“Steed here,” John Steed held the receiver to his ear with one hand and pushed an HO scale model locomotive across the red leather of his desk top with his other index finger.

“Hello Steed, it’s Lee Stetson,” the American’s voice sounded very far away -- which it was.

“Lee!” Steed sat up straight and reached for his pen and a pad of ruled paper. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

“You may not say that when you hear why I’m calling.”

“Oh?” Steed moved the locomotive aside and uncapped the pen, enjoying the weight and feel of the gold barrel in his hand.

“There’s some information circulating over in your territory that Washington wants. Badly.”

“Is it information that we wouldn’t want to share with an ally?” Steed asked, a slight frown creasing his brow. Even between friendly nations there were secrets to be withheld. But if this were that sensitive they would not have set Lee to contact him. The politicians and would be negotiating, and taking credit.

“Maybe, but I don’t see why. It’s a list of sleepers.”

“Theirs, I take it? Not ours?”

“You have sleepers?”

“Of course not.”

He could picture Lee’s wide grin as the other man chuckled.

“This is a list of their sleepers. From what we’ve heard it’s a particularly long list.”

“Do tell,” Steed scratched at his chin, imagining the usefulness of such a list.

“Do I really need to, Steed? Our sources say someone in your organization has it.”

“Well, Lee, I can look into it. See if I can lay my hands on it . . .”

“Come on Steed, it’s not like you to be obtuse. What do you want for it -- to share it with us?”

“No need to get hot about it, Lee. I’ll see what I can do! If someone in the ministry does have it, I’ll have to use some favors to try to get it,” Steed felt his own temper rise in response to Lee’s.

“Steed, what we’ve heard is that someone in your organization has it. Not the ministry in general -- one of your people.”

Steed set down the pen and picked up the model train, nestling the phone against his shoulder so he could spin one wheel with his finger. McCall.

“Forgive me Lee. I misunderstood. I appreciate your bringing this to my attention.”

“You’ll want to get a hold of that list, Steed. It’s not safe for anyone out in the field to have it.”

“Yes. I agree. I’ll call you back Lee.”

***

Steed’s suspicion of his former partner’s husband was not completely unfounded. Robert McCall had a history of unorthodox behavior that had gotten him into hot water on more than one past occasion. And the psychological profile in his file placed him rather close to the line in terms of potential for dangerously chaotic behavior. But since his marriage to Tara King he’d seemed to be playing it straight, minding his manners and accomplishing what he was set to do. Since Steed had become his handler he’d been watching him as closely as he could from across the English Channel. Steed believed that rebels “ independent thinkers -- made much better agents than the by-the-book sorts who inhabited the ministry’s halls. The challenge was identifying those who would go too far and stopping them before they did it. Now he suspected that McCall was trending over the line despite his recent good behavior. He was going to have to rein him in.

But there was another factor: Tara. Steed felt responsible for his former partner’s success, due in part to lingering guilt over the way he’d treated her in the past. He had never loved her, but he had known that she loved him -- no worshiped him as a personal hero “ and he’d allowed their relationship to become physically intimate just the same. That he had still been deeply hurt over Emma’s departure at the time was no excuse for using Tara so cruelly. And when Emma had returned he’d not taken the time to explain -- let alone apologize “ to Tara before moving Emma right back into his life and his work. He could not have acted differently with regard to Emma, but that did not excuse his neglect of Tara. And so for Tara’s sake since she had eloped with McCall last year he had been dangerously tolerant of her husband’s weaknesses.

The one thing Steed could tolerate less than making mistakes himself was being placed in a compromised position by someone else’s mistakes. If McCall actually had a list of enemy sleepers and hadn’t notified his superiors then it was time to pull the plug.

***

Emma set her hairbrush on the table and opened the lid of her jewelry box, smiling automatically at the glistening gems and coils of precious metal chain inside. She lifted up a delicate gold chain, its tiny links unfolding until a golden horseshoe charm mounted with five small white diamonds dangled before her eyes. It had been a present from a suitor a long time ago. The memory of the evening when she’d received it rushed back unbidden.

Emma twisted the end of a lock of hair with her left hand as she sorted through a stack of files and reports with her right. She was trying to decide which ones she would need, fearful that if she guessed wrong she would blow several deals all in one trip. She hadn’t missed Mrs. Emerson’s concerned look as she set the fat portfolio of airline tickets and daily itineraries on the edge of Emma’s desk. Over the next three weeks she would literally circle the world, calling upon customers, suppliers, and potential business partners. It was the sort of expedition her father had undertaken several times a year, and she had gone along with him many times. That’s why she’d been confident, even casual about it, during the planning stages. But now, as the minutes ticked down to her departure, the enormous difference between tagging along and successfully negotiating million-pound deals that could make or break parts of Knight Industries’ business had hit home.

