This story copyright © 2004 Mia McCroskey
The characters from The Avengers and other sources are the property of their respective owners.
Author's Note: The mystery in this story involves the syntheses of industrial diamonds. In the interest of full disclosure, I feel the need to provide background that, unfortunately, contradicts the facts of the story. In 1953, twenty years prior to the timeframe of this story, the first industrial diamonds were synthesized in Sweden. DeBeers, the real-world diamond cartel, formed a company in 1946 to research the uses of industrial diamonds, and in 1960 set up a plant in South Africa to synthesize them for commercial use. By the era of this story other super-hard elements were also being synthesized. Now, please just disregard all this and enjoy my version.
[an error occurred while processing this directive] people have read this story since April 2004
Steed makes the cut
Emma slides on the ice
Chapter 1
"It was a beautiful service, John. Just lovely," Caro Hill told her brother, taking his arm to guide him a few steps away from the other guests at baby John's christening. They were in the Steed's big dining room where the long table had been set for twenty guests.
"Thank you Caro, and thank you and Harry for agreeing to be John's godparents," Steed replied with a fond smile.
"We would have been insulted if you hadn't asked, Johnny," she replied. "You know we would raise him as our own, should the need ever arise."
"I know. But we don't plan for that to be necessary. No, I intend for your role to be that of benevolent aunt offering the occasional bit of spiritual guidance."
"Each evening I pray for just that, John," Caro said, and Steed realized she meant it. He had long ago put aside the ritual of bedtime prayers, but his sister had not. Her prayers had evolved from childish blessings through a young woman's requests to the solemn wishes of an adult. But the moment of contemplation at the end of the day still helped her sustain her calm, pleasant demeanor.
"But John, is Emma well?" Caro went on.
"Yes of course she is!"
"She doesn't look it."
"What can you mean?" Steed's eyes scanned the room looking for his wife.
"When you live with someone, see them every day, sometimes you don't notice a gradual change," Caro went on. "She's thin, John. Her face looks drawn. Her complexion has lost its luster. She looks ill."
"Emma has always been thin, Caro. She has worked hard to regain her figure after John was born."
"Are you sure she hasn't overdone it?"
Steed finally caught sight of Emma talking animatedly with her cousins Delia and Marcus. She was wearing a dark blue velvet A-line dress that concealed her figure. It was unusual for her, a change from her usual tailored look. But the color was so flattering he could not see anything amiss in her appearance. Her face was flushed, perhaps from the merry fire in the hearth near where she was standing. She laughed as he watched her, flipping her hair so that it glowed in the reflected candlelight from a wall sconce. Steed felt his heart quicken at the sight of her.
"It's just the pre-holiday strain, Caro. She's put a great deal into the party tomorrow, not to mention this little luncheon. And I fear that I have not been much help planning our holiday celebration."
Caro studied him for a moment, her expression one of guarded speculation. She was considering her next argument when Edmond Stanton came over to claim Steed's attention. Her brother was soon drawn into a discussion of polo to which she refused to listen -- she could not believe he was still contemplating engaging in the sport.
Although all of the guests for John's christening were also invited to the Steed's anniversary Christmas Eve party the following evening, only the Hills, who had traveled the farthest, were staying as houseguests. After the christening luncheon guests departed the Hill children eagerly helped decorate the Steeds' big, slightly lopsided Christmas tree. Emma and Siobhan had already decorated the house with garlands and red bows. The addition of the ornaments and lights on the tree made the informal sitting room feel more like a home to Steed than any other place he'd ever lived. He sat in is favorite chair, one of the few pieces of furniture he'd moved from the Mews apartment, with John napping in his lap watching Emma trying to direct his sister's children. This was the second Christmas that they were spending in his home, and he was feeling just a little guilty for co-opting the holiday by marrying Emma on Christmas eve last year.
"The kids were thrilled to come, you know John," Harry Hill said -- he was also watching the decorating from the safety of an adjacent armchair. "They got to decorate our tree last week, and now they get to do it again here. Timothy could not be happier."
