The Miss Mirren Mission

by Jenny Holiday

  “Debaucher?” Catharine grinned, which went long way toward soothing Emily’s nerves.

  “I don’t want to get married,” Emily explained quickly, wanting to put the confession into perspective.

  “This is why you were asking about mistresses?”

  Emily nodded. “I just wanted a little experience.”

  Catharine sighed. “I suppose you picked the perfect man. He’ll be the model of discretion. But do you know how to prevent a child? Do you even know how it works?”

  Emily’s cheeks heated. “Yes, I have, ah, read some materials on the subject.”

  “God knows—”

  “Anyway,” Emily raised her voice to interrupt, “the point is, I have swum in this lake before, which is why I can attest to the fact that it is the perfect lake in which to learn. I’ll help you!” She willed Catharine to accept the change of subject.

  Catharine said no more, but pursed her lips as if to signal that the topic would not be dropped permanently. “When do we do this?” she asked. “I’m not submerging myself in this water when just anyone can walk by and watch me make a fool of myself.”

  “You’ll want to swim in just your shift—a dress will drag you down, especially when you’re first learning, so the dark is best. We can go tonight, after we retire.”

  Catharine smiled. “I do love an adventure.”

  After they dried their feet and packed the remains of their lunch, Emily said quietly, “You won’t tell anyone? About what I’ve said, I mean.”

  Catharine looked up from lacing up her boots. Her eyebrows shot up, as if she were shocked by the notion. “Of course not! What kind of friend would I be if I broke your confidence about such a private matter?” She stuck out a hand. “Help me up.”

  Emily did, grinning. As they walked toward the house, Catharine kept Emily’s hand, swinging their arms back and forth as if they were girls. As if they were friends.

  …

  Blackstone and Bailey were sitting on the terrace watching the moon rise when a note arrived summoning them to the beach.

  “Please tell me we can leave the ladies out of this,” said Bailey.

  “Of course, we won’t awaken them,” said Blackstone.

  “Good. I thought perhaps with all this, ‘She’s part of this now’ business, you might insist—”

  “She is part of this, and I intend to keep her informed, but that doesn’t mean she needs to be tromping through the night to intercept one of most dangerous men in the world.” Blackstone suppressed a shudder.

  He moved to the door, but Bailey remained where he was.

  “Are you in love with her?” Bailey asked quietly.

  The question hit him like a punch to the gut. “Of course not,” he managed after a few beats of silence.

  “Because you’re allowed to be, you know.”

  “Now is not the time to discuss this,” Blackstone snapped. “Le Cafard awaits.” He strode from the house, inexplicably angry, not caring whether Bailey followed.

  …

  Swimming under cover of night with Catharine was a lot less disquieting than doing so with Eric. As Catharine floated on her back, growing accustomed to the buoyancy of the water, Emily supported her, hands under her back.

  The darkness must have made it easier to talk, because Catharine spun the most amazing tale of having worked on a mission with Eric—by posing as a courtesan. The unexpected twist had been to meet James, the reformer who became her husband.

  “To think,” Emily marveled when her friend finished the improbable tale, “you were a spy!”

  “It’s not as glamorous as it sounds,” Catharine said, kicking her legs gently.

  “That’s what everyone keeps saying.”

  “Everyone?”

  Emily ignored the insinuation. “It must be very hard to work for Lord Blackstone.” After it was out, she realized how lame the statement sounded. It was apparent that she was looking for an excuse to talk about him.

  But Catharine seemed ready to indulge her. “It was indeed! He’s very…cold.” She chuckled a little. “Or at least he used to be.”

  The darkness made her brave. “You and Mr. Burnham—you have a love match.”

  Catharine smiled. “Yes.”

  “How did you know?” she asked. “That he was the one, I mean?”

  “It’s a good question,” Catharine said. “I found him very unsettling.”

  Emily laughed. “Unsettling? In novels, it’s always like meeting the other half of your soul. You’re supposed to know at first sight.”

