Princess Elizabeth's Spy

“Do you really need to do that?” Ritter asked.

Krause stopped. “Sorry.”

“By the way, my mother said to tell your mother hello,” Ritter said.

Krause grimaced. “I try not to talk to my mother.”

“Well, I’ll tell mine that she says hello back. It’ll make her happy.”

They stopped speaking when the radio began to emit a series of short beeps. It was a radio message from their British contact, code-named Wōdanaz. The contact in Windsor tapped out code, slow and deliberate—his “fist,” or typing style, as individual as a fingerprint. Ritter scribbled it down, then, as per protocol, asked the operator to repeat the message. He checked it against what he’d written, then acknowledged the contact and signed off.

Ritter consulted the Morse code book to decipher the message.

“It says they smuggled out the decrypt from Bletchley,” Ritter read as he translated.

“Excellent!” Krause said. “We just secured our retirement—gold, girls, an endless supply of beer …”

“Wait. I’m not done.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “This isn’t good. Frijjō is dead. And the decrypt is missing.”

“Scheiss!” Krause pounded his table with his fist. “Fucking Becker’s going to have our heads.”

“Becker?” Ritter said. “He doesn’t even believe the British can break Enigma. This will just confirm what he already suspects.”

Krause laughed, a bitter laugh. “You should be scared of him. Don’t let his affection for little Wolfie charm you.”

“I’ll tell you who I am scared of.”

“Yeah, who’s that?”

“Commandant Hess.”

Krause’s smirk faded, as the name, and its significance, reverberated. “We’re not working on that operation, though.”

“Still, Operation Edelweiss had better go off without a hitch—because I’ve heard about what happens when Commandant Hess gets angry. Makes Goebbels look like a pussycat.”

Chapter Eleven

At the castle, Maggie was getting dressed for dinner. Although she would rather have stayed in her rooms to read the Turing, which she’d purchased at the bookshop, she resigned herself to getting through the meal.

She pulled out the gown she’d brought, held it up and looked at it. It was an angelic blue chiffon, with black satin edging and black roses on one shoulder. The last time she’d worn it, she’d been with John. He’d asked her to marry him, and she, angry that he’d joined the RAF, had turned him down. Looking at the dress, Maggie thought bitterly, I was a fool. And I still am. She closed her eyes, and her shoulders sagged. And I hope to God I’ll get a chance to make it up to him. She put it on, along with fur-lined boots and her coat.

Maggie, already suspicious of the two other girls in Victoria Tower, went to find them. She had no personal interest in befriending them, but they were Lily’s best friends and could possibly have some information, and so …

She went down a flight of stairs and knocked at the door. There was no answer. She knocked again. “What?” she heard as the door cracked open. It was Polly.

“What do you want?” the girl snapped.

“Why hello, Polly,” Maggie replied, masking her annoyance. “Is this your door? I thought we could all walk to dinner together.”

“It’s Louisa’s, actually,” Polly said, cigarette in hand, opening the door a little wider. Inside, Maggie could see rooms similar to hers. Louisa, though, had done some decorating. Maroon scarves covered her lamps, making a reddish glow. Her walls were papered with prints of Italian Futurist painters popular with Fascists: Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, and a few others Maggie didn’t recognize. The air was thick with smoke from pungent clove cigarettes, and Lale Andersen’s “Lili Marleen” was playing on the phonograph.

Louisa was in the bathroom, applying her eyeliner. “Who’s there?” she called.

“Hello, Louisa, it’s Maggie.”

“Who?”

“Maggie Hope. We met at the Carpenters Arms with Gregory.” A pause. “And Lily.”

Louisa emerged from the bathroom in a long red dress with a black jet lavaliere, the kind of necklace Victorians would have worn in mourning. “Ah,” she said. “The governess. Shouldn’t you be walking with Crawfie?”

“And how lovely to see you tonight, too,” Maggie said.

Marion grimaced apologetically. “She probably came to see your snake.”

Louisa smiled, a cold smile. “Would you like to meet Irving?” she said.

“Uh, of course,” Maggie replied.

Louisa walked over to her dresser, where there was a covered glass container. She reached inside. “He’s a ball python,” she said, picking up a long, muscular snake. Maggie figured he was about four feet long and about five inches around, black and covered with slivery chartreuse blotches. “Here!” she said, tossing him at Maggie.

Instinctively, Maggie held out her hands and caught the snake. He was cold but dry, not at all slimy, and began to curl around her arms. Maggie saw his black shiny eyes and his forked tongue heading toward her neck.

“They like heat,” Louisa said.

Maggie stood perfectly still, unwilling to flinch. “Hello, Irving,” she said in a steady voice. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” As he tried to wrap himself around her, she extricated herself, handling him carefully. “I think he likes me.”

Marion and Louisa looked almost disappointed at Maggie’s dégagé reaction.

Maggie deposited Irving back into his container and replaced the lid. She went to Louisa’s loo and washed her hands, calling cheerfully through the door, “Shall we go to dinner now?”

They made it to the Octagon Room just in time.

“Miss Hope, you’ll be seated here.” Lord Clive gestured to an empty chair to the right, in the middle of the long table covered in starched white linens. Maggie noted, with satisfaction, that his tone was much warmer now. Louisa and Marion were seated at the other end of the table. She noticed the friendly footman and gave him a smile, which he returned before arranging his face back into the neutral mask of a royal servant.

“Thank you, Lord Clive,” Maggie replied. She went to take her seat.

Dinner was made in the castle’s kitchen out of wartime rations supplemented with winter vegetables from the considerable Victory Gardens. According to the menu, handwritten in French, tonight’s repast was mock goose—layers of potatoes and apples baked with cheese—with pickled onions, and beetroot pudding for dessert. Maggie sat between Sir Owen, the King’s librarian, and Mr. Alstaire Tooke, the head royal gardener. From across the table, Gregory raised his wineglass and gave her a grin.

Maggie took a bite of mock goose, then turned to her white-haired dining companion. “Delicious, don’t you think?”

He looked past her, not meeting her eyes, as though he didn’t understand her words. “Quite,” he said finally, in a quiet voice.

“I’m Maggie Hope, by the way. Princess Elizabeth’s new maths tutor?”

“Tooke,” was the response. His eyes seemed unfocused.

“Are you feeling all right, Mr. Tooke?”

He seemed not to hear her.

Sir Owen, seated on Maggie’s other side, turned to her. “Your accent tells me you’re an American,” he observed as the next course was being served.

“British, actually,” Maggie answered, “but I was raised in the United States, near Boston.”

“Do you have any idea of when the Yanks are going to join us in this endeavor?”

“Soon, I hope.”

“Well, they are taking their time about it, aren’t they?”

During the time Maggie had been in England, she’d heard quite a bit on the subject. “Indeed,” she said tartly.

“Well, you know the Yanks,” said another older man with a monocle and handlebar mustache across the table. “Late to every war.”

Maggie bit her lip, retorting with choice words—in her head.

Later, as the dinner dishes were taken away, Lord Clive rose. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his voice carrying throughout the expansive space. “We have, as a community, suffered a terrible loss this last weekend. I was pleased to see so many of you at Lady Lily’s memorial service. Please be assured we will be doing everything we can to cooperate with the authorities and bring the person responsible to justice.”

There was a collective murmur. Sir Owen called out, “Hear, hear!”

Maggie looked at Louisa and Marion, seated on either side of Gregory, who shot each other a look before turning their attention back to Lord Clive.

“However,” the Lord continued, “life does go on. And I’m pleased to inform you that the Prime Minister, his wife, and select members of his staff will be joining us to sleep and dine for Christmas. They will enjoy three days and nights of Windsor Castle’s hospitality.”

There was another low murmur from the table, a more excited one this time.

Lord Clive cleared his throat again. “Of course, we wish to show the Prime Minister and his staff exactly how gracious our hospitality at the castle is. I’m calling on all of you to put your best foot forward.” He looked around the table. “That is all.”

Sir Owen rose and helped pull out Maggie’s chair. “Miss Hope, we’ve been told you come to us from the Prime Minister’s office.”

“Yes, Sir Owen,” she said, as they waited to file out.

“You worked for Churchill, did you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Louisa called over, “Is he as pickled as people say?”

“Excuse me?” Maggie said.

“Sorry, I’ll speak ‘American,’” Marion said. “I mean drunk. Is Churchill a drunk? That’s what we hear, at any rate.”

“No,” Maggie said, getting angry. How dare she? “I’ve never seen him drink to excess. In fact, one of his favorite quotes is, ‘I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.’ ”

Louisa gave a cat-like smirk. “I, for one, wanted to see Lord Halifax as Prime Minister.”

“Then you must enjoy goose-stepping. Lord Halifax would have surrendered by now,” Maggie snapped, color rising in her face. “Where Churchill never will.” She saw Gregory bite his lip to stop himself from laughing.

“Miss Hope! Lady Louisa!” Lord Clive admonished. “May I remind you that not only are we at Windsor Castle, but the Nazis are the enemies? Enough!”

The company was excused. Mr. Tooke left without saying a word to anyone, eyes downcast. “You mustn’t mind Lady Louisa,” Sir Owen told Maggie as they walked out together into the chilly corridor. “She’s very … colorful.”

“I see,” Maggie said.

“And you mustn’t mind Mr. Tooke either. Hasn’t been himself lately.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Has he been ill?”

“His wife passed recently.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“She was German, you see. Lived here for years, though. She was only recently sent to some sort of—camp. Apparently, the strain was too much for her. She died of a heart attack. Poor bloke just found out this past week.”

“That’s terrible.” Maggie was aware of the camps, of course. The Prime Minister had given the go-ahead for their creation. He might be the Prime Minister, and he might be a great man, but it didn’t mean Maggie agreed with everything he did.

“Poor thing’s in shock.” Sir Owen shook his head, then turned to go. “Lovely to see you again, Miss Hope. Cheers.”

“Cheers,” she replied, her mind full of internment camps.

Gregory was at her side. “Well, you definitely spiced up dinner!” Then he turned serious. “It was a rather stressful meal—considering what happened over the weekend.”

One regular dining companion missing. “Of course,” Maggie said.

“Lady Lily was a particularly sparkling presence at meals. She’ll be missed for a long time to come.”

“I only met her the once, but she was charming. Was she … engaged?”

Gregory frowned. “Not that I know of, at least. Why do you ask?”

Maggie wasn’t about to tell him she knew Lily had been pregnant.

“Just wondering. She was so beautiful, after all.”

“Plenty of beaux, of course. Popular girl.”

They walked together down the long corridor in silence. “You knew her when she was younger?” Maggie prompted.

“Yes, she lived near us, near Chesterfield in Derbyshire.”

Maggie smiled. “It must have been nice to grow up with a playmate.”

“It was,” he said with a wan smile. “Although I didn’t meet her until she was five. She was born in Germany.”

“Oh, really?” Maggie said, her head spinning, thinking about the decrypt.

“If you don’t mind, I must return to the Equerry’s office.” He gave a small bow. “Good night, Maggie.”

“Good night,” she said, resuming her walk down the drafty corridor.

Could it be that Lily was a spy? A Nazi spy? she thought.

But if Lily was a Nazi spy, then who killed her?

And why?

Admiralty Arch was not only a large office building, it was, in fact, an archway, providing road and pedestrian access between The Mall and Trafalgar Square. Nearly undetectable to those who didn’t know it was there, carved in marble, was a nose. Just a nose, not a face—embedded in one of the archways. Legend was that it was Lord Nelson’s nose, and soldiers passing through on horseback would rub it for good luck.

Just like so many military men before him, Admiral Donald Kirk looked at the nose and said a short silent prayer to Lord Nelson. Kirk was a trim, smart-looking man with silvery hair and piercing green eyes, wearing a dark blue naval uniform. He leaned heavily on a silver-handled walking stick—a crushed knee in the last war had left him with a stiff, almost mechanical limp. The injury kept him from serving at sea in the current war—which he hated. However, his wife and four daughters, now married and mothers themselves, were grateful he was able to serve his country while staying in London. Sometimes, when they were all together at home and the women were carrying on, he wished for a submarine to command once again.

At the doorway a Royal Marine saluted. Kirk switched the walking stick to his other hand to return the salute, then switched back and proceeded inside. Slowly, for the stairs weren’t easy to navigate for anyone, let alone someone with a damaged leg, he made his way down narrow staircases until he reached the windowless Submarine Tracking Room.

Many Londoners were wrapping up work and going home for the evening, but the Submarine Tracking Room buzzed with excitement around the clock. The gray-painted walls were covered with maps studded with different colored pushpins, charts, and photographs of German submarine commanders. Several men in uniform repositioned the colored pins, according to information they received. The centerpiece of the room was a large table, covered with a map of Britain and the Atlantic Ocean and North Sea. Colored pushpins represented every freighter, warship, and submarine in the waters, both British and German.

A few officers were repositioning some of those pins, to reflect the day’s movement. Kirk limped over to take a closer look.

“That U-boat there.” He pointed to a red pin just off the Lincolnshire coast. “What’s it been doing?”

The man, young, with a five-o’clock shadow, shrugged. “It’s been there for a while—not doing much of anything, sir.”

Donald Kirk hadn’t reached the position he had by being the strongest or the fastest. His injuries early in the last war had seen to that. No, what he was known for was a rigorous intellect, coupled with the ability to think like the enemy. He squinted at the map on the table. Something was not right. The submarine’s movements had been puzzling him for days. It seemed to be on a purposeless patrol of the North Sea. The sub hadn’t surfaced, it hadn’t attacked, it hadn’t seen action of any kind. It just skulked about, lying in wait.

“U-two-forty-six,” Kirk said, reaching out to run his index finger over the tip of the metal pin. It was cold and hard. “What are you doing there?”

Chapter Twelve

Maggie had another nightmare.

This time, she was out walking the grounds hand in hand with Lilibet, the sky a greenish gray that threatened thunderstorms. A large falcon flew overhead, almost a pterodactyl, huge, with skeletal wings. He swooped down and grabbed the princess by the back of her coat.

Maggie felt the girl’s small hand ripped from hers and began crying as the bird flew higher and higher, taking her away to what Maggie knew was a horrible fate.

Her own screaming woke her up. It was still dark. She was trembling, drenched in cold sweat, heart thumping, limbs cramping. She lay there for a few minutes, gasping for breath, blinking away the images of the dream.

Finally, her heart slowed and she was able to see the shadows in her room for what they were—just shadows, and not terrible birds of prey with sharp talons and beaks. She rubbed her eyes, hard, pinpoints of light breaking through. Pull yourself together, Hope, she scolded.

She was able to go back to sleep, but woke up tired and disoriented. At least it was her day off. After completing her daily morning exercise regime, learned at Camp Spook—push-ups, sit-ups, leg lifts, and jumping jacks—preparing her lesson plans for the Princess, and lunch, Maggie put on her wool coat and hat and went to the police station.

It was raining, a cold, damp drizzle that showed no sign of letting up, and a stiff wind blew her large black umbrella inside out, showing its inner spine like a skeleton for a brief moment before she was able to right it. Finally, she reached the red-brick station. “I’d like to speak with Detective Wilson, please,” she said to the older sandy-haired man in uniform behind the wooden counter as she began to feel the warmth from the coal heater in the corner. “It’s in regard to the Lily Howell case.”

“Just a moment, Miss.”

Maggie looked around the station. There were the usual posters in primary colors: National Service Needs You, ARP Auxiliary Firemen Needed, and Dig for Victory!

Detective Wilson appeared. “Ah, hello, there. It’s Miss, ah, Hope, isn’t it?”

“It is, Detective Wilson.”

“Miss Hope, please follow me.”

In Detective Wilson’s tidy office, Maggie took a seat in front of his desk, noting he had no personal photos there, just a wilting aspidistra. “I’ve remembered something that Lady Lily mentioned,” she began.

“Yes?”

“She was … with child.” Maggie would have liked to have used the proper medical term—pregnant—but it was considered impolite.

Detective Wilson looked up and smiled. “We know.”

“How …?”

“Autopsy.”

I’m an idiot—obviously they would know. “Of course.”

“How did you know?”

“She told me, the night I met her.”

“She would have had to. Someone only three months along wouldn’t be showing.”

“Any idea whom the father might be?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” Maggie said. “I’ve asked around—apparently, she was a ‘popular girl.’ “

“I had an interesting telephone call—from a Mr. Frain. You know him?”

“Yes,” Maggie said. Frain’s made contact, of course. She tried to see where the conversation was heading.

“He mentioned the complications in the case and that MI-Five had a … particular interest. And we should help you as much as possible.” He cleared his throat. “And we, the local police, request the same from you.”

“Of course, sir,” Maggie said. She realized some toes had been stepped on in establishing the jurisdiction of MI-5 and the local police. “We’re all on the same side, after all.”

Maggie walked to Windsor and Eton Central Station, to get the train to Slough. It was raining harder, nearly sleeting—but it was Thursday, the day she was supposed to meet her father for dinner. She waited under the eaves of the arched glass roof in the cold for the train.

At Slough, Maggie walked until she found Bell’s Tavern. She was early, so she had some tea.

She waited.

The clock ticked on, until the heavy black hands reached six, Maggie and her father’s agreed-on meeting time.

She waited. Of course he might be late. Doesn’t mean he forgot our dinner, just that something came up.

Then she ordered and ate some squash-apple soup and bread and margarine.

She waited. The clock’s hands went to seven.

Then a cider. The clock’s hands reached eight.

Finally, close to nine, the waitress came over. “Will that be all, love?”

Maggie looked up at the clock, which now read 8:10. “Yes. I’m done.” She pulled out her purse to get her wallet to pay the bill, tears threatening to flood her eyes. “I’m really, truly, absolutely done.”

On the way to the Slough train station in the dark, Maggie saw three men stagger out of one of the pubs. They walked toward her, pushing one another and laughing, until they blocked her way.

“And what do we have here?” the tall one sniggered.

Maggie clamped her pocketbook under her arm and tried to walk abound them.

“Not so fast, love,” one with a beard said. “Fancy a drink?”

“No, thank you,” Maggie replied. They circled around her. “Let me pass!”

“Wot? Need to go home to your boyfriend?” the short one said. “I could be your boyfriend. Give us a kiss,” he slurred as he staggered toward her.

Maggie looked around. The main street of Slough was deserted. “I said no.”

The tall one got up right in front of her, much too close, his breath foul and smelling of gin. “Why don’t you pick one of us, love?” He reached out to stroke her cheek. “Or we’ll pick for you.”

Maggie kneed him between the legs, hearing him howl and his friends laugh, then sidestepped and ran, as fast as she could, to the train station. “Bitch!” they called after her.

Trembling, Maggie called Hugh at his office from a public pay phone on the train platform. “Of course I can meet you,” he said.

An hour later, Maggie stepped off the train and exited the Windsor station, taking High Street to Peascod Street. The blackout curtains were drawn at Boswell’s Books, but when Maggie rapped at the door, Mr. Higgins answered. “What you’re looking for is in the back, miss.”

Maggie went through the stacks to the back room, used for bookkeeping and storage. Hugh was there, sitting at a small round table. He stood up. “Hello.” Then, “You look a bit pale. Is everything all right?”

Maggie didn’t look at him.

He sat back down.

She took off her coat and her sweater, then rolled up her shirtsleeves.

“Get up,” she said.

“Beg pardon?”

“Get up.”

He did.

“Help me move the table and the chairs out of the way.”

Together, in silence, they cleared the room.

“Are you all right?” Hugh said finally.

“At Camp Spook, my downfall was the physical,” she said, ignoring his question. “So, every morning and night, I’ve been doing exercises. Sit-ups, push-ups, jumping jacks, jackknives … You name it. I’ve started running too, before dawn, so no one can see. I’ve been practicing shooting with clay pigeons. But one thing I can’t do is practice any martial-arts skills.”

She walked to the center of the room. “That’s what I need you for.”

“What?” Hugh was, confused.

“Come on, you’ve had the same training I had, probably more and better.”

“Maggie …” He looked positively horrified. “I—I can’t.”

“Afraid a girl’s going to beat you up?” Maggie walked up to him and began poking him. They were not gentle pokes.

