Princess Elizabeth's Spy(8)

“On top of all the Coldstream Guards we have in place at Windsor, what else do you suggest, Prime Minister?” the Queen asked.

“Actually, I had an idea.… There’s a young woman from MI-Five,” the P.M. said. “She used to work for me, actually. She’s smart, circumspect, an eye for the unusual and out-of-place—and able to put two and two together. I’d like to have her at Windsor to keep an eye on things, from the inside.”

The Queen looked at the King. She nodded. He smiled at her and took her hand.

“Of c-c-course,” the King said. “What is her name?”





Chapter Three


Maggie’s one consolation after her poor performance at Camp Spook was that she could finally return to London. When David Greene, her friend and one of Winston Churchill’s private secretaries, pulled up to the servants’ entrance of the great house in his old Citroën, she slid in and gave him a huge bear hug.

“Maggie, love,” David managed, “you’re crushing me.”

“Sorry,” she said, settling into the worn leather seat. “But I’ve missed you.”

“Missed you, too, Mags,” David replied as the car pulled away with a few splutters and pops. “Number Ten isn’t the same without you.” There was an awkward silence as they both thought of who else was missing.

“And I’ve missed Number Ten,” Maggie said, evading the unspoken question. “How is everyone—Mr. Churchill, of course, and Mrs. Tinsley, Miss Stewart, Mr. Snodgrass, Nelson … And how are you? How’s it working out with that nice fellow from the Treasury? Freddie, was it? Freddie Wright?”

“Oh, Maggie,” David said as he shifted into second gear, “keep up, darling. Freddie is so very last month. There was also Francis, then Timothy—let’s see—then Rupert, Felix, Robert, Hamish.…”

“Oh, my!” Maggie said, laughing. David, like her Aunt Edith back in Boston, was “like that.” While he could be himself with Maggie, it wasn’t something he was able to share with many others in London, especially at No. 10.

“So how was it?” he asked. “I’m dying to know. I realize you can’t tell me much, but anything you can share—”

“Oh, David,” Maggie said, words tumbling over each other, “is there any way I can come back to work for Mr. Churchill?”

David swerved to avoid a large white sheep standing in the middle of the road, baa-ing to his woolly fellows still in the high grass. “Bad, huh? Well, the Old Man has a new girl now, a Marion something-or-other.…”

“I see,” Maggie said, trying not to let the hurt she felt show.

“Was it really that horrible?”

Maggie gave a delicate snort. “Worse. I may be a decent mathematician, but I’m terrible at anything physical. It was a living nightmare. Nonstop gym class.”

David, who was fair and slight and wore thick glasses with wire frames, nodded, understanding. “First off, you’re a brilliant mathematician. And second, people like you and me, well, we aren’t cut out for all that robust outdoorsy life anyway—thank goodness I found fencing. So, what now?”

“Good question.” Maggie shrugged. “Tomorrow I meet with Peter Frain. We’ll see what happens and go from there. Surely there must be something I can do.”

As they approached London, in the gray dimming light, Maggie could see smoke rising from the city, its acrid stink unmistakable. The skyline had changed as well; there were gaps where tall buildings had once proudly stood, like the smile of an aging prizefighter. London, as well as Bristol, Cardiff, Southampton, Liverpool, and Manchester, had been under attack from the Luftwaffe since the summer, in what Churchill had called the Battle of Britain. London had been bombed nearly every night since September.

Maggie was silent, both sickened and awed by the destruction that had happened since she’d left.

Across one building’s brick side was chalked, “There will always be an England!” Some of the letters had been blasted away, but it was still legible.

“Bloody Nazis,” Maggie said, taking it all in—the death, destruction, and defiance—as they drove closer and closer to the city.

David gave a grim smile. “Bloody Nazis.”


Back at David’s flat in Knightsbridge, Maggie was surprised. She expected girlish voices filling the air, but instead there was only gloom and thick silence.

“Where is everyone?” she called, her voice echoing as she put her suitcase down.

After the horrific events of last summer, Maggie and her flatmates Sarah, Charlotte (better known as Chuck), and the twins, Annabelle and Clarabelle, had moved in with David, who had a ridiculously large flat—originally a pied-à-terre his father had bought for business trips to London. David had taken it over after graduating from Oxford and beginning a job as private secretary to then M.P. Winston Churchill.