The Princess

by Jude Deveraux

  The next thing he knew someone was yelling “Ready!” in his ear. He came awake suddenly, sitting upright and thinking there was another ammo fire. It took him a moment to get his bearings.

  The princess was lying beside him, wearing some frilly pink thing, her fists clenched at her side, her legs stiff—in fact her whole body was so rigid she could have been made out of steel. It took him a minute to understand that she expected him to ravish her. He had never seen anything as undesirable in his life as this cold, unfeeling woman.

  He didn’t know whether to laugh or rage at her. It made him angry that she seemed to have successfully reduced him to her idea of a primitive male who wouldn’t be able to control himself at the sight of a beautiful female in his bed wearing a low-cut, gossamer-thin nightgown that clung to and outlined every one of her not-inconsiderable curves.

  The next thing he knew he was yelling at her.

  Her expression didn’t change—after all marble didn’t move. She got up from the bed and left the room.

  Immediately, he had felt guilty, as if he had done something wrong. He turned on his stomach and punched his pillow with his fist. If she would just smile at him, just show him that she could be human. If she could be human, that is. It took him awhile before he could go back to sleep.

  Now, he looked at the clock and knew it was time to get up. Maybe he had dreamed the whole thing. Maybe he wasn’t married to the haughty princess after all. Maybe he was just plain Lieutenant Montgomery and not Public Enemy Number One.

  * * *

  At nine the next morning Aria looked up as Lieutenant Montgomery emerged from the bedroom, still wearing his rumpled uniform, his jaw now black with whiskers. He looked like a pirate.

  “It’s true then,” he mumbled, looking at her with eyelids still heavy with sleep. “I thought maybe I dreamed all of it.”

  She rose from the couch, not letting him see her stiffness.

  “About last night…” he began.

  She started past him toward the bathroom.

  He caught her arm and pulled her around to face him. “Maybe last night I was a little too harsh. The brass kept me awake for hours, then when I finally got to sleep I get a call saying you’re in jail.”

  She looked at him with cold eyes.

  “Is that what you stole?” he asked, his voice lowering, one hand moving to touch her shoulder. “It’s nice.”

  “It is a—as I believe you called it—‘silly’ garment.” She moved away from him but he grabbed the long, flowing skirt of her negligée.

  “I’m trying to tell you that I’m sorry about last night. You could have been Rita Hayworth and I wouldn’t have touched you. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  “You did not,” she lied, chin up. “I merely misunderstood the situation. If you will release me and allow me to dress, we can get started on my learning to be an American.”

  “Sure,” he said with anger. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner you can get your kingdom and I can go back to controlling my own life.”

  She did not slam the bathroom door; she was able to control herself that much. She looked at herself in the mirror. Was she so unattractive? Perhaps her nighttime braid was too tight, perhaps she didn’t look so young and carefree as the pretty American girls she saw, but was she really so undesirable?

  She dressed in a simple little Mainbocher suit: slim skirt, padded shoulders, a little veiled hat perched over her left eye. She had a devil of a time with the seams in the hose but she managed at last.

  Lieutenant Montgomery was lounging in a chair when she emerged. “Finally,” he muttered, barely looking at her before entering the bathroom.

  He emerged shaved and showered, a towel around his waist. Aria left the room.

  He started lecturing her the moment they left the suite. He showed her how to use the room key, and the elevator. He lectured her about menus and American waiters. They ate breakfast and he said nothing to her that wasn’t a criticism: she was holding her fork in the wrong hand, she was to use her hands to eat her bread and not cut it with a knife and fork, she was not allowed to return her eggs, which she had ordered soft-boiled and received scrambled. And in between his corrections he handed her change and told her how to count it, laying little piles of coins on the tablecloth and making her total the amounts in her head between bites. He was ready to leave when she was only half finished.

  “We haven’t got all day,” he said, pulling back her chair. “Every American should know about the nation’s capital.”

  He made a telephone call then half pulled her along to a waiting military car.

  All day they went sightseeing. He dragged her through one building after another, lectured her on the history of the place, then impatiently waited while she got back into the car and they were off again. When they were in the car, he told her about glorious American women who had died for their country, women who were afraid of nothing, women who lived for their men. He seemed especially taken with someone named Dolley Madison.

  “What’s that?” Aria asked just as he was shoving her back into the car after seeing a statue of someone named Lincoln.

  “It’s a drugstore. Come on, let’s go. We still got the Smithsonian to go to and the Library of Congress.”

  “What are they drinking?”

  “Cokes. We don’t have time for lollygagging, let’s go.”

  Aria watched the drugstore until it was out of sight. How she would like to do something pleasant.