“Ouch!” Hugh said.

“Come on, you deskbound fop!”

He saw the desperation in her eyes. “All right,” he said. “It’s been a while for you.” He took off his jacket. “Let’s go back to the basics.”

Maggie took a wide-legged stance and glared.

Hugh loosened his tie. “Your aim is to get your opponent off-balance. Once off-balance, you can use his weight to throw him down.” He gestured to Maggie. “Pretend you’re just walking along the street.”

She walked past him. He reached out to grab her. She threw her arm across him and flipped him to the ground.

“Ouch,” Hugh said. He moved his appendages to see if anything was broken.

Maggie paced back and forth in front of him. “Get up.”

He did. “Now pretend I’m coming at you again.” He came behind her in a choke hold and she bent over and, with a grunt, flipped him over. He hit the floor again with a loud bang.

“Ooof,” he said, blinking against the pain.

Archibald Higgins knocked at the door. “Everything all right in there?”

“Just fine, Mr. Higgins,” Maggie replied, breathing hard. “Never better.”

“All right, then.” The door clicked closed.

“Again,” Maggie demanded.

Hugh rose to his feet. He rolled up his shirtsleeves. He came at her from the front, going for her neck. She grabbed his arm and twisted it, causing him to bend over and groan in pain.

She let go.

He came at her again, this time trying to kick her. She grabbed his leg and rotated; he fell onto his stomach.

He got up, breathing hard, sweat breaking out on his temples, and came at her again, both hands reaching out to choke her. They wrestled together for what felt like an eternity, before Maggie managed to fall deliberately under him, bringing him down with her. Their lips were almost touching.

Then, with a foot to his midsection, she managed to kick-flip him over.

They both lay on the ground, trying to catch their breath.

Finally, Maggie got up and stood over Hugh. “Are you all right?” she said, extending a hand. He took it and allowed her to help him up.

“I’ll live,” he said. “You?”

Maggie’s eyes were hot and red. She sniffled. “I’m fine.”

Hugh led her over to the table. They both sat down on it.

“You’re obviously not,” he said. “And I don’t think it’s anything physical.”

There was a long silence, then, “I went to Slough today. I was supposed to have dinner with my father. And he forgot. I waited for hours!” She sniffled again. Hugh handed her a handkerchief, which she took and wiped her eyes with. “And then some, some men hassled me.”

Hugh looked concerned. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” Maggie said. “I made a run for it. And, on top of everything, Lily’s dead. It could just as easily have been Lilibet! But—my father—and I haven’t even seen him since I bumped into him, by accident, at the office.… He never even asked me about John! And then—and then, I was stood up by my own father.” She blew her nose, making a loud and unladylike snuffling sound.

“Maggie …” Hugh made a few awkward pats to her shoulder. “Maggie, listen to me. You have a job to do. You can’t let your relationship—or non-relationship—with your father affect you. You can’t let a bunch of buffoons affect you. You can’t let what happened to John affect you. And you can’t let your fear, and your anger, and your sorrow—” Hugh broke off suddenly.

“I know.” Maggie reached out and took Hugh’s hand. It was large and warm. “Thank you. I’m all right now.”

After a few moments, she let go of his hand. “I have some official business,” he said.

Maggie swiped at her eyes again. “Of course.”

“We want you to get the King’s file on Lily Howell.”

“If MI-Five wanted Lily Howell’s file, surely Frain could just ask the King for it. Unless you think …” Maggie considered. “The King? You think the King had something to do with Lily Howell’s murder?”

“It’s possible,” Hugh said. “Or it’s possible there are some things in Lily’s file the Royals would want to remove, before showing it to us.”

“And let’s just suppose for a moment I was to get caught by all those Coldstream Guards who protect the king. Would MI-Five stand up for me? Or let me hang?”

“But you won’t get caught. We’ll make sure of it.” His forehead creased. “What’s in those files might shed some light on what’s been happening at the castle.”

“I’ll need clay to make imprints of the keys—those files are bound to be locked,” she said.

“Your wish is my command.” Hugh slipped off the table and went to his jacket, pulling out a wrapped pad of soft brown clay from the inside pocket. He handed it to her. “Get the imprints, and then we’ll make you the keys.” He bent down to the briefcase again, rummaging.

“And I’ll need a—”

Hugh handed her a small camera.

“Ha!” Maggie said, pleased, as she accepted it.

Then he handed her a felted handbag. “Not really my style,” she remarked, turning it in her hands and looking at it from all angles.

“There’s a false bottom. For hiding the camera.”

“Fantastic.” Feeling better, she rolled down her sleeves and gathered her things to leave, placing the clay and camera in the purse’s false bottom. As she did, she made a mental note to photograph Louisa’s files as well.

“By the way,” Hugh said. “You’re not bad. At fighting, that is.”

“Well, I—” Maggie was momentarily flustered.

“For what it’s worth, I think you could have held your own in France,” Hugh said.

“That means a lot to me, Hugh,” she replied. Then she left.

At Maumbrey Cottage, his home at Bletchley, Edmund Hope went to the large wooden desk, picked up the telephone receiver, and dialed. “Margaret wanted to have dinner with me,” he said into the telephone receiver.

On the other end of the line, Peter Frain said, “We know.”

Static crackled and spluttered over the line.

“I knew she was going to ask me questions about her mother.”

“And what did you say?”

“Nothing,” Edmund replied. “I didn’t meet her.” He didn’t mention he’d been there, at the pub in Slough, and that he’d stared at her through the plate-glass windows in the dark and cold, before finally leaving. The answers his daughter wanted from him—they just weren’t anything he could or would tell her. Even if it meant disappointing her. Even if it meant losing her again.

“Good,” Frain said. “Let’s keep it that way.”

Chapter Thirteen

Monday morning was Princess Elizabeth’s first maths lesson.

It was not going well.

“But Crawfie’s already taught me how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide,” Lilibet said earnestly in the nursery, warmed by orange and indigo flames crackling behind the brass fender. “And we’ve gone over decimals and fractions. I really don’t know what more there is.” A few of the corgis were napping in front of the fender on their needlepoint pillows, snoring. Dookie snorted and opened his black eyes for a moment, then went back to sleep.

Maggie smiled. “A bit more.”

“But it’s not as if I’ll have to do my own books,” Lilibet said, parroting what she must have heard Crawfie say.

“No,” Maggie rejoined, “but you may want to keep an eye on those books when you’re Queen.” She let Lilibet think about it. “Just a suggestion, of course.”

“Oh,” Lilibet said, considering. “Perhaps you’re right.”

“Actually,” Maggie said, sitting down next to the girl, “I thought we might do something different today. It’s math, but it doesn’t really have to do with numbers at all. And it does have to do with a queen. Two queens. And how math saved Queen Elizabeth’s crown.”

“Really?” At this, Lilibet perked up.

“Really.” And Maggie began to relate the story of how, when Mary, Queen of Scots, was on trial for treason, accused of trying to assassinate the Protestant Queen Elizabeth, and facing a death sentence, she’d used code to communicate with her fellow Catholics. “You see, Mary had actually authorized the plot to murder Queen Elizabeth. But all of her messages were written in cipher. In order to prove her guilt, Queen Elizabeth would have to break the cipher.”

Lilibet’s eyes were huge. “Yes?”

“Well, luckily, she had on her side a brilliant mathematician, Sir Francis Walsingham, her principal secretary. Walsingham was an expert at breaking codes and ciphers.”

“But what does this have to do with maths?”

“We’re getting there!” Maggie said, pleased that she now had her young charge’s interest. “Mary’s letters to her supporters were in cipher—and it would take maths, some pretty sophisticated maths, to break the code.” She got up, went to her bookcase, and pulled out a book about Mary, Queen of Scots, in which she’d bookmarked of one of Anthony Babington’s messages to Mary, written in code. “What do you make of this?” Maggie asked.

[Art TK Here]

“It’s … gibberish. Those aren’t even real numbers or letters.” She sighed in exasperation. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Ah, but if you know maths, it just might. Not only was it a secret message about the assassination of Queen Elizabeth, written in code, but it, like their other messages, was smuggled in and out of prison through beer-barrel stoppers. Queen Mary’s servants would retrieve the messages from the beer-barrels and place messages back into the hollow of the stopper.”

“But how did they figure it out?”

“Sir Francis, Queen Elizabeth’s Royal Spy Master, intercepted all of the messages between Queen Mary and Anthony Babington. Each message was copied by the Spy Master and then sent on to its destination intact. Then Sir Francis decoded each message, using the frequency analysis—the frequency of common characters—until a readable text was found. The rest of the message was guessed at by the message context until the entire cipher was understood.”

“What’s—what did you say? ‘Frequency analysis’?”

“Well, think about the alphabet. What are some letters that are used most frequently in words?”

Lilibet considered for a moment. “E, of course. And some of the other vowels.”

“Yes!” Maggie exclaimed, gratified. “And what are some letters that aren’t used very much?”

“Well, Zed, of course. And X. And Q.”

“And Q always is followed by a—”

“U!” the Princess exclaimed.

“What Queen Elizabeth’s code breaker did was figure out which symbols Queen Mary used that appeared with the same frequency as letters of the alphabet. He proposed values for the symbols that appeared most often. By figuring out the symbol used most frequently, he could deduce it was an e. And so on. Using math and common sense, he was able to break the code.”

“Goodness,” Lilibet said. “It probably saved Queen Elizabeth’s life.”

“It did. And cost Queen Mary hers. Now—I have an idea for something fun to do.”

The princess looked wary. “What is it?”

“Well, how would you and Princess Margaret like to have your own ultra-secret code to communicate in? That no one, not even Crawfie or Alah, could read?”

“Oh, yes, yes, please, Maggie.”

“Then let’s get started, shall we?”

It took a while, but Lilibet created a cipher. Like Queen Mary’s code, it wasn’t just a simple monoalphabetic substitution and code words. Maggie had a decoder, a giveaway from a long-ago jar of Ovaltine. It might have been a toy intended for children, but it was a descendant of the cipher disk, developed in the fifteenth century by Leon Battista Alberti. The center wheel had a circle of numbers, which turned to match a stationary outer circle of letters.

Maggie gave it to Lilibet, who took it with a sort of awe, twisting the dial this way and that.

“The decoder—really a cipher disk—can be used in one of two ways,” Maggie said. “The code can be a consistent monoalphabetic substitution for the entire cipher—or the disks can be moved periodically throughout the cipher, making it polyalphabetic.”

“What?” Lilibet said, knitting her brows.

“Hmmmm …” Maggie remembered her young charge was only fourteen. “The sender and the person receiving the messages would need to agree on a cipher key setting. The entire message is then encoded according to this key. You also could use a character to mean ‘end of word,’ although this makes the code less secure.…”

Lilibet looked concerned.

“Oh, come on, we’ll make one up and then you’ll see how fun it is,” Maggie said.

After a bit of thinking and moving the rings, Lilibet dipped her pen in a bottle of Parker Quink Black and wrote her first note, in code, to Margaret. The code was set for the 1 to indicate the start of the alphabet, set at E, for Elizabeth. “+” was to indicate the end of a word.

And so, “Meet me in the garden” became “9 1 1 16 + 9 1 + 5 10 + 16 4 1 + 3 23 14 26 1 10”—and by twisting the dial, and remembering the E setting, Lilibet could get to the correct letters to spell out the message.

“May I go and show Margaret, Maggie? Please? It will make her laugh, and she loves to laugh so much.”

“Of course,” Maggie said. “We’re done for the day. And be sure to teach her how the code works, so she can write back to you.”

“Maybe I could use the code when I write to—” the Princess began. Then she stopped herself.

“Write to …?” Maggie prodded.

“Well,” Lilibet said, blush staining her cheeks, “there’s this boy we all know. His name is Philip.”

“Oh?” Maggie said. Her lips twitched as she realized Lilibet had a crush.

“He’s a bit older than I am, and in the Royal Navy. But we’ve been writing to each other. Mummy and Daddy know, of course.” Her face creased with concern. “It’s all very proper.”

“I’m sure it is. And this Philip—he writes back?”

“He does!” Lilibet exclaimed. “Funny, witty letters with little sketches and doodles. He’s about to be made midshipman!” she said proudly.

“Well, he must be quite a good sailor, then.”

Lilibet’s blue eyes were large. “Oh, he is—he’s the best sailor the Royal Navy has,” she said. Maggie could see how deep the Princess’s feelings were for this young man. Then she started. “Do you have someone special, Maggie?”

Maggie was momentarily flustered. The Princess sensed her discomfort instantly. “It’s all right if you don’t want to talk about it. I shouldn’t have asked. Oh, now you’ll think I’m terribly rude.”

Maggie laughed. “Of course not. It’s just hard to talk about. But I do have someone special.” I did, Maggie thought. No, still do.

Lilibet leaned in. “What’s his name?”

“John. John Sterling. He used to be head private secretary to Mr. Churchill—we worked with each other at Number Ten Downing Street last summer.”

“And you fell in love?”

“Well, at first we didn’t. I didn’t even like him much—or so I thought. And I thought he couldn’t stand me. We used to bicker all the time.”

“Ah …” Lilibet sighed.

“But, you know—” Now it was Maggie’s turn to blush. “Eventually, we came to admit our, er, high regard for each other.”

“ ‘High regard’?”

“We, you know, we were in love.”

“Were?”

Freudian slip, Maggie? “He joined the Royal Air Force. I didn’t support him—I wanted him to stay at Number Ten.…” Tears filled her eyes, and Lilibet searched in her pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, which she handed to Maggie.

“It’s clean,” the younger girl said. She waited until Maggie wiped at her eyes and nose and could go on.

“He asked me to marry him.”

“What did you say?”

“I said no.”

“What? I thought you said you were in love with him?”

“I was—I am—I was just so angry he was joining the Air Force. It was stupid,” Maggie said, wiping her face and then blowing her nose. “I was stupid. I am stupid. And then his plane was shot down over Germany. And there’s been no news of him. So he could be dead. Maybe. But I refuse to give up hope that he’s still alive.”

Lilibet took in this piece of information and digested the enormity of it. “You’re not stupid,” she said, patting Maggie’s arm. “You just wanted him to be safe. Just like I want Philip to be safe.”

Maggie gave a wan smile. “Yes.”

“And they’ll both come back to us, you’ll see.”

“Is that a royal command, Your Highness?”

“It is.”

“Well, then—I’d better obey, then, mustn’t I?”

Chapter Fourteen

In the conference room at Bletchley, which used to be the manor house’s formal dining room, cryptographer Benjamin Batey was sweating, his face pale.

Peter Frain was sitting across the wooden table from him. “Exactly when did your relationship with Miss Victoria Keeley begin?” he asked.

“A—a month ago. I mean, I’ve known her for more than a year—that is, I knew who she was. But I didn’t start to get to know her until about, maybe, six months ago. We started walking out about a month ago.”

“Who approached whom?”

“She, well, she approached me,” Benjamin said, fingers of one hand picking at the cuticles of the other. “In the canteen. She asked if she could sit with me. Asked for my help with a crossword puzzle.”

“Did she ever mention a woman named Lily Howell?”

Benjamin looked puzzled. “No,” he said. “No, she didn’t.”

Frain made a mental note. “When did you first become intimate?”

“Well, we went to one of the Bletchley concerts together for the first time last month.…”

Frain cut to the chase. “When did you sleep with her?”

“I’m afraid—”

“Yes, Mr. Batey, you should be afraid. You should be very afraid. When did you sleep with her?”

“That—that night,” Benjamin said, his face reddening.

“Did you ever take work out of the office with you?”

Benjamin looked shocked. “No! Of course not!”

Frain narrowed his gray eyes. “Then how do you explain that Victoria Keeley passed one of the decrypts that you were working on to a third party?”

Benjamin gasped. “It’s impossible!”

“I’m afraid not,” Frain replied, lighting up a cigarette with his heavy monogrammed silver lighter. As he inhaled, the tip glowed orange and red. “Very few things are truly impossible, Mr. Batey. Two women are dead and a top-secret decrypt made its way from your office to London. Let’s go over your story again, shall we?”

Hugh Thompson was leaving his office at MI-5. “Please tell Mr. Standish I’m on my way to a meeting,” he called out to his secretary, when he heard the urgent ring of the telephone. “And if Caroline calls, just—”

“It’s Mr. Frain, sir,” she said. “He wants to speak with you.”

Hugh went back to his desk. Over the hiss of the line, he could hear Frain light a cigarette and inhale.

“You’re being pulled off the Windsor assignment,” Frain said without preamble.

Hugh was gobsmacked. “What?” Then, “Why?”

“I want someone older, with more experience. As it turns out, this is an important case. Even more important than I’d originally thought.”

“Yes sir, I know—”

“I’d like you on something different. Mr. Standish will fill you in on the details. In the meantime, I’d like you to see Mr. Nevins today, to brief him on Miss Hope.”

“Nevins?” Hugh couldn’t conceal his shock. “Archer Nevins?”

“He’ll be her new handler. He’s a senior member of our staff, and I trust you’ll treat him with the respect he deserves. That is all.” And then the phone went dead.

“Nevins,” Hugh muttered, as he replaced the heavy green Bakelite receiver. “Just perfect!”

A message alerted her that the book she’d ordered from Foyle’s in London was in, the signal she and Hugh had agreed on to meet in Queen Mary’s Rose Garden in Regent’s Park. Around noon, Maggie left the castle. It was a relief to leave those oppressive stone walls, six feet thick in some places, and to be out in the open air, even if it was chilly and overhead there were swollen gray clouds.

She took the train from the red-brick Victorian Windsor and Eton Central Station over Brunel’s bowstring bridge to Slough, then walked over the pedestrian crossing and waited in the cool clammy air until the next train arrived. This one took her from Slough to London’s cavernous and loud Paddington Station, with its high arched glass-and-iron ceiling and grubby pigeons pecking for crumbs on the damp cement floors. From Paddington, she took the Bakerloo line on the tube to Baker Street. From Baker, she walked a few blocks to Regent’s Park.

She and Hugh met in Queen Mary’s Rose Garden, a lush, carefully tended section of the park. The skies were leaden, the grass brown, the bark of the bare trees the color of bruises. The last of the rambling, winding, climbing, and clustered red, pink, and golden roses were dying. The cold air smelled of earth and frost and impending winter. A few plump pigeons strutted and cooed, waiting for someone, anyone, to leave crumbs.

Besides the occasional pedestrian and twittering sparrow, they had a wooden bench in the garden with a fine view of William McMillan’s Triton fountain to themselves, knowing there was no way their conversation could be overheard. Still, Hugh was on one end, buried in The Times, and Maggie was at the other, pretending to read Turing.

“Frain’s in Bletchley right now, questioning a cryptographer named Benjamin Batey. He had access to the decrypt. He was also seeing Victoria Keeley.” Hugh’s breath made white clouds in the air.

Maggie took a sharp breath but kept her eyes on her page. “Is there any evidence that he murdered her?”

Hugh shrugged. “Not so far. Frain’s been questioning him. And Frain can be very … persuasive. So far, though, Benjamin Batey seems like a sort of hapless victim. They allegedly had their … tryst … at her flat and then she went to London alone.”

“So, we know somehow, perhaps through Mr. Batey, Victoria Keeley got her hands on a decrypt. We know that she passed it to Lady Lily Howell at Claridge’s. We know Victoria Kelley was murdered. And we know Lily had hidden the decrypt and was then murdered also.”

“Yes.”

“What we need to focus on,” Maggie said, “is how Lily Howell was going to send, or take, that information to Germany. No one found a radio, a way for her to communicate?”

“No, she must have been working with someone else.”

“Possibly someone at the castle.”

Maggie nodded. “Of course, if there’s someone else at Bletchley who’s stealing decrypts …”

“I know, I know.” Hugh folded his paper.

“At any rate, we should get the names of everyone at Claridge’s the night Victoria Keeley was murdered and run them against everyone at Windsor Castle and Bletchley Park. Of course, people might have used aliases, but—”

“I’m sorry,” Hugh said, “but I’ll have to pass along your request—to your new handler.”

