Princess Elizabeth's Spy

into the castle’s dungeons.

It was getting late. In the nursery, Maggie was next to Margaret on the sofa, while Lilibet had settled near one of the windows, peeking out behind the blackout curtains. Audrey sat down on a needlepoint footstool, close to the princesses. One of the corgis growled low in his throat and bared his small, sharp teeth. “Dookie!” Lilibet snapped. “Stop that!”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Audrey said. “I must confess, I don’t like dogs very much.”

“Oh, Audrey, thank you so much for bringing the sandwiches and tea,” Lilibet said earnestly. “It was extremely brave of you.”

“It was nothing, Miss,” Audrey said. She looked around. Everyone, including Alah and Crawfie, were either engaged in low conversation or sleeping where they could.

She lowered her voice. “There was a phone call for you, Miss. From—Lieutenant Mountbatten.”

“Philip?” Elizabeth said, hand going to her heart.

“Yes, Miss. I told him about the shooting, then that you were being kept in the nursery. He sounded beside himself with worry.”

“Oh, no,” Lilibet said. “Poor Philip. And we’re fine. I must let him know.”

Audrey leaned in. “He asked if you would call him back,” she said. “He practically begged me. He’ll be waiting by the phone in, let’s see,” she looked up at the clock on the mantel. “In ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes!” Lilibet said. “Why, if I don’t call, he’ll think something is terribly wrong!”

Audrey whispered in Lilibet’s ear, “Pretend to get something from Margaret’s room. I’ll follow you a few minutes behind, and then we can go down to the kitchen so you can call Philip.”

Lilibet’s face clouded as she looked over at Alah, dozing peacefully in the tufted chair in front of the fire.

“He’s waiting for your call, Miss.”

Emboldened by her feelings, Lilibet made up her mind.

Slowly, slowly, David began to regain consciousness.

“You gave us all quite a scare,” he heard Gregory say over the loud noise of an engine.

David tried to open his eyes. The pain was excruciating.

“What the—?” he managed, voice cracking. He tried to sit up, causing explosions of pain in his head. He tried to put a hand to his wound, but they were tied together in front of him. His briefcase was still handcuffed to him, and was leaning against his side.

“Where are we?” he managed, squinting at Gregory, who was sitting beside him, sliver flask in hand.

“We’re on our way to the coast. There’s a U-boat waiting for us not far off shore.”

“Who’s driving?”

“My old friend, Christopher Boothby.”

As David closed his eyes again, his mind raced. Why? Why would Gregory betray England? What could his ties to Nazi Germany possibly be? He was a RAF pilot, a war hero—one of Churchill’s “few.” He’d nearly died in the Battle of Britain.

David could smell petrol and the brackish Thames. It was cold in the back of the car, and he shivered. Gingerly, he tried once again to move.

Trickles of blood from his head wound had run down his face and were now congealing.

“David,” Gregory said, wiping at David’s face with his handkerchief, “I wanted you to come with us,” he said, his breath reeking of alcohol. “But not this way.”

David squinted up in the darkness. “Why?” Overhead, Messerschmitts and Heinkels whined, on their way to drop their deadly cargo on London.

Gregory checked his watch. “Almost one,” he called up to Boothby, in the driver’s seat. “The window for our pickup opens in half an hour. We need to hurry.”

“Achtung, mein Herr,” was Boothby’s response.

“I suppose you’ve figured out what I’ve done,” he said to David.

“You’ve kidnapped me—and my briefcase. And we’re going to Germany. But I still don’t understand why.”

Gregory took another long draw on the bottle. “Oh, where are my manners? Would you like some?”

“No,” David said. “I never drink while kidnapped.”

Sarcasm was lost on Gregory. “More for me, then,” he said, taking a sip and spilling a little as the car hit a bump in the road. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It wasn’t you so much as your tantalizing briefcase. It was a present, from Father Christmas himself. You, with that.” He looked at David. “Now, you mustn’t think I’m a monster, I did try to get you to come with me.” He grinned and placed his hand on David’s leg. “And I was very persuasive.”

David was silent, repulsed by Gregory’s touch.

“Still, you, the Jew patriot, were unmoved. And so, Boothby and I took more—definitive action. He wanted to cut your hand off, by the way, and leave you at Windsor. I was the one who said we should bring you with us.”

“But why?”

“I like you, David. And I’d hate to see you go down with the losing side. To be honest, I just don’t give a damn who wins this bloody war anymore. Quite frankly, despite all of Churchill’s brave talk, it looks pretty certain Germany will win—sooner or later.” He shrugged. “And, you see, in Germany, my contact will pay me—us,” he said, looking to Boothby in the driver’s seat, “dearly for the information you have. Whatever you have in your briefcase must be worth a small fortune. It’s enough to let me disappear quietly to Switzerland.”

“Or Buenos Aires,” David said, remembering.

“Somewhere like that.” Gregory looked at David. “The offer’s still good, you know.”

“Go to hell.”

Gregory smiled. “Germany first.”

“This is it,” Boothby said. He slowed and took a hard left, pulling up and cutting the motor.

“And now,” Gregory said, pulling out his gold pocket watch, “we wait.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Pretending she was going to the bathroom, Lilibet had successfully pulled off her escape from the nursery. “Thank you so much,” she whispered to Audrey as they tiptoed down long drafty corridors.

“Of course, Miss,” Audrey said, letting Lilibet go on ahead. “I know I would do anything for l’amore.”

“Ah, l’amore,” Lilibet sighed, pressing her hand to the note hidden in her skirt pocket.

When they reached the castle’s vast kitchen, Lilibet headed for the telephone. She picked up the heavy receiver laying on the counter. “Hello? Philip? Hello?” Lilibet said as Audrey looked around to make sure they were alone, then pulled out a handkerchief and a small bottle of clear liquid from her apron pocket. She wet the cloth with the liquid, then reached from behind and held it over Lilibet’s nose and mouth. It had a sickly sweet smell. Lilibet struggled, then went limp in Audrey’s arms.

When Lilibet didn’t return, Dookie went to the bathroom door and got up on his hind legs to growl and paw at it, agitated, his claws clicking on the wood for the door. “Dookie! Stop it!” Maggie whispered. But the dog continued to whine and paw. Maggie got up and knocked. “Your Highness?” she called. “Lilibet?” There was no answer. She and Dookie locked eyes and he gave a series of low whines that sounded like sobs. She pounded on the door. “Lilibet? Open the door!” She reached for the knob and the door opened easily. The bathroom led into Margaret’s rooms. The door to the hallway was still open.

“Bloody hell,” Maggie muttered, as she ran through Margaret’s open door and then down the long corridor, calling “Lilibet! Lilibet!” Dookie followed her, barking loudly. She ran down the corridor to the kitchen, where she spied the two. “Lilibet!” she screamed, seeing the unconscious Princess. She looked at Audrey in shock. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” Audrey said, dropping Lilibet to the floor, then going to the door to the wine cellar. She knocked and Poulter opened the door. “There you are,” he said.