  At the Smithsonian, they met Heather. She was a plump little blonde who came hurrying around a corner and nearly ran into them.

  “Excuse me,” she said, then the next moment she squealed and said, “J.T.!” She dropped the leather portfolio she was carrying, threw her arms around J.T., and kissed him passionately.

  Aria stood by and watched without much interest except to note that Americans acted this way on public streets.

  “J.T., honey, I’ve missed you so much. How long are you in town? Let’s do the town tonight. Then later we can go back to my place. My roommates can leave us alone for a few hours. What do you say?”

  “Baby, there’s nothing I’d like better. You don’t know how good it is to see a woman smile at me. The last few days of my life have been sheer hell.”

  Aria walked away at that. She didn’t halt when J.T. yelled, “Wait a minute!”

  He caught up with her, holding Aria’s arm with one hand and the blonde’s with the other.

  “J.T., who is this?” the blonde demanded.

  “This is Prin…I mean—” He looked at Aria. “What is your name?”

  “Victoria Jura Aria Cilean Xenita.”

  After a moment’s pause, J.T. said, “Yeah, that’s right. Vicky. And this is Heather Addison.”

  “Aria,” she corrected. “My family calls me Aria.”

  Heather looked at J.T. suspiciously. “And what do you call her?”

  Aria smiled sweetly. “Wife,” she said.

  Heather gave J.T.’s cheek a resounding slap then turned on her heel and walked away.

  “Stay here,” he ordered Aria, and took off after Heather.

  Aria smiled to herself and felt good for the first time in days. It had been very nice to see that man slapped. Across the street was one of those drugstores. She waited for the light just as J.T. had instructed her then crossed the street and went into the store. Several people, young men in uniform and girls in thick socks and brown and white shoes, were sitting on red stools.

  Aria sat on an empty one.

  “What’ll you have?” asked an older man in a white apron.

  She searched her memory for the word. “A coat?”

  “What?”

  A handsome young man in a blue uniform moved down to the stool beside her. “I think she means a Coke.”

  “Yes,” Aria said, smiling. “A Coke.”

  “Cherry?” the man asked.

  “Yes,” she answered promptly.

  “You live around here?”
the soldier asked.

  “I live—I am staying at the Waverly Hotel.”

  “Plush. Listen, I got a few friends in town and tonight we’re going out to do the town.”

  “Do the town,” she murmured, just what Miss Addison had said. The man served her a Coke in a strange glass that was metal with a paper cone in it. There was a straw in it. She glanced at the teenage girls and mimicked them. Her first sip nearly choked her, but when her mouth and throat adjusted to the bubbles, she found the drink delicious.

  “What do you say?” the soldier beside her asked.

  Another soldier walked up behind her. “A babe like this to go out with scum like you? Listen, honey, I know a couple of nightspots where we can dance ‘till dawn then—”

  A third soldier moved behind her. “Don’t listen to them. Neither one of them knows how to treat a real lady. Now, I know a place over on G Street that—”

  He broke off as J.T. shoved his way between them.

  “Take your turn, buddy, we saw her first.”

  “You want to eat all those teeth of yours? I married the woman yesterday.”

  “Don’t look to me like you’re taking very good care of her.”

  Aria kept her head bent over her Coke but she was smiling. Oh how she was smiling. She glanced down the bar toward the teenage girls who were also smiling. One of them winked at her and Aria decided that this was a part of America she rather liked.

  “Come on,” J.T. said angrily, grabbing her arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait! I have to pay for my Coke.” After her bout with the police, she knew she had to pay for everything.

  “That’s all right, I’ll do it,” the soldiers said in unison.

  “No, no, I must learn your money.” Deftly, she moved out of J.T.’s grip and made her way through the hovering soldiers. She asked the man behind the bar how much the Coke was then took her time opening her handbag and her change purse. “A nickel is this one, isn’t it?” she said, holding up a quarter.

  The men fell all over themselves helping her find the correct coin.

  “You’re French, aren’t you? I knew it the moment I saw you.”

  “Oui, I speak a little French.”

  J.T. pulled her out of the crowd and out of the store. He didn’t say a word until they were in the car.

  “You just can’t obey, can you? I’m doing my best to teach you how to be American and what do you do but run off and display yourself like a common tramp.”

  “Not like Heather,” she said under her breath, not meaning for him to hear.

  But he did hear. “Leave my friends out of this. In fact, leave me out of this. I am an American. You are an American wife. You are not some French floozy who sits in drugstores and lets men ogle her. You conduct yourself in a proper manner. You’d think that being a princess you’d have some idea of decent conduct, but it’s obvious you don’t. The American wife is a lady. She is respectful to her husband, she obeys him—which you wouldn’t even do in our phony marriage ceremony. And she—”

  “You remember that but you do not remember my name?”