“New handler?” The book nearly fell out of Maggie’s hands.

Hugh ran his hands through his hair. “I’m afraid so. This is getting more serious than Frain anticipated, so he’s pairing you up with someone more senior.”

“That’s unacceptable. You’re an excellent agent. We work well together.” She was filled with an overwhelming sense of disappointment and rage, like a child whose favorite playmate was moving away.

“It’s fine, really. I mean, of course my pride is bruised. But mostly I’ll miss …” He stared at her, searching for the right things to say.

“Yes?” Maggie prompted.

“I’ll miss … the case. It’s been quite the roller coaster already. And I think we’ve just scratched the surface.” He continued to look at her. “But I’m afraid it can’t be helped.” He rose and tipped his hat. “Good luck, Maggie Hope.” And then he walked away, swallowed up by the park.

“And good luck to you, too,” she replied to herself, feeling lost and alone once again.

Maggie wasn’t the only resident of Windsor Castle spending the day in London. Audrey Moreau was there as well. It was her one day off a month from her maid’s duties, and she had told Cook that she was taking the train to London to do some sightseeing.

London was a city of smoking ruins, but many of the shops were open, and what architecture remained was still magnificent. Cold rain was falling, and water gushed in the gutters, filled with fallen yellow leaves.

Audrey had left off her black-and-white maid’s uniform and was wearing a woolen dress with her winter coat, which she’d tailored to accentuate her slim figure. A hat with a silk orchid one of the castle’s guests had left behind topped off her ensemble. She was rewarded by men smiling and tipping their hats.

She made her way to a bus stop near Piccadilly Circus. The statue of Eros was gone, but the circle was still a popular place for people to meet—sailors in uniform on leave shouting to one another and smoking, WAAFs and FANYs in bright red lipstick, men in dark suits and bowler hats under black umbrellas.

The Circus was surrounded by huge billboards from the Ministry of Propaganda: Join the Wrens!, It Is Far Better to Face the Bullets than to Be Killed at Home by a Bomb, and God Save the King.

The rain stopped, and Audrey folded up her umbrella. She waited for the red double-decker bus, and when it arrived she took the narrow stairs to the top deck. As the vehicle made its slow way up Regent Street, she was joined by a man wearing a dark gray coat, a gray bowler hat, and a Trinity college scarf in navy, red, and yellow stripes. He sat next to her, despite the fact that the deck was nearly empty.

She looked up and smiled, beginning what was to be a long conversation in whispered French.

It was sunset at Windsor Castle—red, rose, and tangerine bled out into the western sky, leaving long violet shadows.

Behind battlements on top of the castle stood a large structure, the Royal Mews, a wooden construction with mesh screened doors and windows. Inside were perches with goshawks and peregrine falcons in hoods, tethered with heavy leather jesses.

“There, now, Merlin,” Sam Berners crooned, as he slipped the tooled leather hood over the falcon’s head. He took a moment to look out over the grounds of the castle, with the Thames and Eton in the shadowy distance.

Alistair Tooke entered the Mews and stood for a moment at the entranceway, repulsed by the smell. “Berners!” Tooke said, his boots crunching on the fresh straw laid down on the floor.

“Got nothin’ to say to you,” Berners replied, transferring Merlin to his arm.

“Just as long as you don’t say anything to the police,” Tooke warned. “If you won’t, I won’t.”

Berners looked at his falcon, Merlin, blind in his tooled and painted leather hood. “We’re all hunters, then, aren’t we?”

“We are, indeed. And I’ll keep your secret, if you keep mine.”

Chapter Fifteen

Hugh grabbed the hilt of his épée as he began to advance on the piste that covered a long strip of the highly polished floor of the Reform Club. “Nevins. Nevins!” Behind his metal mesh mask, his eyes narrowed as he paced. “Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.”

Mark was dressed, as was Hugh, in the traditional white fencers’ uniform. He advanced and lunged as Hugh continued to rant, his voice echoing in the high-celinged wood-paneled room, decorated with suits of armor and historical swords, its large windows overlooking Pall Mall.

Hugh deftly parried, the clicks and scrapes of metal on metal echoing under the brass and ormolu chandeliers. His breathing was heavy with the intense effort. “Nevins is an idiot! And so is Frain, for that matter, for replacing me—with him, of all people!”

Mark counterattacked with a passata-sotto, his épée whistling through the air. “Look,” he said and grunted. “May I say something?”

Hugh put down his épée and took off his mask. “What?” Perspiration glistened on his face.

Mark took off his mask as well, and wiped drops of sweat out of his eyes with his sleeve. “Nevins is a good agent. He has more experience than you do. And he may be a pompous ass at times, and get a little too friendly with the female staff, but he does his job and does it well. I believe you’re letting this get personal.”

“Oh, not this again—”

“It’s true! You obviously think about Miss Hope more than any handler should—”

They both put their masks back on. “I’m a consummate professional, and you know it,” Hugh said as he went back to en garde. “And I’m a better fencer than you too,” he gasped.

“Possibly,” Mark said as they parried and their blades clicked. “Well, then take it from the chap who’s worked in a small closet with you for over three years—I think you miss her. Not the mission. Her.”

“Ha!” Hugh exploded, their blades meeting again. “She’s a good agent is all. A bit green, but good—smart, intuitive. We had a … rapport.”

Mark feinted, then thrust, moving in against Hugh now, driving him back. “And now Nevins is going to have that … ‘rapport’ … with her. And it’s driving you bonkers.”

Hugh countered the best he could. “That’s rubbish!”

Mark pushed forward for the victory, the tip of his sword against Hugh’s heart, winning the point. “No, not it’s not.”

Hugh was absolutely still. Then, “Prat.”

“Ass.”

They each lowered their swords and took off their masks.

“So, what do I do?” Hugh said, when he’d caught his breath.

They returned to the garde line, saluted, then stepped forward and shook hands, as tradition dictated.

“I don’t think there’s all that much you can do, really, if Frain’s set on using Nevins,” Mark said, as they walked together to the door. “But you might want to start thinking about breaking things off with Caroline. Because if you feel this strongly about another girl, it’s not fair to string Caroline along.”

Hugh raised his hands in mock surrender. “You’re right, damn you.”

“Back to the real fight, then?” Mark said, clapping his friend on the back.

“Indeed.”

A few hours later, Hugh stood in Archer Nevins’s office, a thick manila file in hand. He handed it over to Nevins, a charismatic man with glossed-back hair, just a decade older than Hugh. He had a winning toothy grin, like a politician’s, and the confidence that came from successfully running a number of spy-finding operations. While he was married and had two sons at Harrow, he was infamous, among the female staff at least, at MI-5 for his wandering hands and for seducing any number of receptionists, telephone operators, and typists. Nevins opened the file and flipped through the pages. “The infamous Maggie Hope,” he said.

“As you can see, her current assignment—”

“I do,” Nevins said.

“She already has the clay and the camera, so—”

“And that’s why I’m on this case now, Thompson. Anything else I need to know about her? One man to another?”

“No.”

“What about Frain?”

“What about Frain?”

Nevins looked at Hugh. “Is he still sleeping with her? Or has he moved on?”

Hugh took a deep breath and overcame the urge to punch Nevins in the jaw. “There’s nothing unprofessional between Miss Hope and Mr. Frain.”

“Oh, come, now, Thompson,” Nevins said. “Surely you’re not that naïve. How do you think she got this job?”

“Her intelligence and skills.”

Nevins laughed. “I think you’re just jealous.”

Nevins came to the photograph of Maggie, clipped to the back page of the folder. “Well, well, well!” He whistled through his teeth. “Now I know why Frain hired her. Wouldn’t kick that out of bed for eating biscuits.”

Hugh bit the inside of his cheek. “Try anything funny, and she just might kick you.”

“Oh, feisty, is she?”

Hugh silently counted to ten. “Will that be all—sir?”

“What? Oh, yes.” Nevins was still staring at the picture. “ He waved one hand without looking up. “That will be all, Thompson. Dismissed.”

After the Princess’s maths lesson and lunch, Maggie received a message saying the book she’d ordered from Boswell’s had arrived. She left the castle grounds through the King Henry VIII Gate, heels clicking on the cobblestones, walked past the statue of Queen Victoria, then turned right down Peascod Street under the low silvery clouds. But she wasn’t alone.

“Miss Hope!” a man called, catching up to her. She didn’t recognize him from the castle, and she felt a moment of alarm.

“Miss Hope!” he called again, panting and falling into step alongside her. “I’m Archer Nevins.” His breath made clouds in the cold air. “I want to let you know that we’re going to make a fantastic duo.”

Maggie stopped, her eyes narrowing. So this was her new handler. She felt … cheated.

“Mr. Frain’s assigned Mr. Thompson to a less important case.” He wiped at his nose with a linen handkerchief, his monogram embroidered in large ornate letters. “I have more seniority—more experience—and Frain thought you’d be better suited to working with me.”

Maggie started walking again. Since arriving at Windsor, she’d gotten into the habit of taking either an early-morning run or a long afternoon walk on the grounds. She’d began her regime to build up her strength and endurance, but really she just liked to get away from the confines of the castle for a least a few hours a day. In the time she’d been there, she was already getting stronger and faster, and she put her speed to her advantage as they walked down the cobblestoned street.

As Nevins followed, struggling to keep up in his slippery-soled shoes, Maggie felt a wave of anger wash through her. She stopped and faced him, bringing him up short. “Mr. Nevins, I have a question.”

“Yes?”

“Have you run the list of names of Windsor Castle and Bletchley Park employees against the list of guests at Claridge’s for the night Victoria Keeley was murdered? I asked Hugh, and he said he’d pass the request to you.”

Nevins laughed. “So, that was your idea, was it? A regular Mata Hari you are. Well, darling, you’ll find I’m not like Hugh Thompson. I, for one, don’t take orders from a woman. In fact, let’s set this straight—I’m the boss. You’ll be taking orders from me.”

“Are you insane?” Maggie hissed. “What are you doing here? And out in the open? Stopping by for tea? Already one woman’s been shot in London and one’s been decapitated here. Since I’m new, there are any number of people at the castle suspicious of me. You’re abusing the privilege of the handler position.”

“This is why I don’t like to work with women,” Nevins said softly, “no matter how attractive the package. You women may be clever—and you’re reputed to be quite clever—but you’re not intelligent. You may be able to obtain information in a given situation, but you can’t put it all together.” He smiled. “It’s why you have me, of course.”

Maggie felt her face grow hot, and started walking again. “That’s not how I see things. Or Mr. Frain.”

Nevins laughed, a pinched, mean laugh. “Frain’s a pragmatist. He saw that he could get you into Windsor, and because of your sex, you’d be less obvious—especially when dealing with a child. A good role for a woman, I suppose. But honestly, I’d rather see Thompson or Standish in the field on this one, not you. Although I wouldn’t mind your sitting just outside my office. You’d dress the place up nicely.”

“Are you joking?” Maggie managed. ‘Look, Mr. Nevins, I’m a professional. And I expect to be treated as such. Understood?”

Nevins looked as though Cupid’s arrow had just pierced his heart. “You have pluck, Maggie,” he managed, finally. “So very American. And you like the chase, it seems. I just hope you haven’t picked up any of your father’s habits.”

“My father?” Maggie spluttered. “What’s he got to do with anything?”

“You don’t know?” Nevins whistled. “He was investigated for being a double agent for Germany in the last war. Now, in this one, he’s supposed to be ferreting out a spy at Bletchley. Been on the case for years and still no spy.… Do you think dear old Dad might be working for Abwehr? That’s what the boys in the back room whisper, at any rate.”

“Stop it, Mr. Nevins. Stop it right now.” Maggie’s head was spinning. Her father was a spy during the last war? He’d never told her that. And he’d been suspected of being a double agent back then? And now, once again, he was suspected of spying for Germany?

From a nearby black rooftop, a falcon began his mad laughing caw, then flew off. Maggie turned and watched him sail through the air until he reached the top of one of the castle’s high walls. It was a fair distance away, but Maggie squinted to see him land on the shoulder of a man. Probably Sam Berners, the Royal Falconer. She gave a grim smile. If only I could get the falcon to go for Nevins. “Unless you have some actual information to impart, we’re finished, Mr. Nevins.”

“It was good to meet you, Miss Hope. I look forward to using the information you bring me to crack the case.”

Maggie turned and started tramping back to the castle, blood boiling, leaving Nevins to stare after her. “Yes,” she muttered to herself. “Yes, Nevins, you’re finished. Quite finished.”

Later, in the Octagon Room, still seething at Nevins and wondering about her father, Maggie picked at her dinner, letting the conversation of the others flow and swirl around her.

She heard her name being called. It was Crawfie. “Miss Hope!” she was saying.

She cleared her thoughts of Nevins. “Yes, Miss Crawford.”

“I want to include the Princesses somehow in this year’s Red, White, and Blue Christmas celebration,” she began. “And I was thinking a performance might be in order. They’re going to be making public appearances soon enough, and some practice on a stage, in front of family and friends, might help them make the transition.”

Maggie nodded, listening.

“I was thinking of a pantomime. Sleeping Beauty, in fact. Princess Margaret can play Briar Rose and Princess Elizabeth can be the Prince. I spoke with Mr. Tanner, who’s a teacher at the Royal School, in the Great Park, where the other children of Windsor Castle attend school—and it turns out he was a Gilbert and Sullivan player back in the day, and would be delighted to direct. We can charge admission and the ticket money can go to the Queen’s Wool Fund.” She sighed. “It’s been so dull for the Princesses here, and I think it would do them a world of good.… May I count on your help, Miss Hope?” Crawfie asked. “For scenery, especially?”

“Of course!” Maggie exclaimed. It was, after all, just the thing to keep an eye on the Princesses and their circle during the time she wasn’t tutoring. “Crawfie, I’d be happy—in fact, thrilled—to help. Thank you.”

Maggie attended the first read-through that night in the nursery. The sheer scope of work the production would entail was staggering. There were sets to be built and painted, costumes to sew, props to make, lights to be hung, and only a few weeks in which to do it. Maggie sat, listening to the Princesses read through the script, taking notes on what would be needed. Mr. Tanner clapped his hands after they’d finished Act I, saying in plummy Welsh tones, “All right, Your Highnesses, that’s enough for the night.”

Maggie was amused there were no auditions for the roles; it was simply assumed the two Princesses would play the leads—Margaret as the Sleeping Princess and Elizabeth as the Prince.

A resounding bell stood in for the wailing air-raid siren Maggie was used to. Lilibet and Margaret rushed to the windows. “Theirs,” they said matter-of-factly, as German planes roared overhead, on their way to London or beyond. The corgis all crowded around the windows but were too well trained to bark. Still, a few of them growled softly.

Margaret went over to Maggie and took her hand. “We can tell the difference, you know,” she said, quite seriously, “even in the dark—by the sound of the engines.”

Mrs. Tuffts, another tiny and wizened A.R.P. Warden, fluttered in. “Come!” she said, her bony wrists waving and wisps of white hair escaping from under her metal helmet, “to the dungeons! Crawfie, would you please hurry them along?”

“Come, girls,” Crawfie urged. “Take your suitcases and gas masks, and we’ll be on our way.” And true enough, two small suitcases stood by the nursery door, as though the Princesses were off to Paddington Station instead of to a makeshift air-raid shelter in the castle’s dungeon.

“Can you believe those suitcases are real Vuitton?” Crawfie confided to Maggie. “They belong to France and Marionne.”

“France and Marionne?” Maggie didn’t think she’d met them yet.

“Oh, they’re dolls. Literal dolls. They were given to the Princesses to mark the King and Queen’s state visit to France.”

“Aha,” said Maggie.

“Come, pups!” Lilibet said to the corgis in motherly tones. Dutifully, they all got up and filed after her. Together, they all traveled through the corridors of the castle, until they reached the kitchen. There, down a flight of stairs, was the Royal wine cellar. In the back rooms of the wine cellar, Mrs. Tuffts rolled a carpet out of the way, revealing a trap door in the floor. Crawfie took hold of the iron ring and pulled. The door came up easily, revealing a steep staircase. “I’ll go first,” said Mrs. Tuffts, turning on a flashlight. “Watch your step, now.”

Down, down they went, into the bowels of the castle. The cold air was damp and stale. The walls were rough stone, and the path underneath their feet was crumbling. In the beam of Mrs. Tuffts’s light, Maggie could see shiny black beetles and spiders scuttling away. She thought she saw a fat gray rat out of the corner of her eye but decided it was only her imagination.

Finally, they reached their destination. Maggie saw that the walls had been reinforced and beds had been brought down. Others were there as well: Sir Owen, Lord Clive, Mr. Tooke. Sir Owen was making tea on a brazier. His fussing with the tea tin, pot, and cups seemed incongruous with the sinister gloom of the dungeon and at the same time so very natural for him. Maggie looked around at the walls, wondering about the fates of those who’d been imprisoned here.

“It’s a red warning, Miss Hope,” Mrs. Tuffts whispered in her ear. Yellow warnings were for when the bombers flew over on their way somewhere else. A red warning meant bombing was going on directly above them. “It’s unusual for us. They say Windsor Castle’s been spared so far, because Hitler rather fancies it for his own someday.”

“I see,” Maggie said, a shiver running through her, looking toward the Princesses. However, they were the picture of calm, already settling in with books and toys that Crawfie had brought, accepting cups of steaming tea from Sir Owen. Suddenly, he was at her elbow. “Would you care for a cup of tea, Miss Hope?” he asked.

“Yes, please.” He handed her a cup and saucer, the gold bands around the edges of the saucer and cup’s rim twinkling in the dim light. Maggie took a sip. It was weak, but it was hot, and she was grateful. “Thank you, Sir Owen,” she said, “for bringing civilization with us.”

“Of course!” he said, shocked that, even in a Royal dungeon, with Nazi planes dropping bombs overhead, life would be anything less than civilized. “Did you know, Miss Hope, that the soldiers manning the antiaircraft guns on the roof of the castle shot down a Nazi plane a few months ago? A Messerschmitt one-oh-nine—it landed upside down on the Long Walk. We turned it right side up and put it on public display. Would you believe people paid a sixpence to see it? The money went to the Hurricane Fighter Fund.”

“How fascinating, Sir Owen.” Through the gloom, Maggie could see groups of people settling in on metal folding chairs, dimly lit by candles or flashlights. She saw Louisa and Marion with a few of the other Ladies-in-Waiting. Making sure Crawfie and the Princesses were all right, Maggie picked her way over on the uneven stones to Louisa and Marion.

“Quite a nuisance,” Louisa was saying in her raspy voice. “I was supposed to have a date tonight.”

Maggie looked around, checking who was there. “Where’s Gregory?” she said, taking one of the hard metal seats.

“Oh, goodness knows where he’s gotten to,” Marion said. “He and Lily used to sneak out and go to the roof to drink bottled beer and watch the planes go by.”

“He must be terribly affected by her death,” Maggie said, taking a sip of tea. Was Lily’s baby his? she wondered. Do the girls know she was pregnant?

“Oh, yes,” Louisa said. “They knew each other since they were in the cradle. But I’d say he’s been more affected by his injuries. He’s not been the same since he came home.”

“Well, what do you expect?” said Marion. “He was practically burned to a crisp in Norway. I’ve heard him say he wishes it had ended there. But only when he’s ridiculously drunk.”

“Gregory and Lily—they, ah …” Could Gregory be the baby’s father? Could he be the killer? Oh, no, no. Not Gregory.

“We always suspected it,” Louisa said, “but they’d never admit to anything.”

“Tell me about Lily,” Maggie said. “What was she like?”

Marion sighed. “Everyone loved Lily. She had such charm about her, an ease—”

“And that laugh,” Louisa interrupted. “Like a raccoon in heat.”

“Louisa!” Marion exclaimed, and they both giggled.

“Well, It’s true! And if Lily were here, she’d be the first to agree.”

“Was she,” Maggie said, delicately, “seeing anyone else? Besides, perhaps, Gregory?”

