if he were any more expressionless he’d be dead. She was uncomfortable, conscious that she ought be wearing her sharply pressed midnight-blue trousers and a starched white shirt, topped with her gold-trimmed blue jacket. Her brass should be gleaming, her ribbons immaculate, her star straight on her shoulder. Instead she was wearing sweat-stained fatigues and muddied boots.
She’d just finished her morning run when a stony-faced sergeant had appeared and said it was urgent and that she didn’t have time to change. He’d driven her straight from the base to the palace, where the General of San Felipe’s army had his official quarters.
Now she felt conscious of the marks on her clothing, the grime on her face. But perhaps the General would overlook her untidy appearance. Perhaps this summons was to give her the overseas mission orders she’d been waiting so long for.
But the unnatural silence spiralling in the waiting room warned her differently. This call was too soon after her last rejection. Too unexpected. And the carefully blank faces of the civilian staff present... The way they wouldn’t look her in the eye...
Slimy snakes of doubt slid down her spine.
‘Lieutenant?’ the Captain repeated sharply.
She blinked, her brain lurching back to the present. Mortified, she stood. A superior officer had never been required to repeat orders to Stella before. She stiffly followed him to the large carved door that was firmly shut. He opened it and impassively waited for her to pass through.
Stilling her nerves, Stella walked into the room, then stood to attention at a respectful distance from the desk. The heavy door behind her closed with a thud.
The uniformed man seated behind the large desk didn’t look up. He didn’t tell her to stand at ease. Didn’t tell her to sit. Didn’t tell her anything. Instead he stared down at the personnel file open before him. She knew it was hers, but kept her gaze fixed on the wall behind him—yet another portrait of the Princes. Peripherally she was aware of the man’s greying hair and that he was wearing glasses to read the report. The General had been serving in this army for almost fifty years. Other men his age would have retired already. He never would. He was there for life. Because his life was the military.
She respected that. She understood that. Because she felt the same.
‘Lieutenant.’ He finally addressed her.
‘Yes, sir.’ She saluted.
He still didn’t look up. ‘On the afternoon of July the twenty-sixth you were based at the San Felipe barracks, is that correct?’
Her stomach dropped. That date was branded on her brain.
‘I believe so, sir.’ She licked her horribly dried lips.
There was no waiting now. Her instinct had been right: this wasn’t the new mission she’d been hoping for.
‘Did you remain on the base, as required, for all that afternoon and evening?’
She swallowed hard. It had been one hour. One hour in which she’d—
No. Don’t think about it. Don’t remember.
Calling on all her years of discipline, she blocked the memories from her mind, as she’d been doing almost successfully these past few weeks. But betrayal curled around her.
Someone had told.
‘Lieutenant?’ the General prompted. ‘Did you leave the base without authorisation that day?’
These past couple of months her nerves had been at breaking point as she’d wondered—waited—to see if anything would happen as a result of that madness. But nothing had and she’d finally begun to think the danger had passed and that she’d gotten away with it.
She hadn’t.
‘July twenty-sixth,’ the General repeated. ‘Do you recall that afternoon, Lieutenant?’
‘I...’ Bleakly she realised she had no answer that she could utter aloud. She licked her lips again. ‘I was nearby. I left the boundary only for a little while.’
‘You were on call at the station. You did not have permission to leave the base.’ A cold statement of fact.
She’d climbed down the cliff and gone to the bay, only metres away. She would have heard if the sirens had gone off—they hadn’t. And she knew no one had come to her room for her because surely they’d have said something later? Wouldn’t they have asked her?
‘You had your routine medical check last week.’ The General looked down at the paperwork again.
‘Yes, sir.’ Stella swallowed, nervy and surprised by the change in topic.
‘Your bloodwork showed a problem.’
Problem? Edgily she waited, only just holding her silence, knowing her superior would inform her when he was ready and not before.
But she was fine, wasn’t she? Fit and strong. Admittedly she’d been more tired than usual on her run this morning, but other than that—
‘How long have you known you’re pregnant?’
‘What?’ Stunned, she forgot to address him formally.
‘A soldier on active duty cannot be pregnant,’ he said crisply. ‘You’ve not reported your condition to your superior officer. Another rule you’re in breach of.’
Pregnant?
‘I’m not...’ She drew a shocked, shuddering breath. ‘I can’t be...’
It was impossible. There’d only been the one encounter in that one hour. And she’d used protection.
The General’s already frosty expression turned Arctic, but Stella’s blood had frozen anyway. No way could she be pregnant. It was the one thing she’d sworn would never happen.
He held up a piece of paper. ‘The test was repeated with the second sample taken. There is no question of your condition. Do not make your exit even more ignoble.’
‘My exit?’ Uncaring of proper decorum, she grasped the back of the chair beside her, her head spinning.
This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be true. It wasn’t possible.
‘You are relieved of all duties.’ He passed judgement in an expressionless drone. ‘You went off base without permission. You concealed your condition. You are discharged from the San Felipe Armed Services, effective immediately. Upon your return to the barracks you will surrender the uniform you are wearing. All other property of the San Felipe principality has already been removed from your room and your personal belongings are packed. You will take them and leave the base. You will have ten minutes before you are considered to be trespassing and escorted off.’
Nauseating dizziness swept over her and the edges of her vision blurred. She was being booted out of the army. The only place she thought of as home. The only place she had to go. And she was pregnant.
Stella struggled to
