Princess Elizabeth's Spy

PRINCESS ELIZABETH’S SPY

A Maggie Hope Novel

Susan Elia MacNeal

Bantam

www.bantamdell.com

Bantam Books

PRAISE FOR SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL AND

Mr. Churchill’s Secretary

“Susan Elia MacNeal perfectly captures the spirit of wartime Britain in Mr. Churchill’s Secretary, a delightful mystery that follows the adventures of an appealing heroine who is both secretary and spy. This wonderful debut is intelligent, richly detailed, and filled with suspense.”

—STEFANIE PINTOFF, Edgar Award–winning author of In the Shadow of Gotham

“Chock-full of fascinating period details and real people, including Winston Churchill, MacNeal’s fast-paced thriller gives a glimpse of the struggles, tensions, and dangers of life on the home front during World War II. A terrific read.”

—RHYS BOWEN, author of Royal Blood and winner of the Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards

“Think early Ken Follett, amp it up with a whipsmart young American not averse to red lipstick and vintage cocktails, season it with espionage during the London Blitz. Add to that her boss Churchill and War Room intrigue, and you’ve got a heart-pounding, atmospheric debut in Mr. Churchill’s Secretary. I loved it.”

—CARA BLACK, author of Murder in Passy

Also by Susan Elia MacNeal

Mr. Churchill’s Secretary

To Judith Merkle Riley, 1942–2010,

mentor, friend, and the real Maggie Hope.

Thank you.

“Be a governess! Better be a slave at once!”

—Charlotte Brontë,

Shirley

Cryptogram: Message written in a cipher or in some

other cryptic form which requires a key (qv)

for its meaning to be discovered.

—A Lexicon of Cryptography

(“Most Secret,” Bletchley Park)

Contents

Cover

eBook Information

Praise for Susan Elia MacNeal and Mr. Churchill’s Secretary

Also by Susan Elia MacNeal

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

About the Author

Prologue

The midday summer sun in Lisbon was dazzling and harsh. But while nearly everyone else was inside taking a siesta, the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII of England, kept up his British habits, even on the continent.

He and his wife, Wallis Simpson, the woman for whom he’d abdicated the throne, sat outside at the Bar-Café Europa, which catered to tourists and British expats. The town square was nearly empty, except for a young American couple walking arm in arm and a few pigeons strutting and pecking for crumbs in the dust.

Wallis, slender and elegant, wore a scarlet Schiaparelli suit, a bejeweled flamingo brooch, and dark glasses. She sipped a Campari and soda, the ice cubes clinking against one another in her tall glass. Next to her, the Duke, slight and fair-haired, toyed with a tumbler of blood-orange juice and read The Times of London. He was only forty-six, but the strain from the abdication, and subsequent banishment from royal life, made him look much older.

A shadow passed over his page. The Duke looked up in annoyance, then smiled broadly when he saw who it was—Walther Shellenberg, Heinrich Himmler’s personal aide and a deputy leader of the Reich Main Security Office.

“Shel! Good to see you—sit down,” the Duke said.

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Shellenberg replied in accented English, sitting down on the delicate wire chair. The Duke and Duchess had befriended Shellenberg on their tours to Germany before the war, visiting with Prince Philip of Hesse and Adolf Hitler.

“Hello, Walther,” Wallis said.

Shellenberg removed his Nazi visor hat, with its skull and crossbones, to reveal thick brown hair parted in the center and glistening with a copious amount of Brylcreem. “Good afternoon, Your Highness. May I say you look particularly beautiful today?” he said to Wallis, a smile softening his angular features.

“Thank you, Shel,” she replied, warming to his use of Your Highness, which Hitler had also used when they’d visited him at the Berghof, his chalet in the Bavarian Alps. Technically, neither Hitler nor Shellenberg needed to address her that way, as she’d never been awarded HRH status by the current king, a snub indeed. His wife, Queen Elizabeth, referred to Wallis only as “that woman.”

As she offered her hand to Shellenberg to be kissed, the scent of L’heure Bleue mixed with Mitsouko—a heady mix of carnations and oakmoss, Wallis’s signature scent—wafted around her in the heat.

“They threw a rock at our window last night, Shel.” The Duke frowned. “Shattered the glass. Could have killed us.”

“I know, sir. Terrible, just terrible.” And he did know—Shellenberg himself had arranged the rock-throwing incident in order to frighten the Windsors, leaving false clues to make it look as though British Intelligence were to blame. If the Windsors were scared enough, blaming British Intelligence, they’d come around to the Nazis’ point of view, he was certain of it.

“It’s terrible,” Wallis said, smoothing her glossy black hair, cut down the middle with a narrow white part. “They hate us. The British just hate us now.”

“Now, now, dear,” Edward said, reaching over to take her hand. “It’s not the British people. It’s Churchill and his gangsters. And my brother and that wife of his. Silly old Bertie as King George VI, indeed. It’s as if I’d never been King!”

“You can’t abdicate and eat it too, dear,” Wallis said with a tight smile.

Shellenberg cleared his throat. “I’ve heard from the Führer.”

“Oh, how lovely!” Wallis exclaimed, extracting a cigarette from a gold case and fitting it in a long ivory holder. The Duke pulled out his lighter and lit it for her; she smiled up at him as she drew her first inhale.

“He gave me a number,” Shellenberg said, knowing quite well the two were having money problems since the abdication. He took a small folded piece of paper from his pocket, put it on the table, and pushed it toward the Duke. If fear alone couldn’t persuade them, perhaps money could.

The Duke of Windsor waited, simply looking at the note for a few heartbeats, then reached for it. Slowly, he picked it up and opened it. He read the number and then handed the slip over to Wallis. She examined it, arching one perfectly plucked and penciled eyebrow, then handed it back.

“Quite a bit of money, Shel,” the Duke said, pushing the paper away.

“But it’s not just about the money, sir,” Shellenberg said, placing the paper in one of the ceramic ashtrays and then lighting it, letting it burn away to ash. “Germany has taken Austria, the Sudetenland, and Poland. We have taken the Low Countries and France. When Germany invades England—and it’s just a matter of time before London falls—your people will need you.” He looked to Wallis. “Both of you. You know it’s only a matter of time now. We’re establishing air supremacy, and as soon as we take out the Royal Air Force, we’ll invade. Your younger brother, the present king, has aligned himself with Winston Churchill and his gangsters. He won’t be permitted to stay on the throne, of course.”

“Of course,” Wallis murmured. She had no love for either the King or Queen, who had never acknowledged her and, in her opinion, had taken every opportunity to humiliate her. Why her husband couldn’t have simply stayed on the throne when he’d married her, she would never understand—or forgive.

“And his daughter, Elizabeth, raised with the same propaganda her father espouses, can’t reign either, so … And then we’ll need you—both of you,” Shellenberg stressed, “to urge the British to accept German occupation. With you as King, and the Duchess as Queen, of course.”

“It’s not about me, Shel,” the Duke said. “We need to end the war now before thousands are killed and maimed in order to save the faces of a few corrupt politicians. Believe me, with continued heavy bombing, Britain will soon be desperate for peace. The people will panic and turn against Churchill and Eden—and the current King, too, of course. Which presents the perfect opportunity to bring me back as sovereign.” The Duke sighed. “Of course, I can’t officially support any of this, you know.”

“What other options do you have?” Shellenberg asked.

There was a long silence. The Windsors knew they were running out of opportunities.

“Bermuda,” Wallis said finally, rolling her eyes and tapping ashes into a ceramic ashtray crudely painted with a bullfighter holding up a red cape. “Churchill and the present royals want to banish us to that godforsaken little territory. Conveniently out of their way.”

“Then don’t go,” Shellenberg urged. “You have the Führer, and the British people, counting on you to step up. To be their King and Queen.”

The Duke and Duchess locked eyes. “What do you say, dear?” he asked her.

The Duchess took a moment for a long exhale, blowing out a thin stream of blue smoke. It had been a long few years for her. First there was her affair with him, when he’d been the Prince of Wales. The unexpected death of his father, King George V, had been both shocking and painful for both of them. Their relationship nearly collapsed when Edward had taken the throne, crushed by the disapproval of the rest of the royal family.

They’d thought, perhaps foolishly, that once the family got to know her better, they’d accept her. But no. The Royal family, in particular the newly crowned George VI and Queen Elizabeth, had made it overwhelmingly clear Edward would never be able to marry her, a two-time American divorcée and a close personal friend of Joachim von Ribbentrop’s, Foreign Minister of Germany, and still stay on the throne.

Edward had chosen her and abdicated—but it had nearly killed him. And it broke her heart to see him made to choose. Their love had survived, but only just. Even in the bright sunshine of Portugal, they had their good days and bad.

“We’re going to enjoy ourselves at the villa of our good friend, Ricardo do Espírito Santo Silva, for now,” she replied, finally. “If—and only if—Germany invades …” She shrugged her narrow shoulders.

“—you can count on us to do the right thing,” the Duke finished. “For the British people, of course.”

The three of them nodded.

“Excellent,” said Shellenberg, rising. “That’s what we hoped you’d say. Heil Hitler!”

Chapter One

Bletchley was a small, seemingly inconsequential railway town about fifty miles northwest of London. However, since 1938, the town was also the home of what was officially known as the Government Code and Cipher School. But those in the know referred to it as Station X. Or War Station. Or just the initials B.P., for Bletchley Park.

The Bletchley estate, the former manse of Sir Herbert and Lady Fanny Leon, was a red-brick Victorian monstrosity in a faux-Tudor style. Now, under government control, it bustled with men and women in uniform, as well as civilians—mostly men in baggy wrinkled trousers and herringbone tweed jackets with leather elbow patches. The house’s formerly lush lawns were flattened and worn from all the foot and bicycle traffic. The gardens had been trampled to make room for hastily assembled huts and office buildings.

Although it was a secret to most who worked there, the real business of Bletchley was breaking Nazi military code. The cryptographers at Bletchley Park had a reconstructed Enigma machine used by the Germans (a gift from the Poles), a code key used in the Norway campaign, and two keys used by the Nazi air force. Though they received a huge volume of decrypts, they still couldn’t be used for practical purposes. Under the leadership of Alan Turing, Peter Twinn, and John Jeffreys, they were still waiting and working, hoping for a miracle.

The Nazis thought their codes were unbreakable, and they had good reason to believe so. When a German commander typed in a message, the machine sent electrical impulses through a series of rotating wheels, contacts, and wires to produce the enciphered letters, which lit up on a panel above the keyboard. By typing the resulting code into his own machine, the recipient saw the deciphered message light up letter by letter. The rotors and wires of the machine could be configured in an almost infinite number of ways. The odds against anyone breaking Enigma were a staggering 150 million million million to one.

Benjamin Batey, a graduate of Trinity College at Cambridge with a Ph.D. in logical mathematics, worked in Hut 8 trying to break Nazi naval decrypts. Batey had been working for eight months in the drafty hut. It stank of damp, lime, and coal tar.

He worked in one room of a dozen, divided by flimsy partitions made of plywood. The noise from the other workstations drifted about—low conversations, thudding footsteps, a shrill telephone ring, the steady clicks of the Type-X machines in the decoding room.

The harsh fluorescent overhead light cast long shadows across the concrete floor as Batey and his officemate, both youngish men in rumpled corduroy trousers and heavy wool sweaters, worked at mismatched battered wooden desks piled with sheaves of papers. Thick manila folders with TOP SECRET stamped in heavy red ink across them were heaped haphazardly on the floor, dirty tea mugs lined up on the window’s ledge, and steam hissed from the paint-chipped radiator. Blackout curtains hid the view.

Usually a prodigious worker, Batey couldn’t wait to leave. He had a date.

“So, is she an imaginary girl? Or a real one?” asked James Abbot, his officemate. Abbot was young, but his face was pale and drawn, and he had dark purple shadows under his eyes. They all looked like that at Bletchley. Sleep was considered an unnecessary extravagance.

Batey was not amused. “I don’t kiss and tell, old thing,” he said, shrugging into a wool coat and wrapping a striped school scarf around his neck.

“I say,” said Abbot, putting his worn capped-toe oxfords up on the desk and leaning back, “at least comb your hair. Or what’s left of it.”

It was true. Batey might have been only in his late twenties, with a face that still had the plushness of youth, but already his dark hair was receding. It could have been genetics, or the prodigious stress Batey was under as a boffin, as the cryptographers were called at Bletchley. Generally, he was too sleep-deprived and distracted to give his appearance much thought, but it hadn’t gone without noticing that in the confines of B.P., the boffins were at the top of the pecking order, as far as the women there were concerned.

It was the first time Batey had been viewed by the fairer sex in such a positive light, and, suddenly, he was in demand. And so, while at first he believed it was absolute insanity that someone like Victoria Keeley, who turned heads at Bletchley with her tall, slim figure, pale skin, and dark hair, would be interested in someone like him, he’d slowly grown to accept and even appreciate it.

There was a knock at the door. Abbot’s eyebrows raised.

Batey cracked the door open, but it was too late, Abbot had already caught sight of who it was. “Victoria Keeley, Queen of the Teleprincesses—what brings you to our humble abode?” Abbot said, leaning back even farther in his desk chair.

Victoria was tall and slender, with a profile as sharp as Katharine Hepburn’s and an aura of offhand glamour that came from being a recent debutante who spoke flawless French and rode and played tennis superbly. “Only a telecountess, Mr. Abbott,” she replied with her best cocktail party smile. “Despite my family’s august lineage, I can’t quite aspire to royalty.”

“Ah, all you lovely girls are princesses to me,” he quipped, grinning at her.

“That’s funny, I’ve heard you say we’re all the same in the dark.” She batted her eyelashes as Abbott gasped and nearly fell over in his chair. “The walls are thin, Mr. Abbott,” she admonished, as he tried to right himself.

She turned to Batey. “Are you ready?” She already had her gray overcoat on and was finishing pinning on her black velvet hat. Batey caught a whiff of the pungent, oily scent of the teletypewriters she worked with all day. It clung to her dress and hair, as alluring to him—on her, at least—as Shalimar or Chanel No. 5.

“Yes,” he said, putting on his felt hat and pulling on leather gloves.

“So, where are you two going?” Abbot asked. He picked up a sheaf of tea-stained papers and rose to his feet. “Mind taking these out for me?”

“Concert,” Batey said, as he accepted the papers. “Bach. Fugues. Bletchley Park String Quartet.”

“Well, have fun, you two,” Abbott said. “Someone has to stay here and mind the shop.”

In the narrow hallway, Victoria pulled Benjamin close. “I thought this day would never end,” she said, nuzzling his neck.

“Not here.” He still needed to dispose of the papers in his hand. There was a room with a shredder, and then all the tiny scraps of paper were put into a large bin marked CONFIDENTIAL WASTE.

She was tall in her heels, and her lips reached his ear easily. “We don’t even have to go to the concert,” she whispered. “I don’t even know how I’d be able to sit through it, knowing …”

Her tongue swirled in his ear and Benjamin groaned.

“Let’s go,” he said in a low, anxious voice.

On their way out they saw Christopher Boothby, who worked in the main office, doing administrative work. The two men were wearing the same navy, red, and yellow striped Trinity College scarf. As they passed, Boothby gave the couple a wink and a smile.

Afterward, in Victoria’s tiny bedroom in the drafty cottage she shared with one of the other teleprincesses, Benjamin fell asleep.

As he snored lightly, Victoria slipped out of the warm bed and wrapped herself in her chenille robe. Going to his coat, she rummaged through the pockets, taking the papers he was supposed to have shredded and dropping them into a drawer.

Then she crawled back under the covers and gave him a gentle nudge, then a harder one.

“What?” he mumbled.

“Darling, I’m so dreadfully sorry. But my roommate is such a little priss—and if she catches you here she’ll tell the landlady … who won’t approve at all.”

“Sorry?” Benjamin echoed, rubbing his eyes. “Right. Yes, of course,” he said, standing up and pulling on his plaid boxers.

“Thanks ever so much,” she said, “for understanding. Well, and that, too.”

“Oh, thank you.” He stepped into his trousers, his features boyish when he smiled. “You know, I really do want to take you out. A concert, the pictures, a nice dinner—or at least as nice as you can get these days. Please, let me take you somewhere.”

“You’re a sweet boy, Benjamin Batey,” she said with a sigh, getting up and kissing the back of his neck as he finished buttoning his shirt. “A very, very sweet boy.”

She helped him with his coat, scarf, and hat, and then sent him on his way. The door clicked closed and she waited as the sound of his footsteps receded.

Then she picked up the white Bakelite receiver and dialed. “Yes,” she whispered into the telephone, “I have something you’ll want to see. I’m leaving for London now. Should be there in a few hours, give or take. Yes, of course I’ll use an alias.”

Then, “I love you too, darling.”

Claridge’s hotel in London was a large red-brick building located in fashionable Mayfair, still elegant despite the removal of all of its lavish wrought-iron railings, which had been taken down to be melted for munitions. After her long train trip in the blackout, Victoria was grateful to check in, under an assumed name, and retire to a warm, damask-swathed room, worlds away from the shabby indignities of Bletchley.

After placing the decrypts carefully on the bed, she went into the marble bathroom and drew a bath, noticing that Claridge’s had “forgotten” the five-inch watermark for hot water rationing. She turned on the tap and out poured a scalding stream, to which she added a liberal handful of sandalwood-scented Hammam Bouquet bath salts. She sighed as she undressed, then slipped her long and elegant limbs into the bath, reclining against the slanted back of the tub. Benjamin was just such an easy target. He was lovely, really. It wasn’t his fault, the poor dear.…

The front door clicked open, then closed quietly. With the water still running, Victoria didn’t hear it. Then there was a loud thud. “Darling, is that you?” she called, lifting her head.

There was a silence, then the bathroom door creaked open.

“Darling?” Victoria called, sitting up in the tub. “You? No, not you!”

The shot went directly between her eyes. She slumped back into the bath, bright red blood streaming down her face and into the water, turning the froth pink and then crimson. As her pale slim body slipped down under the bubbles, her mouth fell open into a perfect O of surprise.

Chapter Two

Maggie Hope had fallen yet again and was covered in cold, wet mud. She pushed back a soaked lock of red hair that had fallen in her eyes, leaving a trail of dirt across her forehead. To add insult to injury, it began to rain, large, cold drops falling faster and faster. Still, it didn’t matter. She and the other eleven women would all be done when they’d finished the obstacle course and not before. “Get up, Hope!” Harold Burns, the training leader, bellowed to Maggie from the sidelines.

Burns was a wiry man in his early fifties, a veteran of the Great War. His light hair was thinning, and the brown splotches on his face were testament to a life lived outdoors. He wore corduroy trousers, a heavy cabled sweater, and Wellington boots, and carried a clipboard. He had a perpetually perplexed expression on his face, as if to say, How the hell did I get here of all places? Training all of these … women.

Maggie tried to stand, then slipped and fell yet again.

He glowered. “I said, get up! Keep going!”

When Maggie had been Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s secretary, she’d never thought of herself as potential spy material. And yet now she was living somewhere in Surrey, in a dilapidated Edwardian manor house the government had taken over for training purposes, known unofficially as Camp Spook. She slept on a hard thin cot in a bedroom with peeling wallpaper that she shared with two other girls.

She and her fellow MI-5 trainees did daily exercises in a roped off-area of the garden. There, in their coveralls and plimsolls, they did push-ups, sit-ups, and rope climbing. Today they were split into two teams, competing to finish an obstacle course, which included wriggling through an oil drum, crawling through the mud under netting, crossing a man-made pond with only a few planks and a rope, navigating through a “minefield,” and climbing up an old factory ventilation shaft.