Louisa shrugged. “Hard to tell. She was always secretive about her beaux. But she did like to go to London on the weekends. Couldn’t possibly keep her here, you know. Sometimes we’d go with her, on the train, and sometimes Gregory would give her a lift. And always at Claridge’s. Never the Savoy or the Ritz or any of the other big hotels—no, those were for tourists. She always stayed at Claridge’s.”

“My, my,” Maggie said, taking another sip of her tea. And Victoria Keeley was at Claridge’s at the same time. Who had access to the decrypts, could have somehow stolen one, and then given it to Lily. And was murdered in the bath. Maggie had a sudden inspiration. A trip to London, to Claridge’s, to question the staff is in order.

Maggie looked around. “It seems like there are a lot of tunnels.” And a security nightmare, she thought.

Lilibet, approaching with a knitted wool lap blanket, overheard her. “There are—it’s a veritable labyrinth,” she said, handing Maggie the blanket. “Suspected you might be cold.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said, spreading it over her legs. “Have you and Margaret done much exploring of the tunnels?”

The corners of Lilibet’s mouth turned up. “We’re not supposed to play down here, of course.”

Maggie raised one eyebrow. “Of course.”

“But,” said the Princess, leaning in to Maggie’s ear, “let’s just say that we know if you follow the main tunnel, you’ll come out near the Norman Gate. And if you follow them further, you’ll get to the Henry the Eighth gate. It’s a handy way to cut through a lot of the castle.”

“Good to know,” said Maggie. “Thanks for the tip.”

Lilibet looked to Princess Margaret across the chamber and their eyes met, some secret message being exchanged.

Then Lilibet whispered to Maggie, “We’ll give you our special tour.”

Chapter Sixteen

Although Maggie wanted to get to Claridge’s to carry out her own line of questioning, she still had her original mission. The King’s files were kept under lock and key in the King’s Equerry’s office—Gregory’s office. And Gregory, in his position as Equerry, was also Keeper of the Keys. The next evening, with the small bar of clay secreted away in her trouser pocket, Maggie made her way through the maze of the castle to find him. She knocked at the heavy wooden door.

“Come in,” Gregory called.

Maggie did, taking in the Persian carpets and heavy carved furniture. The blackout curtains were in place, and Gregory was reading The Times by the jewel-like glow of a Tiffany lamp, the light catching on the tray of various cut-glass bottles. He looked up and smiled, his scars less noticeable in the dim light.

“Ah, Maggie,” he said, raising his cocktail glass. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?” He looked pale, and the skin around his scar tissue looked angry and red. He reeked of gin.

Oh, if only I could tell you, Maggie thought. But, given what I suspect about you, I really can’t. “Are you all right?” she asked. “I don’t want to disturb your work.”

“No,” Gregory said, slurring slightly. “Please sit down. You’re a ray of sunshine in this gloom. The King’s at a very important, very formal, and very long dinner—and while he’s there, there’s no chance of my being summoned.” He indicated a bell near the door. “That’s my cue. When it rings, I’m off and running—like one of Pavlov’s dogs.” He put down the paper and smiled. “I have to admit, though, the work’s pretty light. It’s more or less six months of paid vacation for us soldiers.”

“Well, you certainly deserve it,” Maggie said. She looked at the bank of wooden files that lined the wall behind him. They all had locks on them.

“How much of that have you had?” she asked, indicating the glass and a crystal decanter.

“Not nearly enough,” he replied, taking another swig. “Would you like some?”

“Yes, please.”

As he poured her a martini and refreshed his own, he said, “By the way, who was the man?”

“What man?” Maggie asked. But she was stalling. Gregory must have seen her with Nevins from the castle. Bloody Nevins, she thought. Stupid Nevins.

He shook gin and a splash of vermouth with some ice in a shaker, then poured the frosty clear liquid into a cocktail glass and handed it to her. “I saw you on Peascod Street today,” he said. “Who was that man you were speaking with?”

“Why, Gregory,” Maggie dissembled. “Are you jealous?” Heart beating fast, she thought quickly. “He was pretending to be lost, but do you know who I think it was?”

“Who?”

“A journalist!” Maggie said, improvising. “Can you imagine? I can’t think that any respectable paper would print a story about where the Princesses were, but there are some unsavory tabloids.…”

“Oh,” Gregory said. “Right.”

“I think I scared him off, though. Gave him quite a stern lecture.”

He nodded. Close call, Maggie thought. “Long rehearsal tonight,” she said, covering a yawn.

Gregory stared off into the middle distance, eyes unseeing.

“Are you all right?” Maggie asked.

He blinked, then shook his head and smiled. “Sorry, just a little distracted. How’s Sleeping Beauty coming?”

“Oh, it’s coming. I could use some help painting the flats, though, if you’re so inclined. Somehow, the amount of scenery we need has increased exponentially.”

“I know my way around a paintbrush.” Gregory grinned. “I’d be honored to help.”

Maggie raised her glass, and they clinked. She sipped at her martini and watched him gulp his. “Shall we?”

Crawfie and the Princesses were running lines in the cozy warmth of the nursery. “I’ve brought reinforcements!” Maggie announced.

“Oh, Lord Gregory,” Alah said, looking up.

“Mrs. Knight, I heard I might be of service?” he said.

“Lord Gregory!” Margaret said, standing abruptly and dropping her script. “You’ve come to rescue us!”

“Your humble servant, Your Highnesses,” he replied with a low courtly bow.

Maggie was proud the Princesses had no reaction to his scars. “I’m putting him to work on the flats,” she said, indicating the half-painted scenery on a tarp in the corner of the room. “Let’s get him a smock and a brush and get started, shall we?”

Maggie noticed Gregory had a key ring attached to his belt. The key to the files must be in that ring, she realized. “Perhaps you’d like to change?”

He looked up as he buttoned an already paint-splattered smock. “Oh, I think I’m fine. But thanks for your concern.”

“Of course!” But she bit her lip in frustration. This was a situation not covered by exercises at Camp Spook.

“As you can see,” she said, “I’ve finished the flats for the castle’s Christening scene, and now I’m trying to do a decent wall of thorns.…”

Almost an hour later, they’d made great progress.

“I’m bored,” Margaret announced to the room.

“You still need to practice,” Lilibet admonished.

“I know my lines,” she retorted, sticking out her tongue. “I’m asleep for most of the play, after all.”

“But now you need to sleep in character,” the older Princess said. “You need to practice with feeling.”

“Feeling?” Margaret said. “I suppose you’d know all about that. You, with your romance novels—”

“Stop it!” Lilibet said, her cheeks turning pink.

“Oh, yes,” Margaret announced to everyone, “Lilibet reads romance novels now. And wears silk stockings. And writes looooong letters to Philip …”

“Stop!” Lilibet cried. “Philip and I are friends,” she said to the others. “He asked me to write to him while he’s as sea. He’s in the Royal Navy, after all. It’s my”—she pulled herself up with the dignity of a fourteen-year-old—“patriotic duty, after all.”

Maggie knew the Philip in question was Prince Philip of Greece, a more and more frequent topic of Lilibet’s conversation before and after maths lessons.

“Duty, yes,” Margaret cooed.

Alah clapped her hands. “Girls!”

“I know!” Margaret said. “Let’s play sardines! It’ll be ever so much more fun with Maggie and Lord Gregory here!”

Ever the hostess, Lilibet said, “Does everyone know how to play?” Meaning Maggie.

“If you wouldn’t mind going over the ground rules …” Maggie said.

“We turn off all the lights,” Margaret explained. “One person hides, while the others wait here. We all count to a hundred and then we all go off in search of the hider.”

“And when you find the hider,” Lilibet interjected, “you don’t say anything. You just—”

“—sneak in and hide alongside until everyone’s hidden together, like sardines in a can. And the last one—”

“—is the rotten egg!” they chimed together.

“The one rule,” said Alah, “is that we must stay in this wing.”

“Oh—and there’s one room we can’t go in,” Lilibet said.

“Really?” asked Maggie, suddenly curious.

“It’s the room where Uncle David—that is, King Edward the Eighth, now the Duke of Windsor,” Lilibet said formally, “made the wireless address where he abdicated the throne, to marry ‘that woman.’ That’s what Mummy always calls her. And the room’s been closed up ever since.”

“It’s as if someone died there,” Margaret said dramatically.

Lilibet shrugged. “Well, in a way, King Edward the Eighth did. And the Duke of Windsor was born. And then Daddy became King George the Sixth.”

The mood of the room had dropped and had become suddenly somber.

“Well, I’m in!” Maggie said, looking at Alah with a question in her eye. Were the Princesses safe traipsing about in the dark? Alah gave her an almost imperceptible nod, meaning of course she’d keep an eye on them.

Gregory threw up his hands. “How can I resist?”

“Maggie will be the first sardine,” Margaret announced.

“And, Margaret,” Lilibet admonished, “you turn off all the lights.”

Margaret did as she was told and the girls’ tower was in a state of utter darkness, relieved only by the glow of the fireplace. “Oh, it’s so spooooooky,” she said as she came back. In the gloom, the occasional pop and crackle of the log in the fireplace sounded even louder.

“Stop it!” said Lilibet. “Now, we’re going to start counting to a hundred. And, Maggie, you go hide. One, two, three …”

Heart beating hard, Maggie made her way through the darkness. It’s just a game, don’t be silly, she thought. But getting the keys isn’t a game.…

Her eyes adjusted, and she made her way through the velvety black, looking for a good place to hide. She went into Lilibet’s sitting room. Where to take cover?

After bumping a shin on one of Lilibet’s chairs and trying not to swear, she made her way over the thick carpet to the window. Under the heavy brocade drapes, the blackout curtains were drawn, but behind them was Lilibet’s window seat. Maggie parted the curtains, then stepped up on the window seat, drawing them back as if she’d never been there.

She waited.

It was cold—freezing, really—pressed up against the icy square panes of glass. After the almost total darkness, the bright sliver of a crescent moon glowed and galaxies of stars glittered. The keening wind rattled the windowpanes in their frames. High above, in the box of the valance, were lacy spiderwebs. Maggie shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.

“Ready or not—here we come!” she heard Margaret cry and then the sound of laughter.

She waited in the dark and the cold, waited for the first to find her.

It was Gregory.

“Maggie?” he whispered, drawing back the curtains.

“Shhhh …” she said, moving over so that he could step up on the window seat beside her. He did so, and Maggie was aware of him, very close to her, his breath smelling of gin.

“I must be part bloodhound,” he whispered.

“What?”

“I followed my nose—you always wear something that smells like violets.”

Maggie was suddenly confused. Keep your mind on the keys, she admonished herself.

“It’s Après l’Ondee,” she whispered back. “My friend Sarah gave it to me.”

“Violets after the rain, then,” he said. “Gods, it’s cold!” He rubbed his hands together, then reached out to Maggie and began to rub her arms.

“It’s the wind, the wind blowing against the glass. Simple thermodynamics, really. You can calculate it if you have both the indoor and outdoor conditions, such as convective coefficients, optical properties, and outdoor velocity—”

Without further ado, he pulled her toward him and kissed her. His lips were warm and dry and tasted of gin. Maggie thought of Lily. Had he kissed Lily like that? Was he the father of Lily’s baby? Her murderer? She pulled away.

Gregory pulled her close and held her. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’ve just wanted to do that since I met you, roaming the corridors.…”

Maggie slipped her arms around his waist. Her fingers brushed the keys, still attacked to his belt. “It’s all right,” she said. Now, if I could just get the keys.… “I do really like you, Gregory. Just—not in that way.”

He let out a dramatic sigh. “Story of my life.”

The curtain rustled, and Margaret pressed her way inside. “I knew I heard you two,” she whispered, climbing up on the window seat with them. “Now hush, or they’ll find us!”

As they moved to let Margaret in beside them, Maggie pushed in the metal tab of the ring and slipped the keys off of Gregory’s belt. The iron was cold and heavy, and she trapped them in her sweaty hand to silence them. Yes! she thought, making sure he hadn’t noticed, slipping them into her skirt pocket. And then, I’m sorry, Gregory. I’m only borrowing them, I promise.

Which she did. During the next rounds of sardines, when she was alone, she quickly pressed the keys into the clay, making a clear imprint. When the game was over, she placed the keys near the flats they’d been painting.

“Goodness,” he said as he put on his bespoke tweed jacket and saw them glint in the firelight. “I can’t be dropping these!” He picked up the keys and smiled at the Princesses, a winning grin. “Don’t tell the King. He might send me to the dungeons, for good.”

“We won’t!” they chorused.

The next morning, Maggie wrapped the key imprint in clay in brown paper and made the prearranged drop-off into the trash barrel near Boswell’s Books, which another agent nonchalantly picked up. The next day, in town, another undercover agent pretended to stumble and surreptitiously slipped a set of keys into her open handbag as she had lunch at a small café.

After midnight, flashlight tucked under her arm, Maggie unlocked the heavy oak door to the King’s Equerry’s office, opened it, went inside, and then closed it behind her with a heavy click. Her heart was pounding. She went to the desk and switched on the stained-glass lamp, the light fighting against the pressing shadows. She turned off the flashlight and put it under the desk and laid down her bag, removing the small camera Hugh had given her.

She went to the files and pulled. Locked, of course. Taking out another, smaller key, she put it in the lock and turned. It popped open with a satisfying click.

Her heart began to pound even faster. She could feel hear armpits begin to dampen.

She went through the files to H. There it was, neatly labeled with Howell, Lady Lily typed in black ink.

Maggie took the file to the desk and opened it in the tiny bright circle of lamplight. The edges of the room were veiled in heavy and almost palpable darkness. For a moment, Maggie had a feeling of vertigo, as if the circle of light were the only stable place, and in the dim light the walls had receded, leaving her on a high and perilous platform suspended in the dark. Then she swallowed, took the camera and began shooting, turning pages, then shooting again.

My goodness, Maggie thought, goose bumps prickling on her arms. I’m actually doing this!

As she photographed, she skimmed the file’s contents. Lady Lily Howell had been born in Germany in 1915, moved to London at age five, and was educated at St. Hilda’s at Oxford University, studying history. She made her debut before in the King and Queen, with Gregory as her escort. Other than that, and a few letters of recommendation, the file was bereft of anything incriminating. Bugger, Maggie thought. Bugger, bugger, bugger.

Then Maggie found another file within the main one. This one was different. It had records of Lily’s meetings with Sir Walter Mosley, the leader of Britain’s Fascist Party, and her trips to Nazi Germany. There were photos of her with Unity and Diana Mitford, at a British Fascist party rally, giving a Nazi salute; one of her at the 1937 Nuremburg Rally, at Hitler’s side; one of her with Julius Streicher, publisher of Der Stürmer newspaper.

Oh, Lily, Lily, Maggie thought. Who were you? How did you get caught up in all this?

The items in the folder were letters. There was a handwritten note from Home Secretary John Andersen, calling for her “youthful indiscretion” not to be held against her and her MI-5 file destroyed. There were also notes from him, Neville Chamberlain, and Lord Halifax to the King, asking his Majesty to give Lily a place at court—and keep her past a secret.

No wonder MI-5 wanted me to get these files. Still, what about Louisa? So she went back to the cabinet and pulled Louisa’s file as well. She brought it back to the desk. Louisa had attended the Institut Alpin Videmanette, a Swiss finishing school, and made her debut. Her file resembled Lily’s in its aristocratic banality. However, there was no additional folder, nothing to implicate her in any way.

Maggie heard a noise in the hall. Damn. What was that? Maggie checked her small watch. It was 3:15 a.m.—surely no one was up.

She flipped another page and snapped a photo.

The noise was footsteps.

Flipped another page. Snap.

They were coming closer.

Snap.

If someone found her, what would she say? Maggie considered as she kept working, her hands trembling.

Keep working, she thought. Just a few more pages.

And then, Done!

Quickly, she put the files back in place, locked the drawer, put the keys and camera back in her bag, turned off the desk light, and then dove underneath the desk, curling herself up into a small ball in the kneespace.

She heard the lock pop and the door creak open. Someone’s here!

Maggie willed her pulse to slow and her breathing to be silent.

There were footsteps approaching. A light came on, and Maggie blinked her eyes against the sudden brightness. From her vantage point under the desk, she could see Gregory’s polished wingtip shoes. He approached the desk and stopped.

She thought her heart would burst from the strain. Surely he could hear her breathing?

In sounds that seemed amplified, Maggie heard him unstop one of the bottles on his desk and pour himself a drink, the liquid splashing into the glass. She realized that if she wanted to, she could reach out and untie his shoelace.

Not that she would, of course.

The moment felt like hours, but finally the door swung shut and Maggie heard the lock slide into place.

Maggie stayed underneath the desk, unmoving. I’ll stay here as long as I need to. In the inky black darkness, her heartbeat resumed a normal tempo.

A feeling of triumph suffused her, warm and glowing. I did it, she thought.

I did it!

Chapter Seventeen

The next morning, at a tiny newsstand not too far from Boswell’s Books, Maggie saw Nevins, paging through Men Only magazine. She approached.

Maggie looked through the titles and busied herself flipping through a copy of National Geographic. The newsstand’s proprietor was overseeing a delivery in the back.

“The mission was a success,” she said quietly.

“Terrific. Hand over the film, darling,” Nevins said.

“No,” Maggie said, not looking up from the pages.

Nevins spun around to face her. “No? Do I need to remind you this is my operation? Now give me the damn film.”

She looked up. Slowly. “Look, Nevins,” she said, appraising him, “This isn’t going to work.”

“Darling, I’m your superior officer. I give the orders. You follow them.”

“I’m the one with the film, Nevins. I’m the one with access to the castle. I’m the one who almost got caught taking these photos. And I’m the one questioned because I was spotted talking to you—you, who felt the need to just stop by and say hello to your ‘darling’ out in the open and without a pretext. Yes—we were seen, and I was questioned about it.”

Maggie squared her shoulders and looked him in the eyes, deadly serious. “I’ve realized something recently, Nevins. I’m the one with the power. You need me. Frain needs me. My days of blindly following orders are over. Especially orders from someone like you, who’s all ego and no integrity.”

Nevins’s jaw dropped. “Bitch!”

Maggie’s nostrils flared with contempt. “Tell Mr. Frain that if Agent Thompson isn’t on the other end of the pickup, he’s not getting this film.”

“But, but—” Nevins spluttered. “Thompson’s a nothing, a nobody!”

“He’s an infinitely better agent than you.” Maggie put down her magazine and smiled. “As far as I’m concerned—you’re fired.”

When maths lessons with Lilibet were over, there was a knock at the nursery door. It was Margaret, eyes wide and hand in front of her mouth, trying to stifle a laugh. “It’s in the oven,” she whispered to Lilibet.

Maggie was packing up her books and notebooks. “What’s in the oven, Margaret?”

Lilibet’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Come with us,” she said. “You’ll see.”

Smiling with amusement, Maggie let the girls lead her through the castle’s maze of corridors, finally reaching the kitchen with its high ceilings and skylights.

“There you are,” said Cook, looking up from a mountain of chopping parsnips.

“Is it done?” asked Margaret.

“Almost,” Cook, wiping her hands on her apron. “Sit down and I’ll get it for you for your elevenses.”

“A mystery!” said Maggie as they sat down at a long wooden table. “And sounds like one you can eat too!”

The girls looked at each other and giggled.

From an enormous oven, Cook pulled out a pie. She set it in front of the trio. Maggie looked. The top of the pie was dark orange. She inhaled the fragrance of cinnamon and nutmeg. It smelled familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.

Margaret couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Pumpkin pie!” she exclaimed.

“Pumpkin pie?” echoed Maggie, confused.

“Well, we learned about America and the Pilgrims and the Indians,” Lilibet told her. “We thought you might miss celebrating Thanksgiving.”

Oh, the dears. Maggie felt a lump in her throat, part homesickness, part happiness. “Thank you, both,” she said. “I’m touched beyond words.” As a tutor, she just had to add, “You do know that Thanksgiving was more than two weeks ago, though, yes?”

“We had to save our sugar rations,” Lilibet confided.

“Can we eat it now?” Margaret asked.

“Of course,” said Maggie, as she sliced the pie and handed out plates.

“And we cooked the pumpkin and mixed the filling ourselves!” Margaret chimed. “It was baking during our lesson!”

