The Miss Mirren Mission

by Jenny Holiday

  “It’s all the sea air from yesterday, I’m sure!” exclaimed Sarah.

  Saved by the chatterbox. Lord Blackstone looked like he was trying to suppress a smile. Emily almost didn’t recognize this incarnation of his face. His eyes looked several shades lighter when he wasn’t scowling.

  “I’m sure you must be correct, Mrs. Talbot,” Emily said, moving to the sideboard to fill her plate. She fussed over her eggs longer than was necessary. The back of her head burned—she could feel the earl’s silent regard. She could play his game, too. It wouldn’t be in his interest for anyone to know what had happened last night. She had as much power as he did here, so she turned and graced everyone with a bright smile. “I found sleep elusive last night, though I can’t imagine why.”

  He dipped his head almost imperceptibly, as if conceding a hit in a fencing match no one else could see.

  “You always were rattling about at all hours back in our days at Manning Abbey,” said Sarah.

  “Yes,” Mr. Manning said. “Wasn’t I always finding you traipsing around the estate long after you were supposed to have been abed?”

  My God, she hated her former guardian. It never went away, that sick, roiling feeling in the pit of her stomach when she saw him. But she had to mask her revulsion. “Just the one time, I think, Mr. Manning.” And wouldn’t everyone be interested to know what happened next?

  “You always were a night owl in those days,” Mr. Manning continued.

  Did he not remember? It was the only explanation for why he would so casually offer these seemingly innocent remembrances. But then, cruelty had always come easily to him, so perhaps forgetting his transgressions did, too.

  “And so were you, Mr. Manning. Always working so diligently on your business concerns.” She turned to Blackstone and the Smythes. “I had a head for numbers as a girl, and I used to help him with his books.” She forced herself to smile at Mr. Manning. An opportunity to ask questions couldn’t be lost because she was stuck in the past. “How is the company these days?”

  He wagged his fingers in a dismissive gesture. “His lordship doesn’t want to hear about something so banal as trade.”

  “Come now, Mr. Manning,” said Lord Blackstone, “I think our conversations have proven that, unlike many of my peers, I have a healthy respect for the self-made man. Industry is the future. It’s the only way England will maintain its dominance in the coming century.”

  Emily happened to agree with him, broadly speaking, but no one and nothing should be allowed to flourish based on Manning Shipping’s blood money. “I do so enjoy hearing about your ships,” she said. “That’s why I ask.” In a general sense, it was true. She’d never been anywhere other than Somerset, London, and now, here to Essex. If Mr. Manning could innocently weave tales of routes to trade spices and tea in exotic locales, she would have adored hearing every last detail. “Do you have any ships in America now?”

  He looked at her for a long moment before answering. “No.”

  “And what is your opinion about the other coast?” asked Lord Blackstone. “The blockade? It must be maddening for a legitimate shipping magnate such as yourself to see so many unsavory types making a killing smuggling.”

  Mr. Manning’s gaze darted to his son-in-law. Mr. Talbot had been silently following the conversation. He had never been much of a talker, which was probably why he and Sarah were such a successful match.

  “We see a lot of smuggling around here,” offered Gillian Smythe, the more vocal, and, Emily dared say, the more intelligent of the Smythe sisters. “Being on the coast, it’s almost impossible to avoid.”

  “Yes,” agreed Blackstone. “One doesn’t want to be thought disloyal, but it’s awfully hard to ignore the finest French brandy when it’s practically flowing down the local streams. Someone is making a fortune there.”

  Silence settled. It was finally was broken by—of course—Sarah. She turned to Emily and said, “My heavens, have you seen Lady Hastings’s embroidery? It’s magnificent! In all my days I have never seen its equal. I asked her if she would mind very terribly if you and I joined her this afternoon after the others…”

  Emily took a bite of her eggs and let the cascade of words wash over her. Once she got going, Sarah rarely noticed if her audience drifted off. What had just happened? It seemed unusual for the earl to so openly discuss smuggling, but who knew with these aristocrats? They did like their brandy and silk, and Lord Blackstone appeared to be no exception.

