The Soldier Spies (Men at War 3)

“Your whisky or ours?” he asked. He correctly suspected that Canidy and Jamison had stolen four cases of whisky from the London Station.

“Now, Colonel,” Canidy said. “I thought you’d given up on that.”

“I’ll have a drink, Dick,” Stevens said. “Stolen or not.”

“What about Your Gracefulness,” Canidy said to the Duchess. “Will you have a wee nip with the peasants?”

She did not, Stevens saw, take umbrage.

“Thank you, no, Major,” she said. “It’s a bit early for me.”

“And, inspired by the example of our leader, I’m for a hot bath myself,” Whittaker announced.

“The next thing you know, he’ll be changing his underwear more than once a week,” Canidy said.

The Duchess shook her head and walked down the corridor toward the offices. Canidy led Stevens and Fine down the opposite corridor toward the Officers’ Club, and Whittaker climbed the stairs to the second floor.

Whittaker walked down a wide parquet-floored corridor to a sturdy, paneled door, unlocked it, and went in. Before the OSS had taken possession of Whitbey House, this suite of three rooms had been the apartment of the Duchess. It was now his quarters. Canidy had assigned the Duchess to less impressive rooms.

He tossed his cap and jacket on the bed and walked into the bathroom. He turned on the tap, and water began to gurgle into a huge, black marble bathtub. When there was an inch or so of water on the bottom, a smile of pleasure crossed his face, a Eureka smile, as though a smashing insight had flashed into his brain. He walked out of the bathroom and returned naked several minutes later. His flesh was not as seamless as you might have expected from his flawlessly handsome face. He had been twice wounded in the Philippines, and there were more than a dozen scars where insect and leech bites had become infected.

In one hand Whittaker held a glass and the neck of a Scotch bottle and in the other a square tin of Pear’s Finest Bubble Bath Crystals. He set the glass and the Scotch carefully on the tub rim, and then started shaking bubble-bath crystals into the now-about-half-full tub of water.

Some bubbles formed, but not enough to satisfy him. He added more salts, and finally shook the tin over the water to empty it. Then he somewhat delicately tested the water with his toe, withdrawing it quickly because it was hotter than he expected. He turned on the cold tap, and the combined hot and cold flow was sufficient to start bubbles forming. Once they had started, there seemed to be no end of them.

Whittaker’s face took on a look of almost pure pleasure. He tested the water again and again until it was the right temperature, then climbed into the tub. The bubbles concealed all of him but his head. A hand appeared, grabbed the Scotch bottle, and poured whisky into the glass. He leaned back against the end of the tub, and his other hand appeared, this time to sweep bubbles away from his face.

Someone came into the bathroom.

“Odd, you don’t look like the bubble-bath type.”

“Nothing is too good for the well-born,” Whittaker said.

“Someone like yourself?” his visitor asked, mocking.

“Kind, cheerful, obedient, reverent, et cetera,” Whittaker said solemnly. “I have all the aristocratic virtues, I just can’t remember them at the moment. ”

His visitor giggled and then thought of something.

“Where did you find the bubble bath?”

“Where do you think?” he replied.

“You bastard,” Her Grace the Duchess Stanfield said, and then she walked to the tub and picked up the tin. “You triple bastard! That was my entire supply!”

“Well, I guess there’s only one thing that can be done about that,” Whittaker said.

“Don’t tell me,” she said, genuinely annoyed. “You’ll have some air-freighted from the States.”

“What I meant was that you should take advantage of it while there’s still some left.”

“You mean, climb in there with you? You’re insane!”

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” Whittaker said. “Have you ever been diddled under the bubbles?”

“No!” she said.

He smiled wickedly at her.