“It smells wonderful,” Maggie told them.

“Very American?” Margaret asked.

“Extremely American,” Maggie replied.

Truth be told, the pie was not as sweet as it should have been and was missing, in Maggie’s opinion, the all-important allspice. But she blinked away stinging tears as they ate, thinking of her Thanksgivings at Wellesley with Aunt Edith and her friend and lover, Olive, who always managed to produce feasts from their tiny kitchen.

When they were finished, and dishes washed and put away, Margaret had another glint in her eye. “We want to take you exploring,” she said, sotto voce, out of earshot of Cook.

“Follow us,” Lilibet admonished.

Maggie did as she was told. “Yes, ma’am.”

The girls seemed to know every nook and cranny of the castle. Maggie was surprised when they took her down the stairs near the servants’ entrance and through narrow damp tunnels and down into the dungeon. Lilibet pulled out a flashlight they’d hidden for these purposes and turned it on, the beam a magic wand in the darkness.

“Where are we going?” Maggie whispered as they walked the low-ceilinged corridors in the dark. “And does Alah know you two do this? I can’t help but think she wouldn’t like it.”

Margaret sighed dramatically. “Alah doesn’t like us to do anything except sit and knit,” she said. “If I have to sit and knit everyday, I shall surely go mad.”

“Stop exaggerating, Margaret,” Lilibet snapped. “We’re at war. People are making enormous sacrifices. Surely if I can knit, you can knit.”

“Yes, your Majesty,” Margaret said with mock deference and a low curtsy.

Maggie was counting the twists and turns as they went. “You’re sure you know where you’re going?”

“And, here we are!” announced Lilibet.

They had reached a small room, part of the old dungeons. Maggie shivered, thinking of those who’d been imprisoned there over the centuries.

“Over here!” Margaret said, running over to a pile of large hatboxes. “Open it, Maggie!”

Maggie walked over with trepidation. What did the boxes contain? Skulls? Bones? Ashes?

Determined not to show fear, she opened the largest. Inside were newspapers. Taking a deep breath, Maggie reached inside. Behind her, the girls giggled. “She stuck in her thumb.…” Margaret began.

Maggie pulled out something large and heavy, wrapped in tissue paper. “… and pulled out …” Is that what I think it is? Could it be? “The Crown Jewels?”

The crown she held was the Imperial State Crown, gold and encrusted with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and pearls in crosses pattées and fleurs-de-lis, topped with purple velvet and trimmed in white ermine. The large diamonds glittered in the dim light. “‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,’ “ she whispered, thinking of all the heads who’d worn it over the ages.

“Look!” said Margaret, pulling out from another hatbox the long Sovereign’s scepter, topped with a diamond as large as her fist.

“Goodness,” Maggie breathed.

“Look at this,” Lilibet said, pulling out the Sovereign’s Orb, a golden ball set with bands of gems and pearls, topped with an amethyst and then a diamond cross. “Charles the Second once held it—can you imagine?” She held it out to Maggie. “Go on, give it a try.”

Maggie accepted the object, it was cool to the touch. “It’s heavy,” she whispered. Then, trying to remember her role as teacher, “Shouldn’t these be in the Tower of London?”

“Here for safekeeping. They will be mine one day, after all,” Lilibet said. “I wanted you to see them.”

“Thank you—both of you,” Maggie said. “This was, well, quite an unexpected treat.”

“We can give you a tour of more of the dungeons, if you’d like,” Margaret said, wrapping the jewels back in the papers and putting them in the trunk.

“Thank you,” Maggie said. “A tour would be more valuable than jewels, really.”

The next day, after lessons with Lilibet, Maggie took the Windsor and Eton central train back to London. After arriving at Paddington, Maggie took the tube’s Central Line to the Circle Line, exiting from the Bond Street stop in Mayfair. Above ground, she walked until she saw the imposing tall red-brick building that was Claridge’s. She walked past the doorman, who tipped his hat, over the gleaming black and white tiles, through the perfumed air, to the concierge desk.

The concierge on duty was a tall man, thin, with a long face and droopy eyes and jowls, like a bloodhound. “Good morning, Miss.” he said. “May I help you?”

“Good morning,” Maggie answered. She pulled out her picture of Lily. “I was wondering if you could help me—have you seen this woman at your hotel?”

“Miss, here at Claridge’s, we treat our guests with the utmost respect, which includes respect for their privacy.”

“I understand, sir, but the young lady in the photograph is dead. Any information you could share would be most appreciated.”

“Are you with the police?” he asked, voice low, making sure the hotel’s guests checking in couldn’t hear.

“N-no,” Maggie stammered. “I’m—a friend.” She pulled out a few pound notes, as she had seen done in the movies.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no,” he said, wagging his finger. “We don’t do that here. I’m afraid I can’t help you. Good day.”

Ugh, I’m such an amateur, she thought, annoyed. If Nevins were doing his job properly … Maggie walked back to the door, when she got outside, out of sight of the front desk, she showed Lily’s photograph to the doorman, slipping him the pound notes. It went a bit smoother this time. “Have you seen this woman?”

He studied the photo. “Yes, Miss,” he said, pocketing the pound notes. “She used to come here regular, about once a month, I’d say.”

“Did you ever see her come or go with anyone?”

“Sometimes some lady friends. Young, like ‘er.”

“Pale, black hair, red lipstick?”

“That’d be them, Miss.”

“Anyone else?”

“Sometimes, Miss,” he said in lower tones, “people don’t come and go with the people they’re here with, if you get my meaning. But the chambermaids always know. Go around the corner to the staff entrance, ask around there. You may get someone who knows more than I do.” He gave a broad wink.

“Thank you,” Maggie said, “very much.”

She walked into the staff entrance, a world away from the polished surfaces and high ceilings of the lobby—low and dim.

“Miss, you’re not allowed in ‘ere,” a thin older woman said, her rough hands testament to the cleaning she must do.

“Actually, I was wondering,” Maggie said. “Have you ever seen this woman here at the hotel?”

The woman stared at the photograph. “No, love, I ain’t seen ’er.” Maggie pulled out the pound notes again. This time, they had the intended effect. The woman looked around and caught sight of one of her fellow maids. “She might know. Maude! Maude! Come over ‘ere?”

“What?” Maude barked. She was a large, burly woman with surprisingly delicate features.

“Miss ‘ere ‘as a question,” she said, looking pointedly at the pound notes.

“Do you recognize the woman in the photo?” Maggie asked.

The woman stared. “Yeah,” she said. “Always asking for more towels, that one. What she does with all them towels, I ‘ave no idea, ‘cept we’ve gotta wash ‘em.”

Maggie’s heart leapt. “Did you ever see her with anyone?”

The woman squinted at the photo. “Oh, she got around, all right. I know, ‘cause I bring her the extra towels to ‘er room, and also some other’s rooms. Probably took a bath in every bloody room at the hotel. Sorry, Miss.”

“That’s all right. Do you happen to remember who she was with?”

The woman sighed. “There was a woman, actually. Pretty, with black ‘air.” She lowered her voice. “The one ’oo was murdered ’ere.” She crossed herself.

The link to Victoria confirmed! Maggie thought. “Anyone else?”

“A young man. Tall, thin.”

“Can you describe him?”

“Oh, I dunno, Miss. All those young men look alike to me. Tall, pale, nose in the air.”

“Was he blond or dark?” Maggie pressed. “Did he have scars on his face?” She waited for the answer, heart in her throat. Because she liked Gregory, she really did. And she didn’t want him to have anything to do with Lily’s murder or the decrypt.

“No, Miss, no scars—I would ’ave remembered that.” She thought a bit. “’E ’ad one a those scarves, you know, the fancy university scarves?”

“What were the colors?”

“Blue. Dark blue with red and yellow. I remember it—ugly as sin.”

By the time Maggie returned to the castle, snow was falling in earnest and a light dusting had collected on the ground. As she walked up the gravel path, her feet making crunching noises in the still, cold air and the bells from St. George’s Chapel clanging, she saw that a truck had pulled up in front of the castle’s entrance. In the back was an enormous evergreen from the Great Park, at least twenty-two feet tall and nearly as wide at the tree’s foot—the Royal Christmas tree. How appropriate, Maggie thought, since the first Christmas tree in England was the one Prince Albert brought to Windsor Castle in 1841 from his native Germany.

Mr. Tooke was overseeing the men untying the ropes and wrestling with it. He caught Maggie’s eye and lifted his tweed cap. “Hello, Mr. Tooke!” Maggie called. She recognized her winking footman, out of uniform. “Hello,” she said to him. “It’s silly to keep seeing each other and not be introduced. I’m Maggie Hope.”

“George Poulter,” he said, tipping his cap. “How d’you do?”

“Have you been at Windsor long, Mr. Poulter?”

“Came with Sir Gregory. Sir Gregory Strathcliffe? I used to be his manservant back in the day, at his family’s estate. That was before the injuries, of course. He found me a place at Windsor Castle when he came, he did. Good man, Sir Gregory.”

“Yes,” Maggie said, thoughtful. “Yes, he is.”

Inside, the castle was a buzz of activity. Servants arranged boughs of evergreen on fireplace mantels, releasing their sharp, piney smell. There was holly as well, with glossy leaves and bright red berries. Even through the corridors were as long and cold as ever, the decorations lent a homey touch to the place. Maggie was amused to see that, where grand oil paintings used to hang, large posters for Sleeping Beauty, featuring Lilibet and Margaret’s artwork, were displayed.

Maggie made her way to the vast Waterloo Chamber, where the stage was set up. The room was magnificent: a soaring clerestory ceiling, paneled walls decorated with lime-wood carvings by Grinling Gibbons, an enormous Indian carpet.

Lilibet and Margaret were rehearsing the final ballroom scene with the other children, the sons and daughters of the castle’s staff. “Stop it, Margaret,” Maggie heard. It was Lilibet, her high, sweet voice echoing through the vast chamber. “You’re stepping on my toes.”

“Oooooh, wouldn’t want to step on the Royal Toesies, now, would we?” Margaret retorted.

Crawfie clapped her hands. “All right, children,” she said in her Scottish lilt. “Let’s take a break, shall we? Audrey’s setting up tea and biscuits in the nursery—come back in half an hour, please.”

Maggie walked forward to Crawfie, standing near the platforms of the makeshift stage. “How goes it?”

“Oh, Maggie.” Crawfie sighed. “I’d be better off directing corgis, for as much as the children listen … and the performance is in less than two weeks.”

“That’s quite a bit of time—I’m sure it will be wonderful,” Maggie assured the woman.

“The sets look fantastic,” Crawfie said.

“Thank you. The girls and Gregory are responsible.”

“Oh, but the shading—it really looks like a storybook brought to life!”

“Well, it’s a bit intimidating, making a castle set to go into an actual castle—but somehow we managed by making it a bit less literal. Thank Gerda Wegener—I loved her illustrations when I was a child.”

“You’ll be with us? For the performance? To make sure everything goes the way it should?” Crawfie looked pale.

“Of course I shall. Wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.” Maggie looked intently at Crawfie. “Are you all right? Maybe you could do with a cup of tea yourself?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Crawfie shrugged. “It’s just that, with the Prime Minister coming and all of his people, and the King and Queen, of course … and it’s such a big event for the children. The first time most of them have been onstage.” She shook her head. “I just don’t want anything to go wrong.”

“No,” Maggie said, looking out into the shadows, realizing how vulnerable Lilibet and Margaret were onstage. “No, indeed.”

Chapter Eighteen

Letters arrived for Maggie occasionally, care of Windsor Castle. The twins, Annabelle and Clarabelle, sent missives describing their adventures as Land Girls working on a farm in Scotland, writing on the same page in two alternating colored inks, purple for Annabelle and Moroccan red for Clarabelle. Sarah sent cards from various stops on the Vic-Wells Ballet’s tour of Britain, deftly drawn cartoons of some of her fellow dancers, including ballerina Margot Fonteyn and choreographer Frederick Ashton.

Aunt Edith sent long letters in small, elegant script, lamenting Maggie’s career move from typist to tutor. Of all the people she had to keep her secret from, Maggie would have loved to have told Aunt Edith what she was really doing.

And she knew David well enough to realize he’d never even think to write.

From Chuck, she received various hastily written missives in pencil on scrap paper, detailing wedding plans. Then came the day she received the invitation, engraved on heavy cream stock.

DR. AND MRS. IAN MCCAFFREY

REQUEST THE HONOR OF YOUR PRESENCE

AT THE MARRIAGE OF THEIR DAUGHTER

CHARLOTTE MARY

TO

FLIGHT LIEUTENANT NIGEL ALFRED LUDLOW

ON SATURDAY, JANUARY 2

AT HALF PAST TEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

LEEDS CATHEDRAL

GREAT GEORGE STREET, LEEDS

She wrote back to say she would be attending, especially as Chuck had asked her to be a bridesmaid.

Dear Chuck, she wrote, or should I call you Charlotte Mary? I’ll be there with the proverbial bells on. Xoxo—M.

And her father had sent a package. She cut through the twine and removed the heavy brown paper. Inside was finding a volume of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, with Arthur Rackham illustrations. She opened the book and inhaled the musty papery scent.

Turning through the frontmatter, she noticed an inscription: To my darling Clara, with all my love, Eddie. 20 October, 1915. Clara was Clara Hope, her mother. Eddie was Edmund, her father. And 20 October, 1915, was only weeks before her mother’s death.

Dear Margaret, her father had written on a scrap of graph paper. So sorry we missed each other. Thought this book might answer some of your questions.

Oh, right, Maggie thought. My life might resemble a Grimm Brothers tale, but I doubt I’ll find any answers in here. With a deep sigh, she put the book away on the shelf.

“Maggie, may we do maths in your sitting room today?” Lilibet asked as Maggie entered the nursery the next morning, carrying several books and folders of notes.

Maggie was surprised but willing to consider it. “Of course, Lilibet, but why? Your rooms are so much prettier. And warmer.”

Lilibet sighed. “It’s just … I’m so restless here. It’s always the same. We always do the same things, in the same order, every day. I just thought a change of scene …”

“Indeed!” Maggie said, warming to the idea. “That’s something Mr. Churchill always said, when he’d go to Chartwell or Chequers or Ditchley to work.” She affected her best Churchillian voice, “ ‘A change of scene is as good as a rest.’ “

Lilibet giggled.

“We’ll have tea and lessons up there. Come on!”

After the long trek down the cold corridors, they reached Maggie’s rooms. In her green sitting room, a fire crackled cheerfully behind the iron grate. Maggie set down their books and notes as Audrey entered and put down a tea tray with a pot, two cups and saucers, spoons, and a plate of digestive biscuits and linen napkins, and then left.

As the tea steeped, Lilibet was uncharacteristically twitchy. She wandered around Maggie’s room, picking things up and putting them down. When she found the wireless, she asked, “Do you listen to ‘It’s that Man Again’? Margaret and Alah and I love it.”

“I do enjoy it,” Maggie confessed.

Lilibet continued to look at her shelves. “You don’t have much here.”

“No,” Maggie agreed. “Most of my things are still in London.”

“We used to live in London, you know.” Lilibet pulled out a book of photographs bound in ivory moiré silk. “What’s this?” she asked.

Maggie took the book and then motioned for the young girl to sit down next to her. “Well,” she said, turning the pages. “This is a family album. Here are my paternal grandparents, my father and Aunt Edith when they were children. Oh! And my father and mother’s wedding picture. They were married at Saint Margaret’s, near Westminster Abbey.”

Lilibet’s eyes took in the picture of Clara Hope, draped in lace. “Goodness, your mother was pretty,” she said.

“Yes,” Maggie agreed, giving the photos one last, wistful look before closing the book. “And now it’s time to get to work.”

But Lilibet has sprung up yet again and looking at Maggie’s books. “Ugh,” she exclaimed, examining the titles. “Boring!” She pulled out the Turing and paged through. “You can actually read this?”

“Yes,” Maggie said. “And so could you, if you continue with your study of maths. And now—”

“Oh, Grimm’s Fairy Tales!” she exclaimed. “I just love them!” She pulled the book out, brought it to the tea table, and sat down. “Look, here’s ‘Hansel and Gretel,’ ‘The Frog King,’ and ‘Cat and Mouse’!”

Maggie went to pour the tea, but Lilibet said, “May I?” Maggie nodded, and the Princess poured the fragrant tea into the two cups. “Margaret calls me puritanical about tea, but I like things to be perfect.”

Maggie had noticed this tendency in the princess. Often she would arrange and rearrange her pens and pencils on her desk and become agitated if her books weren’t in the proper order or her papers weren’t lined up just so.

“Well, we’re not going to be perfect today,” Maggie said lightly. “I’m afraid I don’t have any sugar.”

“That’s fine, I’m used to it black now,” Lilibet replied, coming back to the sofa with the volume and sitting down. “May I borrow it? I know there’s a library here and all, but the books are so very old and serious, and Sir Owen is such a Burns about letting them out of the stacks.…” Turning the pages, Lilibet started. “Oh, there’s an inscription!” she said, reaching for her tea. “Look! To my darling Clara, With all my love, Eddie. 20 October, 1915. How romantic. Was Clara your—”

And with that Lilibet sneezed, an enormous, violent sneeze. Quite by accident, she splashed hot tea all over the page.

“Are you all right?” Maggie asked, taking napkins from the tray and blotting first the princess and then the book.

“I’m fine,” Lilibet said, her blue eyes threatening to overflow with sudden tears. “But, Maggie—I’m so sorry. So very, very sorry. I’ve ruined your book.”

“It’s fine, really,” Maggie assured her. “No harm done.”

Lilibet blotted the inscription. “I think it will be all right.…”

“Of course it will,” Maggie responded, putting the book on the windowsill to dry. “And now, let’s open our textbook to page one fifty-six and—”

There was a knock. It was George Poulter, the winking footman, his hair powdered white with the same mixture of starch, flour, and soap that had been used at the Castle for centuries. He wore the official footman’s uniform: blue velvet coat, knee breeches, stockings, and well-shined buckled shoes. He carried a letter on an ornate silver tray.

“Your Highness,” he said to the Princess, who favored him with a smile. And then, “Miss Hope.” He bowed as he proffered the envelope.

“Thank you,” Maggie said. She took the letter and the footman left. She found her hands were shaking.

The return address was an official Whitehall address, and it was written on official-looking RAF stationery.

“Oooh, what is it?” Lilibet said, running over to Maggie’s side. “Do you have a beau in the RAF? How glamorous!” Then, seeing Maggie’s expression, “Oh, I do hope everything’s all right. He is all right, isn’t he?” she asked earnestly. Lilibet reached out one of her hands and placed it on Maggie’s. Her nails were rough and bitten and decidedly un-princess-like. Even in the midst of her own crisis, Maggie realized what a strain the war must be on the young girls, even if they were Royal.

“I know how you must feel, or at least a little bit. If anything happened to Philip …”

Maggie slipped the envelope into her skirt pocket. “It’s nothing that can’t wait until we’ve finished our lesson,” she said briskly. “Now, let’s get down to business.”

It was only later, after Lilibet had closed the door behind her, that Maggie allowed herself to open the letter. It was from Nigel; she’d know his handwriting anywhere. It was shaky and less legible than she was used to, but it was Nigel’s.

She sat down, not sure if her legs would hold her.

Dear Maggie,

As a follow-up to our telephone conversation a few months ago, I am writing to confirm that we still have received no word from John.

He is an extremely able pilot and a loyal officer with a deep sense of duty.

However, he has not been able to contact us for over six months, and the odds of him surviving that long in enemy territory are, I’m sorry to say, quite low.

He is now listed as “Missing, presumed dead.” I thought you would want to know.

Yours sincerely,

Nigel

About a half an hour later there was a knock on the door to Maggie’s room. It was Lilibet, to pick up the ink bottle she’d left.

There was no answer.

Lilibet knocked again.

Nothing.

Just as she was about to turn and climb back down the cold, narrow steps, she heard a noise. It was a high-pitched keening sound. She opened the door.

There was Maggie, facedown on the sofa, clutching the missive in her hands and weeping.

