Empire and Honor (Honor Bound 7)

“No, ma’am.”

“Jimmy, do you think it’s all right for someone to hide something . . . something of value? Something that’s yours?”

“Hide it from whom?”

“Right now, Major Connell. Maybe, probably, later from this Colonel Mattingly he’s so afraid of.”

“No. If it’s yours, you should have the right to hide it from anybody you please. But I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“When I took off my clothing to take my bath, I looked at it, and realized I never would have to wear it again.”

Cronley had a quick mental image of her standing naked beside the bathtub, looking down at her discarded clothing.

Picture changing bogies and tracks in the mud, Stupid!

“No reason that you would have to,” he said.

“What I wanted to do was burn it, burn it all.”

“No problem, Frau von Wachtstein. Give it to me and I’ll burn it.”

“If I’m to call you Jimmy, why don’t you call me Elsa?”

“All right, give me your old clothes, Elsa, and I’ll burn them.”

“Come with me,” she said, and led him through the connecting door to the Goethe Suite.

When they had been shown the Goethe Suite by the manager, Cronley was shown only the sitting room. Elsa now led him into the bedroom, and through that into the bathroom.

She pointed at a pile of discarded clothing—her overcoat, blouse, skirt, and sweater—on the floor. On top were a gray and well-worn brassiere and a pair of gray baggy underpants. He saw that the elastic waistband of the underpants had been replaced with what looked like two shoelaces tied together.

No wonder she wanted to get rid of this crap and burn it!

“I’ll get it,” he said.

“I forgot to ask for underwear when we were at the clothing place, or the PX,” Elsa said. “Could you . . . ?”

“I don’t know about the PX. But I’m sure they have it at the clothing store. We’ll just have to go back.”

The first thing Cronley thought was that the underwear in the clothing store was probably going to be olive drab.

Well, maybe white.

Then he suddenly thought: Jesus Christ! If she didn’t have any underwear to put on, that

means she’s not wearing anything under her uniform.

“Could we?” Elsa asked.

“Certainly,” Jimmy said. “We can go back there right now if you’d like.”

Of course she’d like,Stupid.

She’s naked under her uniform.

He bent over, intending to scoop up her discarded clothing.

“Wait,” she said. “There’s a problem there.”