  She sneaked a glance at Mr. Manning, and though he looked away when her eyes met his, she caught the warning in his stare. The pit in her stomach deepened. She struggled to listen to the rational part of her mind, which said that she had nothing to fear. He had no power over her anymore.

  Her eyes slid to Lord Blackstone and she nearly jumped to find he was looking at her, too. If she had seen the tiniest hint of playfulness in his countenance earlier, it must have been the product of her whimsy. Now, his hard, cold eyes held no pity, no kindness. They might have been warning her, too—but about what, she couldn’t begin to imagine.

  …

  Later that afternoon, Blackstone went for a ride. Dislodging himself from his guests had not been easy. The Smythe twins, who had taken a shine to lawn bowling, were trying to get together a group. The blue twin in particular had insisted that his presence was required. Lady Hastings wanted to play cards. Mr. Leighton proposed they walk to a creek on his own property so Blackstone could offer an opinion on the issue of a damaged bridge. Even Bailey had hinted that they should engage Manning in some activity, in the spirit of continuing to cultivate him.

  And they should. Or, barring that, he should be entertaining his guests. It’s what hosts did. One threw a party, one spent time with one’s guests.

  It’s just that it was all so exhausting. People were so exhausting.

  He knew his reputation—the cranky, antisocial aristocrat, tinged by the tragic circumstances surrounding the deaths of his brother and mother. The loner.

  He had to be those things, in order to do his job. That’s what he always told himself. But the truth was, it had been convenient to allow the reputation to settle on him. It meant less time in society and more time with his ghosts.

  Today, he needed some time alone to think about last night’s encounter with Miss Mirren. In the light of day, he could hardly believe how much he had told her. Still, though he was a trifle embarrassed at having been so uncharacteristically forthcoming, he didn’t regret it.

  Perhaps it was because she had a secret of her own. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew secrets—they were his stock in trade. The woman carried a burden of some sort. And he was resolved to find out what it was. Clearing the main driveway, he spurred his horse into a canter, relishing the wind against his face as he contemplated the puzzle that was Emily Mirren.

  As the horse picked up speed, an errant thought drifted through his mind. Maybe she could forgive him for the other death he was responsible for, too. For the other man he’d stood by and watched die.

  For orphaning her.

  No, he chided himself, it was safest to think of her as the devil’s handmaiden. She had been sent to tempt him. Not just with her beauty, but with the prospect of absolution. He huffed a bitter chuckle. A beautiful woman who had what he most needed. A daunting adversary, indeed.

  As he came over the crest of a small hill, he slowed, catching sight of a flash of yellow. Dash it. It seemed solitude was not in store for him today.

  “Lord Blackstone!” Lifting a hand, Miss Mirren seemed happy to see him. With roses in her cheeks and mud on the hem of her lemon-yellow walking dress, she looked like she was born for country life.

  He made his greetings to her and to Catharine Burnham. He’d noticed the two women seemed to be getting on. Leave it to Miss Mirren to gravitate toward the biggest troublemaker in all of London. An ex-spy, Catharine and her social reformer of a husband had capped off their romance by opening a school for pauper children, cementing her scanda
lous reputation. She wasn’t received by the highest sticklers.

  “Blackstone,” Catharine said, not bothering with the honorific, which was something he liked about her, “are you all alone?” Feigning confusion, she made an exaggerated show of looking around. “What a surprise.” She shot him a smile that said she was only teasing.

  He smiled back. Catharine had a good soul. “I thought I might sneak off for a solo ride.”

  “And here we are, in your way, and you too much of a gentleman to just ride on past us.”

  Miss Mirren was looking from one to the other of them. She had probably never seen a woman treat a peer so casually. He’d teased Miss Mirren this morning, but now he found himself a little unsure how to behave.

  Think. Conversation—people did it all the time. “You ladies are far from the house on foot.”

  “Miss Mirren wanted to post a letter, so we’re walking to the village,” said Catharine.

  “You needn’t have done that. Any of the servants would have taken it for you.”

  Miss Mirren shrugged. “I felt like a walk.”

