A week later

Peggy pointed the pen blindly in every direction and clicked the tiny shutter. Thankfully she had 'forgotten' to return the camera-pen back to Stark after lending it her on an earlier mission.

The petite cylinder of metal would have to do a good job at being her eyes, because the crack in the door Peggy had been straining to see through just wasn't doing the trick.

The angle was just all wrong. She could only make out the back of two men, but the pen managed to slide further into the room and she wiggled it around to capture as much as possible. Only after checking the negatives would she know if it had been successful.

She needed a few more shots and then she would get out of there. The pen suddenly slipped from her fingers and landed on the floor. The tiny thud barely registered as noise but was enough to alert the men in the room to take note.

"Damn it" Peggy chided her own clumsiness.

She hastily grabbed the pen, turned on a dime and ran as fast as she could through a maze of corridors. If things went to plan, a certain lofty butler should be waiting outside the building to aid a speedy get-a-way. Being caught by Corrigan Sands' men was definitely not on her to-do list.

Eventually finding the fire escape, Peggy threw herself down the stairs, stumbling over the last steps. The door exited onto a back street and Peggy found herself standing on an empty road. Jarvis was nowhere in sight.

Voices drifted down the stair case and Peggy realised there was no time to just stand around and wait. The men from the room were hot on her heels, so she just started running, putting as much distance as possible between herself and Sands' men. Her feet bashed over the gravely terrain, making her curse the tardiness of that damn butler. Running in heels was impossible, she could feel the blisters already forming against her heels.

Just when Peggy thought she couldn't last any longer, a vehicle cut across her path, the eyes of a familiar Englishman peering across the driving seat.

Climbing in to the passenger side Peggy slammed the door closed, breathless from the run. Glancing over her shoulder she took a moment to see if the men were still on her tail. Hopefully she had stayed far enough ahead to not be recognised. She had read the reports and seen pictures of those who had gotten in Corrigan Sands way. They really were a frightening sight.

Taking a few deep breaths to regain a little composure, Peggy turned to face forward in the seat and noticed the get-a-way car seemed to be driving well within the recommended speed limit

"Really Mr Jarvis, are you not able to go a little faster?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"Well I'm still getting used to the roads here. They are considerably broader than those in New York and there seems to be a penchant for whitewash in this town. It plays devil with the eyes you know." Jarvis said, squinting as they turned a corner trying to prove his point.

"Anyway, after the damage caused to the last vehicle at Roxxon oil, I have strict instructions to look after this one. It's a particular favourite of Mr Starks."

"Of course, and we wouldn't want to upset Howard now would we." she muttered sarcastically.

It was then that Peggy couldn't bear the pain in her feet any longer and kicked off her shoes, sighing with relief while Jarvis continued his steady drive. Her legs throbbed from running over bumpy ground and she could feel a ladder in her stocking cutting uncomfortably against her toes. Needing to relief the pain and assess the blisters, Peggy slowly unhooked her nylons and rolled them carefully down her legs.

She felt the car veer ever so slightly interrupting the inspection of her wounds. Looking up to see what had happened Peggy caught the briefest of glances from Jarvis. He had been watching as she removed the stockings, the flush across his cheeks confirmed his guilt at being caught in the act.

"I, er…Do you er... Are you in need of any first aid? You seem to have some angry looking blisters there" he stuttered, an awkward attempt to claim some innocence to his little indiscretion.

Peggy shook her head at the offer of first aid and discovered that she too was blushing. There was something about that look in his eyes that made her breath hitch and she couldn't for the life of her explain why she reacted that way.

An awkward silence filled the car, threatening to force Peggy into analysing her relationship with Edwin Jarvis. But then he broke the silence, thankfully saving her from the complexities of her own thoughts.

"So how is your friend, the waitress…..Angie!" Jarvis enquired eventually remembering the girls name.

Peggy smiled warmly to herself as she thought about Angie and all the awkwardness from the moment earlier had vanished.

"She was so excited to hear I was coming to Los Angeles. She's already planning a way to come over and join me here" she told Jarvis.

"It really is the only place for an aspiring actress to be and as for being a waitress. Well that can we done anywhere" Peggy added, quoting Angie word for word.

She watched Jarvis mirror her smile as she spoke about her friend. It was hard not to like Angie, she was such a straight forward, honest girl and for a moment Peggy felt a little homesick for New York.

She took time to stare out of the passenger window as the car turned onto the winding roads of the hills and thought about Angie and the others left back in Manhatten. Then she forced her mind back to more pressing matters.

"So I'm hoping these photographs will give us the next clue where to start looking for Corrigan Sands." Peggy announced, patting her jacket pocket, making sure the camera pen was still safe.

"You might have to chase the next clue without me Miss Carter. I will not be around for the next couple of weeks."

Peggy turned sharply from staring out of the window to look across at Jarvis, a deep furrow across her forehead.

"What do you mean?"

"Mr Stark is embarking on a business trip to Italy in the morning and I am to accompany him"

"Pfft! Business trip!" Peggy spat out, knowing that Howard's meaning of the word 'business' often differed from the average person's.

"This will not do. The promise of your assistance was the clincher in the deal to bring me here in the first place" she said, catching the slightest smile appear on Jarvis' face at learning his importance to the situation.

"Oh don't look so smug Mr Jarvis, your involvement was purely in a 'dogsbody' capacity." Peggy added, then watched as the smile morphed into that wounded puppy expression he wore so well.

"Well as it stands Mr Stark is my actual employer, so I must go where he tells me to. Serving him pretty much encompasses my entire job description."

"But what if I need you?"

She watched him turn to face her. " I seem to remember an evening where you pointed out how you were quite capable of looking after yourself, long before I had come along."

Peggy waved away the comment with annoyance as images from that evening flitted through her head. She remembered Jarvis stitching a wound on her thigh, remembered the feel of his steady hand resting across her leg. That evening was the first time she began to see the kind of man Edwin Jarvis really was.

Feeling a little heat rise in her cheeks again, Peggy quickly shook away the thoughts of that evening, focusing instead on her annoyance with Howard.

"It's just bad manners to not honour a deal, and how does Howard expect everyone to just drop everything while he goes gallivanting around Europe. Has he even given a thought to poor Mrs Jarvis, being left alone in an unfamiliar town."

"I can assure you Anna is quite capable of looking after herself" Jarvis answered forlornly. A fact Peggy may have noticed, if she hadn't been so vexed over the whole situation.

The car came to a halt outside the Stark mansion and for once Jarvis managed to make it around to the passenger side before Peggy had stepped out.

The delay in exiting the vehicle had come from a painful process of trying to slip shoes back on over the blisters. Jarvis watched for a second then seemed to lean forward.

"May I?"

"May you what?" Peggy asked puzzled at his request.

Then she felt herself being lifted from the seat in to his arms and carried the short distance into the foyer. A flutter filled her chest at the close contact and she couldn't help but feel a blush burn across her face once again, as he placed her back on the floor inside the house.

Peggy managed to mutter some Thanks, then watched as Jarvis turned and left the room. Then she was left alone, coming to the conclusion that the trip to Italy might actually be a good thing. For some reason she had experienced some inappropriate feelings for the married man known as Edwin Jarvis.

Time apart sounded like just the thing she needed right now.