All for you, baby
I’m going to die.
The phrase reverberated through Diana’s skull, hollowed of any emotion or thought, echoing itself in a never-ending round. Shrilly, the memory of Eleanor’s harrowing news crept between the strains of the chorus (“The Germans have her, Diana. There’s nothing anyone can do to help Meg now”), coupled with gruesome reports of Nazi war atrocities.
I’m going to die…horribly.
What exactly had possessed her to make her believe traveling to France was a good idea? What grand scheme had she conceived that would outweigh common sense and any sort of self-preservation?
At the time, she told herself she was looking for work, and escaping the bombing. Haggard refugees hardly kept an Unfortunate like herself fed, yet soldiers offered an endless supply of employment, however rough they might be-though she hadn’t anticipated the manhandling she was receiving now. But ultimately (and she had to face the fact now that she was staring death in the face), she had come as some sort of penance for how she’d treated Meg over the years. In particular, driving her to suicide.
Going limp in the soldiers’ sweaty grip, Diana whispered the persistent words aloud: “I’m going to die horribly…for Meg.”
Ignoring, or perhaps not hearing, the red-head’s resolute words, the scouting party that had seized her abruptly ground to a halt before a depressing brick building. A man bearing a weasel-like face stood perfectly rigid before the party, and the soldier at the front offered a stiff salute. Dropping her head to stare at the stones lining the ground, Diana tried not to imagine the torture she surely was about to endure.
“Standartenführer.” Diana winced as the Germans surrounding her snapped to crisp attention. The tense, silent seconds seemed to expand over hours, but finally, without warning, she was roughly grabbed by the scruff of the neck and hauled inside.
Flung into a hard wooden chair in what appeared to be a bedroom, except the walls and desk were covered in blueprints, the leader of the scouting squad told Diana in broken English that she was to wait here for the Standartenführer to come and deal with her. Judging by the sinister sneer he shot her as he turned heel to leave, Diana had not just won herself any sort of secret Nazi prize.
Schooling her frantic nerves into submission, she fleetingly considered seducing this “Standartenführer” before she remembered her oath and concentrated instead on making herself faint. Pain surely couldn’t penetrate the blissful nothing of unconsciousness, right? The door slammed open, and Diana screwed her eyes shut in a desperate, childish attempt to escape her once friend’s fate. Brisk boot steps grew closer and died just paces before her.
“I’m so sorry, Meg, I can’t do it…” she hoarsely groaned.
Silence.
“I know you’re going to kill me-”
“Diana.”
That voice. It was not only, surprisingly enough, female, but also English, and familiar. And its owner knew her name.
Jerking her head up, Diana’s eyes popped open to see Meg, fully grown and sporting an SS uniform, complete with a silver oak leaf insignia glittering on either side of her collar and a swastika emblazoned on her arm. Her face remained frustratingly blank, her gray eyes partially obscured by the artificial light glinting off her glasses. The red-head uneasily eyed the pistol at her waist.
I’m going to die horribly for Meg…at her hands.
“You’re…you’re alive.”
“So are you.”
“But Eleanor said…”
“Eleanor’s alive too?”
“She was when I spoke with her about three weeks ago.”
“And the others?”
“I…I’m afraid I don’t know,” Diana stammered, eyes still flicking to the gun, “Look, I know you must want to kill me. And I have no right to stop you.”
Meg’s face looked pained.
“But I ask you, for the sake of what you used to feel for me, to make it as painless as possible.”
“Used to…?” In a single, gracefully swift motion, Meg knelt before Diana, pushing the pistol into her hand and cupping it in both of her own.
“What?”
“Diana,” the blonde breathed, her eyes shining with tears, “I’m yours. Always. If you think something silly like the Führer or death is going to shake that, you’re sorely mistaken.”
Examining the gun in her hand, Diana tested its weight and admired the sleek shine of the black metal. Experimentally, she aimed the barrel at Meg’s forehead, just above her eyes, and cocked it, yet the younger woman’s expression didn’t change. She broke into a twisted smile.
“It is you, isn’t it?”
Diana felt sure she was the only living person who could claim she’d seen a Nazi beam.