“Maggie?” Lilibet said at the doorway. There was no response, but the wailing died down slightly, then stopped. The Princess could hear long ragged breaths and the occasional sniffle. “Maggie? Are you ill?”

Lilibet cautiously made her way in, walking gently toward the prone form on the sofa, as though not to startle a wild animal. “Maggie?”

Maggie sat up in a sudden movement, pulling her hair back and then wiping furiously at her red and swollen eyes.

“Lilibet, do you—do you have a handkerchief?” she asked finally.

“Of course,” said the Princess, procuring a clean cambric one. “Here you go. Now, tell me what’s wrong.”

Maggie gave her nose a good, honking blow, then pushed the letter to Lilibet, who read it. She set it down, then reached over to place her hand on Maggie’s.

“‘Missing and presumed dead.’ “ Maggie reached for the envelope and paper and crumpled them her hands. Then threw them both in the fire. The two watched as the orange flames consume both papers until they turned black and into lacey ash that flew up the chimney. Maggie felt gutted, as though she’d been kicked, hard, in the stomach. It was a physical sensation so fierce, she momentarily put her arms around herself in self-protection.

“Shhhhh …” Lilibet said in motherly tones, stroking Maggie’s hair as she might pet a horse or corgi. “It will be all right, Maggie. It will be all right.”

Some time later, Lilibet had convinced Maggie to wash her face with cold water and come down to the kitchen for some hot tea.

“Maggie’s had some bad news,” she said to Cook, who immediately went to brew a pot of tea. Then she returned to her work, making up a new tray for Audrey to take upstairs.

“Here you go, Cousin,” Cook said to the Parisienne, who smiled at Maggie and bobbed a curtsey at Lilibet before she picked up her tray and left..

At the long wooden table, Maggie didn’t want to discuss what had just happened; the pain was still too raw and she was still too numb. Lilibet seemed to understand, and sat next to her in supportive silence. Better to try to think of other things.

“Audrey Moreau is your cousin?” she asked Cook, taking a sip of the hot tea.

“No, Miss,” said Cook. “My husband’s cousin. She came from Paris. Got out just in time, poor thing. Parents are gone—got an older brother, but he joined the military. Not sure where he is now.”

“Thank goodness she made it in time!” Lilibet exclaimed.

“And so she’s been here for, what, about eight months?” asked Maggie. “How does she like it?”

“Doing fine, Miss. Does what she’s told, never complains.” Cook looked concerned. “She’s been all right with you, Miss?”

“Oh, yes,” Maggie said. “Of course. Consummate professional, lovely person. I was just curious, is all.”

So, John is dead. Did he die on impact, when his Spitfire went down? Or was he found by the Nazis, then tortured for information, then killed? she thought, before bursting into tears yet again, the heavy pain in her heart nearly unbearable.

How can life possibly go on? And yet it did. People in the castle’s kitchen chopped root vegetables and peeled apples and pulled feathers off chickens and geese. The clock ticked and the hands moved. The earth on its axis turned on and on. And this is what life is, Maggie thought. How odd, really. He’s dead, we’re still alive, and the earth keeps spinning on its axis. How very, very droll.

Chapter Nineteen

In an effort to keep her mind off John, Maggie decided to redouble her efforts to solve the mystery of Lady Lily’s death. After her tea in the kitchen with the princess, she slipped on her sturdy shoes and tramped over the castle’s grounds in the milky afternoon light until she reached the place where Lily had been killed.

The wire had cut through the bark of the tree. It had been tied high up—high enough that it was meant for an adult, on a full-sized horse. Not for a young girl on a smaller pony. Surely, though, Inspector Wilson had noticed that.

In the bare branches of the scarred tree, Maggie heard the raspy, scolding cry of a peregrine falcon. Her eyes went from the falcon, back to the castle. Sure enough, there was Sam Berners, backlit against the sun. “What did you see that morning?” Maggie said to the hawk.

“Scree! Scree! Scree!” it responded before it flew off, its large wings creating a small windstorm. Maggie saw him fly up, up, up into the sky, make a long, gliding circle, then come to rest on the arm of the ever-present, ever-watching Sam Berners. Maggie remembered his agitation the day he was questioned, the way he nearly had to be restrained.

“And, better yet—what did Mr. Berners see?”

It took Maggie a while to walk back to the castle, and then to find her way all the way up to the Royal Mews. Sam Berners was leaning his bulk against the parapets, looking out over the land, cold wind ruffling his unkempt hair.

“Mr. Berners!” Maggie called.

“What ye want, lassie? This isn’t a place for ladies.”

“I think they’re beautiful, you know,” she said, looking at the hooded falcons on their perches.

Berners gave her a sullen glare.

Maggie was undeterred. “The morning of the day Lady Lily was decapitated—”

“I seen nothin’,” he growled. “Already told the detective.”

Maggie considered. “I’m not asking if you saw the actual murder. I’m asking if you saw the person who put up the wire. See?” She pointed to the riding course. “You have a perfect view. And I know you’re always up here, watching your birds.”

“I seen nothin’. Told you.” He trained his eyes back to the horizon.

“What did you see, Mr. Berners?” she asked gently.

“I canna, I canna say,” he said finally.

“So, you did see something.” Maggie’s heart beat faster. “Who? Who was it?”

Berners was silent, an agonized look on his face.

“A woman is dead.” She took a breath. “It might easily have been Princess Elizabeth.…”

Berners looked at her, shocked. It had been the first time he’d looked her in the eyes, and Maggie noticed they were green and flecked with gold.

“Yes, she was out riding with Lily that morning. If she’d been in front …”

“The wee Princess?” Berners looked close to tears. “I didn’ know. That’s different. He shouldna have put the Princess’s life at risk. No, no,” he muttered, trying to sort out this new revelation.

“So you did see something?”

“The person … The person who did it knows somethin’ ‘bout me,” Berners said. “Somethin’ bad. Real bad.” He looked down at his boots. “I don’ wanna lose my place here.”

“Whatever it is, it can’t be as bad as a murder.”

“Hunting, murder—we’re all righ’ savage when you think abou’ it.”

“Your birds hunt for food. It’s natural. It’s the food chain, Darwin’s survival of the fittest. But whoever killed Lily was committing murder. There’s the difference. In many ways, your falcons are more civilized than people.”

Berners considered, looking out over the vast lands of the castle. “Aye, lassie,” he said finally. “You’re right.” He took a breath. “He’s been poachin’ off the King’s land, he has. And since I saw what he did, he’s been givin’ me food. And I take it. I’ve jus’ been so hungry, Miss. So hungry …”

“That’s all?” Maggie smiled, a wide smile. When Berners saw, he gave a nervous laugh.

“Yes, miss, that’s all. Canna stan’ that carrot mess no more.” He shrugged. “An’ that Lady Lily was no lady, that’s for sure. She a mean one. Oh, not to the other Lords and Ladies, but horrible to the servants. Didn’t think the world was any worse with her gone.” He scratched his head. “Didn’t think about the Princess being in danger, though.”

“Mr. Berners,” Maggie pressed, “who set up the wire?”

He looked up, eyes wild. “If I tell you what I know, I’ll get in trouble. Can’t afford to lose my job, miss.”

“Of course not,” Maggie said in soothing tones. “But you didn’t do anything.” She had an idea. “And he did. What if he decides to kill again? Maybe the princesses won’t be so lucky?”

“I don’t want to get into any trouble, miss,” Berners said, voice breaking.

“You didn’t do anything—you’re just a witness.”

“I took ’is meat.”

“But he was the one who did the poaching.” Maggie paused. “I’ve met Detective Wilson a few times. And he seems like a reasonable man. If you tell me who did it, I can tell him how helpful you were. And he might go easy on you.”

“If you could do that, miss, I’d be most grateful.”

“Then, Mr. Berners, please tell me—who killed Lady Lily?”

There was the loud sound of wings flapping and a rush of air. Berners stretched out his arm, and a falcon landed on his long leather glove, wings beating fast and hard until the bird folded them neatly. “What d’you think, Merlin,” Berners said. “You think I should tell the young miss?”

Merlin cocked his head and angled one beady black eye at Maggie. “Scree! Scree!” he cried.

“All right,” Berners said, giving a heavy sigh. “The man who put up the wire that killed Lady Lily was Mr. Tooke, Miss.”

Mr. Tooke! The Head Gardener. He was the perpetrator?

“Thank you, Mr. Berners,” Maggie said, trying to contain her shock. “And may I call Detective Wilson and tell him you’ll speak with him?”

Another long pause, while Berners stroked the feathers at the back of Merlin’s neck.

“I’ll talk to ’im, miss,” he agreed finally. “Yea, I’ll talk to ‘im.”

Maggie went to the tidy red-brick police building. The older man with sandy hair recognized her and smiled. “Well, hello there!”

“I’m here to see Detective Wilson,” Maggie said. “It’s urgent.”

“He’s in a meeting, Miss.”

“It’s something he’ll want to hear right away.”

“Then come to his office, Miss.”

When Detective Wilson excused himself from his meeting, he went to his office and listened to what Maggie had learned. Together, they drove back to the castle, where they went first to find Sam Berners on the roof, who told the detective the same story he’d told Maggie.

Then they went to Mr. Tooke’s flat, where he confessed everything. He looked almost relieved when the detective said he was under arrest for the murder of Lily Howell, put handcuffs on him and led him to the car to take him to the station. As they drove away, Maggie felt sad. Sad for Mr. Tooke’s wife, sad for Mr. Tooke, sad for Lily. She remembered something she had typed once, for the P.M.: “Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter.”

Hats off, Mr. Churchill, Maggie thought grimly. You certainly have that one right.

Back in her room, Maggie shivered. She used the loo, washed up, then changed into her flannel nightgown, adding socks and a cardigan. The fireplace was lit and she turned on the portable radiator in the bedroom, waiting for it to warm. In the meantime, she cleared the small table where she and Lilibet had been working.

She picked up the book, the Grimm. Maggie sighed. It wasn’t Lilibet’s fault; it had been an accident. Still, it was one of the few things she owned that had belonged to her mother.…

Maggie looked at the inscription. It was still there, the black ink now blurred and watery. However, that wasn’t what captured Maggie’s attention, as she flipped through the pages of the book. There were tiny, tiny holes in the pages. Holes too small to be seen with the naked eye but highlighted by the tea stains.

Some sort of bugs? Moths? Maggie thought. Then she headed for the bed, to battle yet another night of tears and insomnia and eventual bad dreams.

The next day, Maggie received a package with her breakfast, a pair of leather skates in her size, along with a message that her skates were sharpened and ready. Since she already had her skates, she could interpret only that Hugh was going to meet her somewhere where they could ice-skate.

“Audrey,” Maggie asked, “where do people skate around here?”

“I think there’s a pond near Frogmore House, miss,” Audrey replied.

“Thank you,” Maggie said. She was happy—not because would she see Hugh, of course, but because she’d have a chance to vary her physical fitness routine.

Stately white Frogmore House, a seventeenth-century royal country home, was a good walk south of the castle in the Home Park. Maggie had made it in plenty of time and was sitting on a rough wooden bench by the side of the pond, lacing up her skates, when she spotted Hugh, dressed in tweed trousers and a Barbour jacket, playing tag with a few children. Their laughter, and the rough, scraping sound of blades on hard ice, floated up to the sky, which was leaden and threatened snow. The surrounding grass was a dull brown, and the trees that outlined the perimeter of the pond were now completely bare.

Maggie stepped onto the ice and pushed off on one blade, her breath visible in the cold air. So long, Nevins.

One of the children Hugh was playing with fell and cried out, startling a murder of crows pecking at the ground nearby, causing them to flap their iridescent blue-black wings and scream, “Caw! Caw!” into the wind. They settled back down to their pecking, as Hugh picked the child up and dusted her off, sending her on her way.

As Maggie skated by and then turned backward, Hugh whistled. “Not bad, Sonja Henie.”

“I learned at Wellesley,” Maggie said, circling around him, arms outstretched for balance. “Small town near Boston, where I grew up. Every winter we’d clear off Paramecium Pond and skate.” She grinned. “However, I’m afraid that skating, plus limited self-defense from Camp Spook, are the only sports I can manage. Although I have been doing my exercises daily.”

“From what I recall,” Hugh said, trying to catch up, “your self-defense skills are spot-on.”

They glided together for a while, keeping pace with each other, away from the other skaters. The cold wind rushed past them, stirring the bare branches of the trees in the distance. “It’s good to see you again,” she said.

“Good to see you too,” Hugh said. “Er, good to be back on the case.”

“Wish I could have been a fly on the wall,” Maggie said, turning backward again.

Hugh laughed as he did forward crossovers. “Nevins was fit to be tied, and Frain was none too pleased. But I’m glad. Really glad. So, thanks.” Then, “How did it go?”

“Well, except for having to hide under the desk when Gregory came in unexpectedly, fantastic. He didn’t see me, by the way.”

“Good. And even if you had been found, I’m sure you could have talked your way out.”

Maggie did a few three-turns, her knitted scarf flying behind her. “You were right about Lily, by the way. Fascist involvement from way back, trips to Germany with the Mitford girls, photographs with Hitler …”

“And letters pleading with the king to cover it up, right?”

“Exactly.”

Hugh shook his head as he turned to go backward. He almost fell but then righted himself. “If you’re rich enough and your family has enough connections, you can make anything go away.”

“By the way, I photographed Louisa’s file too, while I was there. Camera’s in my bag.”

“Anything?”

“No,” Maggie said, slowing down. She bit her lip. “But I just have a feeling that something’s not right there.”

“Why? What specifically makes you feel that way?”

“Well …” Maggie thought. “She’s arrogant. She’s mean. She owns a snake. A snake!”

Hugh shrugged. “Doesn’t mean she’s guilty of anything, including colluding with Lily. If you suspect her of something, you need evidence.”

“Frain told me to be a ‘sponge’—and I’ve absorbed a very bad feeling about her.”

“Well, keep an eye on her.”

“I will.”

“You have any suspicions of anyone else?”

Maggie thought about Audrey and how she’d just come from France. Then she shook her head. That’s ridiculous.

They skated together in silence as the wind picked up velocity, blowing the large, lacy snowflakes sideways. Most of the children were cold and had left the pond. “Thanks for getting me back on the case, by the way,” Hugh told her.

“Of course,” Maggie replied. “We’re a team.”

“Yes,” he said. “Although great work solving Lady Lily’s murder there, solo.”

“Sam Berners was the key. Berners was up on the parapet, watching his birds, when he saw Tooke string up the wire. Tooke realized that Berners had seen him, but blackmailed him—Berners had been holding back some of the pheasants and rabbits his falcons killed for himself as well as selling them on the black market—and Tooke threatened to expose him.”

“Well, that takes care of that, then—but we still have no idea where Lily got that decrypt or whom she was going to give it to.”

He tried another turn, as a falcon dove into the underbrush to ambush its prey, and nearly fell again. “Argh,” he said. “My concentration’s a little off today.”

Maggie glided on one foot and lifted up her free leg in an arabesque, arms outstretched. She looked back at the castle. Sure enough, there on the rooftop was the large and unmistakably broad figure of Sam Berners. Rabbit stew tonight, Maggie thought. Thank you, falcons.

“You seem agitated,” she said. “More than usual.”

There was a long silence. “Broke up with the girlfriend. It was … awkward,” he said finally.

There was another silence. Maggie’s lip twitched, as she tried not to smile. “I know the feeling. As it turns out, John—my, well, my almost-fiancé—is dead. ‘Missing,’ as they say. But no one seems to have much hope after al this time.”

“Oh,” said Hugh. He rubbed his gloved hands together for warmth. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Yes, thank you,” said Maggie. Then, “I need to go now—to prepare tomorrow’s maths lesson. We’re starting algebra, heaven help us.”

They skated over to the benches on the perimeter of the pond and sat down, unlacing their skates. “Nevins mentioned, well, that he’d told you about the suspicions surrounding your father,” Hugh said. “I always put it down to idle gossip, personally, but you must have a lot of questions.” He gave a deep sigh. “I don’t know if you want it, but I ‘borrowed’ his file. It’s in my skate bag.”

Maggie was stunned. “Thank you,” she managed. She took Hugh’s bag and hoisted it over her shoulder. He did the same with hers.

“I hope you feel the same,” he said, “after you’ve read it.”

In the bowels of U-246, in the cold waters of the North Sea, Gernot Schneider and Hermann Hoffman lay in their narrow racks, six-foot bunks affixed to the walls, one on top of the other. The air was close and rank, punctuated by snores from the other men.

“I just don’t get it,” Schneider said on his back, making a steeple of his hands.

“Shut the fuck up!” called another man, in another bunk, trying to sleep while he could.

“Shut the fuck up, yourself!” Schneider snarled back. Then, to Hoffman, in a lower voice, “We’re on one of the most elite U-boats in the fleet. Kapitänleutnant Hackl has the Knight’s Cross, for God’s sake.”

“Pinned on by der Führer himself,” Hoffman said.

“So, why are we here?” Schneider said. “Why aren’t we seeing any action?”

The man called out, “You want action? If you don’t shut up, I’ll give you action.”

“I wouldn’t complain if I were you,” Hoffman whispered. “You just might jinx it. Besides, I have a fiancée to return to.”

“Ach, Greta Kruger, with the big bottom, who makes the world’s best Apfelstrudel.” Schneider rolled his eyes in the dim light. “But I didn’t join the Deutsche Marine just to eat cabbage soup and smell my fellow soldiers’ farts. I want to see battle!”

“Commandant Hess has a plan for us, that I trust,” Hoffman said.

“You’re right.” Schneider turned over and yanked his thin cover with him. “And when we finally learn what it is, I hope it’ll be big.”

Maggie went to the library at Windsor to read her father’s MI-5 file. There, in a leather-tufted chair, under the fading gray light pouring in from the mullioned windows, she read.

And read.

And read.

What she read was disturbing. Her father had been a spy during the Great War, when he was supposed to be just a professor at the London School of Economics. He lied to me about that, Maggie thought, hands clenching, still angry at his not asking about John, at being stood up in Slough. Lied to.

But what was most disturbing was that some material was blacked out, specifically in regard to a certain agent Neil Wright. And who are you, Agent Wright? What kind of relationship did you have with dear old Dad? Why would it be censored?

Sir Owen clasped his hands behind his back and approached Maggie. “May I help you with anything, Miss Hope?” he asked.

Maggie closed the file and put it away in her bag, so that he couldn’t see anything. “No, Sir Owen—thank you. Actually, I believe I have, well, almost everything I need right here.”

The next day, Hugh was waiting in the back room of Boswell’s when Maggie arrived.

“You all right?” Hugh asked, for Maggie was paler than usual and had deep circles under her eyes.

“The King and Queen have planned a sleep-and-dine holiday—they’re calling it A Red, White, and Blue Christmas. Very patriotic.”

“I know,” Hugh said, wrinkling his forehead. “A security nightmare.”

“If Louisa—or anyone—is going to try anything, that would be the time to do it.”

“We know. Everyone’s going to be on sharpest alert. Even I.”

“You?”

“I’ll be there. With Frain.”

“Oh.” Maggie wasn’t sure how she felt about his being at Windsor Castle. “I see.” She shook her head. “Now that we’ve covered that, I’ve read my father’s file. What do you know about Agent Neil Wright and the blacked-out material?”

“The censored material sparked my curiosity, yes. I tried to get Agent Wright’s folder, but it’s gone.”

“Gone?”

Hugh shrugged. “At least it’s not where someone as lowly as I can find it. All there remains are the basics—that he was born in Hampstead Heath in 1885, went to Christ’s Church at Oxford and graduated with honors in history in 1906, was recruited to MI-Five not long after.” Hugh took a breath. “Also, he was MI-Six, not MI-Five.”

“MI-Six?” Maggie was confused. Like the CIA and the FBI, MI-6 dealt with foreign threats and MI-5 with domestic. “MI-Six wouldn’t be involved with my father unless …” Her mind grappled with the answer. “Unless they suspected him of being a double agent.”

“That’s what I came up with too,” Hugh said.