"I'm glad to hear it, Harry. I was just thinking that it's kind of you to come to us again this year. I never intended to disrupt your family traditions."
"Hah," Harry chuckled, eyeing Steed and the infant in his arms. "You never intended to be in the middle of a family at all, until that one waltzed back into your life two years ago," he said, nodding toward Emma, who was moving a delicate ornament from the branch where little Linney Hill had placed it to a higher spot. Steed followed his brother-in-law's gaze.
"Not for many years, in any case," he admitted, then noted Harry's surprised expression. "I was raised in the same family as Caro, Harry, with an appreciation for this life. Don't pretend that you never noticed my envy of your situation."
"Envy? I always thought you were delighted to visit and more delighted to go home. Alone."
Steed shrugged and looked down at his son's sleeping face. "One enjoys what one has," he said. "But that doesn't completely eliminate the yen for something different. I had given up on it during my years abroad. And I was so sure of my choice that I couldn't imagine changing my path even when I knew that was the only way to keep Emma. In a way, this little one owes his existence to Peter Peel," he stroked his son's cheek with one finger.
"I'm sorry?" Harry sounded baffled.
"If he had not come back and reclaimed Emma, I doubt that I would have found it within myself to see a different path."
"Don't know what you've got until you haven't got it any more, eh?"
"Precisely."
"Somehow I don't imagine that you'll be thanking Peel."
Steed snorted a wry laugh and little John squirmed in his sleep. Steed shifted him in his arms, bending his head to place a kiss on his forehead.
After a raucous supper culled from luncheon leftovers and a pair of roasted chickens that Caro had slipped into the oven in the late afternoon, the children settled down a bit and took turns holding John under Siobhan's watchful eye. With their offspring thus distracted, the adults were able to play several rubbers of bridge. If Caro and Harry were in the least intimidated by playing opposite Emma, who was an internationally ranked player, they showed no sign of it. Nor was their performance worthy of embarrassment. They won the second rubber and enough games in the third and fourth to keep Steed and Emma concentrating. Mid-way through the last rubber 15-year-old Sara Hill pulled up a chair between her mother and Steed to watch. She was well trained in proper spectator etiquette, and made a point of only looking at Steed's hand and keeping her face impassive.
"How are the King boys, aunt Emma?" she asked when her father was gathering the cards to shuffle and deal.
"Soon to have a little brother or sister," Steed replied before Emma could.
"Amanda Stetson is pregnant?" Caro asked, sounding both surprised and pleased.
"Seven months or so by now, right darling?" Steed replied, looking to Emma for confirmation.
Emma nodded, seeing that Sara was disappointed at the direction the conversation had taken. She glanced at the clock on the mantel.
"It's mid-afternoon in Washington," she said. "Why don't we telephone them and wish them a happy Christmas?"
The way Sara's face lit up was so gratifying Emma felt herself flashing the girl a conspiratorial grin. But somehow Steed had missed Sara's question's true intent and saw no urgency in making the call.
"Surely we should finish the rubber first," he said. "My evil sister won the last game, and I simply won't let it end with her holding the upper hand."
Emma watched Sara's expression turn impatient and sent her an encouraged, resigned smile.
"We'll call when we're done, Sara," she said. "You can think about what you want to say to Jamie."
Sara turned bright red and slipped off of her chair to go make over John some more. Steed glanced at her retreating back then across at his wife, one eyebrow cocked. She smiled enigmatically and picked up her cards.
"I shudder to think what the telephone bill is going to come to," Steed groaned as he settled in on the striped divan beside Emma. She knew he wasn't really complaining about the forty-minute call to Washington, D.C. He took a tentative sip of the brandy he'd just poured himself, smiled at the velvety flavor, and then put his free arm around Emma and leaned back, pulling her to him. She sighed and rested her head against his shoulder, one hand flat on his chest. "How did you know Sara wanted to speak to Jamie King?"
"Honestly Steed, one would think you must be blind, sometimes. They were quite taken with each other last Christmas," Emma said, disregarding the fact that she had not noticed either, and only learned of it later from Caro. "I really wanted to invite her along when we went to Washington last spring, but she was in school."