Following the flurry of invitations to eat or rest or bathe (that last sounded particularly pleasant), Meg explained how she’d come to acquire such nice lodging and the respect of the swastika bearing soldiers quartered in the city. Though between shoveling bread in her mouth (it wasn’t like she had to keep up decorum; this was Meg) and soaking in the porcelain tub and crawling into the austere but comfortable bed, all Diana gathered was that her friend was in charge of weapons development.
“So you don’t see battle?” she asked, glancing over at what remained of the loaf on the table.
“Oh no; I’m usually at the back of the lines, you know. Standartenführer is more or less equal to a Colonel, so they don’t want to be placing me under direct fire. However, it is battle and rather dangerous.” Diana nodded absently as her head drooped and she slid away from the waking world.
Confused and disoriented, she jolted awake some time later, drenched in sweat and bound by foreign bedsheets. Frantically, she searched the room for something-anything-familiar, only to have her gaze land on Meg, who had fallen asleep sitting upright in the chair, her hat on her knee and her head tilted back, her mouth open slightly to emit short gasps of breath at regular intervals.
Even with the swastika and the oak leaf and the gun (which Diana had returned immediately, lest she murder an SS Colonel in the course of her probing her old friend’s boundaries), the figure in the chair was unmistakably an older Meg. The lines of her face were the same, at least, even if her body had grown taller and filled out, and it seemed she had taken great care to keep her hair roughly the same length as she always had (though it looked a tad longer than the last time Diana had seen her). Her glasses may very well have been the pair she’d received from Hoffman for all the red-head could tell.
Reassured, Diana lay her head back down on the standard military issued pillow and reclaimed blissful sleep.
During the course of the next two weeks, the older woman scrutinized Meg’s new life. On the very first day the blonde had sworn to return her to England any time she wished, but Diana was rather intrigued by the blonde’s decision to stay with the enemy and devise contraptions to more effectively kill her own countrymen. Besides, even though no one had seriously referred to her as Duchess for years (it was her street name), Meg still scrambled about treating her like a proper one as if she’d never aged a day past ten.
“Would you like another pillow, Diana?” she asked amiably, a marked contrast to her demeanor outside the room.
“That would be lovely,” the red-head replied, despite not really desiring the thing, “so all those soldiers out there defer to you?” That day and several before it, Diana had witnessed first hand how much power Meg wielded here; every single German in the area snapped to a rigid attention when she approached and cowered as she strode away. How little subservient Margaret could acquire such influence baffled her-not that she was complaining; shortly after her arrival the blonde had informed the troops that Diana was a down on her luck Aristocrat and was to be kept as a guest captive-yet this show of superiority tickled her.
Perhaps it was the way her steel eyes gleamed as Meg ordered a recaptured defector to be executed that fueled Diana’s decision that night.
“More or less. I told you, I’m like a Colonel. And since there’s no Generals here, I’m in charge,” the younger woman explained, retrieving a charcoal colored lump from inside a closet, “the Führer puts great stock into my inventions.”
Brushing off the implication of her friend’s personal relationship with the mastermind of the Third Reich, Diana shifted and faced the blonde.
“Meg, that chair is doing nothing for your back. You were so stiff this morning I think some of the soldiers found it amusing.”
“I doubt that.”
“Well, regardless, you deserve to spend the night in a proper bed…can’t be expected to run all of this if you’re not getting the right rest.”
“But where will you sleep?”
As an answer, Diana moved closer to the wall and lifted the blanket invitingly. Meg stared at her, face outwardly cool, but obviously distressed. No wonder; this wouldn’t have been the first time Diana had played a similar cruel joke on her.
“France is cold,” the red-head blurted, before realizing how embarrassing the first excuse that had come to mind really was.
That was what did it though; Meg broke into a grateful smile, and plopped into the chair to rip her boots from her feet. Her eager fingers got as far as her tie before Diana stopped her.
“No,” she declared forcefully, noting the crestfallen expression that washed over her friend’s face, “let me do it.”
Meg audibly gulped.
Straddling the younger woman’s lap, Diana leaned in close and began unraveling the knot in the crimson tie. From the bed, Meg’s self-control was rather inspiring, but at this range the red-head could feel her pounding heart and slight trembling.
Tie undone, Diana let it continue to hang around Meg’s neck, while running her hands across her shoulders and down her arms, which, to her utter shock, sported some rather impressive musculature. Meg grunted, and the powerfully built limbs snapped shut around Diana’s waist, pulling her flush against the SS uniform, while the blonde hungrily kissed her. Both aghast and pleased at this development, the red-head idly wondered where her friend had learned to use her tongue that way-until she remembered where the woman had been stationed.
