The Queen's Accomplice

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  The old pile looks good. Miraculously, the wood paneling and the medallions on the plaster ceiling seemed to have survived the bombing. From out of the wreckage of stars…Maggie shivered despite the warmth, overwhelmed by memories and conflicting emotions, as David led her through the crowd. Sidestepping, she smiled until her jaw ached, mouthed greetings, and kissed proffered cheeks as the low rumble of happy conversation resumed, along with the throaty tones of a tenor saxophone emanating from the gramophone in the corner. Maggie thought she could pick out the melody of Coleman Hawkins’s “How Strange.”

  “Let me take your coat and hat,” someone was saying, and Maggie relinquished them. She realized in her office clothes she was underdressed and rubbed at the ink spot on her blouse. “I do wish you’d warned me, David. I would have at least put on lipstick.” The room was warm from the press of people, and so she peeled off her cardigan and took two yellow pencils out of her coppery bun so it tumbled down her shoulders and swung free.

  “You look lovely as always, my dear,” David reassured her as the conversations around them swirled and crescendoed. “Let me give you a tour,” he said, as someone pressed a pink gin in her hand. She took a sip, hoping it would help ease her sense of shock.

  “It’s all structurally sound,” David was saying. “Safe as houses, as they say. Safe as houses—ha!

  “Had both an architect and an engineer give their approval after the bombing—the top floor took quite a hit, but luckily the bomb fell on a diagonal, not straight down,” he prattled on. “Garden’s still a mess, I’m afraid. Did a little redecorating as well—hope you don’t mind. A few of my parents’ pieces from the country house—tried to bring a breath of modernity to all the moldy Victoriana—no offense to your sainted grandmother, of course. And we moved all your things and set you up in the master bedroom.” He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Don’t worry, Mags, it looks completely different now. You won’t even recognize it.”

  “I—I can’t believe it,” Maggie managed finally. “Thank you—thank you so much.” Then, realizing, “How can I ever repay you?”

  “Your insurance money took care of everything, actually—you’d already started the paperwork for government compensation before we left for Washington. You’ll have to wait until after the war’s over for the full amount, but I was able to claim enough of an advance on your behalf for structural repairs.” He waved a hand. “The rest is cosmetic.”

  “Well, gorblimey and God save the King!” Maggie managed, taking another sip of her gin. Someone was passing a plate of cheap sausage rolls, and she snagged one. “And the Queen and the Princesses, while we’re at it.” She and David exchanged a knowing look, remembering their perilous time at Windsor Castle with the Royals.

  David puffed out his chest. “I set everything up while you were in Scotland, and then the overhaul was done while we were all in Washington….”

  Maggie was half-listening as they wandered through the house and David pointed out changes. Walking through the parlor and library felt like returning to a half-remembered dream. It was the same, but different. Or was she what was different now?

  She tried to look objectively at the library, lit by silk-shaded lamps. The gloomy wallpaper had been stripped. The walls were freshly painted. Some of the heavy Victorian furniture had been removed and replaced with sleek deco pieces, upholstered in bright blue moiré. The murky oil paintings had been replaced in their gilt frames with colorful reproductions of works by Matisse, Dalí, and Magritte.

  “A modern space for today’s modern woman,” David enthused. “We kept all the books we could salvage, of course—as well as all your back issues of American Journal of Mathematics and your grandmother’s back issues of Minotaure—there’s a lovely Picasso cover of a bullfight you might think of framing. Did you know you have some first editions of Sherlock Holmes here? Although, I must say your dear old granny had fairly gothic taste”—he gestured to the tall shelves—“translations of Dante, Dracula, The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon, The Complete History of Jack the Ripper…even a few old penny dreadfuls.” He quirked an eyebrow. “Have you ever realized Dante was the first to think of hell as a planned space in an urban environment? Ha! Must have visited London.”

  That made Maggie smile again. “I never had time to read much beyond math journals, but perhaps I should revisit Dante.”

  “Careful not to read too much—you’ll never get married,” cautioned a man with a shiny, bald head in passing.