"Did you?" he took another sip of brandy and held the glass in front of her, offering it. She shook her head against him and stretched her arm on around his chest, holding him tight. "You never mentioned it."
"I wouldn't suggest we take her out of school," she said dismissively. Steed thought back to that trip, when Emma was just pregnant enough to show. She had been keeping a low profile among his colleagues, so her appearance at the Stetson's wedding amid a bevy of American agents had served as their informal announcement to the intelligence community of their impending offspring. It had caused the expected buzz of gossip that reached London well before they had returned there.
But that wasn't the part of the trip he remembered most vividly. It was the few days afterward that they'd spent at a resort. Something at the wedding had spurred Emma to ask him about his past -- to ask in a way that he simply could not shrug off or evade as he usually did.
She was his wife. She had a right to know. Or so she claimed. And after a bit of reflection he had come to agree. So he'd told her about his last days in Europe before returning to Britain to join the secret service. But it had been just a tidbit, really. A single act in the tragedy -- or perhaps it was a black comedy -- of his post-war years. And his revelation to her had lead to an even greater revelation: She had recognized Edmond Stanton's signature on a document Steed had retained from those years. It suggested that Emma's right hand at Knight Industries had continued as part of the intelligence service after the war.
It wasn't a crime, of course, only a breach of trust. Edmond had told her long ago that he had resigned when the war ended. So for months now Emma had been wrestling with his lie. She wanted to trust him -- she depended on him professionally -- but if he'd lied about his status with MI-5, what other deceptions was he capable of? And perhaps the most urgent question for both Emma and Steed was: was he still an agent?
Steed had looked into it and found clues that suggested that Stanton's situation was not clear-cut. So he'd arranged to find out more. But it was taking a lot of time, and a bit of financing. Steed so wished he could have presented Emma with answers to her worries for Christmas. Instead she would have to make do with diamonds. Big, sparkling, perfectly cut, diamonds.
Maybe Caro was right, maybe Emma did look thin and pale. But she had been spending more time at the office, although she hadn't told him about whatever she was working on. And she had suffered a terrible shock just two months ago in Venice when he'd been beaten and held captive for two days. He would be hurt if she had not been upset by what had happened to him.
With the new year, and the elaborate home security system that was finally fully installed, her outlook was bound to turn around -- and with it her appetite!
"Oh love, I know," Emma settled into the rocker in the corner of the nursery and struggled with John's flailing hands as she unbuttoned her blouse. It was early morning and Emma was hurrying so that his crying would not awaken Siobhan. The nanny had been invaluable ever since Steed had been released from the hospital after their return from Venice. She deserved a full night's sleep tonight.
The baby wailed, gasped, and wailed some more until she opened her bra and pressed his face to her breast. The nursery grew quiet as he sucked hungrily on her nipple. She rocked slowly, listening to his breathing and the squeak of the chair. Across the room the Cheshire-cat clock ticked comfortingly.
She stroked his firm little back, closing her eyes to focus on the feel of his mouth on her. All to soon he was squirming again, his little hands kneading her breast. She shifted him, exposing her other nipple to his eager mouth. Tears dripped down her cheeks as she faced the truth: she did not have enough milk to satisfy him. Since his birth she had cherished her time nursing him. The notion of having to give it up, of weaning him so soon, was heartbreaking.
But her body was out of control. She had to regain her strength, and then she would know she could rely on herself to protect John, and, heaven help her, Steed.
Steed's condition when they brought him back from Venice had for the first time in their long association, left her terrified of the dangers of his job. She had seen him injured before and nursed him back to health, but this time was different. The nightmares he'd suffered from, in which Emma and John were tortured, had been more incapacitating than the injuries. She'd arranged with the ministry to install the most advanced security system that Knight Industries could buy. She'd doubled her time in the gym each day, struggling to build up strength that seemed unwilling to return. And, gradually, Steed had begun to sleep through the night again. The despair she felt now watching her son struggle for his meal was the price of her folly in believing they could be a normal family.