She had made the right decision.
Unexpectedly standing then, Meg carried her the short distance to the bed, where she threw Diana down and climbed on top of her, refocusing her attack on the pale neck. Affronted-she was supposed to be in charge of this, not Meg!-the red-head lunged forward to flip the blonde, but the Standartenführer’s strength far surpassed her own and she remained helpless beneath her.
This would not do.
Altering her tactics, Diana’s hand crept between their bodies and began fumbling with Meg’s belt buckle, managing to unhook it. Her fingers sought out the tell-tale wetness (and Lord, Meg was dripping), and grinning evilly, she slid two digits inside.
Taking advantage of the opportune drop in guard and savoring the pleased gasp her actions elicited, Diana wrestled Meg onto her back and planted herself firmly on the blonde’s pelvis.
“Let’s get something straight, dear,” the Duchess growled, “you may be the Standartenführer here, but to me you’re still just a Baroness.”
Meg nodded meekly.
“I outrank you. And that means I’m on top. Always.”
Another nod.
“Any questions?”
A solemn shake of the head. Satisfied, Diana shifted her weight to lean back slightly, and was caught off balance as Meg surged upward and toppled her, wrenching up her skirt in the process.
“Forgive my insolence, Duchess,” she whispered huskily, face hovering above the unruly patch of red hair not on her idol’s head, before reminding Diana how skilled she’d gotten with that tongue of hers.
At first in half-hearted retaliation, the older woman thrashed wildly, but before long she succumbed to the rhythmic cadence Meg had set-and just as quickly found herself back to violent writhing.
The orgasm left her drained and shivering, but didn’t stop her from tackling Meg when she noticed her self-satisfied smirk. Someone had to teach the woman that she was to obey the rules.
Diana woke the next morning in the dim predawn, and once again found the blonde in the wooden seat, but instead of sleeping fitfully, she was pulling on her smart black boots. She appeared startled when she found Diana studying her.
“You’re awake.”
“So are you.”
It was understandable that they would be a bit awkward around each other; in a rare moment of weakness, Diana had allowed Meg to unwrap the bandage covering her right thigh and find the scar. For all their years of what could loosely be termed friendship, the blonde had never truly realized what Mr. Hoffman had done to her Duchess-she’d seen him affectionately stroke her, of course, but he did that with Clara too, and she’d always assumed that once you got older the adults allowed you into some sort of secret circle where physical friendliness was welcomed. Obviously the jealous pangs she experienced were undeserved.
And she’d never had an inkling that Diana had once attempted suicide shortly after having her virginity ripped away from her.
“I was going to cut it out,” the red-head had explained as Meg’s finger traced the shadow of a deep gash in the soft flesh, “and bleed to death. I even thought about taking you with me, so he’d never touch you, but Martha found me before I finished.”
Since they were being so intimate, Meg told her all about her endless stream of lovers-each one a surrogate for what she wanted with Diana-and about how she’d driven every single one to leave her with demands that they don leather lace-up boots or dye their hair red or purchase green ties.
The idea that someone’s hands besides her own had caressed her Baroness’s flesh caused a painful, nauseous stab even now. Similar to the apologetic look Meg offered as she slowly dressed.
“Orders from Berlin,” she stated, “I’m to lead an attack with my new prototype today.”
Silence.
“Feel free to remain here until I return. Those holding the base are to continue to treat you as they do now,” Meg sighed as she rose and turned toward the exit. When she attempted to step forward, however, she found that Diana had materialized behind her, grasping her uniform in white-knuckled fists and pressing herself into the younger woman’s back.
“Don’t leave me. Not again. Don’t leave me…” she repeated in desperate whispers while Meg tried to beat back the burning behind her eyes that heralded bitter tears.
“Meg,” Diana suddenly said aloud in a firm voice, “I wish to return to England.” In lieu of an answer, the blonde grasped her hand and led her swiftly and urgently through the tangle of barracks in the camp toward the airplane hangar. After that show of defiance last night, it seemed that Meg was not quite so changed after all.
“You’d put a bullet through your head if I asked you to, wouldn’t you?” The Baroness turned to her with a rueful smile.
“What do you think you’re asking of me now?”
---------------------
Happy New Year, everyone!