As Maggie tried to right herself once more in the slippery black mud, Burns was shouting, his face turning red from the exertion. “Come on, keep going! The Nazis are after you! What are you waiting for? Move! Move! Move!”

With grim determination, Maggie struggled to her feet and ran onward through the mud, toward the next obstacle, a ten-foot chain-link fence they were supposed to scale and then drop from. With a running start, she jumped up onto the fence, then began clawing her way up to the top, blinking away raindrops. Her teammates who’d already finished the course were on the sidelines.

“Come on, Maggie!” the girls chorused. “You can do it!”

Her hands were clumsy from the cold and her breath burned in her lungs, but she made it to the top, swung her legs over, then jumped down to the ground.

Something popped and started to burn in her right knee, but she ran on to the next challenge, picking up one of her fallen mates in a fireman’s carry. The girl, a tiny thing named Molly Stickler, lay on her back in the mud, waiting. “Don’t drop me again, Hope,” she warned. “Not like you did last time.”

Maggie ignored Molly and reviewed the task at hand. As she’d practiced, she rolled Molly over onto her abdomen and straddled her. She extended her hands under the girl’s chest and locked them together. She lifted Molly to her knees as she moved backward.

“Careful!” Molly complained.

“You’re ‘the casualty,’ “ Maggie muttered. “Casualties aren’t supposed to talk.”

Maggie continued to move backward, straightening Molly’s legs and locking her knees, then walking forward, bringing the limp girl to a standing position. Gently, gently, every muscle burning, Maggie maneuvered the girl’s body into the proper position.

“The Nazis are coming, Hope!” Burns yelled from the sidelines. “They’d have shot you both by now!”

Undeterred, Maggie followed protocol. Rising to her feet, she carried the girl over her shoulders toward the finish line, hair dripping, covered in mud, oblivious to the agony in her knee.

But just before she reached the end, her foot slipped in the mud. She skidded like an ice skater, and then toppled backward, taking Molly down with her.

“Ooof,” Molly gasped as they hit the ground. “Ow! Goddamn it, Maggie, that hurt.”

“Under ten minutes today, Hope. Better.” Burns looked at his stopwatch. “Slightly.”

Maggie gave him a pinched smile as she got up, then offered her hand to help Molly. His “slightly” was a small victory, considering her legs felt like rubber and her injured knee throbbed. Then she limped over to the rest of the group, to cheer on the next girl, who was just starting the course.

“No,” Burns called over to Maggie, through the rain. “Get cleaned up and dressed, Hope. And meet me in the dining room.”

Was this it? Was she going to be thrown out of the program?

The dining room had a lingering sense of the house’s former grandeur. The faded and water-stained wallpaper had squares of bright perfection, where large paintings must have once hung, four-sided ghosts of the manor’s former opulence. Still, a cheerful fire crackled and popped in the grate and the brass was polished. Mr. Burns was already seated at the table when Maggie came in, washed and combed and dressed in clean, dry trousers, a white blouse, and a cabled wool cardigan.

The wireless was on. Maggie could hear the fourteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth addressing in bell-like tones the children who’d left London for the relative safety of the British countryside: “Before I finish, I can truthfully say to you all that we children at home are full of cheerfulness and courage. We are trying to do all we can to help our gallant sailors, soldiers, and airmen, and we are trying, too, to bear our own share of the danger and sadness of war.…”

Mrs. Forester, an older woman with a tight gray bun and wide hips, both chaperone and housekeeper, peeked through the door. Maggie knew from several conversations over cups of tea that she was grateful to have the job—a widow, both her sons were in the Royal Navy, floating somewhere in the North Sea. She found that cooking and cleaning for the girls of Camp Spook kept her mind occupied and tired her out enough during the day so she could manage at least a few hours of sleep at night. “Will you be wantin’ any tea, Mr. Burns?” she said, her plump face folding into a smile as she walked into the dining room and turned off the wireless with a loud click.

“No, thank you, Mrs. Forester,” Mr. Burns replied. In front of him was Maggie’s file, a thick folder labeled MARGARET HOPE.

“Very well,” she said and left.

Burns looked at Maggie, then gestured to a straight-backed chair. “Please sit down, Miss Hope,” he said.

Maggie did.

He cracked his knuckles. “Mr. Frain, head of MI-Five, sent you to me, with the highest recommendations,” he began. “He let me know a bit of your role in taking down the Prime Minister’s assassination plot and preventing the bombing of Saint Paul’s.”

Maggie permitted herself the slightest—just the slightest—feeling of pride.

“Frain also tells me you have excellent instincts when it comes to code breaking. Also that your French and German are flawless.”

The slight feeling grew just a bit brighter.

“During your time here, you’ve applied yourself and worked hard.”

I passed! Maggie thought with a glow of pride. So where am I going? A mission here in England? Dropped behind enemy lines in France? Undercover in Germany? Her pulse quickened with excitement.

“However,” Burns said.

However?

“However?”

“Your background in academics and then as secretary to the Prime Minister hasn’t been conducive to the, er, physical aspects of spy work. We have certain standards for our candidates, and, Miss Hope, I’m afraid you have not attained them.”

What? Despite the warmth of the fire, Maggie felt cold. She’d worked hard. She’d learned how to shoot Sten and Bren guns and hit targets. She’d learned to transmit Morse Code, jump out of a plane, and kill with various implements—a pen, a dinner knife, her bare hands. She’d been (with Mrs. Forester supervising, of course) tied to a chair, blindfolded, and interrogated for hours and hours by “Gestapo” officers with no rest, food, or water.

In the mental aspects of the training, Maggie had excelled; in the endurance aspects, she’d failed. The most egregious was a twenty-five-mile cross-country trek all the candidates had to do in the cold and rain. Only a few miles into the course she’d tripped on a tree root, fallen, and knocked herself unconscious. After coming to, she’d limped almost a quarter of a mile before Burns and his men picked her up. The doctor at Camp Spook diagnosed her with a sprained ankle and hypothermia.

“I cannot, in good conscience, recommend undercover work in Europe. I’m not convinced you’re physically up to it.”

There has to be some mistake. “Mr. Burns, I can assure you—”

“My mind is made up, Miss Hope. I’ve spoken to Mr. Frain, and he’s asked that you return to London. He’ll inform you of your new position when you arrive.”

“New position?” Maggie was bewildered.

“Probably reading through mail for possible codes, that sort of thing. Desk work.” Burns struggled to let her down gently. “But it’s all important work, Miss Hope. There are no small jobs. After all—”

Maggie bit her lip to hide her disappointment. After everything she’d been through, she was, once again, going to end up behind a typewriter, fighting with no more than the stack of papers in her inbox? No, no, no—she was not.

“—there’s a war on,” Maggie finished for him. “But you can’t afford to waste me behind a desk. I speak perfect French and German. I’m smart, smarter than you, most likely, and I—”

“I’m sorry, Miss Hope,” Burns said. “But when you’re over there, there’s not a lot we can do to keep you safe. And if something happens—and Lord knows it will—we need to know you can take care of yourself. I’m not convinced you’re up to it. And so I can’t, in good conscience, recommend you.”

“But, Mr. Burns—”

“I have a daughter your age, Miss Hope. I wouldn’t even consider dropping her behind enemy lines at all, let alone if I thought she might not survive.”

Maggie saw he was sincere, if narrow-minded. “Thank you, Mr. Burns,” she said, relenting, at least for the moment. She might have lost the battle, but she wasn’t ready to concede the war. “However, I must tell you I will take this up with Mr. Frain.” Surely Peter Frain, head of MI-5, who personally recruited her, would see the folly of Burns’s decision and set things straight.

“Of course, Miss Hope. Good luck to you.”

Mr. Burns watched her as she left, a pale and serious-looking girl with reddish hair, pretty when she smiled. He’d come to admire her grit, even if her performance hadn’t been up to par, and wished he had better news for her. Although the news he had would most likely keep her alive. Very few of the British spies dropped in France or Germany survived more than three months, if that. And no women had been dropped yet.

“Oh, well,” he muttered as he packed up her file. “Frain will find something for her.”

Abwehr was the German counterpart to MI-5, located at 76/78 Tirpitzufer, Berlin, in an imposing neoclassical building topped with huge black-and-red Nazi flags, snapping smartly in a cold wind under a brilliant blue sky. The Nazi spy organization had three main branches: die Zentrale, or the Central Division; Abwehr I, II, and III, which dealt with foreign intelligence collection, sabotage, and counterintelligence, respectively; and the Foreign Branch, or Amtsgruppe Ausland, responsible for the evaluation of captured documents. The Foreign Branch was run under the direction of Luca von Plettenberg.

Claus Becker answered to von Plettenberg and was in charge of information received from Britain, specifically. He was a short man, round, in his early forties, with an agreeable face and an infectious smile. A native Berliner, he’d worked as a grocery store clerk before joining the Nazi party in 1925, after reading Hitler’s Mein Kampf. He’d worked his way up through the SS before transferring to Abwehr in 1938. He was a bachelor, living in a spacious apartment in the Mitte district, and had a sweet-tempered miniature greyhound named Wolfgang, who went everywhere with him on a thin black leather leash. People at the Foreign Branch knew to be affectionate to Wolfgang if they wanted to keep their jobs.

Becker was sitting behind his desk in his office, facing two junior agents. Torsten Ritter and Franz Krause were both young, short, skinny, and swimming in their too-big gray uniforms—nothing like the robust blond men from the propaganda posters boasting Aryan supremacy. Still, they were smart, they were blue-eyed, and they were Nazis. The office was large, as was Becker’s mahogany claw-foot desk, over which hung a large official portrait of Hitler by Heinrich Knirr. The two junior agents sat on low black leather chairs, facing Becker.

“Come, Wolfie!” Becker called to his small greyhound, who ran to him, tail wagging, and licked his hands. “Sit!” he commanded. The slender gray dog went to his vermilion velvet pillow under Becker’s desk and settled down with nary a whimper.

Becker turned his attention to the junior agents. “And?”

Ritter began, “We have word our agent in Bletchley has managed to obtain an actual decrypt from their so-called Enigma machine.”

Becker gave a hearty chuckle, warm and rich. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Sir,” Krause said, “we received a short radio dispatch from London, telling us our contacts are working out their escape, with the decrypt, as we speak. They’ve asked us to have the money ready.”

Becker made a steeple with his hands, still smiling. “Ah, yes—the money.” He leaned back in his chair. “You know, I have the utmost respect for your operation, I really do. But to suggest that England has broken our codes … a joke, surely.”

Ritter spoke up: “But they say there’s a whole group of British code breakers working on it. And they’ve done it. And they have a stolen decrypt to prove it.”

“If the British have broken it,” Becker objected, “why haven’t they shown their hand? Why haven’t they evacuated their cities when they know that air attacks are coming?”

Krause shrugged. “We’re not sure how fast they can break each message, sir.”

“If they can break them at all.” Claus looked up at the ceiling. “Which I sincerely doubt.”

“But the code can be broken, yes?” Krause insisted.

Becker sighed. “The Enigma machine has a hundred and fifty million million million ways of producing its cipher, according to how you set its three rotors and how you connect its plugs. It is, in a word, impossible to break.”

Ritter and Krause sat very still.

“However,” Becker said, “I will permit you to continue to work on what, I believe, is a wild-goose chase, if only so I will own your souls when it comes to nothing. By the way, there’s a huge air attack coming up soon, payback for the bombing of Berlin. If the British can decrypt our messages, surely they’ll evacuate the city in question. Then we’ll know if, indeed, they’ve broken it.”

Becker opened his desk drawer and took out a dried pig’s ear, passing it down to the dog, who began gnawing on it. “Good boy,” he said to Wolfie, rubbing the velvety fur on his back. “Oh, that’s my good, good darling boy!”

He looked back to the two agents. “In regard to more important matters, everything is in place for Operation Edelweiss. We have our two operatives ready to go. When Commandant Hess gives the word, the plan will commence. It won’t be long now.”

He rose to his feet, gave a delighted smile, and clapped his plump hands together. “That will be all.” Then he raised his right arm. “Heil Hitler!”

The two young men stood up, clicked the heels of their gleaming black boots together, and raised their arms in salute. “Heil Hitler!”

Wrapped in a magnificent green silk robe embroidered with red-and-gold dragons, Prime Minister Winston Churchill was lying in his bed at the Annexe to No. 10, working at his Box, which held all of his most important documents. His cheeks were flushed with anger. One memo, from Lieutenant Colonel Stewart Menzies of MI-6, on the topic of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and their many conversations with Walther Shellenberg in Lisbon, had him in a foul temper.

“Where’s Tinsley?” he bellowed to his butler, David Inces.

Inces was used to his employer’s temper. “Sir, she’s—”

Mrs. Tinsley, his head typist, appeared in the doorway. “Right here, Prime Minister,” she said, bringing in her portable noiseless typewriter and setting up at the desk. Inces left.

“Letter to the Duke of Windsor!” the P.M. barked.

Mrs. Tinsley waited, fingers poised over the keys.

He began dictating. “‘Sir, may I venture upon a word of serious counsel. Many sharp and unfriendly ears will be pricked up to catch any suggestion that your Royal Highness takes a view about the war, or about the Germans, or about Hitlerism, which is different from that adopted by the British nation and Parliament. Even while you have been staying at Lisbon, conversations have been reported by telegraph through various channels, which might have been used to your Royal Highness’s disadvantage.

“I thought your Royal Highness would not mind these words of caution from your faithful and devoted servant, et cetera, et cetera. Got that, Mrs. Tinsley? Yes? Excellent. Get the letter dispatched as quickly as possible. Go!”

He picked up the telephone receiver on his bedside table. “Nelson at S.O.E.—now!” S.O.E. was short for Special Operations Executive—Churchill’s special team of black ops, who were able to do things even MI-6 couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.

There was a pause, then a man’s voice came on the line: “Yes, Prime Minister?”

“Get the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson out of Portugal immediately. Kidnap them in the middle of the night if you need to, just get them out!”

In the garden of Buckingham Palace, under a cold late-afternoon mother-of-pearl sky that threatened rain, the hedges of the gardens were covered in spiderwebs dotted with beads of dew. There, Queen Elizabeth stood, holding a gun.

“That’s right, darling,” King George VI called to her as the chill wind picked up. “Just bend your knees the slightest bit. Brace yourself for the recoil. Then squeeze.”

She did, and the gun fired with a loud bang that caused a murder of crows in a nearby oak tree to shriek and take flight. The bullet hit its intended target forty paces away—a wooden cut-out shaped like a man. On its face was a photograph of Hitler’s.

“Jolly good!” the King exclaimed. “You got him right in the n-n-n-naughty bits.”

The Queen, in a Wedgwood-blue coat and hat that matched her eyes perfectly, smiled. “Good,” she said. “That’s exactly where I was aiming.”

When Scottish aristocrat Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon had married Albert, Duke of York, the second son of King George V and Queen Mary, she’d never expected to become queen, let alone a wartime one. But when the Edward, the firstborn son, had abdicated the throne to wed Wallis Simpson, Albert had become King George VI—and Elizabeth had become his queen consort. When the Blitz began, she reached out to her people, touring the decimated East End, offering comfort and support to the grieving and homeless. For her steely inspiration, Adolf Hitler had called her “the most dangerous woman in all of Europe.”

The palace’s black-clad butler walked up to the King and Queen, and bowed. “Your Majesties,” he said, then gestured to the bald, stout, pink-faced man in a dark pin-striped double-breasted suit behind him. “The Prime Minister.”

“Welcome, Winston!” the King said, as Winston Churchill bowed.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” he answered in his gruff smoke- and whiskey-laced tones.

The Queen smiled as the P.M. bowed and kissed her offered hand. “Your Majesty,” he said.

“Care to take a shot, Mr. Churchill?”

“I would love to, ma’am. Alas, I’m afraid I’m fighting Mr. Hitler on a far less literal plane.”

“We’re learning how to defend ourselves.” the King indicated the target. “Getting better.”

“Good,” Churchill said. “We’ve made it through the Battle of Britain, but, just between us, invasion’s still a distinct possibility. Glad you and the Queen decided to stay in England, though. Keeps up morale.”

“Halifax wanted us in C-C-C-Canada—do you remember? And the girls, too.”

A corner of the P.M.’s mouth twitched. He and Lord Halifax, a supporter of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policies, didn’t agree on much. “Didn’t surprise me at all, sir.”

“Well, living at Windsor Castle’s been wonderful for them,” the Queen said. “All that fresh country air. And it’s easy enough for us to see them on the weekends. They’ve transformed one of the dungeons into a bomb shelter, can you believe?”

Churchill cleared his throat. “Your Majesties, we’ve heard some radio chatter indicating the Germans are going forward with the plot we discussed recently.”

The King took the gun from the Queen. “Nazis want to replace me with Edward, do they? The Duke of Windsor can stage his abdic-c-c-ation, in reverse?” His fingers squeezed the trigger and the bullet exploded into what would have been Hitler’s kidneys.

“A little higher, dear,” the Queen said.

“Have that w-w-w-woman wear a crown?” The King’s tones indicated the contempt he still felt for Simpson, the American divorcée for whom his brother abandoned the throne. “She had an affair with Ribbentrop!”

Joachim von Ribbentrop had been appointed ambassador to Britain with orders to negotiate the Anglo-German alliance. Wallis Simpson had been a regular guest at Ribbentrop’s social gatherings at the German embassy in London; it was rumored that the two were having an ongoing affair. It was also rumored that Ribbentrop might have used Wallis Simpson’s access to the then King Edward VIII to funnel important information about the British to the German government.

“Von Brickendrop,” the Queen said, using Ribbentrop’s London nickname, inspired by his cloddish manners and tactless behavior, “sent her seventeen carnations every day she was in London. Seventeen, allegedly for the number of times they made love!”

“The Nazis hold Mrs. Simpson in high regard, yes,” the P.M. said. “She was always one of their biggest supporters, from the beginning. But what we’ve heard is that the Germans not only want to assassinate you, sir, but kidnap the Princess Elizabeth as well—since she’s first in line to the throne. At fourteen, she’s old enough to rule.”

The King blanched. “Lilibet …?”

“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, Magster,” 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, Magster,” 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.

“Well, Sarah, as you know, is on tour.”

“Oh, of course, she’s dancing the Lilac Fairy in Sleeping Beauty. I’d forgotten.”

“Yes, Freddie Ashton still loves her.” The Sadler’s Wells Ballet was traveling across England, both to build morale nationwide and also because the bombing in London had become so horrific that it was difficult, if not downright dangerous, to continue to give nightly performances.

“The twins left their production of Rebecca and joined the Land Girls. They’re off farming somewhere in Scotland. And Chuck’s either working overnight shifts at hospital or off to Leeds to prepare for the wedding. I think she’s there now, actually.” Chuck was engaged to be married to Nigel, a RAF pilot and one of David’s best friends.

“So, for the moment, it’s just you and me?” Maggie said, unpinning her hat.

“More or less.” David looked at the grandfather clock. “Jumping Jupiter! I’ve got to run—needed back at the office, don’t you know.”

David turned to leave, then called back to Maggie, now shrouded in darkness, “You’ll be all right, then? There’s some tea in the cupboard and a bottle of decent Scotch. The Andersen’s still in the back garden—just in case. And don’t forget the blackout curtains, yes?”

“Thanks, David,” she said, with more enthusiasm than she felt. “Say hello to everyone at Number Ten for me. See you when you get back.”

