The Stampedes

Characters from The Avengers and Scarecrow and Mrs. King and other sources are the property of their respective owners. Château Champchevrier does exist in the Loire, is open to the public, is surrounded by a moat, and does boast a special hunting pack. Everything else about it, and the owner in this story, are my own invention.

[an error occurred while processing this directive] people have read this story since April 2004

Many thanks to Pat for correcting my French and offering some other useful advice!

The Stampedes

Steed Feels the Pressure Mounting

Emma Goes for a Ride

Chapter 3

Steed signed the rental agreement and listened to the clerk's directions to the car park, then gestured to Emma to follow him out of the train station. They crossed a side street and found the stairs to the underground garage, climbing down two flights and emerging in a well-lit space with a bright red rental car sign suspended over a glass-fronted office. Rows of parked cars filled the rest of the large space. Steed presented the contract to an attendant, who directed them to their car.

"We should reach the neighborhood just before opening time," Steed said as he started the car and backed it out of its parking space. "I'll take the first watch, if you like. You can go follow up on the company, then join me for lunch."

"All right," Emma replied.

The hotel porter had insisted that Emma's room was in order when he put the saddle there around seven p.m. Steed had asked various hotel staff members about strangers in the building in the evening, but he had so little to go on the line of questioning was fruitless.

Back in his room, Emma had locked the adjoining door and slid a large chair in front of it. This seemed uncharacteristically cautious of her, but she had been a bit insecure since she'd walked back into his life a month ago. He intended to change that, although he realized that meant resisting the urge to let her lean on him. With her there in his room, pacing about like a cat, his resolve quickly melted. He caught her mid-pace and led her to the bed, pulling her down into a cuddling embrace. Her body was tense, her breathing shallow. She stared at the ceiling, clearly unwilling to make eye contact with him.

"Did you ask the porter if he ransacked my room?" she asked. He frowned.

"I hadn't considered anything that direct," he replied, remembering the bellman that afternoon leaning into the car window down on the street. It could have been the same man who delivered the package. He reached up and gently caressed a lock of hair away from Emma's face. "But it's possible. Even so, I don't think any of the hotel staff is out to get you."

"You think it's my husband," she said, her tone indicating that it was what she thought. He had to admit she was right, so he decided not to answer.

He stroked her face, applying gentle pressure to her temples and running his fingers into her hair. Her breathing slowed as she closed her eyes. He studied her perfect skin, drawing his thumb across her mouth. She sighed, lips parting ever so slightly. Steed inhaled a deep breath of her intoxicating scent and let his mouth follow his thumb, gently kissing her. His hand drifted down to cup her breast and she sighed again, shifting to face him.

"If it was someone sent by Peter," she whispered, "there was nothing to find in my room."

Nor is there anything now, Steed thought as he allowed himself to become completely absorbed in her kiss.

She seemed her old self again in the morning, rising before him to work through a series of stretches, which he watched surreptitiously from the bed, and then venturing down the hall to the shower. They'd breakfasted on baguettes, croissants, butter, jam, and coffee at a neighborhood café, then made their way to the station to rent the car.

Steed found a parking space on the street across from the mailing shop. He shifted to find a comfortable position in the driver's seat then opened a newspaper that he'd picked up that morning, holding it on the steering wheel. It helped conceal him from pedestrians on the sidewalk, but allowed him full view of the shop. Seeing that he had settled in, Emma leaned close to kiss him on the cheek then opened her door and got out. She leaned back in to say, "I'll be back at noon."

Emma spent the morning making the rounds of French government offices inquiring about Agricultural Technologies. She learned that it was incorporated in France, and that it was a private company, so its stock was not traded on the Bourse – the French stock market. She located the names of its president and secretary, who was doubtlessly also its corporate attorney.

She was surprised not to find any address for it other than the mailing shop. She was fairly certain that French law required that the company's actual location where business was conducted be registered. It meant that someone involved with the company had bureaucratic connections. She mentioned this to Steed over lunch and he laughed.

"Mrs. Peel, every businessman in France has ‘bureaucratic connections.' There'd be no cutting through the red tape if they didn't," he sliced at the air with two fingers, "But it does signify something sinister: that perhaps they don't want to be found," he conceded.

Steed took the afternoon to meet with various contacts, including the ministry's Parisian man. Who was, in fact, a woman.

"Well, Steed, you might have let me in on this before coming over here," Tara King sat stiffly in a chair in the Palais Royal garden. Seated in another chair set with it's back half turned to hers, Steed crossed his legs and snapped his newspaper.

"It was very sudden," he replied. "Have you had an opportunity to look into it at all?"

"Yes, of course I have. The notion that the French are sabotaging English livestock got our attention immediately."

"And?"

"As your Lady Emma has doubtlessly already learned, the company is private and not very well documented," Tara stared off in a direction exactly opposite Steed as she mentioned Emma. Steed was not at all surprised that Tara was already aware of Emma's morning investigations.