  Then David’s “roommate,” Freddie Wright, approached, tumbler in hand. He was a handsome man, tall, with dark hair and eyes. A handful who were extremely close to them knew David and Freddie were a couple, but kept it quiet, for obvious reasons: arrest, imprisonment, chemical castration would be their fate if their relationship were revealed.

  “Thank you, David,” Maggie murmured, blinking back tears of gratitude. “And you, too, Freddie. You must have had a hand in all this, while David and I were in Washington.”

  Freddie beamed. “I rather enjoyed having a project to work on while His Nibs was away.” He looked to David. “You know, we might think about a country house when this blasted war is over.”

  “The country?” David looked appalled. “Why would anyone want to leave London?”

  “Nature? Trees? Fresh air?”

  “Spiders.”

  “Flowers?”

  “Snakes.”

  “Hunting? Fishing? Riding?”

  “Dirt, dirt, and more dirt, plus mud. I prefer theater, the ballet, and galleries. My idea of a trip into nature is a suite at the Ritz and a book of Audubon prints, thank you very much, old thing.”

  Freddie raised his hands in mock surrender. Maggie laughed.

  “Wait here—we have one more surprise for you.” David flashed his impish grin and tugged Freddie away.

  Maggie caught sight of Sarah again, now in the doorway, and waved. Once upon a time, she and Sarah had been flatmates in this house, when she’d first worked for Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Sarah had danced with the Vic-Wells Ballet. So much has changed, Maggie realized, and yet Sarah’s as beautiful as ever. Her friend was dark-haired and olive-skinned, tall, and slender, the sharp points of her hip bones jutting through the flowered silk of her dress. The ballet dancer made her way over.

  “Sarah!” Maggie cried over the din, giving her friend a hug, feeling the hard, ropy muscles of her back.

  “Hello, kitten!” Sarah’s voice, too, was unchanged: low, raspy, and quite sexy.

  “How are you? Did you end up staying in Arisaig?” The last time Maggie had seen Sarah was at the SOE paramilitary training camp.

  “Made it through, believe it or not.” Sarah took a sip from her glass of beer. “And I have a meeting with some people at an office on Baker Street tomorrow.”

  “Ah, the Baker Street Irregulars. I’m working there now—a little job while I wait for my sister to arrive. We’ll have to pretend not to know each other, you and I, if we should bump into one another.”

  Sarah laughed. “Oh, I know the drill now,” she assured Maggie. “And I’m sorry, but did you say—your sister?”

  “Half sister. From Berlin.” Maggie sipped her gin. “It’s, well—it’s a long story.”

  “It always is, isn’t it?”

  “That’s another reason we had the place fixed up,” Freddie interjected, catching the last bit. “David told me about your sister. We wanted you two to have a place of your own—while you get reacquainted.”

  Maggie blinked back prickly, hot tears and swallowed the rest of her gin, her throat burning. “Acquainted is more like it. We don’t exactly know each other yet.” She looked around at the party guests, who were now rolling up the rug for dancing. “My word, it’s been quite a while since we were all here together!”

  “So much has changed—and not only the décor.” Sarah gave a coquettish smile. “By the way, I too have something new in my life.”

  Maggie was desperate for some good news. “Really?
Do tell!”

  “I met someone. At Arisaig. After you left for London.”

  “Instructor? Or fellow trainee?”

  “Trainee.” Sarah’s face glowed. “He’s quite the bee’s knees.”

  “Why, Sarah Sanderson!” Maggie exclaimed. She’d known Sarah to have relationships with men over the years, but no one she’d spoken about like this. “I do believe you’re positively radiant!”

  When Sarah blushed prettily and refused to say more, Maggie scrutinized the faces of the party guests. “I don’t see Chuck,” she said, referring to another of their old flatmates: Charlotte McCaffrey, always and forever known by her nickname, Chuck. She’d married Nigel Ludlow and they’d had a son, Griffin, who was now six months old. While Nigel was serving in the RAF, Chuck was taking care of their son at their flat in Pimlico.

