Elisabeth de Mornay is an agent with the British SOE.
Codename Cécile, this woman's activities take place during the latter years of the Second World War. While de Mornay is her real last name, she will also be known by several other aliases, such as Nathalie Lafontaine, Solange Verin, and Veronica Sinclair, as would befit an operative operating in the field for the SOE.
In a fascinating brief history of that organization provided by the author on her website: "[the] Special Operations Executive (SOE) officially formed on 22 July 1940, at the instigation of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, as a single organisation to conduct espionage, subversion, sabotage, and reconnaissance. He directed Hugh Dalton, the Minister of Economic Warfare and newly appointed with the political responsibility for SOE, to 'Go and set Europe ablaze'. SOE recruited agents from all classes, backgrounds and occupations, and provided rigorous training that included map reading, demolitions, weapons, Morse code, fieldcraft, and close combat. In 1942, SOE began recruiting women as field agents. They trained alongside the men, (often being used as an example to spur the men on), and were deployed behind enemy lines as wireless operators ("pianists"), couriers, and circuit organisers. SOE sent 39 women into France alone, and all but 13 of these amazing women came back."
On our initial meeting of de Mornay, she has already become seasoned in the field having "narrowly escaped a Nazi ambush" two months earlier. Almost immediately we are given an interesting glimpse into the passion and self-control of this woman when a Gestapo agent approaches her in a Paris cafe and demands to see her papers, tossing them on the floor in contempt. While on her knees to pick them up, the "goon" standing close to her head, she tells us "options ran through my mind. I could easily disable him. Even kill him". Of course, being an intelligent woman she chose to do neither but there is a little disappointment in her mind at that decision.
Another fascinating look into her nature comes shortly after her cover is blown by a French collaborator and she has to flee. A woman helping her escape hands her a couple of items to be used as needed, a Luger and a box of chocolates and admonishes, "Cécile, for once try and be subtle. Use the chocolates first."