The Miss Mirren Mission

by Jenny Holiday

  “Not unreasonable. Stubborn, maybe! But then you always did have an opinion about things, even when you were just a wee little thing.”

  “He’s going to escape—already has if we can believe the advertisement,” Emily said emphatically. “And when he does, he’ll come to us at the clock at St. Dunstan’s.”

  Sally smiled, though she looked straight ahead. “Stubborn!”

  “If I’m stubborn,” Emily said, towing Sally toward a hack, “it’s because you raised me to be so.”

  …

  What an unexpected stroke of luck that Miss Mirren took Mrs. Smith with her when she went out. Ducking into the lane, Blackstone doubled back until he reached the garden gate of number seventeen. Peeking in a window, he caught sight of the maid he’d seen yesterday. She was dusting the furniture in what looked like a small morning room. With her accounted for, all he had to worry about was Grandmama, who, since she was completely cracked, did not present a problem.

  The lock pick he extracted from his breast pocket proved unnecessary—the kitchen door was unlocked.

  Goddamn her! Why didn’t she just put a sign up that said Trouble Welcome Here? Assuming he would find nothing in the kitchen, he made haste. He wanted to start with her bedroom. Experience had taught him that men kept their secrets in studies or libraries, women in their bedchambers.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, he went to the second floor, guessing the maid slept on the third. The first door wasn’t the right one. Thankfully, though, Grandmama didn’t startle. She merely cocked her head and asked him, “Now you want to dance?”

  “Not just now, thank you,” he whispered. “I am for the refreshment table. May I bring you a glass of lemonade?”

  “Yes, thank you! I adore lemonade and I am rather parched.”

  “Just close your eyes, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

  She obeyed. How odd to see her, leaning back against her pillows, the hint of a smile on her lined mouth. Like Miss Mirren, she appeared to sleep with her hair loose around her shoulders. He felt a rush of tenderness to see her, such a lovely woman, and so vulnerable.

  The next room was clearly a bedchamber, but he doubted the tidy, spare space was Miss Mirren’s. The only adornment in the room was a wooden crucifix hanging above the bed, and there were no books or papers in sight. He suspected Miss Mirren would be a messier sort. A quick look in the wardrobe confirmed that the room was Mrs. Smith’s. He might return later if he had time—she was clearly caught up in all this somehow. Whatever this was.

  Pushing open the door to the last room on the other side of the hall, he made a mental note of where the window would be if he were looking at the back of the house from the outside. Though snooping around Miss Mirren’s house was turning out to be child’s play compared to the missions he usually undertook, it was impossible to suppress the deeply ingrained habit of assessing escape routes.

  He stepped into a bedchamber, which, in turn, opened onto a small, sunny sitting room on the far side. These were definitely her rooms. He chuckled with satisfaction at how well his imagination had conjured the space. It was papered in green ivy, that while feminine and pretty, was not at all in the cloying, flowery style of many ladies’ private spaces.

  And it was messy. Not terribly so, but the maid clearly hadn’t been here yet. The bed looked as if she’d spent the night tossing and turning—that or… “Blast it!” he whispered as his cock twitched. A stack of books perched precariously on her bedside table. He scanned the titles. Thomas Clarkson, An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African. The antislavery classic—exactly what he would expect from her. Next in the pile was The Miseries of an Heiress. Not a title he was familiar with, but as he paged through it he determined it was a novel one might call “melodramatic.” Also exactly what he would expect from her. As he replaced the book, a smaller pamphlet fell out of it. He stooped to pick it up. A Guide to Marital Relations for Ladies, By One Recently Indoctrinated Into the Institution. Well, well, well. He’d heard about booklets like this, penned by adventurous but anonymous ladies of the ton, passed furtively among the fairer sex. He grinned. She was famous for learning things from books!

  He flipped through the slim volume, which positioned itself as an instruction manual for young soon-to-be wives. “After the initial pain of the first several encounters, you may find the act to be somewhat monotonous. Nevertheless, enduring with a happy countenance—though not too happy, as that would be unseemly—is recommended.”