  “But it’s another three quarters of an hour yet there, and a good hour back. And the sun is high.”

  “We have our bonnets.”

  And so they did. Miss Mirren’s was straw, trimmed with yellow ribbons that matched her dress. He wondered suddenly why she never wore white, the standard color of a maiden. It wasn’t that she looked like an older woman—she never wore the deep jewel tones permitted to married woman. But she also—most decidedly—didn’t look like a debutante. He filed the thought away for later. “Nevertheless, allow me to take the letter for you.”

  “No!”

  The vehemence with which she spoke earned her a surprised look from Catharine.

  “Thank you, my lord,” she amended. “It’s kind of you to offer, but I prefer to see to my correspondence myself.”

  “Is it full of secrets?” he teased.

  Catharine narrowed her eyes at him as she looped her arm thorough the younger woman’s. “You’re very smart, Miss Mirren. I wouldn’t trust this scoundrel with my personal correspondence, either.”

  Miss Mirren made an awkward, abbreviated curtsy as Catharine towed her away.

  Suddenly, he very much wanted to know what was in that letter.

  …

  Emily went back to the library that night. Thoughts of Lord Blackstone had consumed her all day. He had initially seemed so cold, so distant—rude, even. Now she wondered if really he was just hurt.

  She wondered if he was a kindred spirit.

  Try as she might to sleep, she couldn’t stop replaying their encounter several days ago when he’d come upon her swimming. She couldn’t shake the sense that she’d gotten in the way of some sort of reckoning. Why else would he have gone to the lake on his first morning back, very early, before anyone else was likely to be out? To him, it must be like visiting a grave. And he’d found her brazenly swimming.

  As she approached the library, a clock chimed three. She’d purposefully come later this time. He was right—she couldn’t be caught with him. No matter what happened with Mr. Manning, no matter what happened with Sally and Billy, she wasn’t marrying. And though he could seem barbarous and careless at times, she suspected that underneath all that, the Earl of Blackstone was not the type to let a girl’s reputation fall to tatters on his watch. She pushed open the door, heart pounding, wondering what she would do if she found him asleep.

  She needn’t have worried. “Miss Mirren,” he said, looking up from where he sat behind the massive mahogany desk lit by several branches of candles and looking very much lord of the manor. Papers were scattered pell-mell across the desk, and he had rolled up his shirtsleeves and removed his cravat. “Looking for a new book? You’re done with shooting, I gather. What will it be this time? Archery? Fencing?”

  She shivered, dragging her eyes from the smattering of dark hair that peeked out of his open collar. His words seemed friendly enough, but he wore his usual implacable expression. Suddenly shy, she glanced down at her gown—she’d dressed this time, in anticipation of meeting him. The pale blue muslin that had appeared perfectly adequate in her candlelit chamber now seemed not quite the thing for being received by members of the aristocracy in their private quarters at three o’clock in the morning. Her stomach flopped. He was going to think her an unfashionable frump. Or he was going to think her a terrible wanton. Or possibly both at the same time, though that should have been an impossibility.

  “I was, ah, hoping to borrow some sealing wax. I’ve another letter to post tomorrow.” The excuse sounded feeble. She did have another column to send Mr. Todmorden, but she had her own sealing wax.

  After a few beats of silence, he set down his quill. “Come in if you’re coming. It won’t do to hover in the doorway like that.”

  She closed the door and leaned back against it, wanting to remain in the room but simultaneously to put as much distance between them as possible. He raised one eyebrow.

  She blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Lord Blackstone, don’t you sleep?”

  The eyebrow fell down his forehead and met its mate in a scowl.

  “It’s just that I do seem to encounter you rather a lot in the middle of the night,” she said, hoping the blush beginning to paint her cheeks was not visible in the dimly lit room. Now, in addition to thinking of her as an unfashionable doxy, he was going to think of her as a dolt prone to stating the obvious.

  “I think perhaps the key word there is encounter, Miss Mirren. If I don’t sleep, then it would appear neither do you.” She didn’t know what to say, and he must have taken pity on her because he huffed a small sigh of resignation before speaking again. “I don’t sleep, to answer your question. Not much, anyway.”

