This story copyright © 2004 Mia McCroskey
The characters from The Avengers and other sources are the property of their respective owners.
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Steed does the babysitting
Emma makes a run for it
Chapter 1
Mrs. Steed. Mrs. Peel. Miss Knight. My employer has a name for each of her personas. Mrs. Steed is an adoring mother, although I would not characterize her as maternal. She could care for little John on her own if she had to, of course. But I think that both she and John are better off having the resources to employ me. Most of the women I have worked for have been the same. Miss Knight is even less maternal. Sometimes she frightens me when she comes down stairs in the morning dressed for the office: she takes charge of any room she enters. I think even Mr. Steed is intimidated by her. Mrs. Peel is the puzzle. I think that she is the real person -- the woman that Mr. Steed loves. She's the woman who puts on slinky cat suits and teaches me karate and disappears on mysterious missions at all hours. . .
"Siobhan? Are you still awake?"
The nanny snapped her diary shut. "Yes ma'am."
Mrs. Steed stood in the doorway between Siobhan's room and the nursery. She was holding John in her arms.
"I'll change him and put on his sleeper," she said.
"Are you sure? I can do it," Siobhan started to rise from her rocking chair.
"Stay there," Emma raised a hand, gesturing for Siobhan to sit back down. "I want to do it."
"Yes ma'am," Siobhan subsided into the rocker still holding her diary. She couldn't write in it with Mrs. Steed right there in the next room. Instead she picked up the biography of Henry James she was in the middle of and began to read.
In the other room Emma deftly changed her son's nappy and dressed him in a clean white sleeper. He was fussy this evening, kicking his legs and grabbing at her hair when she bent over him. She spoke to him in soothing tones, nonsense talk about things going on at Knight industries. Gradually he calmed down, his mother's gentle voice leading him to accept the fatigue that was making him fussy. He emitted a huge yawn as she lifted him to her shoulder and stroked his back.
Only a couple years ago she could not have imagined needing these moments with her son so much. She had known she wanted a baby -- Steed's baby -- but she had not truly understood the impact that creating another living person, with his own personality, voice, needs, and affection, would have on her life. He was not merely her and Steed's son, he was his own person, and his impact on the lives of those he would meet was beyond any of their control. The magnitude of the responsibility to guide him into life was far greater than she had anticipated. She wasn't naive. Siobhan was essential to John's wellbeing, and to her own. She adored being a mother, but she also adored being in charge of Knight, and being a part of Steed's work. She could not give up any of them.
"Miss Knight, there's a Mr. Stetson on line two," Mrs. Emerson's voice came from the intercom on Emma's desk.
"Thank you Mrs. Emerson, I'll take it," Emma set her pen on the letter she'd been drafting and picked up the phone. "Lee?"
"Emma, I'm sorry to disturb you in your office, but Amanda insisted that you'd want to know: She went into labor three hours ago."
"Everything is all right?" Emma asked, straightening in her chair, then standing up to discharge a sudden rush of excited energy.
"Yes, fine. She's in the hospital. She says that Jamie's delivery was fast, but the doctor says it was a long time ago, so this could take some time."
"I'm sure she'll do fine, Lee. I'm more worried about you!"
"Yeah, thanks," Lee chuckled. "Hold on --."
There was a rustling sound and then muffled voices. Emma massaged her left wrist with her right hand. The bad sprain she'd had three weeks ago was healed, but the join still ached now and then.
"Emma?" Lee came back on. "I have to go. Things are starting to happen in there."
"You're going in to the delivery room?" Emma asked quickly, knowing she shouldn't keep him.
"If Steed could stand it, I figure I'd better! And this hospital is progressive -- they encourage it. I'll call you back later, Emma. Wish me luck."
"And Amanda, too!"
"So apparently she delivered a beautiful, healthy baby girl about forty-five minutes after Lee and I got off the telephone," Emma leaned toward Steed over the kitchen table, her fork poised above her potatoes.
"Have they named her?" Steed asked with a smile, tearing open a roll and using it to soak up juice from the steak on his plate.