The phrase reverberated through Diana’s skull, hollowed of any emotion or thought, echoing itself in a never-ending round. Shrilly, the memory of Eleanor’s harrowing news crept between the strains of the chorus (“The Germans have her, Diana. There’s nothing anyone can do to help Meg now”), coupled with gruesome reports of Nazi war atrocities.
I’m going to die…horribly.
What exactly had possessed her to make her believe traveling to France was a good idea? What grand scheme had she conceived that would outweigh common sense and any sort of self-preservation?
At the time, she told herself she was looking for work, and escaping the bombing. Haggard refugees hardly kept an Unfortunate like herself fed, yet soldiers offered an endless supply of employment, however rough they might be-though she hadn’t anticipated the manhandling she was receiving now. But ultimately (and she had to face the fact now that she was staring death in the face), she had come as some sort of penance for how she’d treated Meg over the years. In particular, driving her to suicide.
Going limp in the soldiers’ sweaty grip, Diana whispered the persistent words aloud: “I’m going to die horribly…for Meg.”
Ignoring, or perhaps not hearing, the red-head’s resolute words, the scouting party that had seized her abruptly ground to a halt before a depressing brick building. A man bearing a weasel-like face stood perfectly rigid before the party, and the soldier at the front offered a stiff salute. Dropping her head to stare at the stones lining the ground, Diana tried not to imagine the torture she surely was about to endure.
“Standartenführer.” Diana winced as the Germans surrounding her snapped to crisp attention. The tense, silent seconds seemed to expand over hours, but finally, without warning, she was roughly grabbed by the scruff of the neck and hauled inside.
Flung into a hard wooden chair in what appeared to be a bedroom, except the walls and desk were covered in blueprints, the leader of the scouting squad told Diana in broken English that she was to wait here for the Standartenführer to come and deal with her. Judging by the sinister sneer he shot her as he turned heel to leave, Diana had not just won herself any sort of secret Nazi prize.
Schooling her frantic nerves into submission, she fleetingly considered seducing this “Standartenführer” before she remembered her oath and concentrated instead on making herself faint. Pain surely couldn’t penetrate the blissful nothing of unconsciousness, right? The door slammed open, and Diana screwed her eyes shut in a desperate, childish attempt to escape her once friend’s fate. Brisk boot steps grew closer and died just paces before her.
“I’m so sorry, Meg, I can’t do it…” she hoarsely groaned.
Silence.
“I know you’re going to kill me-”
“Diana.”
That voice. It was not only, surprisingly enough, female, but also English, and familiar. And its owner knew her name.
Jerking her head up, Diana’s eyes popped open to see Meg, fully grown and sporting an SS uniform, complete with a silver oak leaf insignia glittering on either side of her collar and a swastika emblazoned on her arm. Her face remained frustratingly blank, her gray eyes partially obscured by the artificial light glinting off her glasses. The red-head uneasily eyed the pistol at her waist.
I’m going to die horribly for Meg…at her hands.
“You’re…you’re alive.”
“So are you.”
“But Eleanor said…”
“Eleanor’s alive too?”
“She was when I spoke with her about three weeks ago.”
“And the others?”
“I…I’m afraid I don’t know,” Diana stammered, eyes still flicking to the gun, “Look, I know you must want to kill me. And I have no right to stop you.”
Meg’s face looked pained.
“But I ask you, for the sake of what you used to feel for me, to make it as painless as possible.”
“Used to…?” In a single, gracefully swift motion, Meg knelt before Diana, pushing the pistol into her hand and cupping it in both of her own.
“What?”
“Diana,” the blonde breathed, her eyes shining with tears, “I’m yours. Always. If you think something silly like the Führer or death is going to shake that, you’re sorely mistaken.”
Examining the gun in her hand, Diana tested its weight and admired the sleek shine of the black metal. Experimentally, she aimed the barrel at Meg’s forehead, just above her eyes, and cocked it, yet the younger woman’s expression didn’t change. She broke into a twisted smile.
“It is you, isn’t it?”
Diana felt sure she was the only living person who could claim she’d seen a Nazi beam.
Following the flurry of invitations to eat or rest or bathe (that last sounded particularly pleasant), Meg explained how she’d come to acquire such nice lodging and the respect of the swastika bearing soldiers quartered in the city. Though between shoveling bread in her mouth (it wasn’t like she had to keep up decorum; this was Meg) and soaking in the porcelain tub and crawling into the austere but comfortable bed, all Diana gathered was that her friend was in charge of weapons development.
