Saintly female in charge in place of a couple of gentlemen (8)
I believe the answer is:
veronica
'of a couple of gentlemen' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this definition defines the answer.
'saintly female in charge in' is the wordplay.
'saintly female' becomes 'verona' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'in charge' becomes 'ic' (abbreviation for 'in charge').
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'verona' placed around 'ic' is 'VERONICA'.
'place' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for veronica that I've seen before include "Girl" , "Saint who wiped Christ's face on the Via Dolorosa" , "Plant with spikes of blue or purple" , "Blue / purple flowering plant" , "Blue-flowered plant in a cover, oddly" .)