She peripherally noticed her office door swing open on silent hinges and a figure step in.

“Where are the Bronson figures, Mrs. Emerson?” she asked, rifling through an inch thick stack of computer printouts.

“Shall I go ask her?” a male voice replied. Her head jerked up to see Peter Peel crossing the floor to her desk.

“Peter!”

“Hello darling. I came to wish you bon voyage,” he said, setting a small rectangular gift box topped with a diminutive golden bow on the edge of her desk.

“I’m so frantic, Peter -- I can’t afford a moment,” she’d nearly snapped. She was already searching again for the Bronson figures, so she missed his wince, his shoulders rising in a brief, protective gesture. He watched her for a moment, then regained his composure and turned toward the drinks tray she kept on a counter just as her father had.

“Not to worry darling. I’m just here to be supportive. Carry on.”

He poured himself a scotch, neat, and stood sipping it, watching her as she called her secretary to inquire about the missing information.

Mrs. Emerson came in and located the papers, nodding at Peter as she left again. Emma tucked the papers into her case and returned to examining the files on her desk.

“I ordered that suit we both so liked on me,” he said. She didn’t look up, but nodded and made a noise that sounded like acknowledgement. So he went on, offering her pleasant small talk as she seemingly ignored him.

Gradually the pile of files on her desk disappeared -- some into her case, some into her “out” box for refilling. Peter’s soothing voice lulled her and, remarkably, helped her to focus on the task at hand.

But it seemed to Peter that he was forgotten, his voice unheard, until Emma abruptly snapped her case shut and moved out from behind the desk. She inhaled a deep breath and beckoned to him, hitching one hip on the edge of her desk. He set his half-empty glass down and went to her.

“Thank you, Peter,” she said, her smiling brown eyes peering into his sparkling blue ones. She placed her hands on his lapels and his own landed on her waist. “I hate to admit it, but I’m a little nervous about this trip.”

“I know it can’t be the travel,” he said. “Nor the foreign cities that are intimidating you.”

She shook her head slightly, the edges of her mouth curling.

“So it must be the business.”

She shrugged one shoulder slightly, ashamed to have to admit to such weakness. He pulled her closer and placed a kiss on her forehead.

“You’ll be brilliant, love.”

She chuckled and his eyes widened in surprise. “I’m serious, darling. How can you do otherwise?”

“Oh Peter,” She shook her head, pressing on his chest lightly with both hands. He held her tighter, as if suddenly needing to cling to her. They had met just after her father’s death when she was still trying to comprehend her new role at Knight. She had been leery of taking time for herself, but Peter was persistent. He had been courting her on her terms and in her time -- meeting her at the office and taking her to dinner, sometimes turning up early with breakfast, always respectful of her corporate commitments. He was kind, attentive, and desperately charming. He obligingly distracted her from her grief and the burdens of her work with tales of his airborne adventures.

He’d made it easy to fall in love with him. His slowly growing pressure to take her to bed was not out of line and she knew it. And yet the specter of her long-gone mother who had taught her to be a “good girl” hovered between them. Emma was entertaining a long-term relationship with Peter Peel, and she could stave off the growing desire to know him entirely until he had made such a commitment to her. But she hoped with every kiss that it would happen soon.

“I mean it,” he insisted. “You are brilliant, and there isn’t a competitor who doesn’t know it, let alone your allies. I predict that great things will come of this trip.”

His confidence was contagious and Emma allowed herself to succumb to it. She slipped her arms up around his neck and hugged him, her lips seeking his for a long, romantic kiss.

“And for that,” he whispered when it ended, “you get a reward.”

He let go of her to reach across the desk and retrieve the gift, which she had forgotten all about.

Their relationship had progressed beyond polite refusals. Touched by his thoughtfulness, she shot him a winsome smile and slipped a finger under the edge of the wrapping paper. She let her eyes hold his gaze as she opened the black, hinged box.

“It’s full of good luck,” he said with a grin, looking down into the box so that Emma would too.

“It’s charming Peter,” she said, removing the diamond-studded horseshoe from the box. He took it from her and clasped it around her neck, his fingers tickling the hairs at the back of her neck. She turned to face him, touching the necklace with one hand and caressing his clean-shaven, square jaw with the other. “I won’t take it off for the duration,” she added, her voice thick with controlled emotion.

