Page 9 of Loving Graystoke's Heir

As she waded into the main area of the room, one of the men managed to drag his focus from the television and the women’s soccer game on the screen. He gave her a smile and a half-nod before he turned back to the screen.

Tamsin bit the inside of her cheek to calm herself before she spoke.

“Gentlemen? I’d like to know who’s in charge here.”

The man closest to her jerked a thumb at the man beside him and muttered something she couldn’t quite hear, but he remained seated, watching the screen.

“Sir?”

“What?” He didn’t even bother to turn around.

“I’d like to talk to you.”

The action on the screen intensified and a goal was scored earning groans from two of the men.

Stepping up behind the couch, she tapped the man on his shoulder. “Sir-”

He sat up, pulling away from the back of the couch, and turned to glare at her. “What?”

“I need to speak to you.”

The man in the armchair at the far end of the sofa laughed at her. “You’re interrupting our game.”

“I’m here on business.” She nailed the man with a look that would have sent some men walking in the opposite direction.

He answered back with a leer. “You’d keep me busy enough.”

The man in charge had better sense.

His features set into some semblance of a professional air. “You’re the Ellery woman.”

She kept her eyes steady on his face. “Tamsin Ellery, yes. And you are?”

“Me?” He gave her a smile that told her they were far beyond the niceties of an introduction. “I’m in charge.”

She shook off her instinctive need to demand a real answer at that moment. She wasn’t used to being the ‘hot head’ in any situation. Tamsin was usually the one struggling to ease the tension in a room, but this was about Donal. She wanted answers more than she wanted to keep within the narrow lines of polite conversation and etiquette. “I need some answers.”

He shrugged. “You came a long way for nothing, you know. We can’t find your man.”

“I’m not exactly sure how hard you’ve looked.” She moved further into the room and looked over the shoulder of one of the men and saw him diligently working at some kind of a game on his phone. “Level Seventy-Two. Looks like you’ve been working on this a lot.”

He barely spared her a glance before turning back to his game.

Moving closer to the television, she tried to meet the eyes of the rest of the men. “I’m here to join in on the search. I’d like to know where you’ve looked.”

At a gesture from the man in charge, the tablet was set down on a coffee table and the man who had to put his game on hold crossed to the bar to pour a drink from a cut-crystal decanter.

While he was pouring, she got another unsatisfactory answer. “Everywhere.”

Getting to his feet, the man in charge took two of the glasses offered to him and held one out to her. “You should have a drink with me. I can be quite entertaining.”

Tamsin wasn’t going to be distracted. “I want any information you’ve uncovered in your search. Surely you have a map or a grid laid out.”

“Surely,” he mimicked her tone and the others chuckled along with him, “you don’t think such things exist in this little corner of the world.”

“I know that you’ve been paid for your services for quite some time, but I’ve seen no evidence of reports or proof of your efforts. I’ll need that going forward.”

“Forward?” He brought the glass to his lips and tipped it so the amber liquid poured into his mouth. With a deep swallow he tossed the glass to one of the other men. “What will that entail?”

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