“And at that point in time, we were at war with Germany.… He might have been a German spy!”

“But why would MI-Five keep him on, then? He must have been cleared.”

There must be some way of finding out more.

“I need to find out about Agent Wright.” Maggie, the scholar, knew where she had to start. “I’m going to the library.”

“The library? There’s certainly not going to be anything on him there. Too public.”

“Well, I have to start somewhere. Do something.”

Later that afternoon, Maggie went back to the castle’s library. “Hello, Sir Owen. I’m looking for something today, actually,” she said.

Sir Owen smiled and rubbed his hands together in glee, and Maggie realized he must a little lonely among all the volumes sometimes. “Anything, Miss Hope.”

“Well, I’m looking for information on a man named Neil Wright. He was born in Hampstead Heath in 1885 and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1906. I’m not sure what there will be, if anything.”

“At least a birth notice,” Sir Owen said, “and marriage and death, if applicable. Let me see what I can do.”

Maggie settled in to wait with a copy of Great Expectations. Sir Owen eventually returned, with two yellowing copies of The Times of London. “If you look here, Miss Hope,” he said, opening the first on the polished wood table, “You’ll find a birth notice—Neil Reginald Wright was born in London, to George Fletcher Wright and Nancy Grace Wright, on March twenty-first, 1870. However,” he said, opening the second, “this is the one you’ll probably be most interested in. I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to pry, but the names—”

Maggie looked up at him, not comprehending.

“Well, you’ll understand when you read it,” he said gently. I’m sorry for your loss, Miss Hope.”

Maggie turned her attention to the second paper. The headline read “Two Dead from Accident on Icy Road, Another Injured.” Maggie smoothed the brown and crumbling edges and began to read.

London, Sunday, May 1—Two people were killed and one seriously injured shortly after midnight Thursday in an automobile accident at the intersection of Grosvenor Road and Vauxhall Bridge Road.

Clara Hope, age twenty-four, was taken to London Bridge Hospital and died from injuries sustained in the crash. Neil Wright, age thirty-two, died on the scene. Professor Hope, a noted economist at the London School of Economics, was taken to London Bridge Hospital and is in stable condition.

“From the look of the accident scene, it appears that Professor and Mrs Hope’s car swerved on Grovesnor Road and hit a lamppost. Mr Wright’s car, following close behind, crashed into theirs,” a spokesman for the Prefecture of Police said.

There, in stark black and white, was a picture of Neil Wright next to a picture of Maggie’s mother and father.

Neil Wright, the agent that was investigating my father, died in the same car accident as my mother, Maggie thought, shocked, saddened, sickened. She read the article again.

Then she sat down to think. Neil Wright was an MI-6 agent, charged with protecting Britain from foreign threats. If he was pursuing my father, he must have believed him of some sort of wrongdoing—given that it was during the Great War, spying for Germany is the most likely offense. Because of this, she realized, feeling nauseated, Wright was chasing my father in a car. My mother was a passenger. The cars crashed, and both Wright and my mother died.

My father, she thought, killed Neil Wright.

Then, realizing, she felt like vomiting. He also killed my mother.

Maggie felt a wave of anger, primal and hot, wash over her. He’s not going to get away with this.

Chapter Twenty

Maggie met with Hugh in London, at Highgate Cemetery, under a threatening sky with low-hanging clouds. They met in front of Maggie’s mother’s gray marble headstone: Clara Beatrice Hope 1892–1916. She leaned over and traced the letters with her gloved fingers, then set down her bouquet of bittersweet.

“When I was a little girl,” she said, “I thought my Aunt Edith was my mother. But when I was about eight or so, she told me my parents had died in a car accident in London. In the version she told me, my father and mother were at a stoplight. A man in another car must have fallen asleep. His car drifted over the white line. His car crashed into theirs and they both died.” Maggie took a ragged breath as the wind whispered through the nearly bare tree branches.

“But then, last summer, I found another version of the story. In this one, there was an accident and my mother died—but my father didn’t. But he went insane—which is why my Aunt Edith adopted me and lied to me—told me he was dead.

“Then when I returned to England, I found out my father was not only still alive, but he was also as sane as you or I—he was merely posing as deranged, to try to catch a spy at Bletchley.

“Neil Wright was an MI-Six agent, hunting down a Sektion agent in London—my father. What happened that night was no accident. Wright must have been chasing my father. One of the drivers lost control and the cars crashed. Whatever happened, it circles around to the same conclusion. If my father hadn’t been a Sektion agent, on the run from MI-Six, my mother would still be alive today. His treachery ended up getting her killed. And Agent Wright too.”

Maggie brushed tears away. “I’m sorry to tell you all this, but I just—well, who am I supposed to talk to?” She laughed, a short, bitter laugh. “My former almost-fiancé who’s been shot down over Berlin and it ‘missing and presumed dead’? My Aunt Edith, who thinks I’m throwing my life away to be a governess? My friends Chuck and Sarah, who’re civilians? I can’t even tell David, my best friend, because he’s not cleared. This spy business is lonely—no one tells you that. And everyone lies.”

“I don’t,” Hugh said.

Maggie turned to him. “I want to reopen the case.”

“What? Why?”

“What if he’s a double agent?”

“MI-Five’s cleared him.”

“What about the file? There were pages missing. Maybe it didn’t end twenty-five years ago. Maybe he’s still working for Germany! That’s what Nevins thinks. That’s why there’s gossip about him—why he’s been at Bletchley for so long, and never caught a spy. He could have given Victoria Keeley those decrypts! And no one would know—because he’s the one supposedly guarding the henhouse.”

Hugh put both hands on Maggie’s arms. “Maggie, stop. All right? Just stop. What matters, what’s important, is our mission—finding out what Lily Howell was doing and who killed her and why. How she got those decrypts and what she was going to do with them. Your father’s helping us do that. He’s on our side.”

“My father’s working at Bletchley. That’s all we know for certain. It’s impossible to know what side he’s on.”

“He works with us, Maggie.”

“Nothing’s what it appears to be!” Maggie exclaimed, pulling away and biting through each word. “War took our world and what we once thought was normal. And now we’re all like, like Alice through the looking glass, in some sort of crazy upside-down world where truth is a lie and lies are truth.”

Hugh shifted. “Look, I understand we’re talking about your father here, and that if he sold secrets to Germany—or, even worse, is selling secrets—that would be hard. Incomprehensible. Untenable.”

“I want—no, I need—to know the truth.”

“Before you do anything, let me find out if he’s still under any kind of suspicion. I’ll check some more files, ask some of my father’s old friends.…” He looked at her. “You’re shivering. Here,” he said putting his arm around her. Maggie was aware of how close they were, and a peculiar jolt when she realized how much she liked it.

“No, I’m sorry,” she said to Hugh, shrugging off his arm. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t.…”

“Maggie—” Hugh reached out and put his hand on her forearm.

She shrugged off his hand. “No. I will find out the truth. My days of waiting patiently are over. No. More. Lies.”

Maggie knew she had another resource, the head of MI-5 himself, Peter Frain. When she found out from Mrs. Pipps that he was at his club, she decided to see him there. “Oh, Miss,” the wizened older man with the thick white hair at the front desk said, gazing up and over his thick eyeglasses. “I’m so sorry, but ladies aren’t allowed—”

Maggie ignored him and stalked up the grand staircase. At the top of the stairs was the club’s library, with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, oil paintings of huntsmen in red on horses, green leather-covered chairs, and thick Persian rugs. Do these upper-crust Brits see no other possible way to decorate? Maggie thought irritably.

Frain looked from a folder of papers he was reading at a polished table. “Why, Maggie, how lovely to see you.”

“What’s the meaning of this, Frain?” snapped an older man in a tweed suit and a hairpiece.

“It’s all right, Your Grace,” Frain said, raising a hand. “She won’t be here long.”

“Women!” the man grumbled as he got shoved back his chair and swept up his newspapers. “They’re everywhere. And this is where we go to try to get away from them!” He left and slammed the door behind him. Maggie and Frain were alone.

“Why don’t you have a seat?” Frain said.

“No, no, thank you. I’d rather stand.”

“Suit yourself. Well, what brings you here, to this eminent institution? I’ll have you know that the food is nothing special. Just nursery food, like potted duck, ham and pear soup, and Eton mess—we old men seem to crave meals from our childhood.”

“I know,” Maggie said in a low voice, “about my father. That he was an agent during the Great War. That he was suspected of being a double agent for Sektion. That he was being investigated by Agent Neil Wright of MI-Six. And I know my mother died because Wright went after him.”

Frain shook his head. “Maggie …”

“Who was this man, Neil Wright? What did he find out?”

Frain sighed. “You can’t know everything all at once, Maggie.”

“Bugger that!” she exclaimed. Her voice echoed up to the clerestory windows.

Frain remained unruffled. “Need I remind you, Maggie, that Enigma is at stake? People’s lives are at stake. Your life, for that matter. What you think you know, you don’t.”

“Then tell me!”

“You don’t have the proper approval.”

Maggie was outraged. “Are you serious?” she managed.

“Yes,” he said, with the patience of a teacher with a very young child. “You don’t have the proper approval. I’m sorry, but there it is.”

“And how would I go about getting the ‘proper approval,’ as you so Britishly put it?”

“You would ask me. And then I would tell you ‘no.’ “

“To be told how my mother died? My father’s role in it?”

“There are rules, Maggie,” he said, not unkindly.

“Then break them, Goddamn it!”

Frain pulled out a cigarette and lit it with his silver lighter. He inhaled, pale blue smoke drifting toward the frescoed high ceiling. “I sometimes forget that you were raised in America. Here in England, we have more respect for rules. And, in wartime, rules are what keep us alive.”

“I don’t care about your damn rules!” Maggie cried. “I need to know what happened.”

“You want to know what happened. But you don’t need to know.” He took a drag on his cigarette, the tip glowing reddish orange. “You’re a smart young woman, Maggie. And you’ve seen a lot. You’re going through quite a bit, I know. But I know you’re smart enough not to draw simple conclusions and then assume that they’re the truth. Remember your maths? The truth is always far more complicated. And I would think if anyone had learned that lesson, it would be you.”

Maggie bit her lip. This isn’t the end. Oh, no, it’s not.

“What I have learned, Peter, that if I want something done, I’d better do it myself. And, with or without your help, I will find out what happened. He’s under suspicious for spying again, you know,” she said. “The other agents suspect him of being a mole.” She turned and headed to the door.

“Although I’m well aware of the office gossip surrounding Edmund, I’m not swayed by it. And I’m quite surprised you’d give it any credence. I prefer you don’t pursue this matter.”

“Well, it’s not up to you, now, is it?” she said, turning to fix one last glare on him. Then she left, running down the immense staircase, causing the older men in tattersall and tweed to look after her askance.

If Maggie had turned back, though, she would have seen the tiniest hint of a smile curling one side of Peter Frain’s mouth.

It was late by the time Maggie returned to Windsor. She’d missed dinner, and the sun had long set. Still agitated from her meeting with Frain, not to mention thoughts of Hugh, she paced around her rooms, chilly despite the fire dancing in the grate, finally throwing herself on the sofa. She picked up the Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Maybe reading will help me calm down, she thought.

She kicked off her oxfords and tucked her feet under her, then picked up the book. What gorgeous illustrations, she thought, looking at the four-color Rackham pen-and-ink drawings, softened by watercolors. She began to read the first story, “Hansel and Gretel.”

Again, she noticed the tiny holes that the spilled tea had spotlighted. Damn bugs. Ugh, disgusting. But on closer examination, the holes were too regular in their appearance, too specifically spaced.

What they were, Maggie suddenly realized, was a series of tiny pinpricks in the pages of the book, each under a letter, in seemingly random order. It was code of some sort. Maggie’s heart beat faster.

Hard by a great forest dwelt a poor wood-cutter with his wife and his two children. The boy was called Hansel and the girl Gretel. He had little to bite and to break, and once when great dearth fell on the land, he could no longer procure even daily bread. Now when he thought over this by night in his bed, and tossed about in his anxiety, he groaned and said to his wife: “What is to become of us? How are we to feed our poor children, when we no longer have anything even for ourselves?” “I’ll tell you what, husband,” answered the woman, “early tomorrow morning we will take the children out into the forest to where it is the thickest; there we will light a fire for them, and give each of them one more piece of bread, and then we will go to our work and leave them alone. They will not find the way home again, and we shall be rid of them.” “No, wife,” said the man, “I will not do that; how can I bear to leave my children alone in the forest?”

That was all of the pinpricks. There were no more.

Pinprick encryption, Maggie thought, her mind whirling wildly. First used by Aeneaus the Tactician, an ancient Greek historian, who conveyed secret messages by making tiny, almost imperceptible pinpricks under letters in chunks of text. Imperceptible—that is, unless someone spills tea on them.

Getting a pad of paper and a pen, she copied down each letter, in order, that had a pinprick under it. There weren’t that many, really. When she was finished, she had:

tandersensfaulkeshthompson

From there, shivers dancing up and down her spine, it was easy enough to get to:

T. Andersen, S. Faulkes, H. Thompson

A list of British-sounding names, sent in secret code to her father. Names. But of whom? And why? To get information from them? To try to turn them? To assassinate them?

Maggie went back over the list of names. H. Thompson? Hugh had mentioned his father had worked for MI-5, as well.

That he had died in the line of—

Oh, no, Maggie thought, suddenly realizing. Oh, no, no, no, no, no …

The next morning after Lilibet’s maths lesson, Maggie climbed the pitted and crumbling stairs of the parish church of St. John the Baptist, on High Street in Windsor, and walked inside, her pumps echoing on the cracked tiles. It was between services and the cavernous arched church was empty, except for an organist to the left of the altar, behind a glowing bank of candles, practicing Bach’s “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme,” the majestic reedy tones echoing through the open space. Maggie saw Hugh and took a seat in the row in front of him. Hugh knelt behind her, on wooden pew worn from centuries of use, hands folded as if in prayer.

In a rush, dread in her heart, Maggie whispered, “Thanks for meeting with me.” She wished with all her heart that she could go back to that moment when he’d put his arm around her. Back before she knew.

“I knew if you contacted me, it had to be important.”

There was a pause, and the organist began the left hand’s countermelody. Then Maggie began. “My mother—my mother loved to read, and my father would buy her books, fairy tales mostly, German. He sent one to me, after he stood me up in Slough. Last night, I discovered code hidden inside those books. Code! It must have been how Sektion was sending him messages.”

“What kind of code?”

“Pinprick encryption.”

Hugh raised one eyebrow. “Classic Sektion.”

“Exactly.”

There was another long pause, before Maggie got up the nerve to speak. She knew she had to. And she knew that things would never be the same between her and Hugh, ever again. “The code—it spelled out a list.”

“A list?”

“A list of names,” Maggie said, hating what she was about to tell him.

“All right,” Hugh said, “a list of names. I can check them out.”

There was still a chance, though. Still a chance that it was just a horrible coincidence. A cosmic joke of the worst sort. “Hugh,” she said gently, “I need to ask you, what was your father’s name?”

Hugh’s eyebrows knit together. “Why do you ask?”

“Was it also Hugh?” Maggie asked, dreading his response.

“Why, yes, yes it was,” he said. “But—?”

“Hugh Thompson? H. Thompson? And did he die in 1915?”

“What—?”

Maggie passed him a Bible, in which she’d hidden the Grimm text and her notes.

“Oh, Hugh,” she said, as he began to read. “I’m so, so terribly sorry.”

Chapter Twenty-one

In a fog of shock, Hugh returned to the MI-5 offices in London. Without apparent emotion, he dropped the book and Maggie’s decryption of the pinprick code on Frain’s desk, leaving Frain, for once, looking shocked. Then he went to his office and sat down at his desk. He didn’t even pretend to work, just stared at the wall.

A while later, Mark entered the small windowless office and looked at Hugh. Then he sat down at his own desk, pretending to work. Finally, he spoke. “I heard,” he said. “Maggie broke the code found in her mother’s book. The names of three MI-Five agents. All of whom were assassinated. Including your father.”

“Yes,” Hugh said, without moving. “That sums it up nicely.”

Mark reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of gin. “Drink?”

“Do you need to ask?”

Mark took out two tea mugs and poured gin into each. He got up and handed one to Hugh.

“Thanks,” Hugh said, accepting the mug. He downed the gin in one gulp.

Silently, Mark poured Hugh another, then went back to his desk and pulled out some paperwork. He pretended to be engrossed in it, crossing things out, scribbling in the margins.

Finally, still staring at the same spot off in the distance, Hugh spoke. “It’s a strange thing, you know. When you’re a child, you learn that your father’s dead. You don’t really know what that means besides your mother always crying and everyone wearing black. At some point you put it all together—that he’s not away on a trip, that he’s never coming back. He’s gone. Forever.

“Then, when you’re older you learn more—that he was ‘killed in the line of duty.’ But even that’s vague. It doesn’t tell you where, or when, or how.” He downed the gin. “Or by whom.”

Mark was thinking ahead. “Should we go to the Red Lion? Because given what’s just happened, I doubt that Frain would mind.” He closed his folder and stood up. “And, if he does, he can bugger off.”

Hugh went on, as if he hadn’t heard. “And then, then you find out the details. The particulars. That the Germans knew about your father. That they wanted him dead. That his name was written in code. In a line of tiny pinpricks. In a book. Then you learn that the book belonged to your friend’s father. Who carried out the assassination.”

There was a sharp rap at the door, then Nevins opened it and walked in. He had a sheet of paper in his hands, which he handed to Hugh.

“Quite the day, I gather,” he said.

Hugh took the paper, like an automaton, and put it down without reading it.

Mark shook his head. “Jesus, Nevins. Perhaps you’d like to look up the word diplomacy in the dictionary?”

Nevins shrugged. “This is huge. Maggie Hope’s father—your father … Well, I can’t imagine how you must be feeling.”

“Obviously,” Mark said.

Nevins wouldn’t take the hint. “And, you know? I think Saul Levy’s going to be good for you. Just the thing to straighten you out.”

Hugh looked down at the memo and read it. Then he crumpled it and threw it in the metal wastebasket. “I’m not seeing Levy.”

Nevins leaned up against the doorframe. “I’m afraid Frain’s insisting. Levy may be a Jew, but he’s supposed to be a damned good psychiatrist—studied with Freud and all. He must live for this sort of thing. Positively Oedipal.”

“Just get out,” Mark said. “Now.”

“Well, it’s not up to you two,” Nevins said, turning to go. “It’s mandatory.”

Hugh stood up. “You serious about that pub?” he said to Mark. “Because I need to get very, very drunk.”

The same winter rain that had drenched Windsor had moved out to the coast, flooding Norfolk and its coast as well. It was raining hard in Mossley by Sea, a small village on the coast of the North Sea, not far from Grimsby. Mossley was tiny—there were only a few blocks of what was considered the main street, with the chemist, hardware store, grocer, the Royal Oak and Six Bells pubs, and the gray-steepled church with its neighboring graveyard, the stones crumbling, covered in velvety moss and damp lichen.

Christopher Boothby had taken the train from Bletchley, reaching Mossley as the cold driving rains became their heaviest. It had taken the residents a while to get used to him—they weren’t used to strangers—but his story of being a veteran of the Battle of Norway, now doing clerical work in Bletchley, needing a weekend place, stirred their maternal instincts, despite their official classification as a restricted military zone. Adding to the tale were rumors of his being a widower—wife and baby buried in the Blitz, don’t you know—which had the village’s matrons clucking. Why shouldn’t he buy that little cottage on the shore and fix it up? Didn’t he deserve a little peace after all he’d done for his country, after all he’d lost?

From the train, Boothby walked through the downpour, protected by his oilskin coat, heavy boots and nor’easter, striped Trinity scarf at his throat. He unchained his bicycle, waiting where he’d left it at the fence, and started off, struggling to keep upright in the punishing wind on the pitted and potholed roads.

He was an ordinary-looking man of about thirty—light hair, light eyes, average height and weight, clean-shaven. His nose was ordinary as well; it had once been patrician, but he’d broken it in a fight with the communist Reds when he’d been a follower of Walter Mosley and the Fascist party at Oxford, and now the bridge was just slightly flattened and off-center. He was a chameleon, adept at blending into any environment, including wounded veteran and grieving husband and father.

