Princess Elizabeth's Spy

day—”

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

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

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

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

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

“Victoria Tower,” Maggie said.

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

“What?”

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

“Ha!” Louisa snorted.

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

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

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

What?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Of course not,” Maggie promised.

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

Chapter Eight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Merci Dieu, indeed,” Maggie said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Home Secretary Herbert Morrison was on the scene within hours of the all-clear. He met the mayor and other local officials and afterward paid tribute to the work of the National Service units of the city, who