He leaned into her touch, then turned his face to kiss her palm sending tingles up her arm to her fluttering heart.

“I’ll miss you so much,” she sighed.

“You’ll telephone me. Knight can afford it,” he replied matter-of-factly, lifting her chin with two fingers in order to kiss her.

Emma touched her lips with one finger at the memory. But it was nothing more than that -- the memory of a moment long gone. And the man was so changed now that the very thought of him caused a much different emotional response.

A movement in the mirror caught her eye. Her husband was crossing the bedroom, straightening his tie as he walked. Emma dropped the horseshoe back into the corner of her jewelry box and smiled into the mirror at his reflection as he approached. She removed a simply set amethyst on a gold chain and reached to the back of her neck to clasp it. Steed’s warm hands enveloped hers, taking the fine chain from her. She pulled her hair aside and he fastened the necklace, then bent to feather three little kisses beneath her exposed ear.

“Tell me about the little horseshoe,” he murmured.

Her heart skipped a beat. How can he have seen? But as her eyes met his in the mirror his sly smile reassured her.

“It was a present,” she replied coyly, knowing that it sounded wrong. The flash of disappointment in his eyes pierced her to her core, even though he masked it quickly. He deserved a real answer. “A month before he proposed. I was leaving on a business trip -- my first one without my father to all the overseas suppliers and customers. He knew I was nervous, and he gave it to me for luck.” Steed rested his hands on her shoulders, watching her in the mirror. “Does it bother you, my keeping it all this time?”

He drew a stray strand of her hair back from her face with gentle fingers. “No.”

“I did care for him, then,” she went on, wondering if she should just stop talking. “He was the first love of my adult life. I can’t change that, no matter how much he, and I, have changed since then.”

“I know.”

“And what were you doing going through my jewelry box?”

“Emma,” Steed drew her to her feet with both hands on her upper arms, turning her to face him. “A wise man knows the contents of his wife’s jewelry box as well as he knows her heart.”

His warm grey eyes glowed with a familiar mix of irresistible passion and smug pride that drew Emma into his arms.

“Are you ready to do this?” he asked, holding her tightly against himself.

“Yes. I’m ready I just have one question, though.”

“What is it?”

“Why do I always have to be pregnant on the witness stand?”

They both chuckled as Steed extended his arms in order to look at her figure in the oatmeal tweed suit she was wearing.

“You’re hardly showing,” he assured her. “Come on. Let’s kiss John good-bye.”

***

“Steed residence,” Siobhan bent her head to hold the kitchen telephone receiver against her ear with her shoulder as she opened the door of the big refrigerator.

“Hello, this is Sally Howard. Is Emma in?” Siobhan recognized the young woman’s voice although they had never met in person.

“I’m sorry Miss Howard, she’s not. Can I take a message?”

“Darn it. I wanted to catch her before she left for the trial. How was she?” Sally half turned in her desk chair to look out across the courtyard at the windows of the British embassy’s residence wing. She knew she was asking the Steed’s nanny to commit an indiscretion. But Siobhan knew who she was.

“Fine. I suppose,” Siobhan found John’s lidded cup and shut the refrigerator door. “She seemed tense.” Siobhan knew that Miss Howard worked for Mr. Steed and was a friend of Mrs. Steed’s. Her question seemed sincere and harmless.

“The last time was hard for her. This one will be much worse. I had wanted to give her a little encouragement. How was Steed?”

“Mr. Steed was -- I think of it as his professional persona. You know? When he’s very pleasant and jovial, but right underneath he’s like steel?” She crouched and put the cup into John’s hands where he sat on the kitchen floor surrounded by a collection of blocks and big toy soldiers. Steed had been showing him how to use buildings for cover while Emma dressed.

“I know it well,” Sally replied. She watched a shadow moving around in a room over there, while she pondered Siobhan’s observation and wondered if the nanny spent much time observing her employers.

“Miss Howard, can I ask you something?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know Mr. Peel? I mean, did you know Mrs. Steed when she was Mrs. Peel?”

“No. I met her just after he was arrested. I guess she was still Mrs. Peel then, but she had filed for divorce.”

“So you never saw them interact with one another.”

“No. I’ve only ever seen him once -- the day he escaped and Emma was shot.”

“That must have been terrifying,” Siobhan dropped to her knees and began stacking blocks. Sipping his juice John watched her carefully with a proprietary expression.