"Can you add anything to that?" he asked, forcing himself to remain patient. He knew he'd hurt Tara, even though he also didn't believe she had a right to be hurt that he'd chosen to pursue his relationship with Emma. And she had recovered admirably, accepting this posting to Paris and throwing herself into her work here.

"François De Courcelles, the company president, is a member of a very old French family. They own a great deal of land in the Loire valley where they grow grapes and sunflowers, and raise cattle," Tara reached into her tote bag and produced a large, unmarked envelope. It slipped clumsily from her hand and fell on the ground near Steed's feet. He glanced around the park then bent to pick it up and fold it into his paper.

"Anything else?" he asked, leaning forward with his hands on his knees as if preparing to rise.

"Yes. There's someone following Lady Emma."

"I thought so," he replied, sitting back in his chair. "Tell me."

"Not much to tell. A man, slender, medium height dressed in black just like half the rest of Paris. Brown hair, but wearing a hat so it's hard to see his face. He drives a grey scooter."

"When did your people spot him?"

"This morning. Why?"

"Someone ransacked her room last evening."

"Her room?"

"Yes, Tara, Mrs. Peel's room."

"Oh. Well, Steed, at least that makes it clear it's her they're interested in. . ."

"Do me a favor?" he asked, preparing to rise again.

"Of course," she replied, her tone ever so cool.

"Have him picked up – for loitering or something. Then let me have a few minutes with him."

"I'll see what I can do, Steed. We don't run the Paris police, you know."

"I'm sure you'll think of something."

The Agricultural Technologies letter box remained unopened that day. When the shop closed Emma drove the rental car back to the hotel and handed it over to a valet to deal with.

She opened the door to her room very cautiously, but found it unmolested and empty – her belongings were still in Steed's room. He was not there, so she took the opportunity to check in with Sally and take care of some business matters back home.

Out of habit, she unscrewed the telephone mouthpiece and inspected it for extra electronics, but found nothing. She felt stiff after sitting all afternoon, so she stretched, then began to work though a series of Kung Fu exercises. By the time she'd completed them she felt energized and she could hear Steed in his room next door.

Steed omitted Tara's name from his report to Emma about the meeting. She took the news about being followed in stride.

"I suspected," she said, "I thought I saw the same man several times this morning."

"I've asked them to pick him up. I'll have a word with him."

"It might be better not to let him know that we know."

Steed thought about it, then shook his head, "I want to know for sure he's working for your husband. I'll be careful about what I say."

"I have a better idea. If they pick him up, I'll talk to him. This is my business. It's better if you stay out of it."

Steed nodded, fully agreeing with her. His involvement was exactly what Peter Peel would want to find in order to discredit Emma.

The next day Emma took the morning shift outside the shop while Steed looked into François De Courcelles. A morning spent on the telephone failed to earn him more than the name of the family château and some society page details about the man's lifestyle. He was an unexceptional, wealthy French farmer who maintained a flat in Paris and a country house in the Loire. The château, built in the 18^th century, was open to the public for tours. It housed family treasures, and the adjoining kennels housed a pack of hunting dogs notable for its own lineage and size.

Disappointed by his lack of progress – nothing that he'd learned suggested that François De Courcelles should have a grudge against British farm animals – Steed met Emma for lunch then took over watching the shop. Emma went off to look into the hunt, an area in which she had more expertise than she cared to admit.

Steed had finished the New York Times crossword puzzle, the paper picked up at some expense from an International newsstand that morning, when he noticed a flash of red through the shop window. It wasn't the first time, but each time in the previous day and a half it had been someone wearing red clothing. Nonetheless, he focused his attention of the shop door as it opened and a young woman came out. She was dressed in tweeds, with close-cropped blond hair. The only red he could see about her seemed to be in the bundle of letters she was holding.

Steed put his paper aside and reached for the car key, ready to start the engine. But the woman started off on foot toward the Trocadero. He did not want to be stuck in the car unable to park it. He removed the keys and got out, stepped to the front of the car and, glancing around to see if he was observed, slipped the keys on top of the front tire.

He straightened, tugged his suit coat into place, and set out after the woman.

The woman entered the Metro and Steed managed to follow, riding in the same car as her. They changed trains – inevitable with the Paris subway system -- and eventually got off at the Gare d'Austerlitz. Steed placed himself in the ticket line behind the woman and purchased tickets for the same train and compartment, destination a town in the Loire.

Steed had a moment to call the hotel, but Emma was not in. There wasn't time for her to join him before the train departed anyway, so he would have to try again later.

"Fascinating research," Steed said when the young woman glanced away from her magazine and out the window. She looked across the compartment at him, expression bland.

"Breeding for the hunt," he said. "Amazing advances recently." He was winging it, basing his vague observations on a conversation he'd had with Emma the other day. She'd been lamenting that the editor at Horse and Hound had published the article on equine genetics written by a non-scientist.

"Yes," she replied, her face softening. Although she had been reading the English magazine, she had a French accent. "You're interested in the hunt?"

