“Perhaps you are not aware,” Felicity said coldly, “that my position here carries the military rank of full admiral?”

“I apologize,” Fife-Simpson sputtered.

“As, indeed, you should. I expect you are also unaware that your presence in my service was pressed on me from above.”

He reddened. “Perhaps it was believed that my presence here might lend some organization and weight to this service.”

“We are quite well organized, I assure you, and we bear such sufficient weight that you might suddenly find yourself training recruits from south of Calais in how to be British officers and gentlemen. Would you enjoy that?”

“I would not,” he muttered.

“Then perhaps you could suggest a more agreeable use for your presence here?”

Fife-Simpson was suddenly at a loss for words.

“Then go back to your office, think it over, and write me a memo on the subject of how you might be more important to our purposes,” she said. “Good day.”

Fife-Simpson got up and left the room, mustering as much dignity as he could manage.

28

Later the same day, Dame Felicity presented herself at the Foreign Office and was announced to the minister. She was made to wait a half hour before being admitted to the inner sanctum, which was not alarming but customary. On entering she found the minister at his desk, reading and signing documents, ignoring her. She took a seat.

“I don’t recall asking you to sit,” Sir Oswald said, still not looking at her.

“I don’t recall being asked to stand,” Felicity replied tartly.

Now he looked up at her and put down his fountain pen. “I have, less than an hour ago, received a letter of resignation from your service of Brigadier Roger Fife-Simpson.”

“Well, the proper thing to have done would be for him to send it to me, then allow me to pass it up to you, but my relief is such that I will overlook the transgression.”

“He says you tried to have him killed,” the foreign minister said.

“Foreign minister,” Felicity said icily, “if I had tried to have him killed he would now be in a box in the churchyard at the Royal Naval College, after having been accorded full military honors.”

“I did not bring you here to joke,” he said.

“What made you think I was joking?” she asked.

Sir Oswald slammed his pen down on his desk. “Goddammit, Felicity, I will not tolerate insubordination from you!”

“Then sack me!” Felicity riposted at a similar volume. “Or leave me to stock my service with the best people, not castoff blackmailers like that horrible little man! Those are your choices, do with them as you will!”

“What do you mean, ‘blackmailer’?” Sir Oswald demanded.

“I don’t think I have to explain the term to you, Ozzie, nor to your faithful companion since your days at Eton.”

“How dare you speak to me that way!”