"Grace Amanda."
"Grace Amanda Stetson? That's quite elegant."
"It is, isn't it? They'll probably call her Gracie or something," Emma shook her head. "You know how Americans shorten names all the time."
"Yes, Em," Steed smirked. Emma stuck out her tongue, then took a bite of potatoes. Although her father had called her that, Steed was well aware that she had squelched it among most of her friends in her early youth.
"You want to go, don't you?" Steed watched her intently as he took a bite of bread and chewed.
"The thought had crossed my mind," Emma nodded. "She did hurry here when John was born."
"She does have her mother there," Steed was still watching her intently, and she thought she recognized a hint of his devious smile.
"And their house is not that large. I know. What are you thinking?"
"That I have to go to New York next week."
Emma leaned back in her chair and picked up her wineglass. Now she studied Steed just as intently.
"The Stetsons live in Washington," she pointed out.
Steed dabbed more bread around his plate and shrugged dismissively. "My assignment should last three days. We could drive to Washington afterwards and stay in a hotel near them for a few days."
"With John and Siobhan? The last time we took them on one of your trips things did not go so well."
"It had nothing to do with them, darling. Besides, this is a token assignment. I have to represent Britain in a multi-national security team for a foreign VIP visiting the United Nations. It will be all meetings and formal parties."
Emma sighed, knowing that he would never suggest bringing John if he thought there was the slightest danger. Then she thought about what he'd just said.
"Formal parties?"
He grinned at her. "I suppose you have nothing to wear?"
Emma picked up a roll and threw it at him.
Tasha Grant replaced the telephone receiver and stared at it for a moment. She inhaled a deep breath and allowed herself an excited smile. In a single phone call she had increased Knight Weaponry's quarterly income by eleven percent. That ought to impress Miss Knight.
Two years ago, having worked her way up from entry level to middle management in Knight Weaponry, Tasha had thought that she had achieved all she could as a woman in a male-dominated industry. On some levels she hoped so, because she had placed her career above all else, forfeiting a social life for her work. She had joined Knight nine years ago, shortly after Miss Knight's departure to focus on her marriage to Peter Peel. The press and the opinions of her co-workers had formed her impression of the former CEO. She had listened in fascination to their stories of the notoriously ruthless and universally admired young executive woman. Even those who called Miss Knight the "Ice Queen" expressed deep respect for her. Tasha envied such loyalty and wondered how her staff described her.
When Emma Knight had begun her fight to regain control of the company two years ago Tasha had observed it with a mix of fascination and terror. That her role model might return to the helm of Knight was the most exciting -- and frightening -- possibility she had ever contemplated.
And then, within a week of her successful return to the company, Miss Knight had been shot by a disgruntled board member and the authorities had arrested a huge number of Knight employees who were involved in some sort of fraud. Tasha's immediate supervisor and his boss were gone just like that. Shocked, Tasha had done what she always did in difficult situations: she had worked harder and taken on more to make up for the loss of two layers of management. When Mr. Stanton and other members of Miss Knight's senior management team called her to a meeting in the executive conference room a couple weeks after the shooting she was afraid that they were firing more people. She had been aware of her boss's questionable activities. She had watched, and learned, and believed that his participation in these activities was part of the secret to his success. She had not been asked to get involved, but she knew how she would have responded if she had.
But to her intense relief, Mr. Stanton had promoted her, as he had more than a dozen other managers that week to take the places of those who were in the custody of the authorities. Jubilant, she had redoubled her efforts to impress. The glass ceiling had shattered. With the vacuum in management at Knight, and Miss Knight in the CEO's office, Tasha had come to believe that she could go higher.
Just before Christmas, the usual time for salary increases and promotions, she was rewarded again. She was named a vice president, which placed her in the lofty realm of senior management and brought her into regular direct contact with Miss Knight herself. She was more determined than ever to prove that she deserved the responsibility. And her management of the contract in front of her -- with the deadline clause and its heavy penalty that she had just invoked -- was exactly the way to do it.