When David left, Maggie took off her coat and hung it in the closet. David’s flat looked the same as it had when she’d left—Paul Follot art deco velvet sofas in deep blues, wood-paneled walls, polished herringbone floors punctuated with Chinese geometric-patterned rugs in golds and crimsons. The walls had originally been hung with oil paintings, landscapes and portraits by Duncan Grant and Roger Fry. Now they’d been rolled up and sent to David’s parents’ home in the country for safekeeping. Only the frames were left, now displaying comics and photos torn from Tatler, Britannia, and Tales of Wonder.

She picked up her suitcase and walked down the long hall to the bedroom she’d had for only a few days before she’d left for Arisaig in western Scotland, footsteps echoing. She put the case down and sat on the bed. The air in the room was stale and cold from being closed up for so long.

“Things have changed,” she whispered to herself in the murky darkness. “Of course they have—they always do.”

And how illogical of me to think otherwise.

Affected by the quiet, she went back to the parlor and went through a cabinet with David’s record collection, selecting a Vera Lynn album. She slid the hard black disk from its paper sheath and fitted it on the turntable. She turned the phonograph on, then carefully placed the needle in the groove. After a few crackles and pops, the music poured forth and, through the shadows, Lynn sang out:

“We’ll meet again

Don’t know where

Don’t know when

But I know we’ll meet again

Some sunny day.…”

They came in the night.

But this time it was real, not one of Alistair Tooke’s nightmares. He was in his bed in one of the narrow houses of the Great Park Village when he heard the knock. He looked over at his wife. Marta was also awake and clutching the sheet, drawing it up to her chin protectively.

“Probably just some sort of frost—and they’re worried about the roses,” he whispered in what he hoped was a reassuring way. Alistair Tooke was the Head Royal gardener at Windsor Castle and had worked there for more than twenty years, almost as long as he’d been married to Marta.

“Of course, dear,” Marta replied, her German accent barely noticeable after so many years, but he noticed she’d slipped out of bed and had started to get dressed.

From below, the knocking had turned into insistent banging. Alistair wrapped his flannel dressing gown around himself and made his way down the narrow, steep staircase.

“All right, all right!” he called as he made his way to the door. When he opened it, he was blinded by the bright flashlights shining in his face.

One man, older, with bushy gray eyebrows and thick lips, stepped forward with an air of importance. He was wearing the uniform of the British Home Guard. “We’ve come for Marta Kunst!” he bellowed. “Where is she?”

“My wife is Marta Tooke. We’ve been married for over thirty years.”

The man pushed past Tooke, into the hallway, and the rest, a group of four, followed. “Marta Kunst Tooke is charged with being an Enemy Alien under the Defense Act, B Registration.”

Alistair felt a prickle of fear run down his spine, but he wasn’t going to give the man the satisfaction of knowing it. “Yes, yes—we know that,” he said, running his hands through his thick white hair. “But her papers are all in order. And we work for the Royal Family!”

He could hear Marta making her way down the creaky narrow staircase. “I’m taking care of it,” he called to her. Still, she came, fully dressed in a heavy wool skirt and cabled cardigan.

“Marta Kunst,” the man said to the tiny older woman, “you have relatives in Germany. You’ve sent them chess moves, which our censors suspect to be code. You’ll be sent to a British prison camp until the authorities get to the bottom of it.”

“What?” Marta put a blue-veined hand to her throat. “I write to my Cousin Albie—we play chess! It’s perfectly innocent!”

“We’ll see about that,” the man said. He gestured to his comrades. “Take her.” Without preamble, they clamped a pair of handcuffs on her and began to lead her out of the house.

“Marta!” Alistair called in anguish.

“It’s all right,” his wife said, trying to reassure him. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

They hustled her out the door and into the waiting van.

“I’ll do everything I can!” Alistair called after her. “I’ll go to the King!”

The London police identified the woman who checked into Claridge’s under a false name and was shot in the bathtub as Victoria Keeley, missing from Bletchley Park. An autopsy had revealed that from the angle of the gunshot wound, suicide was an impossibility.

As soon as the word Bletchley was introduced, MI-5 took over the case.

Peter Frain, head of MI-5, immediately called in Edmund Hope, his Bletchley undercover operative. Edmund was a former London School of Economics professor, until he’d been in a car accident that killed his young wife and severely injured him. He’d been recruited as a spy and been at Bletchley since its inception, posing as a brilliant but mentally unstable codebreaker. But his real job was working for MI-5, tracking a suspected traitor in their midst, one that could ruin everything everyone at Bletchley was trying so hard to achieve. Victoria Keeley’s death could possibly be linked to the spy.

The two men met late at night in a small conference room in Bletchley’s main building, the former manor house. It was the first time the two had seen each other since the events of the summer, where, among other things, Maggie discovered her presumed-to-be-dead father alive and well—and working for MI-5 at Bletchley Park. But Edmund and Frain had worked together for years and enjoyed an easy camaraderie.

“Victoria Keeley worked as a teleprinter,” Edmund explained. “She wouldn’t have access to the decrypts themselves. Bletchley’s extremely careful not to let anyone know anything they don’t need to—each hut knows very little about the other parts of the operation. However, Miss Keeley was beautiful,” he said. “She had a lot of beaux. Specifically, some of the code breakers.”

“Anyone in particular?”

Edmund shrugged. “Lately a young code breaker named Benjamin Batey—I saw them together a few times. He would have had access to that sort of decrypt too. Miss Keeley may have gotten her hands on it somehow and passed it on to someone.”

“There was no decrypt found in the room. Worst-case scenario is that whoever killed her took the decrypt as well.” Frain stood up. “Well, then,” he said. “Let’s bring young Mr. Batey in for a chat, shall we?”

“One more thing,” Edmund told him. “I hear you’re going to have Maggie working with an agent named Hugh Thompson.”

“Yes, Thompson’s good,” Frain replied. “Young but promising. I think they’ll make an excellent team.”

“Considering his family history, do you think that’s wise?”

“They’ll never find out,” Frain said. “Never. I promise you, Edmund.” He held up his hand. “I give you my word.”

Chapter Four

The next morning, Maggie picked her way through the rubble outside David’s flat to get to the Sloane Square tube station, her Rayne pumps crunching on shards of broken glass. A sullen sun tried to shine through an overcast sky. The cold air rang with the wails of sirens from emergency vehicles and stank of smoke, ash, and petrol. Fires still smoldered here and there. A charwoman poured a bucket of dirty water over a dark bloodstain on the pavement, as a body, wrapped in a white bedsheet, was being loaded into a rusty Black Maria.

Maggie saw that an entire townhouse had been flattened the night before. As she passed, she noticed a woman in a Jaeger suit, hat, and gloves stumble and nearly fall over as she took in the wreckage. “This—was—my house,” she said to one of the volunteer firefighters still hosing down the charred remains.

“Get her a seat,” one fireman in a tin helmet called to another. They found a chair that must have been blown out of the window from the force of the explosion. It was silk, singed and covered in soot but still functional. The woman sat down and crossed her ankles primly in the middle of the street. “I went to the country—that’s where my children are—I was only gone one night.…”

The fireman motioned to the ARP warden. “Mug o’ tea for the lady here? She’s had a bit of a shock.” Then he went back to hosing down a smoldering fire.

Maggie gritted her teeth and walked on. Some of the bombed-out shops had put up signs: “Back as soon as we beat Hitler,” “Keep Smiling,” and, at a street fruit seller’s cart, “Hitler’s Bombs Can’t Beat Us—Our Oranges Came Through Musso’s Lake.” On the remains of a wall and floor that had the appearance of a gallows was a rope with a noose tied in it and a sign: “Reserved for Hitler.”

Inside the Tube station, Maggie walked down the stopped escalator steps, careful not to disturb those people who were still sleeping, slumped against the wall with only thin wool blankets for warmth. Since they’d lost their homes, a vast number of people had taken shelter down in the Tube stations. They slept on the steps or in makeshift bunks against the walls on subway platforms. The air was rank with the smell of unwashed bodies and human excrement from the covered buckets lining one wall.

A group of old women in ragged dirt-stained clothes were huddled around a coal brazier, making what Maggie guessed was a pot of tea. She made her way through the sea of humanity and finally caught her train.

She was headed to the offices of the Imperial Security Intelligence Service, which everyone called MI-5. Headquartered in a sandbagged building at 58 Saint James Street, MI-5’s mission was national security.

After showing her ID to one of the guards in the lobby, she was permitted access. The building was massive and her steps echoed along the well-polished hallways. “I’m here to see Mr. Frain, please,” Maggie said to the receptionist, an older woman with thick glasses named Mrs. Pipps.

She hung up her gas mask and coat on the hooks by the door and removed her gloves and placed them in her handbag. Then, straightening her hat, she sat down to wait.

Peter Frain, a spy during the Great War and a former professor of Egyptology at Cambridge after that, became head of MI-5 when Winston Churchill had become Prime Minister in May 1940. Maggie had met him over the summer, after she’d discovered hidden Nazi code pointing to three specific attacks, including the assassination of the Prime Minister. When Frain had seen her in action, plus learned of her fluency in both French and German, he’d asked Maggie to leave her job as secretary for the P.M. and come work for him at MI-5, which she’d done, intrigued by the possibility of working undercover. She’d had high hopes of being dropped behind enemy lines on a clandestine mission.

And despite her wretched showing in the physical tasks at Camp Spook, she was still determined to do it.

Finally, she was ushered into the room to find Peter Frain behind a large oak desk, a reproduction of Goya’s Lord Nelson hanging on the wall behind him, next to an official photograph of King George VI.

Frain had the same black, slick-backed hair and cold gray eyes Maggie remembered, and, despite the privations of wartime, yet another impeccably tailored suit. In front of him was a manila folder, thick with papers. Maggie could see her name on a label and then, over it, the heavy red-inked stamp, TOP SECRET.

“Ah, Maggie,” Frain said, rising to his feet. They shook hands. “Please, take a seat.” They’d been on a first-name basis since their exploits of the summer. Still, the informality sounded a bit out of place in the austere offices of MI-5.

Maggie had the distinct and uncomfortable sensation of being called to the dean’s office. Still, she refused to let that show. “Good morning, Peter. A pleasure to see you again,” she said, sitting in the chair opposite his desk.

“And under more agreeable circumstances than last time,” Frain replied, his wintry features momentarily warmed by a smile.

“Indeed.”

“I’ve had a chance to look over your file.” He folded his long, tapered fingers. “You scored well on the Intelligence test. In fact, your answer to the first question on the maths section could be the basis of an article for a mathematics journal, if we had the time for such things. Perhaps after the war.”

Maggie’s stomach lurched a bit. “Perhaps.”

“However …”

Oh, here it comes.

“In regard to your physical skills—”

“Peter, I can assure you—”

“Not a bit of it, young lady,” Frain interrupted. “The job I have in mind for you won’t have any wall scaling or puddle jumping, I promise you.”

Maggie cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”

A job? Was he talking about a real spy job, or a desk job in some subbasement, reading the personal letters and private communications of senior officials and officers and flagging anything that looked suspicious? Was he, perhaps, talking about working at Bletchley? After all, her newly found father was there, acting the role of a mad cryptographer while ferreting out a spy.…

“As you undoubtedly know, the Royal Family has decided not to send the princesses to Canada or Australia for safety’s sake but to keep them here, in England.”

“At an ‘undisclosed location in the country,’” Maggie said, having read newspaper reports of the princesses’ whereabouts.

“Yes.” Frain nodded. “And since you’ve signed the Official Secrets Act, I can tell you the young princesses have been sequestered in Windsor Castle. It’s close enough to London that the King and Queen can work at Buckingham Palace during the week but then return to Windsor to be with their daughters on the weekends. Windsor’s not on any particular bombing path, so attacks there have been infrequent. And there’s ample shelter in the castle’s dungeons.”

Who would have thought the dungeons of Windsor would be found useful once again? “Yes,” Maggie repeated, growing impatient. What does this have to do with me?

Frain picked up the heavy green telephone receiver. “Mrs. Pipps, please have Mr. Thompson come to my office.”

He turned back to Maggie. “Mr. Thompson will be your handler while you’re at Windsor. Your cover story is to tutor the Princess Elizabeth in maths. Of course, the King and Queen know why you’re really there, but as far as anyone else in the castle knows, you’re just a tutor. You’ll report to the princesses’ governess,” he said, turning through pages until he found the name. “A Miss Marion Crawford.”

A tutor? To a child? Was the man serious? “Surely you’re joking, Peter,” she said, struggling to make sense of what he was telling her.

“No, Maggie. There’s a strong probability Princess Elizabeth may be in danger. She’s second in line to the throne, after all. We need someone at Windsor to keep an eye on things.”

“You want me to be her—her babysitter?” Maggie was shocked and not a little disappointed.

“I wouldn’t have chosen that specific word. Nanny is more commonly used here. Or the more archaic governess.”

“There must be a platoon of guards in place at Windsor to protect the princess. I’m much too important an asset to waste taking care of a child, Peter, and you know it.” To go from being a typist to being a nanny? What’s wrong with these men in charge?

“I’m quite familiar with your talents, Maggie, and I would never waste them. Why don’t you think of yourself more as a … a sponge?”

“A sponge?”

“Soak up any and all information. Observe everything you can at the castle—and then report anything and everything through Mr. Thompson back to me.”

“An undercover ‘sponge,’ “ Maggie snapped. “Just fantastic.”

The door opened and a figure appeared. “Ah, there you are,” Frain said. “Maggie, meet Hugh Thompson, your handler. Mr. Thompson, Miss Hope.” Hugh was about her age, in his mid-twenties, with a high forehead, hazel eyes, and fine lines hinting at a life of unremitting anxiety. He was astute, motivated, and efficient, different from many other men of his age and class, who tended to take more for granted. When war had broken out, he’d begun to work at the office around the clock, stopping only rarely for a pint with friends or to practice his beloved cello. His efficiency flat in Bloomsbury was unfurnished, except for a bed and a bookshelf and a pile of newspapers. His one indulgence was attending the occasional Chelsea Blues game.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Miss Hope,” he said.

“And what, exactly, have you heard?”

“Mr. Thompson’s one of the agents who helped track Michael Murphy and his plan for bombing Saint Paul’s Cathedral this past summer.”

“Glad you got the bastard, Miss Hope,” Hugh said.

It seemed a lifetime ago. “Thank you, Mr. Thompson, for your part in it.”

But there was no time for pleasantries. Now she needed to make her stand, to draw a line in the sand. It was time.

Maggie rose to her feet and addressed both men. “Mr. Frain, Mr. Thompson,” she said. “I’m through allowing myself to be confined to so-called ‘women’s work.’ I’m also through with patronizing men giving me half-truths and withholding information. That will end here and now.

“I will consider—consider—going to Windsor Castle to be your ‘sponge.’ But only if you tell me everything—and I mean everything—you know. I’m not going into another situation blind. Not only is it unsafe, but I can’t do my best work.”

Frain cleared his throat. “I can’t do that.”

“Well,” Maggie pronounced, “then I can’t go to Windsor.” Her heart was beating wildly, but she was determined not to let them know. She walked briskly to the door. “Cheers!” she called back over her shoulder.

Frain and Thompson exchanged a look.

“All right, all right, Miss Hope!” Frain called after her. Maggie paused, her hand on the knob. “You’re right. You do deserve more information.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said, sitting down once again. Score one for the ex-typist!

“As you know,” Frain said, “although we’ve made it through the summer and fall attacks, we’re still getting pounded by German aircraft. Their plan, of course, is to invade and conquer England. First by taking out the RAF. And then invading the coasts, moving inward, finally reaching London and establishing their supremacy.

“In the countries they’ve already invaded, such as the Netherlands and France, the Nazis have made a point of working within already existing structures. So, Churchill would be assassinated—if he could even be taken alive—and it’s probable someone like Lord Halifax would be put in charge of the country. He’d reassure people, you know, ‘I know this Hitler and he’s really not such a bad chap—let’s all keep it together for the sake of Britain and cooperate with the Nazis.’ Et cetera.”

Maggie had been aware of this scenario, but hearing it spoken aloud was grim. Hugh cut in: “A familiar figure like the Duke of Windsor, who only abdicated a few years ago, after all, might help people rally together under Nazi rule. The Duke’s been a longtime admirer of the Nazis—he and Mrs. Simpson have made numerous trips to Germany, meeting with high-ranking officials and even Hitler himself. Last time he was there, Goebbels allegedly said it was a shame the Duke wasn’t King anymore. Because, of course, if the Duke were still on the throne as Edward VIII, it would be so much easier for the Nazis’ invasion—they’d already have their own king in place.”

“King George VI has no such alliances?” Maggie asked.

“No, he and the Queen don’t,” Frain answered. “Which is why the Nazis need the Duke of Windsor. He and the Duchess are in Bermuda now—sent off recently on Churchill’s orders. But our intelligence tells us that when they were in Spain they’d been approached by Walther Shellenberg, Heinrich Himmler’s aide. Shellenberg offered them fifty million Reichsmarks to return to the throne.”

“I see,” Maggie said, processing what he was telling her.

“So, the King’s life is in danger. But if they killed him, many people would want Elizabeth to rule—not the Duke of Windsor. And so she’s in danger too. Serious danger. The most likely scenario is kidnapping. I doubt they would try to assassinate her outright—not that they’d blink, of course, but then the tide of public opinion might turn against them then if they killed a young girl.”

“What specifically do you know about threats to the princess?” Maggie asked.

“There’s an infamous intelligence officer in Germany known as Commandant Hess,” Frain said. “Chatter we’ve picked up suggests Commandant Hess has been receiving radio transmissions sent from Windsor. We don’t have the whole story, I’m afraid. But as I’ve said, we’d like someone to keep an eye on things. It’s possible the person making radio transmissions to Hess is in the royal family’s inner circle—one of the nursemaids, perhaps. An underbutler. The governess.”

“I see,” Maggie said. Well, that’s different, then. “I’d be honored to go to Windsor and do everything I can.”

“Brilliant!” Hugh exclaimed. “Er, right,” he corrected himself, off Frain’s disapproving glance.

“You’ll work at Windsor during the week,” Frain continued, as though he’d never doubted her commitment. “On Sunday afternoons, you’ll walk into the town of Windsor. You will meet with Mr. Thompson, to report on how things are going. I don’t want anything written coming in and out of the castle. If you need to reach Miss Hope, Mr. Thompson, you may ring her using the code that something she’s ordered from a shop has arrived and she needs to pick it up. Maggie, that call will be your cue to meet with Mr. Thompson. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Mr. Thompson and Maggie both answered.

“When do I leave?” Maggie said.

“Friday,” Frain replied. “I’ll arrange for Mr. Greene to drive you. I doubt he’d mind.”

He’ll be thrilled to be thought of as a chauffeur. “How long will I be there?”

“It is … unclear,” Frain said.

Windsor Castle. Of all places.

“That will be all, Mr. Thompson,” Frain said. “I’ll send Miss Hope down to your office shortly.”

“Yes, sir.” Mr. Thompson gave Maggie a quick smile and then left.

When the heavy oak door had clicked shut again, Frain turned to Maggie, a softer look on his face. “And, Maggie, I’m sorry to hear about John.”

“Thank you,” she managed, as her heart lurched. Then she raised her chin. “Will that be all, then?”

“Yes,” Frain said. “Mr. Thompson’s office is three floors down.”

Maggie made her way down to the smoke-filled windowless offices crammed with battered wooden desks, dented beige filing cabinets, and worn green carpeting that the junior MI-5 agents called home.

Mr. Thompson caught sight of her in the hallway and waved. “This way,” he said, ushering her into the small office he shared with fellow agent Mark Standish. He moved a pile of papers from a wooden chair to the floor. “Please sit down.”

“Hello,” Maggie said to Standish.