“So you don’t see battle?” she asked, glancing over at what remained of the loaf on the table.
“Oh no; I’m usually at the back of the lines, you know. Standartenführer is more or less equal to a Colonel, so they don’t want to be placing me under direct fire. However, it is battle and rather dangerous.” Diana nodded absently as her head drooped and she slid away from the waking world.
Confused and disoriented, she jolted awake some time later, drenched in sweat and bound by foreign bedsheets. Frantically, she searched the room for something-anything-familiar, only to have her gaze land on Meg, who had fallen asleep sitting upright in the chair, her hat on her knee and her head tilted back, her mouth open slightly to emit short gasps of breath at regular intervals.
Even with the swastika and the oak leaf and the gun (which Diana had returned immediately, lest she murder an SS Colonel in the course of her probing her old friend’s boundaries), the figure in the chair was unmistakably an older Meg. The lines of her face were the same, at least, even if her body had grown taller and filled out, and it seemed she had taken great care to keep her hair roughly the same length as she always had (though it looked a tad longer than the last time Diana had seen her). Her glasses may very well have been the pair she’d received from Hoffman for all the red-head could tell.
Reassured, Diana lay her head back down on the standard military issued pillow and reclaimed blissful sleep.
During the course of the next two weeks, the older woman scrutinized Meg’s new life. On the very first day the blonde had sworn to return her to England any time she wished, but Diana was rather intrigued by the blonde’s decision to stay with the enemy and devise contraptions to more effectively kill her own countrymen. Besides, even though no one had seriously referred to her as Duchess for years (it was her street name), Meg still scrambled about treating her like a proper one as if she’d never aged a day past ten.
“Would you like another pillow, Diana?” she asked amiably, a marked contrast to her demeanor outside the room.
“That would be lovely,” the red-head replied, despite not really desiring the thing, “so all those soldiers out there defer to you?” That day and several before it, Diana had witnessed first hand how much power Meg wielded here; every single German in the area snapped to a rigid attention when she approached and cowered as she strode away. How little subservient Margaret could acquire such influence baffled her-not that she was complaining; shortly after her arrival the blonde had informed the troops that Diana was a down on her luck Aristocrat and was to be kept as a guest captive-yet this show of superiority tickled her.
Perhaps it was the way her steel eyes gleamed as Meg ordered a recaptured defector to be executed that fueled Diana’s decision that night.
“More or less. I told you, I’m like a Colonel. And since there’s no Generals here, I’m in charge,” the younger woman explained, retrieving a charcoal colored lump from inside a closet, “the Führer puts great stock into my inventions.”
Brushing off the implication of her friend’s personal relationship with the mastermind of the Third Reich, Diana shifted and faced the blonde.
“Meg, that chair is doing nothing for your back. You were so stiff this morning I think some of the soldiers found it amusing.”
“I doubt that.”
“Well, regardless, you deserve to spend the night in a proper bed…can’t be expected to run all of this if you’re not getting the right rest.”
“But where will you sleep?”
As an answer, Diana moved closer to the wall and lifted the blanket invitingly. Meg stared at her, face outwardly cool, but obviously distressed. No wonder; this wouldn’t have been the first time Diana had played a similar cruel joke on her.
“France is cold,” the red-head blurted, before realizing how embarrassing the first excuse that had come to mind really was.
That was what did it though; Meg broke into a grateful smile, and plopped into the chair to rip her boots from her feet. Her eager fingers got as far as her tie before Diana stopped her.
“No,” she declared forcefully, noting the crestfallen expression that washed over her friend’s face, “let me do it.”
Meg audibly gulped.
Straddling the younger woman’s lap, Diana leaned in close and began unraveling the knot in the crimson tie. From the bed, Meg’s self-control was rather inspiring, but at this range the red-head could feel her pounding heart and slight trembling.
Tie undone, Diana let it continue to hang around Meg’s neck, while running her hands across her shoulders and down her arms, which, to her utter shock, sported some rather impressive musculature. Meg grunted, and the powerfully built limbs snapped shut around Diana’s waist, pulling her flush against the SS uniform, while the blonde hungrily kissed her. Both aghast and pleased at this development, the red-head idly wondered where her friend had learned to use her tongue that way-until she remembered where the woman had been stationed.