  “It wasn’t like that at all! It was all very uncomfortable,” said Catharine thoughtfully. “I’d built my whole identity around being the kind of woman who didn’t get attached, who was unmoved by sentiment. I had a certain narrative about myself, you see, and I believed in it. And James upended everything.” She laughed.

  Emily felt a little stab of envy, but she shoved it aside. “You’re doing splendidly. I think you should turn over and add some arm movements.” Catharine righted herself and took hold of one of the dock’s posts as Emily demonstrated, propelling herself forward with an easy breaststroke.

  When she returned to the dock, Catharine said, “Do you love him?”

  Emily blinked, paralyzed by the question. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, she said, “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to marry.”

  Catharine opened her mouth just as they heard the sound of twigs snapping. The water magnified the unmistakable sound of footsteps.

  “Under the dock!” said Emily, and they moved beneath its shelter. Huddling together, they listened to the crunching of gravel under feet—feet that were getting closer.

  “You have to prepare yourself for the possibility that he won’t be on one of these boats. It’s a needle in a haystack.”

  It was Mr. Bailey. Catharine’s face relaxed.

  “We’ve been through so many haystacks already.” Eric. Just hearing his voice sped up Emily’s pulse. “It may not be this one, I grant you, but if not, it’s just a matter of waiting for him.”

  Emily prayed the men would not notice their discarded clothing. It seemed impossible that the sound of her heart, which thundered in her own ears, would not give them away. But the voices grew quieter as the men retreated.

  Catharine grabbed Emily’s hand. “We should sneak down to the shore.”

  “We can’t!”

  Ignoring Emily’s protest, Catharine pulled herself up the ladder and began donning her dress.

  Emily scrambled up after her. “What are you doing?”

  “This is the most excitement I’ve had in a long time,” said Catharine, turning her back to Emily in an unspoken request to button up her dress. “Everyone thinks being a reformer is so scandalous, but I tell you, it’s appallingly sedate.”

  “You can’t be thinking of going down to the cove!”

  “I am thinking of exactly that. We can watch from afar.” Catharine knelt and laced up one of Emily’s boots.

  She could not deny that the prospect was exciting. Without Manning here, there was nothing to fear. And once they’d exposed Manning, she would have to go back to her dull, respectable life in town. She’d already been intimate with a gentleman. What was one more adventure before she went back to her books?

  …

  As they made their way down to the cove, Blackstone tried to prepare himself for the possibility that there would be nothing but brandy and silk aboard these first boats.

  As they picked their way along the path, he could see Manning’s men lined up along the shore. A few torches lent the scene an otherworldly effect as they threw odd patterns of shadows on the rocky walls of the cove. Some of the men were unloading cutters that had already come ashore.

  The foreman walked over to greet them. “One boat has arrived. The other was delayed in port. We expect it tomorrow.”

  Blackstone registered Bailey’s sigh of displeasure and followed the foreman’s gaze out to sea. It took a moment to make o
ut two more cutters, which were not lit. The ship itself must be farther out, but it was too dark to see. He thought back to his one trip to France. When he’d been captured by Le Cafard’s men, he’d pleaded for them to turn him over to their master. All he’d wanted was to look his enemy in the eye. But his tormenter had been away from Paris—and now he was glad. If Le Cafard was on this boat, Blackstone would simply be the English aristocrat who had sold a piece of his soul for money. Because the Frenchman wouldn’t recognize him, he could be here personally to watch the bastard walk into his trap.

  The last cutter bumped up against the rocks. Two of Manning’s men waded out to meet it, and a sailor hopped off. Together, the three men guided the craft in as close as they could. Silently, Manning’s men formed a line and began unloading crates, passing them from one man to another.

  Blackstone glanced at Bailey briefly before returning his attention to the cutter. Just as he was about to resign himself to the fact that it bore only goods, a figure emerged from behind the line of men.

  “My God,” Bailey whispered. “Is it going to be this easy?”

  The man slogged through the water, head bowed. Judging by his greatcoat and top hat, he could be any English gentleman—which only ratcheted Blackstone’s anticipation up to greater heights. Surely a spy as slippery and talented as Le Cafard would chose his attire carefully so that he would look like any English gentleman.