“Pleasure to meet you, Miss Hope,” he replied, blinking and looking up from his paperwork. Like Hugh, he was dedicated to his work. Unlike Hugh, he was married to his childhood sweetheart, with a two-year-old girl and another baby on the way.

Hugh took the seat behind his desk. “Miss Hope, ah, Maggie,” he said, “there’s a bookshop in the town of Windsor, Boswell’s Books—the proprietor is a retired MI-5 agent, Mr. Archibald Higgins. There’s a room in the back. We’ll meet there the second Sunday afternoon you’re at the castle. Afterward, we’ll work out a system where we can indicate meeting times and various places that won’t seem suspicious.”

“Yes,” Maggie said. There was a long silence. In the silence, she took in his desk, piled high with papers and folders. Perched at the edge, nearly pushed over, was a framed photograph of a young blonde woman in a spring dress, laughing at the camera. His wife? She rose to her feet.

Hugh sprang to his as well, almost knocking over a pile of folders and running his hands through his wild crop of hair.

“I look forward to working with you, Hugh,” she said, extending her hand.

“Me too!” Hugh blurted as they shook. “I mean, I look forward to working with you, also.” Maggie gave him a pained smile.

When the sound of her footsteps receded, he sat down at his desk and began sorting through papers madly.

When the click of her heels could no longer be heard, Mark spoke. “So, you’re the handler for Maggie Hope.”

Hugh reached for several more folders from his inbox. “Yes, thank you, Sherlock. Now I know why you’re such a brilliant agent. Those ace skills of deduction.”

Mark grinned. “Lucky bastard. She’s a looker, she is.”

Hugh opened the top folder and began making notes. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

Maggie was pulling on her gloves in the building’s lobby when she caught sight of a familiar figure, tall and thin, with receding mouse-brown hair streaked with gray. “Dad?” He didn’t notice her. “Edmund?”

Edmund Hope spun on his heel. “Margaret!” he said, shocked. “What are you doing here?”

“Meeting with Mr. Frain,” she replied. “You?”

“Just … meetings.”

Maggie and her father hadn’t seen each other since their awkward reunion a few months earlier. And since Edmund Hope was undercover as a mad cryptographer at Bletchley, there wasn’t much opportunity for social interaction.

“How—how are you?” Maggie asked. “How have you been?”

He looked down at her in the way he used to sort out a maths problem or squint at crossword puzzle. “Uh, fine … fine. And, er, you?”

“Persevering.” She paused, searching for something to say, then added, “John’s missing. His plane was shot down over Berlin.”

“I heard.”

You did? Maggie thought. And you didn’t even call me?

There was another awkward pause. “Well, I should go,” Edmund said.

“Wait—”

There was a tense silence.

“Dad,” Maggie said, trying to keep her tone light. “Could we have tea? Lunch maybe? I’d still like to talk with you about my mother.”

He looked at her strangely. “I’m afraid I must return to Bletchley, Margaret.”

“Well, I could meet you next time you’re in London. When do you come in?”

“All right,” Edmund said finally. He still looked distracted. Panicked, even. “Dinner. Two weeks from Thursday. That would be fine.”

“Let’s meet at six at a place called Bell’s Tavern in Slough.”

“Fine,” Edmund said. Then, “I need to go, must hurry back.…”

Maggie watched him leave. Who is this man, really? This father I’d believed was dead all my life—until last summer. She shook her head. Well, dinner together will be the start to finding out.

Chapter Five

David had picked up ingredients for dinner. “Poor Man’s Stroganoff, I’m afraid,” he said in the kitchen in his flat.

“I’m impressed you’re cooking at all,” Maggie replied. “Sounds delicious, especially after what passed for food at Camp Spook. What can I do to help?”

“Set the table, if you don’t mind. You remember where everything is, yes? This shouldn’t take too long.”

David puttered in the kitchen, opening a tin of tomatoes and adding them to the small amount of ground beef he was frying. “Mmmmm …” he said, taking a deep appreciative sniff as the tomatoes sizzled in the hot frying pan.

Maggie, taking out silverware and napkins from the drawers, looked him over. David was a young man, slim and handsome, with fair hair and round, silver-rimmed glasses. It hadn’t been that long since she’d last seen him, but he’d seemed to have filled out and become less boyish, more mature.

“There are candles too, and a bottle of decent Bordeaux in one of the cupboards if you can find it,” he said. “Black-market special.”

As Maggie finished setting the table, David brought in the two plates.

“Smells wonderful,” Maggie said, sitting down and putting a linen napkin in her lap.

“Not bad,” David admitted, pouring the wine and then sitting down.

“Cheers,” she said, and they clinked glasses.

David watched her cut a tomato with her fork in her left hand and knife in her right, then put down the knife at the right-hand edge of the plate and switch the fork from left hand to right. “You still eat like an American,” he said, rolling his eyes in mock horror. “I was hoping maybe they’d drill that out of you at spy camp.”

“I can eat the way you do, the British way,” she retorted, “but I choose not to. Why I’d want to hang on to my knife the way you all do is beyond me. You look positively medieval.”

“I think in medieval times they used their hands,” David mused. “And these days it might be smart to hang on to one’s knife. But at any rate, you’re looking good, Magster. Maybe you didn’t love Camp Spook, but the fresh air and sunshine have been good for you. You’re not as pale. Or as skinny.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said dryly. David was like the brother she’d never knew she’d always wanted. “Looks like I’ll be getting more fresh air and sunshine in the future.”

“Really? Where’s Frain sending you?”

“Windsor Castle. I’m going to be tutoring the Princess Elizabeth in maths, of all things.”

“Merciful Minerva, you’re going to be a governess? I thought—”

“Me too.” Maggie shrugged. “But apparently there’s chatter about some sort of threat to the Royal Family, including the Princess Elizabeth, who’s next in line to the throne.” She laughed. “Besides, I know I’m a good tutor. After all, I taught those two boys next door maths for more than a year before I came to work at Number Ten.”

“Oh, right,” David said, remembering. “Cheeky boys.”

“Well, they had a lot of energy. Surely the princesses will be more decorous.”

David snorted. “Don’t know about that,” he said, reaching for his wine. “You grew up in America, after all—exactly what do you know about British aristocracy?”

“Not much beyond the historical, I’m afraid,” Maggie said.

“All right, impromptu quiz—what do you say when you meet the King and Queen?”

Maggie gave David a wry look. Frain had forgotten about royal etiquette lessons. “Hello?”

David smacked himself on the head. “Oh, my dear Eliza Doolittle—we have a long night ahead of us.”

After an evening of curtsies, and when to speak, and when to use “Your Majesty,” and when to use “Your Highness,” and how to back out of a room without tripping, Maggie and David collapsed on one of the angular deco sofas in a fit of giggles.

“So you’re off on Friday, then?” David asked, after they’d quieted somewhat.

“Yes,” Maggie said. “Frain suggested you drive me.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” He smirked. “Fine, as long as MI-Five gives me petrol rations.”

There was a comfortable silence, then David ventured, “Are you going back to the house?”

“No, I haven’t been back. I don’t want to go back.” She smoothed her skirt. “I’ve rented it out to several of Chuck’s fellow nurses. Apparently, the old pile is still standing.”

“I understand. But it might be good for you to go back. Get rid of some old ghosts, perhaps?”

“Too much—too much happened there last summer. I have no wish to go down memory lane.”

“I’m not sure denying everything that happened is helping, though, Magster.”

“I’m not ready,” Maggie snapped. Then, more gently, “And how are you doing with all this?”

“Well, you know the Old Man promoted me, yes?” Prime Minister Winston Churchill had named David as head private secretary—his right-hand man.

“Yes, congratulations. You deserve it.”

“It’s bloody serious stuff, Magster. As the Old Man says,” David said, pulling in his chin and affecting his best Churchillian tones: “ ‘The price of greatness is responsibility.’ “ Maggie had to laugh, remembering all of Mr. Churchill’s mannerisms and verbal tics.

“Look at this.” David pulled a small silk drawstring pouch from his pocket.

“What is it?”

“One of the perks of my position.” He opened it and deposited its contents on the table. It was a single oval capsule. “Cyanide tablet. The brown is rubber casing,” He explained, “to protect it. If I need to use it, I’ll have to crush it between by teeth.”

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed. “Put it away.”

“I try not to think about it,” David grinned as he put it back in the pouch and deposited it in his pocket. “It’s been good at Number Ten, Maggie. Only …?”

“Yes?”

“It’s not the same. With you away, of course.” David paused. “And—without John.”

“Yes.”

“I still can’t believe he’s gone.”

“He’s not gone. His plane was shot down. That’s all we know. Everything else is speculation and conjecture.”

“Maggie, if there were anything to know, any hope to hold out, I think the office would know. The Old Man’s pretty torn up over it too. John was practically a son to him, after all.”

Maggie swallowed. “I refuse to give up hope.”

“Good for you, Magster—good for you. It is your name, after all.”

Maggie had a sudden memory of her first day working with the P.M. He’d called her Miss Holmes by mistake, and when she’d corrected him, he’d said, “Yes, yes—Margaret Hope,” and then, “We need some hope in this office.” Maggie was convinced it was one of the reasons he’d accepted her and let her stay on, at least in the early days.

“Besides—it’s just like Schrödinger’s cat, after all.”

“Cat?” David said, roused slightly.

“Schrödinger’s cat,” Maggie insisted. “Surely you must have discussed it in physics class? Erwin Schrödinger’s illustration of the principle of quantum theory of superposition.”

David groaned. “Oh, Maggie. I’ve been out of university for far too long. This war’s killing all my brain cells.”

“Look, Schrödinger proposed that you place a—theoretical, of course—cat into a steel chamber, along with a vial of hydrocyanic acid and a very small amount of a radioactive substance. If even a single atom of the substance decays during the test period, a relay mechanism will trip a hammer, which will, in turn, break the vial and kill poor Mr. Puss.

“Now, an observer won’t know whether the vial has been broken, the hydrocyanic acid released, and the cat killed. And since we cannot know, the cat is simultaneously dead and alive—according to quantum law, at least—in a superposition of states. It’s only when we break open the box and learn the condition of said cat that the superposition’s lost, and the cat becomes either dead or alive.”

“So John’s dead? And alive?” David said. “And, this being the real, not theoretical, world, he may never come back and we very well might not ever discover a body. What I’m trying to say is—we may never know, really.”

The words dead and body hung in the air. Maggie realized the pain David must be feeling. He and John had been best friends at Oxford and had gone to work for Churchill together. They’d defended him when all of England thought him crazy with his Nazi warnings and worked together through the first of the Blitz. They were brothers in all but blood.

“And that’s why I refuse to give up hope,” Maggie said simply. “Because until we know, it’s both.”

“I’ll tell you this, wherever John is, he’s not overly thrilled to be compared to a cat.”

“Oh, David!” Maggie exclaimed, tossing a sofa cushion at him.

“Whatever helps, Magster. But you are,” he said, patting her head, “a very strange girl.”

When David had gone to bed, Maggie stayed up with her untouched snifter of cognac. She riffled through the newspaper. “Suicide at Claridge’s!” screamed one of the headlines.

Why can’t David get a respectable paper and not these tawdry tabloids, she thought with a twinge of irritation. Maggie scanned the article: Apparently some poor girl had killed herself in the bathtub.

But without the tasks of the day to distract her, her thoughts, as they always seemed to do, went to that fateful phone call she’d received earlier that autumn. It had started with a note left on the cot in the room at Camp Spook that she’d shared with two other women. With excellent penmanship, Mrs. Forrester had written, “Flight-Lieutenant Nigel Ludlow rang at 11:30 a.m. He asked you to return call.”

The world had stopped for a moment as Maggie considered the meaning of this. Nigel was in the RAF too—he had joined even earlier, while John was still working with Mr. Churchill. He’d never called Maggie before, but it could be about anything, really. Something to do with Chuck? The wedding?

As Maggie ran downstairs to use the black telephone in the parlor, she tried to ignore the fact that her hands were cold and trembling. She picked up the receiver and dialed the numbers.

She reached the pilots’ mess. “Flight Lieutenant Ludlow?” On the line there was a crackle of static and the sound of men’s voices in conversation and the clatter of dishes and cutlery. “Of course. Just a moment.”

There was a loud bang as he must have thumped the receiver down. Interminable minutes as Maggie waited, waited for Nigel to tell her everything was all right. They’d laugh about what a nervous Nellie she’d been and she’d make him promise not to tell John.…

“Maggie?” She heard Nigel’s voice boom over the wires. Was he somber? Distracted? Jolly? She couldn’t tell.

“Hello, Nigel.” She fought to keep her voice steady. “You rang?”

“Yes, yes, I did.” “Are you sitting down?” He spoke to her as if she were a small child. Maggie slumped into the chair next to the telephone table, feeling suddenly faint.

“Tell me,” she said.

“John asked me to call you, you know—in case of anything—”

Maggie’s nerves were stretched to the breaking point. Just tell me! “Yes?”

“Well, a bit of bad news. His Spit went down somewhere near Berlin. The plane’s gone. It’s possible of course, he managed to jump, but I’m afraid we haven’t heard anything in over a week.…”

The plane’s gone? She pictured John hitting the ground in his Spitfire, a ball of flames.

“You, you think he could have jumped?” she managed.

“Well, it is possible.” A long pause, which made Maggie think Nigel didn’t pin much hope on it. “Anything’s possible.” Then, “Maggie? Are you still there?”

“Did you, did you—” Her voice broke. “Call his parents?”

“His commanding officer did.” Then, “Maggie, I’m so sorry—if there’s anything I can do—” But the receiver had slipped from her fingers and hit the floor with a dull thud. Maggie drew up her feet and laid her head on her knees as the tears finally came.

She didn’t know how long she’d sat there, crying, when Mrs. Forrester found her. “Are you all right, dear?” she inquired from the doorway.

Maggie looked up, her face tearstained, hot, and red, and made an attempt to wipe at her nose with her hand. She tried to speak and nothing came out but more silent sobs.

“There, now,” Mrs. Forrester said, sitting beside her and replacing the phone’s receiver. She procured a starched linen handkerchief from the depths of her bosom. “Here you go,” she said, handing it to Maggie.

“Thank you,” Maggie managed, wiping at her eyes and nose.

Mrs. Forrester sat next to her, a plump and comforting presence, not saying a word.

Maggie took a rattling breath. “I think—I think he might be dead,” she said finally.

“Who, dear?”

“John, Flight Lieutenant John Sterling.”

“Air Force?”

“Yes.”

“His plane crashed. In Germany.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. He might have jumped before the crash. No one knows.…”

“Then that, my dear, is what you have to hold on to. That your young man’s alive and he’ll send word. Maybe not today. Or tomorrow. But that he will.”

Mrs. Forrester stared through the window, a distant look on her face. “It’s what I did. When I got the phone call about my Bernie.”

Maggie wiped again and looked up.

“My husband. The Great War. He was a pilot too. Plane went down over France. He was missing too.”

“And—did he come home?”

There was a pause as the question hung in the air. “No, dear,” Mrs. Forrester said. “But I felt it was my sacred duty to hold on to hope for as long as possible.

“Now, I want you to go and wash your face with cold water. And then come to the kitchen and I’ll make us both a nice cup of tea. You’ve got a long journey ahead of you—waiting and then dealing with what you learn—and you won’t be any good to anyone if you don’t keep your strength up.”

When Maggie made no effort to move, Mrs. Forrester stood up and grasped Maggie’s hand, pulling the young woman to her feet. “One foot in front of the other, dear. That’s how all journeys start. Go upstairs. Go.”

As Maggie, zombie-like, made her way up the stairs, she heard Mrs. Forrester mutter to herself, “And this is why we didn’t want this damned war.”

Maggie heard the front door open and footsteps in the hall. “David?” she called, suddenly wary.

“Just me,” she heard.

Maggie sprang to her feet. “Chuck!” For those low gruff tones could belong only to Charlotte McCaffrey, known to all as Chuck. She ran to the tall, broad-shouldered woman and gave her a big hug.

“Maggie!” Chuck’s strong features were rendered something close to beautiful with her smile. “Wasn’t expecting you tonight! But I’m glad to see you.” She slipped off her low-heeled oxfords and sank into the sofa, sprawling in her inimitable Chuck-like way. Maggie studied her, for she hadn’t seen her since the end of the summer. Same chestnut hair, same thick, dark eyelashes, same sturdy build. It was good to see her.

“Long shift?” Maggie asked. Chuck was a nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.

She stretched and yawned. “Endless.”

“David and I already ate, but there are leftovers, if you’re hungry. Can I warm something up for you?”

“Thanks, but I already ate at the hospital. Though what passes for food there just might get us admitted as patients. So, I know you can’t tell me much.…” Chuck began.

“Anything, really.”

“And that’s fine. I just need to know one thing.”

“Yes?”

“Can you get away right after the new year? Come to Leeds?” Leeds was Chuck’s hometown.

Maggie considered. “I don’t know where I’ll be yet.…” Then she caught the unmistakable look of joy and excitement in her friend’s eyes. “What’s happening in Leeds?” she asked, her smile growing, for she knew the answer.

“The wedding! Nigel and I finally set a date!”

“That’s wonderful, Chuck,” Maggie said, taking her friend’s hand. “I’m truly, truly happy for you and Nigel. And you know I’ll move heaven and earth to be there.” Maggie tried her best to focus on Chuck and Nigel’s happiness, and not on thoughts of John.

“Oh, am I being terribly rude? You know me—I’m such a tactless oaf. I didn’t even ask you about John.”

“Nothing new,” Maggie said, fighting back sudden tears.

“They’ll find him.” Chuck patted Maggie’s hand.

“Of course.” Maggie rubbed a fist over her eyes. “Now, let’s talk wedding.”

Chuck groaned. “You know I loathe all that girly-girl frippery. Not that there’s any to be had, with the rationing. I thought I’d just make over one of my dresses.”

“But there are readings to choose, flowers, saving sugar rations for wedding cake.…”

Chuck looked serious. “Maggie, would you be my bridesmaid?”

“Of course!” she said, thrilled.

“I want you and Sarah to be there with me, at the altar. We’ve already been through so much together.…”

“Of course I’ll be your bridesmaid, Chuck. I’m honored.” This is when I would have asked Chuck to be my bridesmaid, if only …

“If it’s too hard, you know, with John … missing …”

“Chuck,” Maggie said, looking her straight in the eyes. “I’m so happy for you and Nigel—you two are perfect for each other and deserve your happily ever after. I’d be delighted to be part of the wedding party.”

Pleased, Chuck sat up. “What did you say you and David made? Now that you mention it, I’m absolutely starving.”

It had taken Alistair Tooke several impassioned letters, dozens of pleading phone calls, and a serious threat to let Windsor’s gardens go to seed, but finally he was able to obtain a late-evening interview with the King.

He approached King George VI cautiously, hat in hand. He had spoken to the King before, of course. But it was always outside, in the fresh air, and the topic was the health of the Windsors’ many varieties of roses or the productivity of the victory gardens. This was different.

The King’s study was a large room, with high-vaulted ceilings and tall windows. The monarch himself was at a large carved rosewood desk.

“Yes, Tooke?” the King said, looking up from his paperwork, his face long and careworn, his eyes clear and blue. The walls were upholstered in red watered silk, although the heavy gold frames that had once displayed paintings by artists such as Rembrandt, Rubens, Canaletto, and Gainsborough were empty, the canvases in indefinite storage. But floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with leather-tooled volumes still graced the walls, alternating with long tapestries. The windows behind him were blinded, covered in impenetrable blackout curtains.

