Although, I’d far prefer it if you chose adventurous, entertaining—even titillating.”

  “It’s just dinner, Mr. Whittaker.”

  “It stopped being ‘just dinner’ the minute you walked into my office. You know it as well as I do.”

  3

  Wilder

  Without as much as a backwards glance, Miss Harlow left my office, leaving only the faint scent of perfume in her wake.

  I smiled. The Texan bird had a hell of a battle ahead of her. Even if the case against Caird weren’t personal, even if the entirety of the SIS stopped fighting his release, the UK had been lamenting the joint extradition agreement with the US since it went into implementation in 2007. Most citizens who were even aware of the treaty called it horrendously one-sided because it allowed the States to extradite UK citizens and others for offenses committed against US law—even when the alleged offense may have been committed in the UK.

  Additionally, the level of proof required to extradite from the UK to the US was minimal and certainly not reciprocated.

  Miss Harlow may have a treaty in hand and what she believed to be a compelling argument; however, the days of the UK submitting to US demands merely because they shouted louder were long over.

  “Mrs. Udele,” I said through the intercom.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Please see if Sir Ranald is available. The matter is urgent.”

  While the man most in the intelligence community knew as Rivet had been ready to retire over a year ago, he’d had no luck securing his replacement, and until he did, he was stuck.

  To further complicate matters specific to Miss Harlow’s mission, the man she was here to secure, Matthew Caird, was Sir Ranald “Rivet” Caird’s adopted son.

  It got worse. Matthew’s biological father was none other than Duke Andrew Charles Thornton Whittaker, aka my father.

  Last January, when our half brother had tried to kill Shiver, Darrow, and me—shortly after the duke passed away—the duchess had to confess her role in instigating the union between Sir Ranald and Matthew’s mother, a woman named Anna. Why Rivet had gone along with it remained a mystery.

  “Sir,” said Mrs. Udele, clearing her throat as though coming to my doorway and speaking to me wouldn’t be enough to get my attention.

  “Yes,” I responded without looking up.

  “Sir Caird.”

  I stood and shook the hand of the man who entered my office, moved a pile of files from a chair, and sat down. I sat too and studied him. The last year had taken a toll on the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service.

  “How are you, Riv?” I asked anyway.

  “Bloody knackered.”

  “Understood.”

  “Have you made any headway with your caseload?” he asked, eyeing my pile of papers.

  “Not really, sir.”

  “Quit with the ‘sir’ crap, Wilder. Your mother asked me to remind you that she’s expecting you for dinner tonight.”

  “Bugger,” I muttered, pulling up my calendar. “I put it on the wrong bloody day.”

  “Unless you’ve been summoned by the queen, I don’t recommend you shirk the duchess’ invitation to dinner. What are your plans?”

  “Agent Wren Harlow has descended on behalf of the US Department of Homeland Security. I’m to have dinner with her this evening.”

  Rivet put his chin in his hand and brushed his lower lip with his finger. “Well, then. You can hardly invite Miss Harlow to join you at the Kensington flat.”

  “Beg me off, Riv, I implore you.”

  “Can always say the DG summoned rather than Her Majesty.”

  “I heard that.” In my doorway stood Archer Alexander, Director General of MI5—the United Kingdom’s domestic security and counterintelligence agency, and my current boss.

  “No getting me in a fix with the duchess, Riv.”

  “What are you doing tonight, Z? I’m sure if I drag you along, Victoria will hardly notice her missing son.”

  Z closed the office door and pointed at me. “From what I’ve heard, I should upset his plans instead.”

  “How’s Wild’s replacement coming?” Rivet asked.

  “That’s why I’m here, actually.”

  Both Rivet and I raised our heads.

  “I’d like you to have a chat with Agent Marietta.”

  “George?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Z smiled. “She’s more than qualified.”

  We’d initially called Leighton Marietta “Georgia,” but it was quickly simplified to George. Z was right about her qualifications, and my hesitancy to think she could take my place spoke volumes about a misogynistic attitude I hadn’t realized I possessed.

  I hung my head. “As Wellie would say, I’ve right gone off my trolley.”

  Both Rivet and Z laughed, and while I had intended it to be a joke, there was a part of me that knew it wasn’t the slightest bit funny.

  “I’d be happy to meet with Agent Marietta. Shall I reach out to her?”

  Z and Rivet both raised a brow.

  “He was calling me ‘sir’ a bit ago,” Rivet told my boss.

  “I’d suggest a holiday, but there’s no time.”

  Rivet was pushing hard for me to move over to MI6, and once I did, I knew the man would push even harder for me to take over as chief.

  The job had first been offered to former MI6 agent Merrigan “Fatale” Shaw, who was now retired and living in the States with her husband, Kade Butler, a former Marine, CIA agent, and current owner of a private intelligence firm.

  Next in line after Fatale had been my brother, former Marquess and now Duke Thornton “Shiver” Whittaker.

  After our half brother had tried to kill him, Shiver announced his own retirement, much to the chagrin of Sir Ranald. Although he’d been forced to admit the very public title and dukedom would greatly hinder Shiv’s ability to keep a low profile as an agent or as chief.

  “Sutton?” said Z.

  “Sorry. Pardon?”

  “I was suggesting you invite Agent Marietta to join you and Miss Harlow for dinner this evening.”

  I hadn’t done a very good job of reining in my reaction when Z initially mentioned George, but this time I was prepared. I didn’t have an answer, but at least I didn’t look dim-witted.

  “You could always send George in your place and make the duchess happy by not missing dinner.”

  Unsure whether either or both of the men in my office were serious, I decided to remove the matter from their hands and talk it over with George directly.

  “Excuse me, gentlemen,” I said, standing, straightening my tie, and putting on the sport coat I’d removed shortly after the lovely Miss Harlow left.
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  The long walk down the hallway to George’s office offered me a few minutes to consider Z’s suggestion about this evening’s dinner.

  I could ask her to join Agent Harlow and me; however, it would more than undermine my plan to convince the woman that extraditing Matthew Caird was never going to happen.

  Once that was settled, I intended to maneuver the dinner in a definitively personal direction.

  Before Agent Harlow’s arrival, I would’ve questioned any suggestion that she was the type of woman who usually appealed to me. She was shorter than most I’d dated, and redheads had never held much appeal. However, there was something about the streaks of blond woven in with the softest ginger that made me want to brush the wisps of hair from her face when her bangs fell forward.

  Again, while she wasn’t terribly tall, when the slit of her deep-green wrap dress slid open just slightly as she planted her round and squeezable-looking tush on my desk, her legs appeared to go on forever.

  If I were to describe her looks in a general way, I’d most likely say she was cute. She had a wide smile, prominent and high cheekbones, and green eyes that sparkled when she thought, even momentarily, that she had the upper hand.

  It wasn’t her looks that drew me to her like a powerful magnet. There was something about her aura that registered directly and immediately with the male parts of my anatomy.