Princess Elizabeth's Spy

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,