Read The UnTied Kingdom for Free Online Page A

me,’ Eve said, as loftily as she could manage, and started hopping again.
    ‘I have to warn you,’ he said from behind her, ‘the office’ll be full of men who only get to see women in baggy khaki. Hope you don’t mind being stared at.’
    Eve looked down at her t-shirt, which was tight and pink, and said, ‘I’ve appeared on stage in hot pants and feathers in front of ten thousand people. I can deal with a couple of soldiers.’
    ‘Hot pants?’
    ‘Yeah. They were lime green.’ She shuddered. ‘Goodness knows who thought that one up.’ And she didn’t know how she’d had the nerve to wear things like that. The last time Eve had seen her thighs they’d been in no condition to mince around at the end of a pair of hot pants.
    Of course, as she recalled it the hot pants had been Louisa Butcher’s idea. Louisa, who’d always had photogenically perfect legs. Eve had always suspected she did it on purpose.
    ‘What stage was this?’ Will asked, as she reached the top of the flight, and he pointed round the corner to the next one.
    ‘Uh. I can’t actually remember. I think it was the European tour.’
    ‘Recent?’
    ‘No, Grrl Power broke up five years ago. You really don’t listen to pop music, do you?’
    ‘Nope,’ Will said. ‘Was this the tour that took in the not-capital-of-Denmark?’
    ‘Copenhagen is the capital,’ Eve said, rolling her eyes and smiling to herself.
    ‘It is not!’
    ‘Look, have you been there?’
    ‘No, but–’
    ‘Well, I have.’ She turned and stuck her tongue out at him. ‘So ner.’
    ‘That’s mature,’ Will said, but he was smiling.
    Eve reached the top of the stairs and he stepped around her to open the door there, into a large, busy room full of people poring over large maps or reading thick sheaves of paper. It reminded Eve of a lot of the offices she’d temped in, only in this one, everyone was in khaki, and there were no computers. Maybe that wasn’t ‘military’.
    Several people, men and women, nodded to Will as he entered the room and made for a desk piled excruciatingly high with paperwork, and plenty of the men did, indeed, give Eve a thorough up-and-down that made Will grin.
    Then something caught his eye, and his grin faded.
    A man was making his way over to them, and Eve hoped like hell this wasn’t Major Harker, because he had a smile that made her feel vaguely queasy. His eyes had an odd flat look to them, and they darted around like those of a lizard.
    ‘Sir,’ he said, and his voice had the cakey, whining quality of someone who has spent too long trying to ingratiate themselves. He smiled a sickly smile, a lizard smile, and Will’s face grew grimmer.
    Thank goodness he was subordinate to Will. If this guy had turned out to be Harker, Eve would have jumped out of the window.
    ‘Sholt,’ Will said shortly. ‘Heard you were back.’
    ‘Indeed, sir,’ Sholt said, and Eve half-expected him to start twisting his hands and declaring that he was ‘ever so ’umble’, like Dickens’ two-faced character, Uriah Heep. ‘Transferred to the 75th this week, sir.’
    ‘Heard that, too,’ Will said.
    ‘Put a special request in, sir. Wheeler saw to it, sir. Heard C Company is in need of a captain, sir, now old Captain Smith has gone to Basic Training.’
    Will’s gaze travelled slowly to the pips on Sholt’s shoulder. There were three. Deliberately, he took off his greatcoat, and Eve could see the rank insignia on his jacket. One crown. She didn’t know what that meant, but it was still a higher rank than Sholt, it had to be, or else why was Sholt calling Will ‘sir’?
    ‘I will take a captain from Lieutenant-Colonel Green’s command, or Major Dennison’s,’ Will said in a low voice that was so full of anger and menace that Eve had a sudden yen to hide behind something heavy. The man who’d looked strong and capable five minutes ago looked big and downright frightening now. ‘I will promote from within the ranks. I will take a rat off