“Seeing Mr. Birch shoot Emma was horrible,” Sally agreed, the memory of that afternoon flashing through her mind as it hadn’t done in many months. “Everything happened at once: I thought sure Emma had the jump on Birch, but he fired at the same time that Steed came in. Steed knocked him out, but Emma was laying on the floor bleeding “.”

“I’m sorry Miss Howard, I didn’t mean to stir such an awful memory,” Siobhan interrupted her.

“It’s all right. I’ve been over it so many times in my mind it’s lost some of the impact. For a long time I wondered if there was anything I could have done differently to prevent it. But during Mr. Birch’s trial the prosecutor had a diagram of the office with where everyone was standing. And I realized that there was nothing else I could have done. I helped her -- I helped stop the bleeding, and that was the best thing for me to do.

“Sir Peter -- Mr. Peel -- picked the lock on his handcuffs and ran,” Sally chuckled, remembering how annoyed Emma had been with herself later when she had recovered and heard what had happened. “Emma had taught him how.”

“No!” Siobhan caught Sally’s mirth and chuckled too. “Why would she have done that?”

Sally sighed, trying to decide whether it was time to draw the line and end the conversation. It wasn’t really her place to tell the nanny about Emma’s history. But the facts were a matter of public record; the emotions “ the motivations “ were what intrigued Siobhan.

“Emma told me that when Sir Peter came back she had been thinking for a while of breaking off with Steed “.”

“Really?” Siobhan was taken completely by surprise.

“She loved him, but he was a confirmed bachelor. She loved working with him, but she was beginning to want more from her partner. She knew that he wouldn’t change for her so she wouldn’t ask. Ending it and looking for someone who wanted a family was the only solution she could come up with.”

“And what about Mr. Steed?” the nanny asked, stroking John’s downy soft hair as he knocked over her wall of blocks with a giggle.

“I have never discussed it with him,” Sally replied. Siobhan didn’t respond. Sally recognized the trick and decided to let herself fall for it by filling the silence with more information. “But he wouldn’t have changed for her. He didn’t realize how much he had to lose until Sir Peter came and took Emma back.”

“He didn’t try to stop her?”

“He couldn’t ask her to leave her husband to keep working with him.”

“And Sir Peter coming back was her way out without having to actually break off with Mr. Steed,” Siobhan said.

†“Yes. The impossible decision was made for her. She has told me since then that she was a coward about it, but I believe that she was determined to make her marriage work, even though she had been unhappy with Sir Peter before he was lost in the Amazon. She really believed that it was a second chance.”

“So she taught him to pick handcuffs?” Siobhan asked.

“She was trying to make him understand who she had become. Steed appreciates her brains and she could not believe that Sir Peter couldn’t do the same if she just showed him.”

“But he didn’t.”

“Apparently not. He tried to involve Emma in his criminal activities. She guessed what he was doing and refused, and eventually left him.”

“He got involved with the criminals while he was lost in the jungle, right?”

“Maybe. I think Emma has always wondered whether he was involved with them before he was lost -- that he wasn’t actually lost at all.”

“I suppose that will come out in the trial.”

“Maybe. It depends on who knows what, and who’s called to testify. The prosecutors are more interested in his activities since his return to England. He nearly bankrupted Knight Industries.”

“Lord, no wonder Mrs. Steed is nervous about testifying,” the nanny stopped John’s hand just before he toppled her new tower of blocks. The baby stared up at her through wide, curious eyes, patiently waiting to find out why she was restraining him.

“Fortunately, he was found guilty on all counts in the states, so this trial will probably go the same way. Then he’ll have to serve out the jail terms in both countries. He’ll be locked up for a very long time.”

“Is he dangerous? Is Mrs. Steed afraid, do you think?”

“He’s not accused of murdering anyone. I have no idea whether he ever has. But he slapped Emma at least once. So she might be afraid that if he got free he might try to get revenge by hurting her or her family. Are you regretting getting involved with the Steeds?” Sally spoke lightly, but it was a serious question.

Siobhan took it that way. “Sometimes I do Miss. But they need someone to care for John, and I’m quite fond of the little chap.”

“That’s certainly true. Much as they love him, they’re both a bit too self-involved to be doting parents. It’s just fortunate that they know it.”

“Oh no, Miss. They’re as doting as they come. But doting doesn’t keep him in clean nappies. Left to himself, Mr. Steed would spoil his son rotten and Mrs. Steed would smother him in love “ until their offices called, or it was time for a social event. They adore him, but they also adore their lives and each other. There’s no shame in that, so long as John has me.”