Alistair gave a nervous bow. “Your Majesty,” he said, taking a few steps forward on the soft Persian carpet. Suddenly realizing how dirty the thick soles of his shoes were, he stopped.

The King blinked. “Well?”

“It’s—it’s about my wife, sir. Marta? Marta Tooke? She teaches piano to some of the young ‘uns? Well, they came for her.” He took a step closer as the words tumbled out of his mouth. “They just came in the middle of the night and took her away. In handcuffs, sir.”

The King scratched his head. “Who? Who came in the night?” Then, “Ah, yes, Marta K-k-k-kunst Tooke. She’s your wife, is she? Something to do with sending letters to Germany?”

Tooke felt a hot wave of rage crash through him. He took a ragged breath and continued. “My wife is innocent, sir,” he insisted, hands wringing his hat. “She’s a good woman, a fine woman.…”

“Of course, of course, Tooke,” the King said reassuringly. “We just need to follow p-p-protocol here. The whole thing will be sorted in a few days, and then she’ll come back here, safe and sound, none the worse for w-w-w-wear.” With a deep sigh, the King surveyed the mountains of paper on his desk, then rose. “Duty calls, I’m afraid, Tooke.”

Alistair Tooke suddenly realized something very, very important. “Sir, Lady Lily is German. She’s German too. Before the war, she used to come by our flat. She and Marta would drink German coffee and speak German together.”

“What?” said the King, distracted, rounding the desk with a manila folder in his hand. “Oh, right, right. Lady Lily.” He walked to the door.

Alistair turned to follow and pressed further. “Lady Lily isn’t in an internment camp, after all. Sir,” he added.

The king had already passed Alistair and had entered the hall. “Lady Lily’s p-p-position here is quite relevant,” he said.

It had been a long night and a long day, and Alistair Tooke was not his usual self. “A Lady-in-Waiting, sir? Relevant?”

“Yes, Tooke,” the King snapped. “Lily Howell is a family friend. And she’s needed here at the castle. I’m sorry about your w-w-w-wife, but it will sort itself out.” And then he was on his way, down the oak-paneled corridor.

“Bleeding buggered buggering bastard,” Tooke muttered under his breath, standing on the carpet, feeling abandoned and betrayed. “What if someone you loved were taken away?” He clenched his fists and deliberately ground his muddy boots into the carpet, leaving black stains.

Chapter Six

Maggie knew about Windsor Castle.

She knew it dated back to the time of William the Conqueror. She knew it was where King Henry VIII awaited the news of Anne Boleyn’s execution, where Queen Elizabeth I celebrated her first Christmas, where Charles I’s severed head was laid to rest, where George III went mad, and where the young Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had spent their honeymoon.

And Maggie had seen pictures of Windsor Castle, of course. When she was growing up in Wellesley, Massachusetts, long before she came to London, her Aunt Edith had a biscuit tin with a picture of the castle with the Royal Standard waving proudly from its Great Tower behind official portraits of King George V and his wife, Queen Mary—the current King’s parents.

But nothing had prepared her for the reality of the sheer mass and scale of the castle, dark and shadowy in the gathering lavender twilight. It was tremendous. For just a moment, the heavy clouds parted and a beam of sunlight pierced through, illuminating the gray stone crenellated walls, battlements, turrets, parapets, and towers. The mullioned windows lit up with liquid gold.

It was the stuff of fairy tales, if you could overlook the heavy antiaircraft guns on the various roofs, along with Coldstream Guards in their tall bearskin hats on patrol. There was, after all, an evil sorcerer and his minions to guard against.

David went through the security checkpoints and drove Maggie up Windsor’s High Street, past the high stone walls of the castle’s Lower Ward. She couldn’t help but feel somewhat tiny and insignificant. “Just an old pile of rocks, Magster,” he said, sensing her apprehension.

“Of course,” she said. “And I have a job to do. Two, really.”

David took a left at the bronze statue of Queen Victoria and pulled up to the Henry VIII Gate, with its towers, arched windows, and carvings on the portcullis of the fleur-de-lis and the combined roses of Lancaster and York.

Maggie was overcome with the weight of the castle. Not the immense physical weight but its burden of history, violence, and power.

“See those holes?” David said to Maggie.

“Yes,” she said.

“Used for pouring boiling oil on unwelcome visitors.”

That, finally, got Maggie to smile. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

David drove past the Henry VIII Gate, through the Lower Ward and parade ground. They passed the changing of the guards, in their long gray coats and white sashes, with drums and fifes. Tires crunching on gravel, they drove past the Round Tower and the Middle Ward, through the Norman Gate. Under the unblinking eyes of stone grotesques and gargoyles, David pulled up the car and stopped at an unassuming double doorway of oak and glass: the tradesmen’s and servants’ entrance. They were greeted by a tall and slim older man in an elegant black morning coat and starched white collar. He had a beak-like nose, hooded eyes, and bushy silver eyebrows.

“Welcome to Windsor Castle,” he said solemnly, as he opened the car door. “You must be Miss Hope. We’ve been expecting you. I am Ainslie, the Royal Butler.” As the Royal Butler, Ainslie oversaw the castle’s male staff, which included footmen, underbutlers, pages, coal porters, fender smiths, a clock winder, and the so-called Vermin Man.

“Thank you, Mr. Ainslie,” Maggie said, taking his proffered white-gloved hand and getting out of the car.

“Just Ainslie, Miss.”

Oh, right—Maggie remembered David’s lessons on addressing household staff. “Of course, Ainslie,” she said.

Ainslie went to the car’s trunk and took out her valise and a worn blue-leather hatbox full of photographs and ephemera. “Thank you,” she said.

“Yes, Miss.”

Maggie turned. “Thanks, David. For the ride, for everything—”

“My pleasure, Magster,” he replied, as he slid back into the driver’s seat. “Remember, KBO.”

That was not how the chivalrous Mr. Churchill had introduced the initials to her when she’d been one of his typists, and he’d admonished her to “Keep plodding on.” “David, I’m touched. Have I graduated from ‘plodding’ to ‘buggering’?”

He gave her a puckish look over the rims of his round glasses. “You’ve earned the right, Magster.”

She spluttered laughter. “Non illegitimi carborundum then, David.”

“I’ve told you I was always terrible at Latin.”

“It means ‘Don’t let the bastards wear you down.’ “

He grinned at her. “I shan’t,” he answered. And with a quick toot of the horn, he drove off over the cobblestoned pavement, making his way back to the Long Walk.

As two footmen appeared and picked up her bags, Ainslie blinked. “Miss Hope, please follow me.”

They entered the castle through the servants’ entrance, passing through the porter’s room. Inside, as they walked the endless Gothic corridors, the air was chill, damp, and gloomy, with thick violet shadows. The dim wartime bulbs made the corridor look almost gaslit. Pictures had been removed and ornate gilt frames stood empty, like blind eyes, lining the hall in long perspectives. There were a seemingly infinite number of malachite pedestals minus their marble busts of royals and dignitaries. The high, ornate, gilded ceilings, like fondant on a society wedding cake, were besmirched with water stains.

The paneling was dark, almost black in the dim light. The air smelled of ancient stone, antique furniture, and wood polish—beeswax and turpentine. It smelled of majesty.

Here and there, doors were open and Maggie could peer into some of the rooms. There were holes in the ceiling, tangled wires dangling down like tree roots, where grand crystal chandeliers must have once hung. Cupboards and cabinets were turned to tapestry-covered walls. The high ceilings, high enough to induce vertigo, were adorned with scrolls, flourishes, and gilt. What furniture was left was covered with sheets, to protect it from dust.

As Maggie and Ainslie walked on, their footsteps echoing off the thick walls in the long, icy corridors, Maggie saw a large black spider skitter behind a heavy tattered velvet drape. They passed other rooms with shadowy figures of what had to be servants, ARP Wardens and volunteer firemen, blacking out the mullioned windows, the square panes of glass pierced by the last weak rays of the setting sun. Although no one knew the princesses were staying at Windsor Castle, it was on the flight path from German air bases to London and was, of course, recognizable from the air.

One older man, missing a few teeth, passed Maggie and Aislie. He touched a hand to his metal helmet and said, “By the time we get all the blackout curtains closed, miss, it’s morning again.” His voice echoed in the vast corridor, his breath visible in the frigid air.

Maggie smiled in return, but Ainslie shot him a stern glance and the man returned to his curtains.

“Their Majesties are at Buckingham Palace at the moment,” he said. “But I’ll take you to meet their Royal Highnesses in the Lancaster Tower. Then to your rooms, in the Victoria Tower.”

After a long walk through the cold and dim corridors, it was a relief finally to reach the princesses’ nursery, an oasis of warmth and color and light in the Lancaster Tower. It was decorated in warm shades of rose and fawn, with colorful watercolors and oil paintings that must have been done by the princesses themselves. The room was filled with toys and books, neatly stacked in bookcases and cupboards, a wooden rocking horse in one corner. The air was warmed by burning birch logs in the massive stone fireplace, guarded by an ornate burnished fender. In front of the fire, on needlepoint pillows, lounged four black-and-sable corgis with snowy white bellies. The sound of the dogs’ gentle snoring was punctuated by the snap of the flames in the fireplace.

Two girls, one older, one younger, both with glistening brown curls and gentian blue eyes, sat on the sofa facing the fire. They were dressed alike, in white blouses, navy wool cardigans, and green plaid skirts. Both were knitting.

The older girl gave a sigh. “I do wish socks didn’t have heels,” she said in a high dulcet voice, struggling with her needles. “Knitting is not my favorite.”

“If it doesn’t have fur and fart, you don’t like it,” the younger girl quipped.

“That’s not true, I—”

“Oh, yes—bonus points if it eats hay.”

Ainslie cleared his throat. “Your Highnesses, this is Miss Margaret Hope. Miss Hope, this is Her Royal Highness the Princess Elizabeth and Her Royal Highness the Princess Margaret.”

Maggie bobbed in an awkward curtsey.

“Good evening, Miss Hope,” Princess Elizabeth said, looking up from her knitting. “I hope you had a pleasant journey from London.”

“Well, hello there!” Margaret said, jumping to her feet, obviously intrigued by the new person. “Who are you?”

Maggie was about to reply, when Elizabeth answered, “She’s the new governess, Margaret—to teach me maths. Crawfie told me.”

“Do I get to learn maths?” Margaret wanted to know.

“No, these are maths for me,” Elizabeth told her sister with just a touch of superiority. “I am fourteen, after all. While you are only eight.”

Margaret glared and stamped a small foot. “Not fair, Lilibet. You always get to do everything first!”

“That’s because I’m older.”

Margaret stuck out her tongue at Lilibet, then turned back to Maggie and gave her a piercing look. “Well, we can’t call you Margaret—because that’s my name. We’ll have to call you Hopie. After all, we call Miss Crawford Crawfie and Mrs. Clara Knight is Alah.”

Hopie? Oh, no. No, indeed. “How about just plain Maggie?” Maggie suggested conspiratorially. “Besides, only my Aunt Edith, who lives far, far away in the United States, calls me Margaret anyway.”

Princess Margaret considered. “All right.” She circled Maggie, looking her up and down, taking in everything from her rolled hair to her resoled pumps. “Your hair’s red, but it’s more of an auburn, so that makes it prettier. Not like Sir Humphrey, whose hair is, unfortunately, the color of carrots. Of course, it’s fine if carrots are carrot-colored—but not the tops of people’s heads. I’m glad you’re so young and pretty. Are you really from America? You do talk funny. Do you know any movie stars? Shirley Temple?”

“Margaret!” Princess Elizabeth admonished. “That’s enough now. Don’t overwhelm poor Miss Hope.”

“You’re not Queen yet, Lilibet!” Princess Margaret snapped.

Princess Elizabeth rolled her eyes. Obviously it wasn’t the first time she’d heard that. “You don’t need to be a queen to be polite.”

Ainslie again gestured to the woman seated across the room. “Mrs. Knight, this is Miss Hope, the Princess Elizabeth’s new maths tutor. Miss Hope, this is Mrs. Knight, the princesses’ nanny, known as Alah.” Alah was an older woman with black hair, handsome features, and a no-nonsense expression. “Alah was originally nanny to the Queen.”

“How do you do,” Maggie said.

“How do you do,” Alah responded with a Hertfordshire accent. She went over to young Margaret and smoothed her curls protectively. Margaret looked up at her with an expression of absolute adoration.

Ah, Maggie realized, she’s territorial. Of course. It must be difficult to have someone new come in.

“Alah is responsible for the princesses’ out-of-school life—their health, their baths, their clothes. To help her, she has an undermaid and a nursemaid. You shall meet them later. You’ll also meet Crawfie, Miss Marion Crawford, the girls’ governess,” Ainslie explained. “She’s responsible for them from nine until six. You’ll discuss Princess Elizabeth’s academic schedule with her.”

“Of course,” Maggie said, raising her chin just the slightest bit. “I look forward to it.” She looked at Alah. Maggie could sense the love that the woman had for her young charges. There may be a threat at Windsor, Maggie thought, but I doubt it comes from Alah. But who knows about the rest of the staff?

After the perfunctory goodbyes, there was more walking through maze-like icy stone corridors. “I feel there must be a Minotaur lying in wait somewhere,” Maggie joked, disconcerted by the silence.

Ainslie did not respond.

Finally, he announced, “The Victoria Tower, Miss.” They began to climb a circular staircase. The stone of the steps was worn smooth in the center. A few of them were crumbled at the edges. Ainslie and Maggie climbed. And climbed. And climbed.

Maggie was a bit out of breath when they reached the top. “Here are your rooms,” the butler said, opening the heavy wooden door for her. She felt a prickle of girlish excitement. I’m going to live in a tower in a castle!

She took a few steps inside; Ainslie followed, turning on a few lamps with silk fringed shades. The sitting room was small, with kelly-green walls dotted with a few oil landscapes and a small chintz-covered sofa and small table pulled in front of a stone fireplace. A fire, set and lit by one of the castle’s fender smiths, popped and cracked merrily behind the iron grate, although it didn’t seem to be throwing much heat. Maggie shivered.

Ainslie opened a door to the bedroom; the canopied bed was piled high with large pillows encased in white linen with handmade lace, topped by a crimson duvet. “There’s a radiator in here, Miss. In case you get cold.” In case? Maggie thought but refrained from saying anything.

“The toilet and bath are”—Ainslie paused delicately, indicating a steep and narrow staircase—“on the roof.”

“On the roof?” Maggie repeated, dumbstruck.

“Castles weren’t originally built with indoor plumbing, Miss Hope.”

“It’s enclosed?”

“Of course,” Ainslie replied, looking shocked.

“Well, how refreshing,” Maggie managed.

He pointed to a bell, wired near the main door. “In the event of an air raid, you will be warned by watchers stationed on the Round Tower, and then the Wardens will ring the bell. After dinner, I shall show you the way to the shelter. It’s in the dungeon.” As he walked to the door, he added, “You’ll be expected to join the rest of the staff at eight sharp for dinner in the Octagon Room.”

He cleared his throat. “We dress.”

It didn’t take Maggie long to unpack her suitcase. Better than the dock in the War Rooms anyway, she decided, although she wasn’t thrilled by the idea of nights in a dungeon. It must be quite safe from raids, at least. And it can’t be any worse than an Anderson shelter.

She glanced at the tiny gold watch on her wrist. Seven o’clock. How did it get to be so late? And Ainslie’s “We dress.” What does it mean, exactly? She was annoyed yet again that Frain was in such a rush to get her installed that he hadn’t found time to get her properly briefed. “You’re a bright girl, you’ll manage,” indeed. Maggie was glad he thought so highly of her, but it didn’t help her figure out what to wear for dinner.

She’d brought all she had, but it wasn’t that much. Skirts and blouses, mostly. Some sweaters. A few pairs of flannel trousers. Several wool dresses. Oxfords, plimsoles, and fur-lined boots. One sky-blue gown tipped in black velvet. Back in London, she’d had flatmates to borrow from.

But she couldn’t think of that now. She pulled out one of her dresses, dark green wool with a lace collar and silver buttons. It would have to do. She brushed and rerolled her hair, dabbed on some lipstick, and changed clothes. When she opened her door to the corridor, she felt a palpable chill. I’ll just wear my coat, then.

It was only after she descended the tower stairs that she realized she had absolutely no idea where the Octagon Room was.

Maggie walked for what felt like miles through long, dimly lit, icy corridors filled with spidery shadows. Her feet, in her thin-soled pumps, were freezing from the rough, cold stones—all the carpets must have been rolled up and put into storage for safekeeping—and she pulled her coat tighter around her, wishing she had taken her hat and scarf as well.

After twists and turns through the stone passageways, Maggie saw at the end of yet another long, cold hallway what looked to be a spectral figure. It was hard to tell: The few lightbulbs were the wartime-issue ones with low wattage, and all the blackout curtains covered the windows.

She squinted. Surely it was a person. It couldn’t be a ghost—oh no. Highly illogical—as well as quite improbable. Aunt Edith would be appalled at such Gothic flights of fancy. Despite herself, she began a mental inventory of all the people who might possibly be ghosts—Henry VIII, of course. And poor Anne Boleyn. Jane Seymour, too. Queen Elizabeth I. Charles I, maybe? King George III … Oh, stop it, she told herself firmly. This is no way to start your first night.

“Hello?” she called, her voice echoing down the hallway.

The figure turned and stared at Maggie approaching in the dim light, the taps from her leather soles echoing in the frigid air.

It was a man, she realized. Tall, very thin, wearing a RAF-issued shearling jacket. He was standing, hands clasped behind his back, staring at an empty gilt picture frame. Without looking up, he began speaking. “There used to be a Rembrandt here,” he said. “At least, that’s what I remember. Damned war’s changed everything.…”

As Maggie walked closer, he turned. In the dim flickering light, she could see he was young, around her age, with close-cropped golden curls, dressed in brown corduroy trousers and a wool sweater with twisted cables and honeycomb under the shearling jacket. His face appeared handsome. And yet, as Maggie approached and he turned from the shadow of the wall, she could see that one side had been horribly disfigured, transformed by angry red scar tissue and rectangular white skin grafts. His left eyelid had been reconstructed, and some gauze and tape were visible on his neck. As much as she tried not to stare, for a long second she couldn’t help it.

His face broke into a crooked smile. “I don’t bite, although it may look as though I might. Souvenir from Åndalsnes, I’m afraid.”

Maggie nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“I’m a bit lost, actually.…”

“It isn’t hard to lose your way here.”

“I’m Maggie,” she said, holding out her hand. “Maggie Hope. I’m going to be teaching Princess Elizabeth maths. How do you do?”

He enveloped her small hand with his scarred one. “Well, hello Maggie, Maggie Hope. It’s a pleasure to meet you. You’re cold,” he observed.

“I didn’t realize it was going to be quite so drafty.”

“Samuel Pepys declared Windsor to be ‘the most romantique castle that is in the world.’” He shrugged. “Must have visited in the summer.”

“I’m trying to find the Octagon Room and I’m lost. I’ve just arrived, you see. I really feel as though I should have been issued a map, or a guidebook, at least.”

“Street signs at the juncture of the corridors?”

Maggie smiled. “Exactly.”

“Well, I happen to know the way to said Octagon Room.” He offered her his arm. “May I escort you?”

“I’d be delighted.” Maggie took the proffered arm. “By the way, you never told me your name.”

“Gregory. Gregory Strathcliffe … Le Fantôme,” he added to himself as they walked.

“You’re much, much too substantial to be a phantom,” Maggie said, squeezing his arm. Le Fantôme de l’Opéra was one of her favorite books.

“Then La bête. La belle et la bête.”