  “Chuck’s coming,” David insisted. “Invited her myself. She promised she’d be here, and you know she’s always true to her word. But she’s a mother now—and time and space seem to work in mysterious ways for new mums.”

  “I can’t believe John isn’t here with us,” Sarah added. “And living in Los Angeles of all places!” She leaned in toward Maggie and lowered her voice. “Did you two ever—you know—sort things out?”

  “Alas, not really,” Maggie admitted. A pang of loss echoed through her. “Our time in Washington was, shall we say, chaotic. And then, when he had the offer to work for Mr. Disney in L.A.—”

  “—it was too good to pass up,” David finished. “He’s living at the Beverly Hills Hotel, can you believe? Eating oranges and taking telephone calls poolside.” He made a face. “Prat.”

  “Flirting with horse-faced American divorcées,” Maggie added, not without bitterness.

  “Nothing happened there,” David protested. “I told you—that was a misunderstanding—”

  Freddie called out, “And here’s your other surprise!” A broad-shouldered young man appeared at her elbow, holding a ball of squirming fur. David took the animal from the man’s arms and pressed him to Maggie. “And here we have His Eminence—”

  “K! Mr. K!” Maggie squealed, handing her glass to Sarah and holding the squirming marmalade cat close.

  “—back safe and sound from his tenure at Number Ten. I’m sorry to say he absolutely terrified Nelson while he was there—Rufus, too,” David added, referring to Mr. and Mrs. Churchill’s black cat and standard poodle. “They’re not exactly sad to see him go. But now he can live here, too, with you and Elise.”

  “Darling K,” Maggie exclaimed, rubbing the top of his head. She’d adopted K—Mr. K for special occasions—during her time in Scotland. The cat had stayed at Number 10 while she was in Washington, D.C., as Freddie was allergic. She pressed him even closer.

  “Meh,” he meowed in his peculiar way, then bumped her forehead with his and rubbed his cheek on her face. She cuddled him close and stroked him, her nose in his soft fur, inhaling his warm, sweet scent.

  “Yes, I missed you, too,” she murmured as he jumped out of her arms to groom his fur on a reupholstered wing chair.

  “We’ll take you on a tour of the upstairs later. It’s completely rebuilt. I do hope Elise likes yellow—it’s what we decided on for her room.”

  “I’m sure she’ll love it. And she’ll adore you.”

  “Well, that goes without saying,” David concurred. When Freddie elbowed him, he protested, “Well, you know it’s true!”

  The man who’d appeared carrying the cat was short, but built on muscular lines, with chiseled features and sleek dark hair—with a tense jaw, darting eyes, and a cigarette dangling from his lips. He cleared his throat pointedly, and David looked over.

  “By the way, Maggie, meet Maximilian Thornton,” David said. “Max, this is Maggie Hope.”

  “The infamous Maggie Hope,” Max articulated through his cigarette, crushing her hand as he shook it. “I’ve heard a lot about you at Number Ten.”

  Maggie extricated her fingers. “Really?”

  “He’s the new John Sterling,” David explained. “While John’s away.”

  Maggie saw a flicker of annoyance in Max’s eyes. “I’m my own man,” he corrected, his English public school boy features hardening. “Did you hear about the big explosion?”

  “Hear about it? I felt it,” Maggie replied. “We figured it was another buried, undetonated bomb going off.”

  “They say it was a gas pipe explosion.” Max’s eyes were more vacant than horrified. “Landlord or someone working for him was trying to siphon off some for himself, it leaked and—boom.”

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere in Pimlico.”

  “Oh my goodness—” Maggie looked to David with wide eyes. “Chuck—Chuck and the baby are in Pimlico….”

  David patted her hand. “Oh, they’re fine. They’re practically in Westminster, after all.”

  “She’s coming tonight, right? Do you think we should telephone now? Just to make sure?”

  “Stop worrying, Mags! Shouldn’t you go make the rounds, darling? Say hello to all your guests?”

  As Maggie left, Freddie whispered to David, “I still don’t understand why she let this place out and came to live with us for so long.”