She had made the right decision.
Unexpectedly standing then, Meg carried her the short distance to the bed, where she threw Diana down and climbed on top of her, refocusing her attack on the pale neck. Affronted-she was supposed to be in charge of this, not Meg!-the red-head lunged forward to flip the blonde, but the Standartenführer’s strength far surpassed her own and she remained helpless beneath her.
This would not do.
Altering her tactics, Diana’s hand crept between their bodies and began fumbling with Meg’s belt buckle, managing to unhook it. Her fingers sought out the tell-tale wetness (and Lord, Meg was dripping), and grinning evilly, she slid two digits inside.
Taking advantage of the opportune drop in guard and savoring the pleased gasp her actions elicited, Diana wrestled Meg onto her back and planted herself firmly on the blonde’s pelvis.
“Let’s get something straight, dear,” the Duchess growled, “you may be the Standartenführer here, but to me you’re still just a Baroness.”
Meg nodded meekly.
“I outrank you. And that means I’m on top. Always.”
Another nod.
“Any questions?”
A solemn shake of the head. Satisfied, Diana shifted her weight to lean back slightly, and was caught off balance as Meg surged upward and toppled her, wrenching up her skirt in the process.
“Forgive my insolence, Duchess,” she whispered huskily, face hovering above the unruly patch of red hair not on her idol’s head, before reminding Diana how skilled she’d gotten with that tongue of hers.
At first in half-hearted retaliation, the older woman thrashed wildly, but before long she succumbed to the rhythmic cadence Meg had set-and just as quickly found herself back to violent writhing.
The orgasm left her drained and shivering, but didn’t stop her from tackling Meg when she noticed her self-satisfied smirk. Someone had to teach the woman that she was to obey the rules.
Diana woke the next morning in the dim predawn, and once again found the blonde in the wooden seat, but instead of sleeping fitfully, she was pulling on her smart black boots. She appeared startled when she found Diana studying her.
“You’re awake.”
“So are you.”
It was understandable that they would be a bit awkward around each other; in a rare moment of weakness, Diana had allowed Meg to unwrap the bandage covering her right thigh and find the scar. For all their years of what could loosely be termed friendship, the blonde had never truly realized what Mr. Hoffman had done to her Duchess-she’d seen him affectionately stroke her, of course, but he did that with Clara too, and she’d always assumed that once you got older the adults allowed you into some sort of secret circle where physical friendliness was welcomed. Obviously the jealous pangs she experienced were undeserved.
And she’d never had an inkling that Diana had once attempted suicide shortly after having her virginity ripped away from her.
“I was going to cut it out,” the red-head had explained as Meg’s finger traced the shadow of a deep gash in the soft flesh, “and bleed to death. I even thought about taking you with me, so he’d never touch you, but Martha found me before I finished.”
Since they were being so intimate, Meg told her all about her endless stream of lovers-each one a surrogate for what she wanted with Diana-and about how she’d driven every single one to leave her with demands that they don leather lace-up boots or dye their hair red or purchase green ties.
The idea that someone’s hands besides her own had caressed her Baroness’s flesh caused a painful, nauseous stab even now. Similar to the apologetic look Meg offered as she slowly dressed.
“Orders from Berlin,” she stated, “I’m to lead an attack with my new prototype today.”
Silence.
“Feel free to remain here until I return. Those holding the base are to continue to treat you as they do now,” Meg sighed as she rose and turned toward the exit. When she attempted to step forward, however, she found that Diana had materialized behind her, grasping her uniform in white-knuckled fists and pressing herself into the younger woman’s back.
“Don’t leave me. Not again. Don’t leave me…” she repeated in desperate whispers while Meg tried to beat back the burning behind her eyes that heralded bitter tears.
“Meg,” Diana suddenly said aloud in a firm voice, “I wish to return to England.” In lieu of an answer, the blonde grasped her hand and led her swiftly and urgently through the tangle of barracks in the camp toward the airplane hangar. After that show of defiance last night, it seemed that Meg was not quite so changed after all.
“You’d put a bullet through your head if I asked you to, wouldn’t you?” The Baroness turned to her with a rueful smile.
“What do you think you’re asking of me now?”
---------------------
Happy New Year, everyone!