“I’m only beastly in the morning,” Maggie quipped.

He raised one eyebrow. “I can see we’re going to get along, Maggie Hope.”

Endless corridors, staircases, and sudden turns later, they were at the double doors to the Octagon Room, in the Brunswick Tower.

As they stood in the outside doorway, Maggie could hear the meal was already in progress. “What’s the worst they can do—cut off my head?”

“Oh, we haven’t done that here for, well, at least a few hundred years,” Gregory answered gravely.

Maggie grasped the rose-and-dragon brass doorknob and opened the ornately carved wooden door.

It was a dark cavern of a room, with a high vaulted Gothic ceiling and the dim light from tapered candles glinting off the silver table service. Seated around the long, linen-covered table were Ainslie, Alah, and at least twenty other people with pale faces—the men in white ties and black dinner jackets, the ladies in long gowns—in the middle of their soup course. A black marble fireplace roared orange at one end of the room, which was, in fact, octagon-shaped.

One of the men, short and slender, with an Edwardian center part and a bulbous red nose, dabbed his lips with a linen napkin, then rose to his feet. “Miss Hope, I presume?” he boomed in a port-wine voice.

“Yes,” she said, taking a step inside. “Sir.”

The other staff members paused in their conversations to listen, and a tense silence fell over the room.

“You. Are. Late!” he intoned.

“Well, I’m here now,” Maggie said.

“I am Baron Clive Wigram, Governor of the castle. Meaning the Keeper—the Keeper of Time, among other things. We are all, always, on time. We”—he took in Maggie’s simple frock and coat—“dress for dinner. Do you understand, young lady?”

It had been a long day. Maggie was cold and hungry. And she wasn’t in the mood to deal with a pompous idiot. “I am dressed, Lord Clive. And I should think you wouldn’t be so quick to point out my supposed fashion faux pas. Wasn’t it Queen Victoria herself, here at Windsor Castle, who drank from her fingerbowl, when one of her dinner guests did by mistake? Obviously, she understood the difference between good manners and slavish adherence to etiquette.”

“Well, Miss Hope, I—I …” Lord Clive spluttered. At the table, there was soft whispering. One of the footmen standing near the wall, a tall young man in a powdered wig, gave her a discreet wink. From behind her, Maggie heard a snort, and then Gregory stepped into the room.

Lord Clive colored slightly. “Oh! Lord Gregory!” he said, in a much more cordial tone. “I didn’t see you there.”

Gregory gave a brilliant smile, which pulled at his scar tissue, causing it to turn white. “If you don’t mind, Lord Clive, I think I’ll take Miss Hope for a bite in town.”

“Why, Lord Gregory,” Maggie said, playing along with him, “that sounds just lovely. Since I’m already late. And not dressed for dinner.”

“Oh,” said Lord Clive, “oh, I didn’t mean …”

“No, of course you didn’t,” Maggie said. “Thank you so much, your Lordship. Ladies, gentlemen—bon appétit.” And with that, Maggie took Gregory’s arm and walked out of the room with him.

“My hero!” she exclaimed, after the heavy door clicked closed.. “Although now I’m hungry enough to gnaw on a table leg.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Gregory said. “Let’s get some real food and a pint—and then I’ll draw up a map of the old pile for you.” When he smiled, his scars were less noticeable. “Come on, then.”

Chapter Seven

They walked through the middle and lower wards, out the Henry VIII Gate and down the cobblestone walk to narrow and picturesque Market Street. It was another side of Windsor—as much as the castle belonged to the Royals and their community, the town was full of a different history: Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, the house where “pretty, witty” Nell Gwyn trysted with King Charles II, Christopher Wren’s Guildhall, the Crooked House.

At the Carpenters Arms, Maggie refused to let Gregory take her coat. “I don’t think I’ll ever be warm again,” she told him, trying to make herself heard over the cacophony of the crowd, as they walked over the worn red-flowered carpeting through the smoky warmth and past the throng at the long dark wooden bar, where a bartender in a white apron pulled on one of the taps. Next to him was a sign proclaiming “No Guinness. No Sausages. No problems.”

“It’s a good walk from the Upper Ward of the castle, true,” Gregory said. “Still, better than dinner with that crew. More snobbish than the Royals themselves, if you ask me.” He found them a rickety wooden table near a fireplace outlined with ceramic tile painted with red and pink roses.

Maggie sat down and watched as Gregory removed his overcoat. A young waitress with a blond bun made her way toward them in the dim golden glow from the brass sconces with Victorian etched-glass globes. “What would you like?” she asked over the noise of the crowd and a recording of the Andrews Sisters singing “Begin the Beguine.”

Maggie had already glanced at the menu. “Cider, please. And the shepherd’s pie.”

“Two. But I’ll have an ale.” The waitress stared in horror at Gregory’s face for a moment before composing her features. She gave a nervous smile and walked away.

“You know, Clive’s not really so bad,” Gregory said, turning back to Maggie. “Distinguished military career, then private secretary to the Sovereign. Retired just a few years ago to Windsor and only recently been named Governor. He tries to run things with military precision—a bit obsessive about time, but I think he quite misses ordering a bunch of sailors about.”

“Of course.” Maggie was ready to be magnanimous, now that her toes were beginning to warm up. “And what about you? What brings you to Windsor?”

Something closed in Gregory’s face. “I’m here as equerry—an assistant of sorts—to the King. Was a pilot before that, if you couldn’t tell by the jacket. Got a bit singed early on in Norway. Not just my face, either. Scars go down my left side.”

“I’m so sorry,” Maggie said. What if it had been John? she thought. What if it is John, burned and somewhere in France or Germany?

“The equerry position goes to some poor wounded soldier every six months or so,” Gregory said, arranging and rearranging the table’s salt and pepper shakers, bottle of vinegar, and HP Sauce. “We get to live in the castle, do a few things for His Majesty, heal up a bit. Not a bad situation, by any means.” His face darkened, eyes looking to the middle distance, seeing things only in his memory. Then he shook his head, as if to clear his nightmares. “All things considered. I’ll have to go back to military duty after the new year. I’m not looking forward to it.”

The waitress brought their drinks and pies.

“Oh, heaven,” Maggie said, eyeing the steaming plate of vegetables and some kind of meat covered with a browned crust of mashed potatoes.

“Careful, it’s hot,” Gregory warned, as he took a sip of his beer. “And probably made with actual shepherd.”

“At this point, I don’t care,” she declared, sticking her fork into the mashed-potato crust. “I’m starving.”

After she’d eaten a bit, and Gregory had pushed his food around on his plate, he said, “So you’re teaching the little princesses maths, then?”

Of course she couldn’t tell him MI-5 had placed her there. “Yes,” she said, through a bite.

“Excellent idea! Crawfie’s a good Scottish lass, but she’s not that well educated, really. Of course, Lilibet’s taking a few classes at Eton, my alma mater, but if she’s going to be queen someday …”

“Exactly,” Maggie agreed, taking a sip of cider. “So, not just pure maths but statistics, economics, even physics, architecture, engineering—”

“And how do you know all that?” Gregory asked, surprised. He’d finished his ale and set down the empty glass. “No offense, of course.”

“Long story.” Maggie laughed. “I majored in mathematics at Wellesley College, back in the States. I was going to go on to do a Ph.D. at M.I.T. when my British grandmother passed. So I came to London in thirty-eight to sell her house, and, well, never left.”

“Well, good for you, then,” he said. “I studied Classics when I was at university—could hardly get past algebra, let alone calculus. How’d you get the position with the Royal Family?”

Maggie had practiced her cover story. “I worked as a typist at Number Ten Downing Street for a while, but I wasn’t that fast. Or accurate, if you must know. When word came the King and Queen were looking for a maths tutor, I was recommended. Seemed like a good fit.”

“Hmmm. Downing Street, you say? Did you know Churchill?”

Oh, if he only knew.… “Not really,” Maggie shrugged. “Just in passing. I was pretty low in the pecking order.”

Gregory motioned to the waitress to bring another drink, and she nodded her assent.

Maggie noticed his still-full plate. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“I had a late lunch.” Then he smiled. “Of course you must have a beau pining for you.”

Maggie stopped, fork hovering in midair.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I just assumed, pretty girl like you …” The waitress brought his drink and he took a gulp.

“John Sterling. He’s in the Royal Air Force too,” Maggie told him. “His plane crashed. He is, as they say, ‘missing.’ But I refuse to believe he’s—” The word dead hung in the air between them.

“Then don’t,” Gregory said, his eyes serious. He was about to say more, when the door to the restaurant opened and there was a loud burst of feminine laughter. “Oh, no,” he groaned.

“What?” Maggie said, looking around.

“A gaggle of Ladies-in-Waiting,” he whispered. “I hope you brought cotton for your ears.”

The gaggle in question was three well-dressed and attractive young women. Without preamble, they descended on Maggie and Gregory, who rose to his feet.

“London was absolutely mad,” complained the slender blonde in lilac and black, kissing Gregory on the cheek and taking his seat, while he turned to procure more from another table. She had the profile of a cameo. “Lily,” she said to Maggie by way of an introduction, sticking out her hand. “How do you do?”

Maggie shook the extended hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Barking mad,” amended a ripe raven-haired beauty with glossy scarlet lips and nails.

“That’s Louisa,” Lily said, pointing.

“Hello, there,” said Louisa, already scanning the crowd for the waitress.

“We were bombed out of our hotel,” the short, plump one with pink cheeks said. “Claridge’s! Bombed! Can you believe? It truly is the end of civilization!” Then, to Maggie, “I’m Marion—and you are?” She arched a plucked eyebrow.

“Maggie,” she replied. “Maggie Hope. The princess’s new maths tutor.”

“A governess?” Louisa rolled her eyes.

“Yes,” said Maggie.

“I loathed my governesses,” she said. “Used to torture them mercilessly.”

“What a lovely dress you have on,” said Marion. “Glad to see you’ve taken ‘make do and mend’ to heart.”

Did she really just say that? Maggie thought. She did! What a—

“Play nicely, ladies,” Gregory warned. “Claws in.”

Maggie realized she was working, and needed to get to know these women. She took a deep breath, then remembered the newspaper article she’d seen at David’s apartment. “Claridge’s? I heard there was a suicide there over the weekend, a young girl?”

“Ugh,” said Lily, pushing back a blond wave, blanching. “There were police officers everywhere. We went to London for some semblance of civility, and what did we find? Air raids, bombing, suicide …”

“And not enough clothing rations to buy anything decent,” sighed Louisa, looking down at her black cashmere cardigan, edged in sable. She looked like the wicked queen from Snow White with her white skin, black bobbed hair, and blood-red lipstick. Her eyes were rimmed with kohl.

“So, you’re teaching the Princesses?” Polly asked. She affected the same look as Louisa, but her plump face didn’t have the same angles and planes, her bob was dyed an unflattering black, and the waxy red lipstick she chose only accentuated the sallow color of her skin.

“Oh, the princesses!” Louisa laughed, leaning over to read the menu and exposing impressive cleavage. “Strange little creatures, aren’t they? For years everyone whispered there was something wrong with Margaret, but it turned out Alah just wouldn’t let her out of the pram.”

“Lilibet’s all right,” Lily said. “But all she talks about are dogs and horses. Horses and dogs. All the livelong day—”

“Well, I think Margaret’s awfully clever,” Polly cut in. “Maybe a bit spoiled, to be sure. But she does liven the place up. Oh, here we are—you!” she snapped to the waitress. “Yes you, girl. I’ll have a shandy and the soup,” she said to the waitress. “I wish they’d get some decent help in this place—appalling is what it is.” As the other two young women ordered, Maggie caught Gregory’s eye. He was smiling in a bemused way.

“How do you know Gregory?” Lily asked, leaning back in her chair. She looked tired now, shadows under her eyes.

“We met today,” Maggie answered. “I was lost—and he was kind enough to help.”

“I’m sure,” Louisa said, with a sideways glance at Gregory.

“Oh, when I first got here I was late for everything,” Polly said. “Where do they have you?”

“Victoria Tower,” Maggie said.

The girls all gave one another quick sideways glances and laughed. It was not a nice laugh.

“What?”

“We’re there too,” Lily explained. “Fair maidens in a tower.”

“Ha!” Louisa snorted.

“You’ll need to know how to avoid Mrs. Lewis, the ARP Witch. I mean, ahem, Warden,” Polly said.

“And how to sneak in and out without getting caught,” Lily added. “Unless you’re an Edinburgh Mary.”

Polly gave Maggie a cool look. “You’ll have to come by and meet Louisa’s snake.”

What?

“His name is Irving,” Louisa told Maggie. “Delightful creature. And I had a rat named Feinstein, but he got away. Lewis still doesn’t know about Irving, though.”

Two can play at this game, Maggie thought. “I love snakes,” she said. “And I’d love to meet Irving. He sounds charming.” More charming than his owner, most likely.

Lily looked over as Maggie took a large spoonful of her shepherd’s pie. “Ugh, how can you eat it?”

“It’s rather tasty, really,” Maggie said.

There were beads of perspiration at Lily’s hairline. Then she seemed to gag the slightest bit. “Excuse me, please,” she said, rising from her seat.

Is she ill? Maggie wondered. When the other girls continued to chatter away with Gregory, she excused herself as well.

In the ladies’ loo, Lily was already retching into one of the toilets. Maggie waited until she was done, then wet a towel with cold water and handed it to her when she emerged.

“Thanks,” Lily murmured, wiping her face. She went to the sink and stuck her head under the faucet, rinsing her mouth out.

“Are you all right?” Maggie asked, concerned. “Maybe you caught something in London?”

“Oh, I caught something, all right,” Lily said. “But it was about three months ago.”

For a moment, Maggie didn’t understand. “Oh?” Then she did. “Oh.”

“The actual reason I was in London,” Lily said, looking into the mirror and smoothing back her golden hair. “I was late, so I went to a doctor. He confirmed what I suspected.”

Maggie noticed there were no rings on any of Lily’s slender fingers.

Lily suddenly turned and met Maggie’s eyes. “Don’t tell anyone?” the blonde said, suddenly sounding vulnerable. “The other girls—they wouldn’t understand.”

“Of course not,” Maggie promised.

“Thanks ever so much,” Lily said breathlessly. Then, taking a deep breath, she opened the door. “After you.”

Chapter Eight

Maggie had gone to sleep with the drone of Messerschmitts and Heinkels in her ears, on their way to London to drop their deadly cargo—it was no wonder the next morning she woke with a start and clutched the hand-embroidered linen sheets, her heart racing with fear and her body damp with perspiration. She’d been having a nightmare, something about men parachuting from fiery airplanes, Lilibet being taken away in a black van, the Queen weeping in despair, running through endless stone corridors.…

Through the door to the bedroom, Maggie could see a young girl with creamy skin and dark eyelashes put down a tray on the table in front of the embers of the dying fire in the sitting room. She was wearing a black dress with a starched white apron, cuffs, and collar. A maid’s uniform.

Maggie panicked, heart in her throat, at the appearance of the intruder. I suppose I could take her, she thought, if I had to, thinking of the moves she’d learned at Camp Spook.

“Good morning, Mademoiselle,” the young woman said.

“Er, hello,” Maggie said, after she caught her breath, heart still thudding in her chest. Good heavens, Ainslie might have warned me. She shrugged into the robe she’d left at the foot of the bed the night before and put on slippers, blinking as the girl pulled back the blackout curtains from the lancet windows and let in pearly gray light. “Who are you?”

From her position in bed, Maggie could see, through leaded glass squares, the vast expanse of grayish-brown land that surrounded the castle and the shadows of ancient trees in the distance.

“Don’t mind me, Mademoiselle. My name is Audrey Moreau.” she said in a thick Parisian accent. “But you are supposed to call me Audrey. Ainslie said I should tell you that, because you are American and probably do not know these things.”

Thank you ever so much, Ainslie. “Audrey’s a beautiful name.” Maggie wrapped her robe around her, walking to the sitting room, and perching on the sofa. “And I’m British, despite my accent.” She’d never been woken up with a tea tray, and took a bite of toast as her tea steeped. “Thank you very much, Audrey. Have you been at Windsor for long?”

“About eight months ago, Mademoiselle. I was able to get out of Paris before France fell, Merci Dieu! I’m cousin to Cook’s husband—that’s how I was able to secure this position.”

“Merci Dieu, indeed,” Maggie said.

“Because of rationing, one egg—a real one, not the powdered sort—will be served to each castle resident only on Sundays,” Audrey told her. “By order of the King. He, and the Queen, and the Princesses, all adhere to the same rules.”

“Really,” Maggie said, thinking of the vast quantities of rationed food Mr. Churchill would put away on a daily, let alone weekly, basis. Still, no one on his staff begrudged him his extra meat and eggs and cream.

“Chance of rain today, Mademoiselle,” Audrey warned as she finished the last of the curtains. “Oh, and before I forget, Miss Crawford would like to see you in the Princesses’ nursery at nine. It’s Saturday, I know, but she insisted.”

Maggie’s eyes went to the small clock on the mantel. “That’s in half an hour! Oh, dear!”

Audrey left. As she dressed, Maggie turned on the wireless for the news. The BBC was issuing reports about Coventry, which had been demolished. “The German Luftwaffe has bombed Coventry in a massive raid which lasted more than ten hours and left much of the city devastated.

“Relays of enemy aircraft dropped bombs indiscriminately. One of the many buildings hit included the fourteenth-century cathedral, which was all but destroyed. Initial reports suggest the number of casualties is about one thousand. Intensive antiaircraft fire kept the raiders at a great height, from which accurate bombing was impossible.

“According to one report, some five hundred enemy aircraft took part in the raid. Wave upon wave of bombers scattered their lethal payloads over the city. The night sky, already lit by a brilliant moon, was further illuminated by flares and incendiary bombs.

“The German High Command has issued a communiqué describing the attack on Coventry as a reprisal for the British attack on Munich—the birthplace of the Nazi party. The German Official News Agency described the raid on Coventry as ‘the most severe in the whole history of the war.’

“Home Secretary Herbert Morrison was on the scene within hours of the all-clear. He met the mayor and other local officials and afterward paid tribute to the work of the National Service units of the city, who had ‘stood up to their duty magnificently.’”

Horrible, Maggie thought. Horrible, terrible, awful, tragic … And yet we’re supposed to keep buggering on.

On time but out of breath, Maggie made it back to the nursery—thanks to the maps Gregory had drawn out for her and with glances out windows to orient herself.

Miss Crawford was already there on the long damask-covered sofa. She was a young woman with a largish nose, thin lips, and dark-brown hair set in neat rolls. “Please sit down, Miss Hope,” she said with a Scottish lilt, indicating a pink brocade chair. She did not look pleased.

“Did you hear about Coventry, Miss Crawford?” Maggie asked, still struggling to breathe from the long walk and trying to come to terms with the magnitude of the attack.

“Yes, Miss Hope,” Miss Crawford replied. “However, I’ve made it my policy that the war stops outside the nursery door. I’d appreciate it if you’d adhere to it. And please call me Crawfie—everyone does.”

“Of course.”

Maggie looked down at the schedule on the table.

“The Princesses are riding right now?” Maggie asked, feeling a sudden stab of fear over their safety. “Who’s with them?”

“The Princesses have been riding for years, Miss Hope. They are quite accomplished horsewomen.”

“Of course,” Maggie said, but she wondered if this was perhaps a lapse in judgment.

“They’re usually accompanied by one or more of the Queen’s Ladies-in-Waiting,” Crawfie added. “And there are Coldstream Guards patrolling, of course.”

All right, then, Maggie thought.

“And you should know the Princess Elizabeth takes her history lessons privately with the Headmaster of Eton,” Crawfie added.

