(eng) Mike Shepherd - Vicky Peterwald 01 by Target

Author:Target [Target]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER 22

AS soon as the Emperor and his pregnant bride took their leave, Vicky did the same, after first paying her respects to the admiral and his wife again.

“I love your dress,” Vicky told the admiral’s wife. “Could you have your modiste come by my rooms tomorrow? I appreciate the dress my father gave me, but I’d like to make some dresses to my own likes. A gal has a right to make her own fashion statement, doesn’t she?”

“Certainly. I will call her as soon as I get home,” Mrs. Waller said.

“Good, and Admiral, would you mind it very much if I had her help me draft some formal dinner wear for a woman Navy officer? I notice that you have no women here in other than sideboy fashion.”

“No. We try to protect our young women Sailors.”

“Well, I wish to come to dinner in uniform, but I refuse to subject myself to showing up in the dumpy affair that is official policy.”

“I’m glad someone is finally telling this old boy what he needs to hear,” the admiral’s lady said, giving the admiral a not totally gentle nudge in the ribs.

“Provide me with a sketch of what you have in mind, Your Grace,” also had a strangled sound to it. Apparently, Vicky was strangling quite a few males tonight.

“I’ll see that your wife gets a copy of the sketch too, sir.”

“You do that,” came from tight lips.

Vicky figured she’d risked about all the Navy ire she dared for one night and, using the arm she was leaning on to steer her captain, she headed for the door.

There, she picked up her usual escort. The lieutenant led off with sensors, and the Marines trailed closely behind her and the captain, apparently under the impression that any small talk that they did not need to be included in had been passed on the dance floor.

“Are most dinners that energetic?” she asked her captain.

“Do you mean, do I usually end up dancing every dance?”

“Something like that.”

“Rarely. Most of the time us Marines are just ornaments. Occasionally, I get to escort one of the senior officers’ wives when the Empress requires them to be at the banquet and the officer is ‘indisposed.’”

“The Empress requires wives to come?”

“It’s something about the pecking order, I’m told. Since she can require the Navy to dance honors on her, she does. If the officer is away on business, the wife still needs an escort. I don’t know, maybe the Empress is waiting for some wife to screw up. You tell me the games being played here. They sure don’t match any of those I learned in school.”

“Believe me, the game’s been changed since I was here last, and even then, I didn’t really understand it.”

Their path turned down a long corridor. The hairs on the back of Vicky’s neck began to stand up and pay attention.

“Are the halls usually this dark around the palace? Is my old man trying to save money?”

The captain looked around warily. “It wasn’t this dark earlier in the week.

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