  “Rubbish,” he proclaimed. This so-called instruction manual proved his point exactly—experience mattered.

  He moved to the dressing table. It was covered with the usual assortment of ribbons and combs, and…rocks? A tidy line of small, smooth stones lined the far edge, where the surface of the table met the mirror. He was reminded of the pink stone she’d dived for that first night at the lake—the one he’d taken. Apparently, she was a collector. He felt a twinge of guilt thinking of it lying where he’d left it on his own dresser, having found himself unaccountably unable to simply discard it.

  Next, the sitting room. Aha! A small desk littered with papers stood against one wall. Squeezing himself into the wooden chair, he started with a pile of newspapers on one side. The top one was opened to the advertisements. One was circled in dark ink.

  Run away from his master, on Sunday, the sixth of June, W. Smith, apprentice to Mr. Felix Connel, of the parish of Saint Augustine the Less near Bristol. He is about twenty-five years of age, dark complexion, black hair, wore away a dark coat. Whoever harbors or employs the said apprentice, after this public notice, will be prosecuted as the law directs, and whoever will apprehend the said apprentice, and lodge him in one of His Majesty’s prisons, shall be well rewarded for his trouble.

  “Apprentice” could mean a great many things, and was sometimes essentially another form of slavery. Given that, and the physical descriptions of the man being sought, Blackstone wondered if Emily was looking for an escaped slave. The “Smith” was also not lost on him. It was a common enough name, but could the apprentice in the advertisement be related to Sally? Regardless, unlike Sally, who was now a free woman, an escapee would have people looking for him. Dangerous people.

  Perhaps more to the point, as the advertisement threatened, anyone harboring an escapee would be flouting the law.

  Setting the newspaper aside, he rifled through the jumble of foolscap that littered most of the surface of the desk and found what appeared to be the start of another column. Here, Miss Mirren appeared to be commenting on the judgment in the James Somersett case.

  Shuffling through more drafts and scribblings, he came upon a piece of crisp parchment, nicer than the cheaper foolscap she used for her columns. The handwriting was recognizably hers, but it was neater, as if she were taking more care as she wrote. He scanned the opening paragraph.

  Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak to you today. You will wonder that I conceal my identity beneath this veil.

  He swallowed a howl of frustration. The infernal woman was planning to give a speech. In public.

  There were many brave members of the fairer sex who, in the heyday of agitation for abolishment of the slave trade, spoke publicly at assemblies such as this. You will think me cowardly, but I must protest that I have good reasons for my anonymity, namely that I have been conducting an investigation and am very close to acquiring concrete evidence that will prove beyond any doubt the identity of one of England’s major illegal slavers.

  Though he’d surmised as much, it was breathtaking to have it confirmed in her own hand. Miss Mirren was planning to take down Manning. It was astonishing, really.

  After I succeed in this mission, I will take great pleasure in tearing off this veil and standing shoulder to shoulder with you, my face exposed to the bright light of progress.

  But I didn’t come here today to speak about myself. I came to speak about sugar.

  Dear G
od, not that again.

  Yes, many of you will have thought that our work was done when Parliament outlawed the trade in human beings. Many reasonable people thought the result of that would be the eventual dying of the institution of slavery itself. And perhaps it will. Only time will tell. Though of course a universal and mandatory slave registration would help by

  He chuckled. She must have seen that she was getting off topic. It was easy to imagine the rational part of her mind reining in her more fevered, runaway thoughts.

  I am here to say that the end of the trade is not enough. The institution itself must stop, too. You will perhaps recall the fervor with which people from all walks of life in this country made known their opposition to the trade not a decade ago. Hundreds of petitions containing tens of thousands of signatures rained down on Parliament. Gatherings like these were commonplace, standing room only. People from the largest cities to the smallest hamlets turned out to listen to speakers very much like those on the program today.

  I ask you to remember what many of them said on the topic at hand—sugar. They said that sugar produced on the backs of slaves was immoral. Many of you—my fellow women especially—agreed and adjusted your household practices accordingly.