“Yes,” Maggie replied, trying to tread delicately. “I’ve heard Eton is close to Windsor Castle.”

“You know,” Crawfie said in a burst of rapid-fire words, eyes flashing, “you might think I’m just a simple, uneducated Scottish girl, but I am quite qualified to teach the Princesses, let me assure you. I was going to get my degree in child psychology, you realize. But then, you see, the King and Queen wanted someone young to be for the children. Someone to go on long walks and have lots of energy. So …”

“Of course. Child psychology, really? How fascinating—you must tell me all about it. Jean Piaget and The Moral Judgment of the Child, yes?”

“Honestly, I don’t even know why the Princess Elizabeth needs additional work in maths.” She sniffed. “It’s not as though she’ll ever have to do her own household books.”

Well, I’m not really here to teach maths, Maggie thought impatiently. But, still—why shouldn’t all women, let alone one who might be the future Queen, learn maths?

“But, Crawfie—maths are important. The study of mathematics develops the imagination. It trains the mind to think clearly and logically. Elegantly, even. It challenges our thinking. It forces us to make the complex simple. The Queen-to-be will most certainly need to understand economics, statistics, all the maths related to the military. Yes, and perhaps she doesn’t have to do her own household books—but she might very well want to keep an eye on them.”

Maggie stopped to breathe. She’d forgotten how passionately she believed in the importance of mathematics, and how she’d missed it. “In short, it’s exactly what the future Queen of Britain needs to study.”

“Well,” Crawfie managed. “I never thought of it quite like that.”

They heard footsteps and voices from the hall. Princess Margaret cried, “Lilibet, Lilibet—wait for me!”

The Princess Elizabeth burst through the door. “Crawfie! The most horrible thing’s happened! She Lady Lily’s dead!”

Crawfie blanched. She looked over at Maggie, then back to the Princesses, still in their riding habits and tall boots. “Girls, this is no time for games,” she said sternly.

“No, Crawfie, no!” Lilibet’s words tumbled out. “We were out riding and I said I wanted to gallop. I went ahead, and then, and then …”

Crawfie held out her hands to the girl, who was visibly shaken. “Come, now,” she said in gentle tones, wrapping her in her arms.

Since Crawfie was occupied, Margaret went to Maggie. “I was with Michael, the groom. On my pony. I didn’t see anything.” She sounded just the slightest bit disappointed. Still, Maggie took one chubby, sticky hand in hers and pulled Margaret in, to give her a hug. Margaret wrapped her arms around Maggie and let herself be hugged, then climbed next to her, putting her arms around her and snuggling close. Maggie could smell her—a combination of fresh air and sweet apples.

“She’d fallen off her horse,” Lilibet continued in her clear bell-like tones. “And she was very, very still. And so I dismounted, to see what was wrong with her. And then I realized—” She struggled to continue.

“Yes?” Maggie said softly.

“She—” Tears filled the Princess’s deep blue eyes. “She was missing her head.”

As Crawfie called for Alah and the two women bustled about with cool cloths and tea trays for the Princesses, Maggie excused herself.

Taking another look at the maps in her pocket, she went back to Victoria Tower for her coat and hat, then left the castle, its high walls encrusted with moss and lichen, and wrapped in gauzy spiderwebs.

She made her way in the damp chill toward the castle’s stables. And she wasn’t the only one. There were Coldstream Guards, with their tall bearskin hats and red plumes, patrolling outside, while inside the main stable, the King and Queen were being briefed by Lord Clive. Maggie was used to seeing official photographs of King George VI and, of course, photographs of both him and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, in the newspapers, but it was another thing to see them in person. She was surprised by how much smaller they seemed than she imagined, the King with fair slicked-back hair and a tweed suit, the Queen with her old-fashioned bangs, periwinkle-blue wool coat, and a jeweled brooch in the shape of a corgi.

Maggie slipped inside the wooden stable door and listened.

“Apparently, Lady Lily had taken the lead and was riding ahead of the Princess Elizabeth,” Lord Clive was saying. “The path goes through a wooded area. The police officers have told us they found a piano wire, strung up across the bridle path, affixed to two large trees. I’m sorry to say, your Majesties, that Lady Lily was beheaded—by this wire.”

“There, now, dear,” the King said to the Queen.

“Would Your Majesty like to sit down?” Lord Clive asked.

“No, thank you, your Lordship,” the Queen replied resolutely. “I’m fine. Please continue.”

“Well, ma’am, I’m afraid that’s all we know for sure. The police are at the scene now. Of course they’ll do an autopsy.”

“Yes,” the Queen said, her gentle face grave. “We must call Lily’s parents immediately.”

“Are you sure, dear?” the King said.

“Of course,” she replied, raising her chin and squaring her slight shoulders. “I’ll do it right away. And please send the detective in charge to see me when he’s finished, Lord Clive.” The King and Queen turned and left to return to the castle.

Maggie turned to leave and stepped on a creaky board.

“Miss Hope,” Lord Clive said, catching sight of her, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “What are you doing here?”

“I—I heard the commotion and thought I’d see what was going on,” Maggie answered.

“Nothing that concerns you,” Lord Clive said as he approached her. “Although it is curious—you’re here only one night and already someone is dead.”

“It’s terrible, sir. I met Lady Lily last night. She seems—seemed—like a lovely girl.”

Lord Clive was not won over. “I’m keeping an eye on you, Miss Hope.”

“Of course, Your Lordship.”

And I’ll be keeping an eye on you too.

At the crime scene, the corpse was already wrapped and two men were transferring it to a battered Black Maria. A stocky older man in a camelhair overcoat and gray felt hat with a notebook seemed to be finishing up as Maggie made her way over to him.

“Hello,” he said in neutral tones, his breath cloudy in the cold air. His eyes were bright and penetrating, his jowls heavy, his mustache streaked with gray. “My name’s Detective Wilson.” Detective Chief Superintendent Wilson of the Windsor police department had served his country in World War I, and then rose through the ranks of the police force to his current position. A widower, with a son serving in the Royal Navy, Wilson originally tried to become involved with the war effort but had ultimately decided that staying on in Windsor wasn’t necessarily a bad idea. For the war had certainly not brought any respite from transgressions. If anything, the stresses of war had intensified the number and viciousness of local crimes.

“Maggie Hope, sir. Pleased to meet you—although under horrible circumstances.”

“Yes,” he said, his eyes going to the body, which had been safely stowed in the vehicle. The car spluttered as it warmed up, then the engine turned over.

“Did you know”—he consulted his notes—“Lily Howell? You look about her age.”

“I met her yesterday, sir. I understand she was one of the Queen’s Ladies-in-Waiting.”

“Yesterday?” the detective queried.

“I arrived yesterday from London,” Maggie told him. “Last night I had dinner at the Carpenter’s Arms with Gregory Strathcliffe. While we were there, Lily and two other Ladies-in-Waiting—Louisa and Marion—joined us. We all walked back to the castle together.”

“Really?” Detective Wilson said, scribbling on his notepad. “About what time was that?”

“It was around midnight. I remember because I was worried about oversleeping without an alarm clock.”

“And what do you do at the Castle, Miss Hope?”

“I’m tutoring the Princess Elizabeth in mathematics.”

“I see. And when was the last time you saw Lily Howell?”

“We’re all—that is, we were all—staying in Victoria Tower.” Maggie looked back at the hulking structure, where age-blackened chimneys emitted thin threads of smoke into the cold air. “She and the other girls have rooms on the lower floors. I’m up on the top, so I said good night to the three of them just after midnight, then continued upstairs.” She rubbed her gloved hands together, to warm them. Overhead, a peregrine falcon with a black head and a black-and-white tufted breast glided by, then dipped down and settled on a nearby tree, folding his large wings. His laughing cries were borne away by the cold wind.

“Did anything … happen … that you recall?”

“No, sir. It was a pleasant evening.” No need to mention the morning sickness. At least, not until I’ve run it past Frain.

Detective Wilson tipped his hat. “Thank you, Miss Hope,” he said as he walked back to the road and to his waiting car. He opened the door and got into the driver’s seat. “I’ll be in touch.” He started the engine.

“Yes, sir,” Maggie said. She held up one hand as he drove off toward the castle.

Anything related to the crime had been removed. Still, as Maggie walked to a group of bare trees by the side of the path, she could see where the wire had been attached to the tree and rubbed through the bark. Oh, Lily …

Well, the facts are these, she thought, taming her racing mind with logic. Lily Howell is dead. She was decapitated by a wire tied to two trees, stretched over a bridle path. But was she the intended victim? Maggie remembered Crawfie’s schedule of the Princesses’ activities. Both girls were supposed to be riding today.

The falcon looked down at Maggie with keen black eyes. He made a high-pitched “key-key-key-key!” cry, which floated up into the cold air and hung there. Then he flew off.

Frain said the Germans were planning on kidnapping Princess Elizabeth, not assassinating her. But he could be wrong. Had someone intended to kill the princess? Had Lily Howell just been in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Chapter Nine

As Maggie approached the castle, her ears were assaulted by the barking of a pack of corgis. Back at No. 10, she’d liked having Mr. and Mrs. Churchill’s pets around, even if some of the other staff members complained. But compared to the corgis, Rufus and Nelson and the rest of the Churchill menagerie were downright civilized.

These dogs, with their big pointed ears; large, sleek bodies; and tiny legs, swarmed around her, yapping, jumping, and pulling at the hem of her coat. With all the teeth and fur and noise, Maggie didn’t even see Princess Elizabeth walking behind them.

“Dookie!” the princess called, her sweet childish voice ringing out. “Dookie! And the rest of you! Leave poor Maggie alone!”

Poor Maggie had a sudden urge to turn and run, but instead knelt down, putting out a hand for the dogs to sniff. “There, now,” she said in gentle tones. “It’s all right. See? I’m perfectly friendly.”

Without warning, one of the corgis bit her hand, teeth sinking into the tender flesh.

“Ow!” Maggie cried. “Ow, ow, ow!” she said, shaking her hand, wishing she could say so much more.

“Dookie!” the princess admonished. “Bad dog! Very bad dog!”

She ran over to Maggie, with the grave air of one who was used to looking after canine injuries. “Let me see.”

Maggie gingerly took off her glove and stuck out her hand. The dog’s fangs had torn through the leather and lining but hadn’t broken the skin. Still, her hand bore the imprint of red, angry tooth marks.

“Oh, it’s not so bad, really,” the Princess said, inspecting it.

Maggie gritted her teeth. Easy for you to say.

“You should have seen Lord Livingston!” the Princess said. “Dookie bit him and there was just blood everywhere. They can’t help it,” she continued earnestly. “None of them can. It’s how they’re bred. They’re hunters, after all. It’s just their nature to bite.”

“Really,” Maggie managed. “And his name is Dookie?”

“His full and formal name is really Rozavel Golden Eagle. But yes, he’s called Dookie, because he was supposed to go to my father, who was the Duke of York at the time. That’s what the breeders called him when he was born, and the name just stuck.”

“I see,” Maggie said through tight lips.

“You aren’t going to tell Crawfie, are you? Or Alah? Or Mummy and Daddy?”

Maggie saw an opening to win the girl’s trust. “No, I won’t. I promise. You’re right—Dookie’s only doing what’s in his nature.”

“Oh, thank you.” The Princess brightened. “I can fetch you an ice bag, if you’d like.”

“That’s all right. But I wouldn’t mind an escort back to Victoria Tower. The castle’s rather confusing.” She smiled. “I might have to start dropping bread crumbs. Although then I’d probably be fined by the ARP Warden.”

“You would,” the Princess said. “But I must insist that first I take you to the kitchen, so Cook can give you some ice for your hand.”

Maggie smiled at the young girl’s motherly tones, especially after the morning she’d already been through. Score one for the British stiff upper lip, she thought. “Of course, Your Highness. Thank you.” Then, “By the way, should you be wandering around by yourself, especially after what happened to Lady Lily?”

Lilibet had the grace to blush. “I am in the habit of sneaking out a lot,” she confided. “It gets so dull inside, with all the knitting.”

“I know, but you probably should be with someone.” Maggie made a mental note to talk to Alah about it.

“Yes, Maggie.” As they strolled, Maggie looked at the Princess in profile. She was fourteen, but she seemed younger. Her neck looked so slim and vulnerable. How close had she come to dying today?

“I met with Crawfie this morning,” Maggie began. “She showed me your schedule. You and your sister are very busy girls.”

“Oh, and you don’t know the half of it. They make us knit too. For the soldiers, of course. I’m terrible at it, especially socks. Can’t turn a heel. I pity the men who get my socks, they’re all so lumpy and bumpy.”

“Usually you ride on Saturday mornings, yes?”

“Oh, yes, every Saturday. I love to ride. Margaret’s still a little scared, but I love to gallop.”

“But you ride with someone else? One of the Ladies-in-Waiting?”

“Oh, you mean because of what happened to Lady Lily?” The Princess’s face clouded. “It’s terrible, isn’t it?” For a moment, she looked to be on the verge of tears, then shook her head and squared her shoulders. Maggie could see the queen she would someday be.

“Yes, I’m so sorry,” Maggie said.

“Lily and I often rode together. She wanted to compete in the Olympics, except they won’t let women ride yet. Her specialty was dressage, but she just loved to gallop …” The Princess’s throat closed and her voice became husky.

“There’s to be a memorial service Saturday. At Saint George’s Chapel. You will come, won’t you?” the Princess said earnestly, tears filling her clear blue eyes. “Lady Lily was so very lovely.”

Maggie looked up at the castle’s many windows, glinting like blind eyes in the reflected sun. Who might be behind one of those windows, perhaps wishing harm to a sweet little girl? Or a Lady-in-Waiting? I’m going to find out, Maggie vowed. And I’ll do everything I can to keep this girl safe.

She smiled and reached down to take the Princess’s small, soft hand. “Of course. Of course I’ll be there.”

The warm, cavernous kitchen had high clerestory windows that vaulted like a culinary cathedral. Hanging burnished copper pots of all shapes and sizes lined the walls. The floor of black and white tiles was covered in coconut matting, and the air was filled with sounds of knives chopping through heavy root vegetables and the toasty malt aroma of baking bread. A small army of staff in white hats and aprons seemed to be coming and going with trays laden with china and silver.

Cook, a tall, thin woman with gray-streaked blond hair tucked under her starched white cap, hands rough and scarred from years of kitchen work, bobbed a curtsy at the princess. She took one look at Maggie’s hand and procured an ice pack. “You’ve fared better than some, Miss,” she said, shaking her head—for Maggie’s was not the first corgi bite she’d witnessed in her fifteen years at the castle. Maggie and Lilibet sat down at an enormous scarred wooden table.

“It’s true,” Lilibet said. “Some people bleed so much, we have to fetch a doctor to stitch them up.”

Fantastic, Maggie thought. It’s not bad enough the Germans are bombing us nightly, Ladies-in-Waiting are being beheaded, and the Royal Family is in danger—I need to fend off rabid corgis too?

The wireless was on, broadcasting BBC news. “Have you heard about Coventry, Miss?” Cook asked.

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Maggie admitted. “It’s terrible.”

“Germans hit it last night but good. They’re sayin’ there were more than a thousand dead. Terrible damage to the factories there.”

The Princess’s face was somber. “It’s horrible, Cook.”

“It is, Your Highness.”

“I’m going to write to the families of every single person who died,” Lilibet said.

“That’s a lot of letters,” Maggie said.

“I know,” Lilibet retorted. “But what good is it being a Princess, if I can’t help people? I can’t make it better, but I can let them know their loss hasn’t gone unnoticed or unmarked.”

Maggie was impressed by the young girl’s compassion and understanding of her position.

Cook’s hard face turned tender as she looked at the Princess. “Maybe you’d both be wantin’ a cup of tea, then?”

Maggie had learned during her tenure in England just how restorative tea could be. “Thank you.” She glanced down at the slender Princess. “I think we both could use one.”

“And maybe a bit of Brown Windsor Soup too? Miss Hope, it’s the favorite of His Majesty.”

Lilibet made a surreptitious gagging face. Apparently, Brown Windsor Soup was not the Princess’s favorite dish.

“Cook, I’d be honored,” said Maggie.

“Don’t eat the soup,” Lilibet whispered, when Cook’s back was turned.

“I think I must now,” Maggie whispered back.

“Well,” the Princess said, looking like a regular fourteen-year-old girl again, “don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Detective Wilson and his deputy were using the servants’ dining room to question the castle’s staff about the murder. About fifty people or so were lined up in the corridor, each waiting his or her turn. “And who are you, Miss?” Wilson’s assistant said to Maggie as she walked by, on her way to Victoria Tower.

From the table inside the room, Detective Wilson looked up from his conversation with Audrey Moreau. “It’s all right, Jim,” he said. “That’s Maggie Hope, Princess Elizabeth’s maths tutor. I’ve already spoken with her.”

From the other end of the long corridor, Maggie heard loud yelling, incongruous in the castle, and turned to see who it was. “That’s Sam Berners, Miss Hope,” said the man waiting in line for his turn to be questioned. He was trim, with silvery gold receding hair, a pink scalp, and a kind smile. “But the way, I am Sir Owen Moreshead, the castle’s librarian. I must compliment you on the way you handled Sir Clive last night.”

“Oh,” said Maggie. “Yes, well—”

“If you ever find yourself in need of anything for the Princess from the library, please do let me know.”

“Thank you, Sir Owen, that’s very kind of you.”

The loud voice became even louder and was now spouting profanity. “Get yer hands off me—I tell ya I ain’t seen nothin’!”

“Master of the Mews,” Sir Owen said. Then, off Maggie’s confused look, “The Royal Falconer. He keeps to himself, mostly. Bit of an eccentric.”

Maggie saw a large bearded man with rough, unkempt hair being dragged into the hallway by two Coldstream Guards. His clothes were covered in bird excrement, and his right arm and hand were encased in a protective leather gauntlet. “I don’ know nothin’!” he was protesting loudly in a thick Scottish accent. “I din’ see anythin’!”

“Everyone must talk to the Detective, Sam,” one of the footmen waiting to be questioned said. “Even you.” Maggie recognized him as the one who’d winked at her, her first night at the castle.

“Don’ have nothin’ to say,” Berners grumbled, taking his place in line, under the watchful eye of the Coldstream Guards.

“He’s positively medieval,” Sir Owen whispered to Maggie. “Probably a quarter raptor himself. But he’s part of the castle, as much as the Long Walk or the stones of the Great Tower.”

“Where are the birds kept?” Maggie asked, curious.

“Oh, there’s some sort of structure up on the roof,” Sir Owen answered. “Sam has a room in the castle, but he prefers to sleep with the birds—as if you couldn’t tell. He and the largest falcon, Merlin, are inseparable.”

Maggie shook her head. A hanged Lady-in-Waiting and rabid corgis and a man who lives with birds? “I thought living in a castle would be interesting, Sir Owen,” she said, “but nothing—absolutely nothing—prepared me for this.”

It wasn’t difficult to find Lady Lily’s room. The police had left the door ajar.

With another look to make sure she was alone, Maggie let herself in. Lady Lily’s sitting room was much like her own. However, since Lily had been at Windsor Castle longer, she’d amassed more possessions. Creamy down powder puffs, half-empty bottles of nail varnish, and tubes of Elizabeth Arden lipstick covered the dressing table. A half-empty bottle of Tabu. A crystal vase of dying red roses, black now, thorny stems decaying in greenish water.