  “Well, there were some—shall we say—‘issues,’ ” David admitted, “with one of the flatmates. A woman named Paige. It’s…complicated.”

  “So you’ve said. I mean, I didn’t always get along with my suitemates at Trinity, but…”

  David glanced to Sarah, who’d been involved with all of the contretemps that had happened in the house almost two years ago. “No, not simply roommate squabbles,” Sarah clarified. Then realization hit. “Oh, David. You mean—you haven’t told him?”

  “Not the full story.” David shrugged. “You tell him.”

  “No, you!”

  “Tell me what?” Freddie insisted. “In the name of King and Country, spill!”

  Sarah rolled her eyes at David, then slipped her arm through Freddie’s. “Take a turn around the room with me, love, and I’ll fill you in on all the gory details.”

  —

  After meeting and greeting more of the guests, Maggie retreated to the kitchen on the pretext of getting another drink—but really, she needed to collect her thoughts. She glanced around: The room looked unchanged. The floor was tiled with a chessboard of black and white squares, and blackout curtains protected the windows. It had been in this very room that Maggie had first begun to feel at home in London, waiting for her coffee to brew and listening to the wireless or eating and reading a book at the wooden table. Now, as she stood at the counter, adding bitters to another glass of gin, Max Thornton entered.

  “Here, let me do it for you.” He’d rolled up his sleeves, revealing thick wrists covered in dark, matted hair.

  “It’s fine, I have it,” Maggie replied, setting the bottle down. She took a swallow of her drink. It’s not helping, she noticed with irritation.

  “You may have heard of me,” Max was saying. “I was a war correspondent in Spain, then Berlin. Fought in Norway back in ’forty, but was transferred to Intelligence, then referred to Churchill.” He gave Maggie a significant look as he moved closer, pinning her against the counter. “I can pinch-hit for John Sterling in any number of situations.”

  “Good for you.” Maggie moved away. “And also, no thank you.”

  “Are you sure?” He sounded genuinely surprised.

  “Quite.”

  “Well, well, well—how did you become such an independent young woman?”

  Maggie gave a tight smile. “I went to Wellesley College.”

  His forehead creased. “What’s that?”

  “Like Paradise Island for the Amazons.”

  He looked even more confused. Obviously he hasn’t read Wonder Woman. “It’s like St. Hilda’s at Oxford—but in the U.S.,” she explained.

  Max shook his head and poured himself the last of the gin. “Devil take you modern overeducated women,” he chided, shaking a f
inger, “a bunch of whining radical spinster tartlets, the lot of you. Speaking of which, have you heard about this new Ripper?”

  Maggie thought she’d misheard him. “What?” Then she remembered the article Brody had mentioned at the office. An SOE agent had been murdered.

  “Rumor has it there’s a killer loose in London—and he’s aping Jack the Ripper, butchering young girls.” Max leaned against the counter as if it were a bar in a pub. “The press is trying to keep it quiet for now, but of course we hear everything in the P.M.’s office. The papers have dubbed him the ‘Blackout Beast.’ ”

  Maggie felt a chill and swallowed yet more gin. It still wasn’t helping.

  “May I pour you another?”

  “No.” Maggie knew from unfortunate personal experience that too much gin, too fast, was an extremely bad idea.

  He looked disappointed. “Then why don’t we dance?”

  Dancing was the last thing she wanted to do, especially with him. “No.” Then, trying to be polite, “Thank you.”

  He stepped over and pulled her close, close enough that they were eye to eye and she could smell the alcohol on his breath. “Then how about a kiss?”

  Maggie pushed off his arm and backed away. “No!”

  He shrugged. “You say no now, but we’ll see by the end of the night.”

  Maggie had endured enough. “You need to leave.” She strode to the swinging kitchen door, then turned to face him. “Let me be quite clear—this is my house and you’re not welcome here. I’m going back to the party and you’re going to say your goodbyes. The next time I look around, you’ll be gone. Do you understand?”

  She left without waiting for his answer.

  —

  “Your new friend’s a real charmer,” Maggie remarked to David. “And by charmer, I mean snake charmer.”