Princess Elizabeth's Spy

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 Apres 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.”