  “Yes, sleep can be difficult can’t it? At night, there’s nothing to distract one’s mind from its cares.”

  He gestured, encouraging her to come further toward the desk. “And what cares prevent you from sleeping, Miss Mirren?”

  If only she could tell him. How wonderful it would be to have a powerful peer like him to help her. But she could afford to trust no one.

  Still, her legs carried her forward and lowered her onto the rosewood side chair facing his desk. “None so great as yours. Revisiting the scene of your brother’s death in your mind’s eye is a punishment I can only imagine.” His arms rested on the desk in front of him. He had set down a quill when she entered. He must have been holding it with his left hand. She wondered if he’d written with that hand before the war. “And your hand must be—”

  He pulled the injured arm away so the desk hid it. “Yes,” he said, words clipped. “You’ve got it exactly right, haven’t you? It isn’t enough that I’m visited by my brother’s ghost at night—I must return to the Peninsula, too.”

  She hadn’t meant to reference the war at all, merely to inquire whether his hand hurt him physically. But clearly he was haunted by more than just his brother. She was beginning to sense a pattern. When she came close to stating a truth about him—or to goading him into admitting one—he grew angry. She tried to diffuse the tension with an observation from her own life, to show him he wasn’t the only solider marked by battle. “I didn’t spend much time with my father as a girl. When he returned for visits, I would move back home. My father was a restless sleeper. He wasn’t overtly glum, but he always seemed to carry a kind of sadness with him.” She stopped, feeling like a fool for trying to smooth things over with this awkward story. “It is difficult to explain.”

  “You explain it very well.” He sounded less bitter than a moment ago.

  “You feel it, too.”

  There was a long silence, and she began to worry that she had gone too far—again.

  Finally, he sighed, as if he’d decided to humor her with further conversation. “Yes, though it has faded over the years. And occasionally I manage to forget myself entirely.”

  “I never saw much of society,” she ventured, “but f
rom time to time one makes the acquaintance of a soldier at some function or other. I always wondered how they made the shift. After war, English society must seem so frivolous.”

  “In some ways, yes, but for some men I imagine the best cure is to return to the meaningless details of daily life. There’s a comfort in the resumption of normalcy.”

  But not for you, she wanted to say.

  “Miss Mirren, what are you doing here?” He delivered the question in a benign, conversational tone, but she sensed a shift in the air.

  She answered honestly. “I’m here to tell you that I think you should go for a swim.” When he didn’t react immediately, she added, “In the lake. It’s the only way to get over what happened. To make it loosen its hold on you.”

  She braced for an eruption of anger that did not come. Instead, he regarded her silently, head cocked, as if he were trying to make out an image from a long way away. Finally, he said, “You’re right, of course.”

  The sigh of relief she heaved was automatic—there was no way to disguise it. His agreement felt like reprieve, and once again, she found herself speaking without self-censorship. “I suspect that’s exactly what you were trying to do the other morning when you came upon me swimming in your lake. I wanted to tell you I’m sorry if I interrupted.”

  He dipped his head in acknowledgement. “That visit was intended to be about paying homage to my demons, rather than exorcising them—it’s difficult to explain. Besides, it’s not my lake, as you so vehemently pointed out.”

  She wasn’t sure if he was teasing or chiding. “I could help you,” she said quietly. She wanted to, suddenly, as much as she’d ever wanted to help Sally and Billy.

  This earned her a small smile. “Perhaps you could just lend me your book.”

  “You can learn a lot of things from books,” she protested, though she smiled back at him. “Regardless, I don’t think it’s really about swimming, is it? You don’t even have to swim. Just walk into the water. I think it would help.”

  When he didn’t reply—goodness, the man was comfortable with silence!—she rose. She’d said what she’d come to say, had made her apology, and the longer she remained, the greater the possibility of discovery. She paused, hand on the door, and spoke with her back to him. “There’s a full moon tomorrow night. Didn’t you say you and your brother used to swim by moonlight?”