  So I must ask you, what is so different about the sugar you sweetened your tea with this morning, as compared to that which you eschewed a decade ago? That the trade is outlawed is immaterial to this question. Does it matter to the slave, exhausted and broken from a lifetime of hard servitude, that his master can no longer import new Africans to labor beside him?

  Of course not.

  The sugar he produces today should taste as bitter on your tongues as it ever did. It should taste like ashes.

  He wasn’t sure if she was done there—ashes in the mouth did make for a striking closing image—or if there was more. Shuffling the papers around, he found one more sheet on the desk.

  Reasons Never to Marry

  He nearly laughed aloud. A fellow list-maker! Unlike him, though, she had the luxury of being able to commit words to paper. He scanned the entries.

  1. Marriage = slavery

  2. Money becomes husband’s money

  3. Reform career ends

  4. Sally

  5. Billy

  Billy. Billy who? He didn’t have time to consider the meaning of the solitary name because of the unmistakable sound of footsteps in the corridor. He jerked open the window, and stuck his head out. There was a ledge that would take him to the edge of the house. From there he could climb down to the top of the garden fence. He stepped out just as the door to the adjacent sitting room opened.

  “Don’t be too disappointed, my dear.” It was Mrs. Smith.

  “I’m not!” Miss Mirren answered brightly. “Today wasn’t the day, but I promise you someday, he’ll come.”

  Who will come? Blackstone wanted to shout. Then, a thought struck him, an obvious thought, but one so disruptive that he lost his balance for a moment and had to scramble to maintain his grip on the house. Might it be a lover that Miss Mirren waited for so diligently every day? Someone she’d left behind in Somerset? The runaway apprentice?

  The door in the adjacent bedroom clicked open. Sensing her walk through the bedroom into the sitting room, he flattened himself against the exterior wall.

  “But what if he doesn’t?” she whispered. “What if he never comes?”

  She sounded utterly bereft, as if she were sending a meek prayer to the sky, one she expected to be ignored. He was familiar with that feeling, and for a moment sympathy pulled at his heart. To hear her, as alone as she’d ever been in the solitary childhood she’d hinted at, was awful.

  “Billy, where are you? When will you come home?”

  He shoved the tender bud of compassion aside and replaced it with the steely determination that was just beneath the surface, a righteous certitude that fanned the spark of anger that was there, too. Anger was familiar. Anger was useful.

  He had Emily Mirren in his sights, and she could not escape him. But it wasn’t all mercenary. She’d get what she wanted, too, eventually.

  Correction—she’d get some of what she wanted. He’d help her expose Manning as a slaver, but only after they had Le Cafard. As for the mysterious Billy, he couldn’t have Emily.

  Inching along the ledge, he thought of a promise made long ago. Protect Emily Mirren from herself, or get her out of the way so he could capture Le Cafard? His motivations for marrying her were blurring in his mind. But it didn’t matter, did it?

  Chapter Eleven

  It was ridiculous to get an attack of the nerves over the arrival of a maid. Emily knew that, yet she couldn’t keep herself still as she paced the front parlor.

  Despite her anxiety, she couldn’t help but feel a satisfying rush of victory at having wooed the girl from the employ of the Earl of Blackstone. She picked up a spoon from her tea tray and angled it so she could see her reflection. Even with the distortion caused by the bend in the silver, her hair was her most prominent feature. Emily’s strategy had always been to try to subdue her curls, whereas Angela seemed to know how to work with them, to showcase them to best advantage. Between her new gown and a coiffure from Angela, Emily hoped she’d look fetching at the ball.

  Not that it mattered. The point of going wasn’t to draw admiration, but to inform the Earl of Blackstone that Mr. Manning was a slaver. It hardly signified what she wore for that—sackcloth would do the job as well as satin.

  But if that arrogant, entitled peer looked at her and regretted that she had refused his suit, could she help it? She smiled at herself in the spoon.

  “What are you doing, dear?”