The brackish cold air assaulted his face as he rode, turning it mottled and red, his breath coming in short bursts.

As he pedaled, chain clanking, the rains abated. Cresting the top of the low-rising hill, Boothby could see the brown fields, the mudflats, the salt marshes with their tall feathery dying reeds, adapted to live in either fresh or salt water. Beyond the salt marshes was the gray-green ocean, waves roaring faintly upon the rocky shore in the distance.

From his vista he could see the cottage. It was small and dilapidated, but it was his, along with the battered van alongside it. He turned off the main road, onto a side one, and then into the gravel drive, getting off the bicycle and walking it to a protected space under the eaves. Stomping his boots on the mat, he reached into his oilskin’s coat pocket and drew out a heavy brass key. Then he let himself in. “Audrey?” he called into the shadows. “Audrey, are you there?”

It hadn’t been hard for the Nazis to convince Audrey Moreau to work for them. After they’d invaded Paris, she’d been harassed by groups of German soldiers as she went to and from her job at a local café. There, German officers would order pastries and coffee, talking and laughing. Audrey would clear the dishes of half-eaten palmiers, chausson aux pommes, and iced mille-feuille and take them back to the kitchen, where she and the rest of the staff would fall on them, famished, not caring that there were bite marks or that cigarettes had been crushed out in the custard.

When one of the officers, a young man with shocking white-blond hair and a cleft chin, had begun to harass her, she kept her eyes down and stayed silent. Day after day she endured his assaults, patting her derrière, pinching her cheek, asking her if she liked it on her back or on all fours, while his fellow officers egged him on and laughed.

The next week, his commanding officer, Otto Graf, appeared. He was closer to fifty than forty, with black hair and green eyes. When the cleft-chinned boy began his antics with Audrey, Graf strode across the room and slapped him across the face, hard, with his black leather glove.

“I’m sorry, Commandant,” the boy said.

“Don’t apologize to me,” Graf said, in a soft voice, “apologize to her. We are guests in her country. “

He did, turning red and stammering.

“Now leave,” Graf said. As the boy made his way out the door, Graf said, “And you have my apologies as well, Fräulein. Why don’t you sit down with us and have some coffee?”

Audrey looked over to the owner, her boss, a bald middle-aged man with a shiny pate. He nodded. Whatever the Germans wanted, the Germans got.

Graf patted the empty chair, and she sat down. “Now, tell me about yourself, Liebchen.”

Of course they became lovers. One night, in bed at his suite at the Ritz, when he learned she had relatives in England, he was thrilled. “It would be so easy,” he said, rubbing her cold hands with his, to warm them. “Your cousin married an English woman—who’s a cook for the British King and Queen, no less—let me see what I can do.”

A few weeks later, Audrey arrived in Windsor, feigning gratitude that her cousin was able to get her out. She knew who was already in place, and she awaited further instructions. Commandant Graf had no worries about Audrey’s cooperation—he knew very well where her parents and brother and sister lived. And he’d made it clear what would happen to them if she didn’t oblige.

In the cottage, Boothby called out again, “Audrey?” He fumbled for a lantern.

“I’m here,” she responded from the shadows.

“Good. Let’s go over the plan again.”

During preparations for the three-day Red, White and Blue Christmas weekend, excitement buzzed through the castle like a shot of adrenaline, which was a good thing, as the days were getting shorter and darker. Marquetry floors were waxed, silver polished, carpets taken out of storage and beaten, chandeliers washed and rehung, guest rooms aired. The enormous kitchen was filled with aroma of bread and cakes and roasts, and servants picked bouquets of flowers from the greenhouse to arrange and display throughout the State Apartments.

After everything she had learned about her father and what she’d had to share with Hugh, Maggie was grateful for the distraction of seeing David and Mrs. Tinsley from the Prime Minister’s office, in addition to Mr. Churchill himself, of course. Frain was coming as well. Maggie felt as though her worlds—No. 10, MI-5, and Windsor Castle—were all about to collide.

Chapter Twenty-two

The morning’s long procession of black cars from London—Daimlers and Bentleys and Rolls-Royces—rolled slowly up the Long Walk, through an avenue of elm trees planted by Charles II. Maggie watched from one of the high lancet windows in the York Tower as, finally, they reached the Sovereign’s Entrance. Drivers in livery came around to the passenger side of the cars, opening the doors, and helping their occupants out. When she saw Mr. Churchill and David walk up the stone stairs to the entrance and the doors swing open, she gave a small gasp, then ran to the entrance.

Footmen in white-powdered wigs and dress uniforms flanked the Grand Staircase, dominated by an enormous white marble statue of King George IV. At the very top, under the glazed gothic lantern ceiling, were the royal couple, the King in dress uniform, the Queen in a becoming wisteria wool dress and a bib of glistening graduated pearls. Next to them were the two Princesses, dressed alike in matching plaid skirts, white blouses, and red wool cardigans.

Maggie peeked from around a corner as Mr. Churchill made his way up the stairs. The P.M.’s face looked thinner than she remembered; the strain of war had aged him. He bowed to the king and then the two shook hands with great vigor. Maggie could see the twinkling blue eyes she remembered. He bowed low to the Queen, kissing her bejeweled hand with great reverence. And then he bowed gravely to the two Princesses, making them giggle and blush.

While more of the War Cabinet continued to march in—Lord Hastings Ismay, Clement Attlee, Arthur Greenwood—those already greeted milled about in the Grand Vestibule under the watchful eye of the marble Queen Victoria, before moving on to the Crimson Drawing Room.

There, in red silk and golden gilded splendor, guests congregated in front of the enormous black marble fireplace with its bronze satyrs, the dancing carroty flames trying to cheer the room and provide heat, although there was a still a damp creeping chill in the air. The room was decorated with great boughs of fragrant evergreens, white roses, and holly with bright red berries.

As the hall rapidly filled with guests—men in uniforms or dark suits and a few women here and there in dark day dresses—Maggie found David. “You came!” she cried above the growing din of upper-class accents and the chords of a harpsichordist playing a Handel gigue in the background.

“Magster!” he exclaimed, kissing her on both cheeks.

“Welcome to Windsor Castle.”

“Love what they’ve done to the place,” David said, looking around.

“It’s not as glamorous as it might seem today. Mostly it’s like living in a very cold museum in the off-season.” Maggie noticed that David was carrying a briefcase. And that it was chained to his wrist. “I’ve heard of being chained to your desk—but, really.…”

“Just until I can get it to the safe,” he assured her. “I won’t be attending the ball with a briefcase as my escort, I can assure you.”

“Well, good. Because I’d like a dance.”

“Don’t suppose there’s anything to drink?” David said. “Long ride from London, you know.” He spied a long table at the other end of the room, covered in white linen and piled high with porcelain tea settings and silver urns, etched trays piled high with pastries. “Suffering Sukra, I suppose tea will have to do. Come on!”

Lilibet and Margaret appeared at Maggie’s side. “We’re making the butter pats for the dinners,” Margaret announced proudly.

“They have little crowns on them,” Lilibet added. “We’re making ever so many—and we’re not allowed to eat any of them.”

“You don’t say, Your Highnesses,” David said, bowing. “I don’t know how I shall eat any butter pats at all during my stay, knowing that your Royal hands have touched them.”

The girls giggled.

David asked Lilibet, “And how is Miss Hope doing as your maths teacher? Is she any good?”

“She’s terrible!” Margaret exclaimed, pulling on Maggie’s skirt and laughing. “We need to send her to the dungeons, where she’ll be eaten alive by a horrible dragon!”

“She’s quite wonderful.” Lilibet glared down at her sister. “I’ve learned ever so much. Not just maths but codes and things.”

“Codes?” David raised an eyebrow. “Really, now.”

“Lilibet’s an excellent student,” Maggie said.

The Princesses giggled and wandered off, arm in arm.

Maggie spotted Mrs. Tinsley in the crowd. Mrs. Tinsley was still Mr. Churchill’s head typist and the woman Maggie had once reported to; once upon a time, she had found the older woman intimidating. But now it was a joy to see her, with her customary rope of creamy pearls around her neck. “Mrs. Tinsley!” she exclaimed.

“Why, hello, Miss Hope,” Mrs. Tinsley said, taking the younger girl’s measure over the frames of her glasses.

Just like old times, Maggie thought.

Mrs. Tinsley tucked back a strand of black hair threaded with gray. “You look well. The country air agrees with you.”

“And you look as lovely as always. How is Miss Stewart?”

“She’s well. Back at Number Ten, holding down the proverbial fort. She sends her well wishes to you—and I’ll tell her you asked after her.”

“May I offer you a cup of tea, Mrs. Tinsley?”

“Thank you, that would be delightful,” she said, making a beeline to one of the gilt and red-silk chairs.

Maggie went to the large table and poured a cup of tea, black just the way she took it at No. 10. When she returned with it, handing it to the older woman, she heard, “Well, Hope’s at Windsor Castle now!” in a loud, gruff voice. “And all’s right with the world.”

It was the Prime Minister, wearing a navy blue suit with a burgundy polka-dotted bow tie and a sprig of holly in the buttonhole—probably placed there this morning by Mrs. Churchill, Maggie thought. “Mrs. Pussycat” always takes good care of her “Mr. Pug.”

“Mr. Churchill!” she exclaimed.

“Miss Hope,” he replied, bowing slightly.

“Is Mrs. Churchill with you, sir?”

“She’s joining us this evening.”

Suddenly Gregory was at her elbow. “Maggie, you never told me you traveled in such impressive circles.” As introductions were made, Maggie saw Frain greet Sir Hill across the room but averted her eyes; after all, she was just supposed to be Lilibet’s maths tutor. Hugh was there as well, standing with Mark Standish.

And then the male staff, under the watchful eye of Lord Clive, began to escort the guests to their rooms.

“Toodle pip for now, love,” said David to Maggie, as his escort appeared.

“Maybe we can all get a drink before dinner tonight, yes?” Gregory suggested.

“Suits me,” David replied. “Magster?”

“Of course,” Maggie answered. But she had already spied Frain and Hugh in the crowd. She knew they were coming, of course, but it was still a shock to see them at Windsor. She stood perfectly still, uncertain of how to proceed, her heart beating fast as a hummingbird’s.

David sized up the predicament and called Frain over. “Mr. Frain,” he said, “you remember Maggie Hope, don’t you? One of Mr. Churchill’s typists?”

“Of course,” said Frain. “Miss Hope, a pleasure to see you again.”

“And you, Mr. Frain.”

“This is my associate, Hugh Thompson,” Frain said.

“How do you do, Mr. Thompson,” Maggie said, offering her hand, which he took.

He winked at her. “How do you do, Miss Hope?” As Frain made his way over to the Prime Minister and David and Gregory drifted off, Maggie and Hugh stood, face-to-face, in the crowd. “You have a little something—” He reached for her hair.

“What?” Maggie said. “What is it?”

“Fairy dust—or so it seems.” She stood very still as he pulled something from her hair, then handed it to her. It was white and sparkling, like an opal. “Oh,” she said, cheeks turning pink, as she took it from him. “It’s the snow they’ve put on the Christmas tree and some of the garlands. Gets onto everything if you’re not careful …” Maggie said, flustered.

“I hope you’ll save me a dance, Miss Hope,” he said, giving an almost imperceptible bow as one of the servants came to lead him to his room.

“Of—of course, Mr. Thompson.”

In the Submarine Tracking Room in the Admiralty Arch, a young man moved a red pushpin on a map-covered table, one of thousands of different colored pins on the turquoise blue areas of the map representing the Atlantic. Donald Kirk was reading a memo, but he caught the movement out of the corner of his eye.

He limped over, leaning heavily on his walking stick, to take a closer look. “That U-boat there,” he said, pointing to the red pin just the young man had just moved, “U-two-forty-six. What’s it doing?”

The man, olive-skinned with a shiny nose and forehead, shrugged. “Seems to be on the move now, sir,” he said. “Heading closer to shore than we’ve seen before.”

Kirk looked at the map, to the Norfolk coast. What’s the captain doing? Kirk thought. He looked up the submarine’s captain, a Captain Jörg Vogt. Vogt might not even know himself, yet, what they were doing there.

“Keep an eye on it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dinner that evening was a formal affair and Maggie got dressed with Polly and Louisa. In Louisa’s rooms in Victoria Tower, with Irving presiding from his glass container, Maggie pulled out her blue dress with the black velvet-tipped flowers.

“Oh, you’re not wearing that, are you?” Louisa asked.

“Why not?” Maggie asked.

“Well, not only have we all seen it ad nauseam, but the Queen most likely will be in light blue. She almost always wears light blue. It’s an unwritten rule of sorts that no other woman in the castle may wear light blue around Her Majesty.”

“It is a lovely gown, though,” Polly piped in.

“Thank you,” Maggie said to her. “And it’s the only one I have with me. As Louisa pointed out.”

Louisa began to rummage through her closet. “I might have something from a few years ago that might fit—it was Lily’s. You don’t mind, do you? You’re about her size.” She pulled out a green silk dress and threw it to Maggie. “Not the best color for a redhead, but beggars can’t be choosers, yes?”

“Lovely,” Maggie said, gritting her teeth. “Thank you.”

Polly pulled out a bottle of gin and Angostura Bitters. “And while we get ready, who’d like some Pinks?”

The bagpipers, dressed in traditional doublets with gold buttons and a drape of plaid held by a golden brooch on the shoulder, pleated kilts, and horsehair sporrans, were sounding the fifteen-minute call to dinner as the three young women made their way down to the Waterloo Chamber for cocktails.

“Ladies, may I say, you look magnificent,” Gregory declared, catching sight of them. He did a double-take when he saw Maggie and blanched and seemed to sway a bit.

“Are you all right?” Maggie asked.

“Are you mad?” Gregory cried, voice rising. People turned to look. “That belongs—belonged—to Lily! How dare you?”

“I’m—I’m sorry,” Maggie stammered, taken aback. “I didn’t realize it would cause any upset.” She looked at Gregory, who was pale and shaking, then at Louisa and Polly, who were smirking. Obviously they’d known the sight of her in the dress would cause upset. “I can change into something else—it’s all right,” she said. Slowly, the guests turned back to their own conversations.

“Steady, there, old man,” David said, pressing a hand against Gregory’s back. “It’s just a dress.”

“Of—of course,” Gregory said, recovering. “Just haven’t seen it in a while is all,” he said, struggling to smile. “You look ravishing in it, Maggie. Lily would be so pleased. I’m sorry for my reaction. Completely out of proportion.”

“Not at all,” Maggie replied, glad to see him pull himself together. “And you two look wonderful, as well.” And indeed, the men did look resplendent in their full evening dress: white ties, starched wing collar shirts and waistcoats, black trousers, and tailcoats with grosgrain facings.

The bagpipers played Robert Burn’s “Brose and Butter,” the interplay of the guests’ chanter juxtaposed against the steady reedy sound of the drones.

“I see you’ve found the martinis,” Louisa said, looking at the nearly empty glasses in the men’s white gloved hands, “but is there champagne?” She and Polly set out in search for a servant with a silver tray of glasses.

“Dinner is served,” announced the King, in his RAF dress uniform.

As the pipers began to play again, the glittering guests proceeded into St. George’s Hall, its arched ceiling studded with hundreds of shields, glowing with the light of the fire in the fireplace and the light of long tapered beeswax candles in six-foot-tall gold-gilded candelabras, showing multiple St. Georges battling countless incarnations of the infamous dragon.

The hundred and fifty guests were to be seated at one lengthy Cuban mahogany table, polished to a high sheen, reflecting the glow of the candles. Huge bouquets of velvety red roses, spiky orchids, crimson amaryllis, and creamy white Casablanca lilies in golden bowls dotted the table. Yeomen of the Guard, in their red ruffed-collar Elizabethan costumes, red stockings, and red, white, and blue rosette-decorated shoes, stood at attention against the walls, alternating with wig-wearing footmen, in state livery of scarlet with gold braid.

Maggie found her gold chair, upholstered in red-striped satin, near the bottom of the table, her name on a small engraved card held in a gilded holder, which glinted in the candlelight. She was to be seated next to a retired Admiral, in a medal-festooned navy-blue dress uniform. Between them was a menu, written in calligraphy, on heavy white stock embossed with the golden initials GR at the top.

But before she could sit down, David deftly took the place card next to her on the other side and switched it with his own.

“David!” Maggie exclaimed. “Really, now.”

“Oh, don’t take that older-sister tone with me,” he said. “War rations on priceless Royal china, how droll.” He picked up the charger in front of him, with panels of cobalt blue, a gold-stippled border, and painted birds and insects. He flipped it over to look at the maker. “Tournai, 1787. Excellent.”

“David!” Maggie whispered. The plate was set with military precision between a full set of gleaming vermeil flatware and multiple crystal wine glasses, engraved with the Order of the Garter star and the royal emblem.

As per tradition, everyone remained standing behind his or her chair as the head table was led in by the King, in his military uniform with the Order of the Garter sash and star, and the Queen, in a powder blue gown and ruby and diamond Oriental Circlet tiara. They were followed by Prime Minister Churchill in dinner jacket and white tie and Clementine Churchill, in rose silk. When the three reached the head table, the pipers stopped playing and stood at attention. An empty place next to them was set in memory of those killed during the war. After the King said a prayer, the pipers played “Flowers of the Forest.” And after the Irish and Scots Guards played “God Save the King,” the King made a champagne toast to the Prime Minister.

Everyone sat down, settling in, pulling the elaborately folded white damask napkins to their laps, and the staff began to serve. Gregory said, “I’m amazed you two got any work at all done at Number Ten.”

“Well,” Maggie allowed, tasting the consommé with sherry, “we did have a few laughs. But it really was hard work. Or, as Mr. Churchill would prefer us to say, ‘challenging.’”

Seated next to Gregory was a dowager, her sagging neck swathed in emeralds and diamonds. “And. Who. Are. You?” she asked Maggie over her pince-nez as the fish course was served, sounding like the Caterpillar from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

“Maggie Hope, ma’am. I tutor Princess Elizabeth in maths.”

“Really,” she said, turning her attention to the poached salmon in sauce mousseline, clearly not pleased to be sitting near a glorified governess.

“And Mr. David Greene works with the Prime Minister. Don’t you, David?” Maggie asked, giving him a poke.

“True, true,” he admitted, then led the conversation to the antics of the Churchills’ menagerie of pets, all of whom roamed No. 10 freely. Once he had everyone, including the dowager, laughing, Maggie relaxed. Across the table, Gregory winked at her with his good eye, and she smiled back as the as the meat course was served: filet mignon with mushroom sauce, with beans, broccoli, and potatoes Anna.

“Magster,” David said with a sigh, watching her put down her knife and pass her fork from her left hand to her right, “why must you continue to eat in that revolting American style?”

“Because it’s what I do, David, and I’m not going to change because I’m in Saint George’s Hall.”

“Young man!” called an old Admiral from a few places down, fixing his gaze on David.

“Yes, sir.”

“Say, you work for Churchill, do you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any idea when the damn Yanks are going to get here?”

“No, sir,” David said. “I’m afraid they haven’t sent in their R.S.V.P. yet.”

Maggie shot him a look.

“Yanks,” the Admiral muttered. “Late to every war!”

“The Prime Minister is in constant contact with President Roosevelt, of course—”

“As much good as that’s done. But as we all know too well from the last war, you can always count on the Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.”

After the meat course came the salad. Maggie noticed Gregory didn’t eat much throughout the dinner but called over the footman to refill his glass more than a few times.

“So, Maggie tells me you rowed for Oxford?” David asked Gregory over the torte au chocolate blanc.

“Yes,” he replied, taking a sip of Champagne. “Eton and then Oxford. Thirty-four was the dead heat. In thirty-five, we won the Boat Race.”

“That’s the annual race between Cambridge and Oxford,” David explained to Maggie. Then, to Gregory, “I was on the team a few years later than you. Coxswain.”

“Brothers in blue,” Gregory said, smiling.