"Fascinated," he replied, "champion animals, fine people, excellent parties . . ." he winked.

She chuckled, and he took it as a signal. He switched to the empty seat next to her, asking if she rode, if she had her own horse, and any other question he could think of to draw her out. She responded easily, describing a recent visit to England to ride with a famous hunt, and speaking fondly of her two horses. She explained that she was going to the Loire to participate in a hunt with a well-known dog pack. Her horses, she said, were already stabled there, at Château Champchevrier.

Steed relaxed, continuing the conversation while allowing a plan to form in the back of his head. By the time the train pulled into their destination, he had received an invitation to meet her after the hunt tomorrow. The post hunt cocktail party, she explained, would be a large event and he'd have no trouble slipping in, even if he didn't ride. She had vaguely suggested the he could use her second horse if he cared to join, but he'd deflected the invitation. The last place he wanted to be was out riding if the château was to be mostly deserted and easily searched, and he could not think of a way to accept and then give the mount to Emma.

In the hotel lobby, Emma asked for the key to Steed's room rather than her own and was given it without question. The phone was ringing as she entered the room.

"Mrs. Peel, I'm so glad I caught you," Steed said.

"I've just come in," she replied, sitting down on the bed and glancing at a note she'd been handed with the key.

"Pack all our things and check out. The car is outside the shop, keys on the left front tire. Someone picked up the mail and I followed her to the station. We took a train into the Loire."

"We?"

"I had a pleasant chat with the young lady during the trip. Very enlightening."

"All right. You'll have to give me directions," she looked again at the note, a wry smile curling the edges of her mouth. "And Steed, there's a note for you here."

"Yes? Read it to me, will you?"

"It says, ‘Steed, we have the item you requested. Call me as soon as you can.' It's signed ‘Tara,'" She smiled with satisfaction at the brief silence on the other end of the line.

"That would be your shadow," he finally said. "They'll just have to keep him for a day or two."

"Are you sure? Perhaps I should call Miss King," Emma said wickedly.

"I think it would be best if I take care of it," he replied. "Now find a pencil. Here's where you need to go," Steed gave her basic instructions, which she jotted down. They both knew she'd get a map and have no trouble finding him.

"I'll get there as quickly as I can, Steed," she said. "Perhaps two hours. I'll be expecting dinner."

"Very well, the hotel has a fine little restaurant. I'll make a late reservation. And Mrs. Peel, be sure to bring your saddle."

Emma rang off, puzzled by his last instruction. As if she'd entrust the valuable item to the hotel or a locker some place! She packed their bags and slipped her saddle into the cotton bag that came with it, since the box was rather large. She checked out, agreeing that Steed would be billed for that night, and had them call her a taxi.

Thirty minutes after Steed's call she got out of the taxi next to the rental car. She found the keys where Steed had left them and quickly loaded the luggage into the boot. Glancing around one last time, she got in the car and started the engine. If Tara really had caught the man who'd been following her, then she would have to thank her. Emma turned on the radio and hunted for some cheerful music to take her mind off of it.

Steed's directions took her to a hotel in a small, quiet Loire village. She found a parking space on a narrow street around the corner and unloaded the car. Steed met her outside the hotel and took the bags from her, letting her keep the saddle. He led her through the small lobby and up a flight of stairs. In the upstairs corridor he hit a light switch with his elbow, then walked half way down to a door. He set down the bags to unlock the door then led her inside.

"They only had one room available," he said, setting both bags on the bed and turning to face her. She set the saddle down on an uncomfortable looking chair and looked around.

"Cozy," she said, then looked him in the eye. "It's fortunate that Tara arrested my stalker. Now tell me about this new friend of yours, Pauline, was it?" Her eyes narrowed into a suspicious expression.

Steed glanced at his watch, "Let's go downstairs – I got us the latest possible reservation and it would be rude to keep the kitchen waiting." Emma nodded – she was rather hungry and the lobby had been suffused with very enticing food odors when they passed through.

The small dining room was occupied by one other couple several tables away. They were in the middle of their meal. Steed immediately ordered a bottle of very good local wine while Emma surveyed the menu.

"The woman who collected the mail will be riding in the Château Champchevrier hunt tomorrow," Steed said when the waitress, a matronly woman who seemed to be the proprietress, had gone. "You'll be riding too."

"Really? I wasn't aware I'd joined – I'm sure there's an organization one must be a member of."

"It's been arranged. And so has a horse."

"You've been busy."

"Yes I have. A friend from down the valley is bringing one of his hunters for you first thing in the morning. You will be the guest of a minor member who's connected to the Ministry."

"I'll need riding clothes – that's one costume I didn't pack."

"Coming with the horse."

"Right then, so why do I need to help chase down some innocent fox?"

"Mrs. Peel, the fox is hardly innocent! But in any case, your target will be Francios De Courcelles. Be your charming self. Express your need for good feed additives…"

"And see if he takes the bait, hummm?"

"Precisely."

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