A Regimental Affair Read Online Free Page B

the kitchen to check on the potatoes dauphinoise when she heard her husband’s key click in the lock. She decided the potatoes could manage on their own for a few more minutes and crossed the hall to greet him as he walked through the front door.
    She offered her cheek for Bob to kiss and said, ‘Bob, you’ll never guess what Megan has done now.’
    ‘Hmm?’ Bob took off his beret, kissed her and dumped his case on the hall table.
    ‘Bob?’ Bob wasn’t usually this distracted when he came home.
    ‘Sorry, dear. Just had some news from the brigade commander today.’
    ‘Oh?’ Megan’s hair was sidelined.
    ‘Let me get changed and I’ll tell you.’
    Alice watched her husband make his way up the stairs. Whatever the news was, it sounded as if it might be rather serious. She wondered what it could be.
    Over the course of their meal she recounted Miss Pink’s telephone call and tried to put her curiosity to the back of her mind. Bob didn’t seem that concerned, and his only reaction was to comment that it would grow out soon enough. Alice changed tack and prattled on about her day – the boxes she had unpacked, the way she was arranging Megan’s room, the disagreement she’d had with their cleaner. She would return to the subject of Megan when Bob had less on his mind and could be relied upon to take a more appropriate stance. In the meantime, she had tired of waiting for Bob to tell her the news which was obviously bothering him.
    ‘So,’ said Alice as she placed her knife and fork together in the centre of her plate. ‘Are you going to tell me what is on your mind?’
    Bob sighed. Not a good sign , thought Alice.
    ‘I had two pieces of news today. One good, one not so good.’
    Alice moved her plate a few inches further on to the table and rested her wrists on the edge. The ‘not so good’ bit sounded as though it was going to be rather worse than that.
    ‘The good news is that Virginia Turner is being posted in as regimental admin officer. She arrives next week.’
    ‘Oh, that will be nice,’ said Alice noncommittally. She struggled to remember who on earth Virginia Turner was. Bob had obviously come across her before and thought well of her, but the name didn’t mean much to Alice. She gave up and admitted defeat. ‘Have I met her?’
    ‘Yes. Of course you have. She babysat for us a couple of times when Megan was little.’
    ‘Oh, goodness.’ Alice remembered now. ‘Ginny.’
    ‘Yes, Ginny,’ said Bob, with a smile.
    Alice tried to look pleased, but she didn’t think that this was good news at all. Frankly she hadn’t much liked Ginny. In her opinion, she’d been a bit fast and she’d suspected that Miss Turner had been more than a little free with her favours. Yes, Bob had thought highly of her then, perhaps too highly. He’d certainly talked enough about her; her skiing, her windsurfing, her adventurous training expedition to the Andes. She tried not to let her feelings show. ‘Still Turner,’ Alice observed snakily. ‘So, not married then? I would have thought she might have settled down a bit by now.’
    ‘Well, I don’t think settling down is Ginny’s style, do you? I can’t see her with a brood of kids and a pile of ironing.’
    Alice, slightly nettled because her husband had just – albeit unwittingly – belittled her homemaking skills, was about to make a bitchy comment about Ginny not being able to catch a man, when she thought better of it. Even Alice knew that all the single officers (and, she suspected, some of the married ones) had been panting after Ginny when their paths had last crossed, and she didn’t think that things would have changed so very much in the intervening years. She’d been a stunner then and probably still was.
    With an effort, Alice smiled. ‘No, you’re right, dear. Children and ironing wouldn’t be up Ginny’s street at all.’
    ‘On the downside, we had some not-so-good news.’
    Alice waited expectantly. She raised her eyebrows