Maggie started in the bathroom. In the medicine chest she found aspirin, antacid, tooth powder, and a worn-down toothbrush. Odor-o-no, a boar-bristle hairbrush, and tweezers. A tin of bluebell-scented powder. Some still-damp lace brassieres and silk panties hung over a line strung across the tub, along with garter belts and several pairs of stockings.

She removed the top of the toilet tank and looked inside. Nothing. She went through the small clothes hamper. Nothing. And nothing on top of the medicine cabinet, either.

In the bedroom, she lifted the mattress as best she could and looked underneath. Nothing. Nothing relevant in the drawers of the bureau or the nightstand, either. Of course, she thought, Detective Wilson and his men have probably already been over everything already.

The closet was crammed with clothes for every occasion, including garment bags stuffed with gowns of nearly every hue imaginable and a number of furs. A search of her many satin shoes turned up nothing either.

Maggie went back into the sitting room. She stopped by the bookcase, which was empty. She squinted at it. The dust indicated books had been there for a time and had recently been removed. Now, that’s odd, she thought. Why would someone take Lily’s books?

She mused for a moment, then realized she’d already met the very person who might be able to help her.

“Hello, Sir Owen!” Maggie said as she entered the King’s Library, a suite of rooms on the north side of the Upper Ward, adjacent to the State Apartments. Sir Owen, who’d returned from the questioning, was sitting at a carved mahogany desk in the first room, which had on it a few silver-framed photographs and a low vase of yellow roses.

It was a beautiful chamber, with high molded ceilings, intricately inlaid floors made from precious woods, and two stories’ worth of gold-tooled leather books. There was a long wooden table in the center of the room, polished to a mirror-like sheen, and tufted burgundy leather chairs. What a wonderful place to study, Maggie decided. Too bad my days of scholarship are on hold, at least for now.

Sir Owen looked up from a volume in front of him, the thin skin around his eyes crinkling when he smiled. “Miss Hope, how lovely to see you again—this time in the library. Is there, perhaps, a mathematical tome you need to find? For the Princess’s course of study?” He rose from the desk chair. “Most of the castle’s collection is in storage, I’m afraid, for safekeeping. I’m quite proud to say we have a small but quite important group of illuminated manuscripts, including the Sobieski Book of Hours. There’s also a fine group of incunabula dating from the period before fifteen hundred, including the Mainz Psalter, the second book ever to be printed with movable metal type. But of course they’re not accessible now.”

Oh, I would love to have the opportunity to see those books. If only. “Actually, Sir Owen, I was interested in finding out if you had any knowledge of what happened to Lady Lily’s books. They’re missing from her bookshelf.”

Sir Owen gave her a quizzical look.

“Louisa and Marion wanted them,” she improvised quickly. “To remember her by.”

“Yes, of course,” he said, forehead furrowing. “Well, the kind of books Lady Lily read, romances and such, aren’t really the sort we shelve here. However,” he said confidentially, “the Housekeeper, Mrs. Beesley, is a great aficionado of love stories, mysteries, and the like—and she has a lending bookcase in her parlor for the staff to use. Perhaps they’ve found their way to her?”

“Oh, thank you, Sir Owen,” Maggie said. “Thank you very much.”

After another trip through icy winding corridors, Maggie found herself at the door of the housekeeper’s parlor. She rapped at the door. “Come in!” called a high-pitched, thready voice.

Maggie opened the door and there was Mrs. Beesley, sitting at a plain wooden desk in a small, narrow room. She was younger than Maggie had expected, with brown hair in rolls, narrow shoulders, thin lips, and a serious expression in her eyes. “Yes? May I help you?” she said.

“Hello, I’m Maggie Hope, the Princess’s maths tutor,” she began. “You must be Mrs. Beesley.”

“Yes, please come in,” Mrs. Beesley said.

In for a penny, in for a pound, Maggie thought, stepping inside. “Well, I was talking to Louisa and Marion,” she began. “The Ladies-in-Waiting.”

“Oh, it’s hard to hear those names without thinking of our poor Lady Lily.” Mrs. Beesley pulled out her cambric handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.

“Yes,” Maggie said. “And that’s what brings me here, actually. You see, Louisa and Marion wanted a few of Lily’s books, to remember her by. There were some in her room apparently, and now they’re gone—”

Mrs. Beesley’s eyes narrowed. “Now, if you’re accusing me—or my staff—of pinching those books …” Her fingers worked at the handkerchief’s hem.

“No, no, of course not,” Maggie assured her. “No one’s accusing anyone of anything. I was just hoping to find out where they’d been taken, is all. No offense meant.”

“None taken,” Mrs. Beesley said stiffly, hands still now.

“Sir Owen said you’re a great reader,” Maggie said, “and that you have a sort of lending library? Is it possible the books might have gotten in there?”

“It’s possible, I suppose,” Mrs. Beesley said. “The bookcase Sir Owen’s referring to is in the hallway. You’re welcome to take a look. Or borrow a book, if you’re so inclined, of course.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Beesley.”

The bookcase was a tall one, filled with penny dreadfuls and dime novels in lurid colors, along with a few romances, Gothic horror stories, and a few copies of the Saint James Bible. Sure enough, there was a wooden crate next to the case, filled with romance novels. Maggie bent over to rummage through them, taking out a few books, flipping the pages. Nothing. She went through book after book with Lily’s personal bookplates, trying to be charitable about the girl’s choices in novels. Pulp romance mostly, terrible stuff, but here and there was a novel Maggie recognized. But in terms of clues, there was nothing. No letters, no notes, no scribbles in the margins.

Well, what were you expecting, exactly? Maggie thought. The name of the baby’s father in calligraphy? The murder’s identity written on a bookplate? She pulled out Gaston Leroux’s Le Fantôme de l’Opéra and flipped through it. Nothing.

She sighed. It was the only decent book in the bunch. She looked upward, saying, “Would you mind terribly, Lily?”

The corridor didn’t answer; neither did any ghosts. “Thank you.” And she tucked the book under her arm as she walked away.

Back in her room, Maggie kicked off her shoes and curled up on the sofa in front of the radiator with Le Fantôme de l’Opéra. As she opened it to the first page, she noticed the endpaper on the book’s inside cover didn’t lie smoothly.

What on earth—

Heart beating faster now, Maggie ran her fingers over the paper. There was definitely something in there.

With a hatpin from the stand on her dresser, she made a neat slit in the endpaper, then pulled out a folded piece of paper. Maggie read it. She read it again. A third time, for good measure.

She sat perfectly still, overcome with shock. It was a decrypt of a German cipher: “U-boat commander Hempelmann, in grid square 4498, had sunk one tanker.…”

Oh, Lily, Lily, Lily, Maggie thought. Where did you get this? Who gave it to you? And then, with the shock of realization, And what were you going to do with it?

She checked the date: It was a recent decrypt, dated November 17, 1940. The Friday the Ladies-in-Waiting had all gone to London for the weekend.

The day the woman at Claridge’s had been murdered.

Oh, Lily—what were you involved with?

And what happened to you, as a result?

Chapter Ten

The memorial service for Lady Lily Georgina Howell at Windsor Castle’s St. George’s Chapel was well attended by somber-looking castle residents, all dressed in black from head to toe. In the pews, Maggie saw recognizable faces mixed with the unfamiliar. Alah and Crawfie. Sir Owen, Lord Clive, and Mrs. Beesley, and Mr. Berners, who’d cleaned up fairly well. Ainslie, Audrey, and the winking footman. Louisa and Marion, who caught her eye and then began whispering behind their hands. Maggie was sure they were saying nothing good. There was Gregory, across the aisle from the two girls; he gave her a quick nod.

Maggie turned back to observe the architecture. St. George’s showed the same concern for bombing that the rest of the castle did. The stained-glass windows and quatrefoils were taped and boarded, and much of the statuary had been removed for safekeeping. However, nothing could diminish the beauty of the vertical lines of the Late Gothic soaring stone arches and the fan-vaulted ceiling, built in the English Perpendicular style, or the black-and-white chessboard marble floors in the Quire. The icy air inside the chapel’s thick stone walls smelled of piety and pomp.

As the priest’s voice rang out as he began his homily, Maggie first thought of her flatmate, who’d died during the summer—twice. And then of John. Will we ever be able to find a body? Have enough closure for a memorial service? Then she shook her head. No, he’s alive. Alive. I’m sure of it. She stood in prayer with the other congregants.

As the choristers in their ruby robes and white collars sang the last bars of Vivaldi’s “Cum Sancto Spiritu,” the great organ thundered out the magnificent closing notes and the final Amen echoed against the vaulted ceiling. The congregation rose as the Royal Family left their pew and began to walk down the aisle. Then the rest of the people began to follow, row by row. Outside, large and low gray clouds darkened the hazy white sky. The chapel’s bells chimed relentlessly as the stern wind caused overcoats and dresses to billow.

“Wonderful music, the Vivaldi Gloria.” Gregory fell into step beside her, wearing a Burberry raincoat and a Trinity College scarf. His limp was more pronounced than it had been the previous night, and one hand held his hat against the wind. “ ‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’ is joyful and yet somehow defiant, with that wonderful section of syncopation. I think Lily would have approved. I’d like it played at my own funeral, someday.” He laughed, a small and bitter laugh. “Someday, a very, very long time from now.” Maggie noticed his pallor and how much the scars pulled on his face.

“Were you very close to Lily?” she asked as they walked together on one of the gravel paths of the Lower Ward, heading to the Henry VIII Gate. Overhead, geese flew by with their long necks outstretched, honking mournfully.

“We grew up together,” he replied. “Although I went to off to Eaton and then to Cambridge. We met up again here, at the castle.”

“It must have been nice to see a familiar face.”

“It was.” They walked in silence for a while, as Maggie debated what she could ask without tipping her hand.

“I’m afraid I need to get back to the Equerry’s office, even on a Saturday,” Gregory said, finally, lifting his hat. “A somber morning, to be sure. But better for having seen you.”

Maggie smiled. Further questions could wait. “I agree. And I have a most pressing errand in town.” She displayed her corgi-bitten glove. “In this cold, it would be foolish not to pick up another pair. I only hope I have enough clothing rations.”

Arms crossed over her chest in the face of the frigid wind, Maggie walked out the Henry VIII Gate and down the cobblestone drive. She passed the blackened bronzed statue of Queen Victoria, plump and proud with her orb and scepter, and turned onto High Street. It was early Sunday afternoon, and she and Hugh Thompson were supposed to meet at Boswell’s Books around three. Very well, Maggie thought. Might as well pick up a new pair of gloves while I’m at it.

The town of Windsor in daylight was charming, with narrow stone streets and bright, tidy shop fronts. The architecture was quirky and whimsical, with buildings nestled close to one another, sporting an assortment of small ivy-covered turrets, Corinthian columns, cupolas, high round windows, sloped slate-tiled roofs, and windowboxes of fading flowers. Unlike London, it was still unscathed by bombing. Maggie heard the occasional car engine and the clip-clop of horses’ hoofs on cobblestones in the distance. The air was fresh and sweet compared to London’s, but when the wind blew a certain way, there was the unmistakable smell of horse dung.

Maggie bought, with her allotted rations, a new pair of leather gloves at W. J. Daniel, then picked up a copy of The Times at a newsstand and went into a narrow café for a cup of fragrant tea. After finishing a number of articles on the bombing of Coventry, she looked at her small watch and realized it was nearly three. She braced herself against the cold and went back onto Peascod Street, then saw a bookshop. BOSWELL’S BOOKS, the sign read. As she opened the door, a tiny silver bell jingled.

Inside, it was warm and cozy. Books lined the walls from floor to ceiling, and there were tall sliding wooden ladders for reaching the top shelves. The shop was long and went on, with a long aisle down the center, bisected by rows and rows of bookshelves. A worn blue Persian rug lay on the floor and, in a patch of weak sunlight, a fat ginger cat groomed himself.

Maggie smiled at the bent older man with tiny silver spectacles behind the register. The retired MI-5 agent? Archibald Higgins? “Boswell, I presume?” she asked, gesturing to the cat.

“The one and only,” he replied. “Cheeky devil. May I help you find anything, Miss?”

“No, thank you,” Maggie answered. “Just browsing.”

“As you wish,” he said. “Back room’s nice and quiet if you want to catch up on your reading.”

“Thank you.” Maggie walked from the front of the store to the back room, perusing titles, looking for any sign of Hugh. In the stacks, she found a section of mathematics books and journals, including Princeton University’s Annals of Mathematics. Maggie pushed aside a wave of bitterness. Once upon a time, she’d wanted, more than anything, to do her postgraduate work at Princeton—with people like James Christopherander, Albert Einstein, Luther Eisenhart, John von Neumann, and Alonzo Church. Not to mention Alan Turing, who’d been at Princeton but returned to England in ‘38 when war was declared. However, they didn’t admit women. And M.I.T. wasn’t exactly second tier.

Maggie pulled out a copy of Turing’s Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals, found the back room, settled into a worn leather armchair, and began to read. Eventually, she became aware of a figure in the aisle behind her.

Maggie looked up. It was Hugh, dressed in a heavy wool overcoat, Anthony Eden hat in hand. He looked down at her book. “Turing!” He whistled through his teeth. “A little light reading?”

Maggie smiled. “I find computability theory fascinating.”

Hugh leaned against the bookcase. “So, how goes it?” he asked in low tones. “Are you, er, I mean, is everything—that is—all right?”

“It’s been … interesting,” she answered. “You heard about what happened?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “We also know you were one of the last people to see the victim alive.”

“I met Lily at the Carpenters Arms. She was just coming back from her weekend in London, at Claridge’s. There was a suicide there, over the same weekend.”

Hugh looked at her, startled. “How the …?” Then, “Yes, there was a suicide at Claridge’s that weekend.”

“Well,” Maggie pressed, “don’t you think it’s significant? What if it wasn’t a suicide? What if the woman saw something? Or knew something? And what if Lily’s death wasn’t a suicide? There could be a connection.”

“Well, see what you can find out. Start with the victim’s friends. Become friends with them. Find out what they have to say.”

“Can we find out what the autopsy report says?”

“Of course. I’ll let you know as soon as we receive it.”

“There’s something else,” Maggie said.

“Yes?”

“You’ll find out from the autopsy report, but you should know now. Lily was pregnant.”

Hugh scratched his head and stared. “How the devil do you know that?”

“She told me. After she threw up in the ladies’ loo.”

“Right, then.”

“She said she was about three months along. I didn’t mention it when I was questioned by Detective Wilson. But I would like to tell him.”

“Of course.”

“And,” Maggie said, reaching into her pocket, “I found this.” She pulled out the decrypt she’d found in Lady Lily’s room.

Hugh took the paper and looked it over. His eyes widened. “Wizard!” he exclaimed. “But how did she get this?”

“I don’t know how she got it, but it was hidden in her copy of Le Fantôme de l’Opéra.”

“Thanks for this, Maggie,” he said, tucking the decrypt safely into his suit pocket.

“I thought at first Lily’s death was an accident and that Lilibet, er, the Princess, was the intended victim,” Maggie said. “But now … I don’t think so.”

Hugh looked at her. “You may be right.”

“But if Lily was murdered, who’s a suspect? Someone who knew she’d stolen a decrypt? Or someone who knew she was pregnant? The baby’s father, maybe someone married and/or high-ranking who wouldn’t want to be named as the father? And what, if anything, is the connection between Lily’s stay at Claridge’s and the supposed suicide?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. But we need to find out.” He ran both hands through his disordered hair. “There’s a murderer at Windsor Castle and you’re making progress finding him.”

“Or her,” Maggie said, thinking of Louisa and Marion.

“Or her. Or them, for that matter. Which means you need to be even more careful. And there’s still the matter of the Princess’s safety, as well.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Maggie said. “I’m always careful. And I’m not frightened.”

“You should be.” Hugh reached into his pocket and procured a piece of paper and a pen. He scribbled a number on the paper. “My direct line. Memorize it, then get rid of it,” he said, hazel eyes serious. “If you ever find you need anything …?”

Maggie took it, unexpectedly touched.

After a few moments, she heard the shop’s bell jingle, indicating Hugh had left.

Back at MI-5, Hugh went directly to Frain’s office. “I thought you’d sent Miss Hope on bit of a wild-goose chase, sir, I really did. But already she’s found out more than the police have.”

Frain didn’t look up from his papers. “Really? And what did she find out?”

“She knew Lily Howell was in London, at the same hotel and at the same time that woman committed suicide—if that’s indeed what happened. She knows it might indeed be a murder. She knows Lily Howell was three months pregnant. And,” Hugh pulled out the piece of paper Maggie had given him, “she gave us this—” Hugh handed over the cryptograph.

Frain read it, eyes inscrutable. “Thank you,” he allowed. “That will be all.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hugh left Frain’s floor, walking down to the small subterranean office he shared with Mark Standish.

“I’m going to the funeral,” he announced to Mark, as he got his coat and hat. Mark was looking at photographs of potential IRA mailbox bombers with a loupe magnifier, without much luck.

“I’ll meet you there,” Mark said, without looking away from the photographs. The service was for a fellow MI-5 officer, Andrew Wells, who’d died in the line of duty, killed by a Nazi spy’s stiletto in St. James’s Park after Wells recognized her. MI-5 covered up the murder, saying it was an accident. The spy was still at large in London.

Mark gestured to the photograph on Hugh’s desk. “Are you meeting up later with Caroline?”

“Of course,” Hugh snapped as he shrugged into his overcoat.

“I’m just checking, old thing. Just checking.”

The funeral was being held at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Hugh climbed the stone steps and pulled open the imposing doors. The interior was cavernous and dim in the fading daylight, lit by brass chandeliers and large beeswax candles in tall sconces. Somber music poured from the organ as Hugh walked down the aisle, his footsteps heavy on the marble tiles. He made his way to a hard wooden pew in the front of the church and took a seat, a world away from the bustle of Trafalgar Square outside.

As he sat, people began to file in, taking their seats or somberly exchanging greetings. It was a small service; they all sat near the altar. A small boy and his mother slipped into the pew in front of him. The boy, who was about six or so, with soft golden curls, began to fidget. He was dressed in black, as was his mother, who was dabbing at her eyes with a cambric handkerchief.

Everyone stood as the pallbearers brought in the large black casket, with the Union Jack draped over it and a wreath of crimson poppies. Andrew Wells’s casket.

They all sat down again as the silver-haired priest began his homily. “We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away—blessed be the name of the Lord.”

The boy began to kick the leg of his pew, his worn oxfords making a loud banging that

reverberated through the church.

“Shhh, love—don’t do that,” she said, placing her hand on the boy’s leg.

The boy twisted in his seat and stared back at Hugh. “That’s my daddy, you know,” he said, pointing at the coffin.

Hugh looked up at the coffin, then back at the little boy. “Then you must be Ian Wells,” Hugh whispered back. “I knew your father. He was a hero.”

Without warning, the boy was out of his seat and lunging at Hugh, burying his face in his shoulder and wrapping his thin arms around his neck, hugging him tightly, and sobbing.

Hugh held him; the boy’s hair smelled warm and sweet. “My father died in the line of duty, too,” he whispered, patting the boy’s back. He could feel sharp shoulder blades through the boy’s jacket. “It was a long time ago. I was about your age, actually.”

The boy looked up at Hugh with wide hazel eyes, damp plump hands still on his shoulders. “Do you still miss him?”

“Every day,” Hugh answered. “It gets better—it does—but it never quite goes away.”

In the Amtsgruppe Ausland offices of Abwehr in Berlin, junior agents Torsten Ritter and Franz Krause were sitting in black leather chairs in a large empty conference room, radio on the long table in front of them, waiting. Outside, the sky was cerulean, with just a few high feathery cirrus clouds. Krause was tapping his fingers nervously.