  As the man crossed the last few yards to the cove, he looked up. “I wager you’re surprised to see me.”

  Disappointment ripped through his chest. Damn! He’d been so sure.

  “Next time,” whispered Bailey.

  “Mr. Talbot,” said Blackstone, not even bothering to stifle a resigned sigh. “You’re right, we weren’t expecting you.”

  “No one was.” He shook water off his legs. “I was on the continent trying to establish a new source to meet our demand for brandy. Our former supplier recently met with an…untimely end.”

  It made sense, Blackstone supposed. Talbot hadn’t been at the card game Bailey attended with Manning. But it rankled that Manning hadn’t even seen fit to mention that his son-in-law was abroad.

  “Negotiations went well. My father-in-law will be surprised to see me back so soon.” Talbot looked around. “Is he here?”

  “No,” said Blackstone. “He had urgent business in Bristol.”

  In the process of looking for Manning, Talbot’s attention caught on something in the distance. He narrowed his eyes and his face changed. “Poorly done, Blackstone. If you haven’t some explanation for this—some explanation that involves you having obtained a special license while I was gone—I’ll see you at dawn.”

  The man’s vitriol was sudden—and real. But how could he know about Emily? Was he even talking about Emily? Bewildered, Blackstone looked to Bailey, who nodded at a protrusion in the wall of the cove, a good thirty yards away. He watched an arm—no doubt Catharine’s—pull a familiar head of curls out of view.

  “Miss Mirren is like a sister to me,” Talbot said.

  “Mrs. Burnham, Miss Mirren! Please join us,” Bailey called, before turning to Blackstone “I think we’d better tell him the truth.”

  Blackstone almost laughed. The truth? Your unmarried quasi-sister-in-law is here under the shaky chaperonage of an almost fallen woman because she and I have formed an alliance against your wife’s father? Oh, and also? I’ve ruined her.

  “It’s about a school,” Bailey went on. “Mr. Manning won’t be pleased about it, but perhaps Mr. Talbot can be trusted to take a more liberated view of the matter.”

  Ah! The old school story! “I’m beginning to have my own doubts, truth be told,” said Blackstone, picking up the lie. “The idea was sound, but the pair of them!” He shook his head. “They’re like naughty schoolgirls.” Turning to Talbot, he said, “Mrs. Burnham, I can almost understand—she does have a reputation. But was Miss Mirren always like this?”

  Talbot tracked Emily’s progress as the women approached. If he noticed they both had wet hair, he didn’t remark on it. “She’s always been independent-minded.”

  Blackstone watched Catharine note Mr. Talbot’s presence. “Blackstone!” she exclaimed theatrically. “Are you a smuggler? How exciting!”

  “I can’t pretend to be pleased to see you here,” Blackstone ground out, and though he was performing for Talbot, it was not a lie.

  “We were out for an evening walk, and we heard voices.” Catharine’s innocent expression could have landed her a job treading the boards.

  “As you can see, ladies,” Blackstone said, “Mr. Talbot has seen fit to join us this evening. I’m afraid we’ve no choice but to tell him about the school.”

  “It was my fault, Mr. Talbot!” said Catharine, stepping between him and Emily as she smiled brilliantly. “It was my idea.”

  Catharine weaved an improbable tale of bringing a branch of her school to Clareford Manor. Emily was no slouch, either. She bowed her head in mock chagrin at the appropriate times and interjected the occasional indignant correction. He could almost believe the unlikely story himself. It was easy to imagine her turning her crusading heart toward the cause of educating the pauper children of Essex.

  Blackstone glared at the women, his irritation unmanufactured. “The question remains, why are you here now? We’re here at the estate to investigate the possibility of the school, but you’re supposed to be back at the house now, fast asleep.”

  He must have been convincing because Talbot moved between him and the women, even as they unleashed a string of apologies. When Talbot held up a hand, they fell silent.

  “Miss Mirren,” Talbot said, looking at Emily. “Do you know what I’m doing here?”