  Emily dropped the spoon, but missed the tray so the wayward utensil clattered onto the parquet. She smiled brightly at Mrs. Smith, who was guiding Grandmama to a chair by the fire.

  “Nothing! I’m just passing the time until the new maid arrives.”

  “Don’t be nervous, dearest.”

  “I’m not!”

  Sally raised her eyebrows and looked pointedly at the spoon on the floor.

  Emily sighed. “It’s just that we’re a rather unconventional household. Between Grandmama and the situation with Billy, things around here are a little…unsettled.”

  “Your girl hasn’t been a lady’s maid before, correct?”

  “That’s right. She was an upstairs maid at the estate I visited last month,” Emily said. “And I’ve poached her!”

  “She’s coming here to take a more senior position, in a household where there are no men to ogle her—or worse. You’ll give her a half day every week?”

  “Of course!” Emily walked to the window and looked up the street. “And she has a sister in service in town. I shall make sure her half day coincides with her sister’s.”

  Sally handed Grandmama her embroidery. Although Emily’s grandmother had mostly lost her memory, her motor skills were sharp as ever. “She’s lucky to be here.”

  Sally’s interpretation of the situation buoyed Emily. “I think the best thing to do when she gets here is just to lay our cards out on the table, so to speak.”

  “Is that wise? Will she prove as loyal as Molly?”

  “I don’t know!” Emily allowed her anxiety to come through. “I can’t imagine that anyone would take her word over ours if she told our secret. I hate to sound snobbish, but she is a servant, and I am a gentleman’s daughter.”

  “Agreed, but then you must stop wringing your hands!”

  Emily willed the offending hands to remain still, the ticking of the clock on the mantel the only sound until a tap on the door a minute later. It opened to admit Molly, and the much-anticipated Angela, whose gray wool dress and brown hair scraped into a severe twist made her look like a very young headmistress at a school for wayward girls. She bobbed a wordless curtsy and swallowed.

  Realizing that Angela was nervous too eased Emily’s tension, and she greeted the newcomer warmly, exhorting her to sit down and take a cup of tea. “You, too, Molly. I�
��d like for all of us to spend a few minutes getting to know one another.”

  The maids sat next to each other on the settee, and Emily introduced Angela to her grandmother and to Sally. If Angela was surprised to see a dark-skinned woman in Emily’s household, she didn’t let on.

  “We’re all so very glad to have you here,” said Emily. “Me especially.” She patted her head and smiled. “My hair hasn’t been the same since I came home from Clareford Manor.”

  Angela ducked her head at the compliment.

  “I do hope his lordship wasn’t too upset when you gave your notice.”

  Now why on earth had she said that? Of course “his lordship” hadn’t noticed that one of his upstairs maids had left his service—in fact, he very likely had not even been informed. And yet Emily wanted him to notice that she had some power to disrupt his empire. How absurd.

  “He wasn’t in residence, miss. I suppose the butler will inform the estate manager, but I don’t imagine I’ll be much missed.”

  Emily cleared her throat. “I wanted us all to be together because I wanted you to understand a few things about our household.” She took a fortifying breath. Nothing for it but to dive in. “First, Mrs. Smith is a former slave.” The only sign that the news made an impression on the new maid was a slight widening of her eyes. “She is now employed as companion to my grandmother, who is…” Emily glanced at her grandmother, the very picture of industry, bent over her sewing as if she were alone in the room. “Well, she’s not all there. Do you understand what I mean by that?”

  “I think so, miss. Age often seems to rob us of our memories, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, exactly. But she’s quite happy, so we do our best to keep her entertained. Mrs. Smith in particular has a way with her.” Emily pursed her lips. There was no point dancing around the real matter. “There’s more. Mrs. Smith has a son, William—we call him Billy. He is still enslaved, or as good as. His former owner, a very bad man by the name of Manning, owned an estate near my father’s house. Manning gave him to another man, an industrialist who put him to work in a cotton mill. He’s called an apprentice, but he is not free to leave.”