From Fitzroy's Private Diary (Extract 141)

I was sitting in a comfortable wingback chair, quietly sipping a brandy in my club a few weeks back. I’d dined on a particular fine steak and was listening to the other gentlemen talking. I was in state of profound contentment; sated, peaceful, relatively unobserved, and casually taking in a great deal of overheard intelligence.

Don’t ever let it be said that only ladies gossip. Old boys, entrenched in their lair, will gossip just as well as any fishwife. Of course, for the most part, they regard this as exchanging business news. Also, egos are in play, and more than once I’ve gathered vital information because someone felt it necessity to loudly boast about their accomplishments.

I rather imagine civil servants do exactly the same in their own clubs – except, for some strange reason, I always imagine them knitting, and drinking tea, rather than enjoying the brandy and cigars of my own club. Alice tells me that her club is full of ladies debating the latest and most provocative issues of the day. I’m quite sure I would prefer her club to mine.

I was almost dozing under the influence of supper when I heard the name Emelia Fitzgerald. My ears perked up as I’d heard this name whispered in my own circles. It seems that a rather wealthy young widow has appeared on the social scene. She doesn’t seem connected to anyone important yet has managed to get a number of invitations from society hostesses.

Generally, such happenings would not draw my department’s attention, but this is almost unheard of.  She speaks with a voice that’s been trained to fit in with the best of the best, but it’s not her natural accent. It’s been well done, and very few people, except outstanding linguists such as myself, would ever really notice. It suggests she’s not what she purports to be: a genuine British lady.

However, she was under observation for a while - not by me - and it was determined that she appeared to be quite harmless. But then, my colleagues are always far too willing to write off the fairer sex as insignificant.

It’s been on my list of things to do, to seek her out and ascertain the truth, but it’s hardly a priority. It would be quite something if our enemies could, or even would, insert an unknown woman right into the heart of the upper echelons of British society. It makes much more sense, and is far less conspicuous, to recruit someone who already has connections.

Anyway, I heard some old duffer moaning about ‘that Fitzgerald woman’ as she’s apparently got herself betrothed to one of our more eligible bachelors. The biggest issue is that this bachelor is but a callow youth, and Emelia Fitzgerald is at least ten years his senior. Such things do happen, of course, but women generally lie about their age, and we generally have the decently to pretend to believe them. Her betrothed is hardly out of school, and she is clearly a woman of the world.

I can fully understand how such a young man could become besotted with an experienced, and presumably attractive, older woman, but for his relatives not to be vocally outspoken against such a match is nothing short of remarkable.

I can’t exactly claim that this is vital to the business of the Crown, but I’m intrigued. I may have to move Mrs Fitzgerald up my list of things - or people - to do.