  Blackstone recognized the flash of panic in her eyes. She didn’t know how to answer. But before she had to, Talbot spoke again. “No. The answer is no. You don’t know what I’m doing here. You never even saw me here. Just like I never saw you here.”

  She nodded, eyes wide.

  “I’m not an idiot, Miss Mirren. I know you have radical tendencies. I might even share some of them myself, were the situation different. As it stands, though, I have responsibilities. I know you can’t approve of any of this, just like I can’t approve of Sarah’s closest friend being here with these…” He glanced back to Blackstone and Bailey and finally said, “Gentleman,” though the slow drawl he used to extend the word suggested he thought they were anything but. “The best way forward is for me to keep your secret and you to keep mine. Are we agreed?”

  “Yes,” she said. “We will keep each other’s secrets.”

  …

  “That was a near miss,” Catharine whispered to Emily as the group set out toward the house. Her friend seemed exhilarated by the events of the evening, but Emily just felt sick. Knowing they might have endangered the mission made her ashamed. They had been reckless. Just because Manning himself wasn’t present didn’t mean they needed to take unnecessary risks.

  Her primary concern at the moment was avoiding Eric. He would be angry, and rightfully so. She kept her eyes on him as he walked ahead with the men. Of course, she would eventually have to face his displeasure, but a night of sleep would cool everyone’s tempers. She owed him an apology, but she hoped she wouldn’t have to deliver it until tomorrow.

  Eric’s long strides set the pace for the men. He had a way of subtly controlling the people around him. He had been magnificent back there, striking just the right emotional tone to make Mr. Talbot believe his story. It was easy to see why he’d been so successful in his chosen profession—he was tuned into nuance and sensitive to the slightest emotional shifts. The more she got to know him, the more it hurt to think of him as a boy, alone on this big estate, painfully aware of his mother’s indifference.

  “Perhaps I should get back into spying,” said Catharine. “That was the most fun I’ve had in ages.”

  Before Emily could hush Catharine, Eric fell back from the men. Her heart skittered as he turned and stopped, wa
iting for them to catch up. His eyes found hers and stuck there. It was impossible to gauge his mood. The intensity of his gaze was like a physical burden, one that made continuing to place one foot in front of the other increasingly difficult.

  Though Emily couldn’t tear her eyes from Eric’s, she felt Catharine look between her and Eric. “Oh, my.”

  Only then did Eric shift his attention to Catharine. Expressionless, he extended an arm. “Mrs. Burnham, may I have a word?” Another of his questions that wasn’t really a question.

  Without another glance at Emily, he led Catharine ahead. “This was your idea, wasn’t it?” she heard him say. It seemed Emily had earned a reprieve, though the fierceness of his long, fixed stare just now assured her it was only a temporary one.

  As the pair caught up to the other men, Mr. Talbot glanced back. Seeing Emily alone, he doubled back and fell into step beside her. She didn’t know what to make of him. What had he meant when he’d said he might share her radical tendencies had the situation been different? She sneaked a glance at him, trying to think what she knew about his life before marrying Sarah. He’d been one of several of Sarah’s beaux, and then, when Sarah accepted his suit at the village fair that awful night, Emily had thought of him briefly as the mechanism of her salvation. With Sarah married and out of harm’s way, she could leave Somerset and unleash her plan to bring about Mr. Manning’s downfall.

  “Miss Mirren?” said Mr. Talbot. He spoke quietly, hesitantly. He was so average looking. An unremarkable man in every way—brown hair, brown eyes, medium build. “May I confess something?”

  “By all means.” What an unusual night this was turning out to be.

  “You will recall that I worked as a barrister before I married Sarah.”

  “Mmm,” said Emily, who didn’t quite remember—he really had been the least memorable of the men vying for Sarah’s attention. Emily had always assumed her friend chose him because of his superior ability to listen to her talk.

  “My aunt paid for me to study at the Inns of Court. If she had not, I might have ended up the sort of boy who would need to attend your school.” This last bit he spoke extremely rapidly, as if willing the words to tumble out as fast as possible.