  He ignored her. “The American wife helps her husband in every way that she can. She listens to him; she learns from him; she—”

  He lectured her every minute during their sightseeing excursion until Aria began to feel that her brief adventure in the drugstore had branded her as a cross between Nell Gwyn and Moll Flanders. She tried her best to pay attention to the American pictures in the National Gallery but she saw other couples holding hands, the men sneaking kisses, the women giggling. “I don’t guess they’re married, are they?” she asked J.T. “Or else they wouldn’t be acting like that. The women would be doing something dutiful.”

  He didn’t answer but read aloud another paragraph from the guidebook.

  Waiting in their hotel room was a three-foot stack of history books.

  “I had them sent,” J.T. said, “and they’re all textbooks with questions at the end. You’re to read a chapter then I’ll quiz you on it. Get started while I take a shower.”

  “Get started while I take a shower,” Aria mocked, and held up a book to throw at the closed bathroom door but then she saw a newspaper on the bureau and above one column the words LANCONIA’S PRINCESS TO VISIT NEW YORK MONDAY.

  “Lanconia,” she said to herself. “Lanconia. I must learn to be an American so their government will help me get my kingdom back.” She opened the first textbook and began to read.

  J.T. came out of the bathroom, wearing only his trousers, just as the telephone rang. He listened to the person on the other end. “No, baby, I’m not mad at you,” he said in a tone she had never heard him use before.

  Aria looked up from her history book. His bare back was to her and she found the sight not unpleasant. Muscles moved about as he talked. There were scars on one side of him, more healed than they were on the island, but she did not find them unattractive.

  “Yeah, I might be able to get away. After the work I’ve done today, I need a break.” Abruptly, he turned to look at Aria, who looked back at her book. “No, no problem at all. I’ll see you here in half an hour.”

  Aria didn’t say a word when he hung up the telephone nor did she say anything when he emerged from the bedroom in a dark blue uniform, clean shaven, and she could smell the fresh scent of lotion across the room.

  “Look, I’m going out for a while. You have enough to do that you don’t need me. Call room service and order yourself dinner. I might be late.” He didn’t say another word but left the room.

  Aria’s mother had explained about men’s infidelities and said that they were something a wife had to bear, but she had not described how they made a woman feel. Aria went to the window and looked down at the street. J.T. was leaving the hotel, his arm around the plump Heather, and as Aria watched, he kissed her.

  Aria turned around, her fists clenched to her side. “Kneq la ea execat!” she muttered, then put her hand to her mouth at her use of such language.

  She called room service and ordered caviar, pâté de foie gras, champagne, and oysters. She glanced at the stack of history books. “And send me a selection of your American magazines.”

  “You want movie mags, confessions, or what?” the bored woman on the other end asked.

  “Yes, anything. And I’d like a Coke, no, two Cokes and…and a whiskey.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “How’d you like a couple of rum and Cokes?”

  “Yes, that will do fine.” She dropped the telephone.

  The meal arrived with a stack of the oddest magazines Aria had ever seen, all about people she had never heard of with the most intimate stories told about them. She read while she ate, while she bathed, and after she climbed into bed wearing a sedate white nightgown. She thought that Lieutenant Montgomery could sleep on the couch. The thought of him made her bury her nose deeper in the magazines. MY HUSBAND BETRAYED ME WITH ANOTHER WOMAN. She read that story avidly.

  Chapter Eight

  THE next morning an awful sound woke Aria and she opened her eyes to see Lieutenant Montgomery lying beside her, on top of the covers, snoring loudly. She hadn’t been aware of when he had returned to the room.

  The telephone rang, and as it was on his side of the bed, she wasn’t going to lean across him to answer it. He picked it up on the sixth ring.

  “Yeah, this is Montgomery.” He listened for a moment then turned and looked at Aria. “Yeah, she’s right here with me. Yeah, in the same bed, not that it’s any of your business.” He moved the phone away from his mouth. “How soon can you be ready to fly to Key West?”

  “As soon as someone packs my—”

  “An hour,” J.T. interrupted. “Pick us up in an hour.”

  He dropped the telephone then sat up. “An American wife packs her own bags and her husband’s. Oh damn, my head. You can get started while I take a shower.”

  Aria had no intention of obeying him. She called room service and ordered herself bre
akfast then picked up a magazine that carried photographs of Mr. Gary Cooper.

  Minutes later, J.T. snatched the magazine from her hand. “What is this trash? Where did you get this and why aren’t you dressed yet? You ought to have half the bags packed. Listen, Princess, if you want to be an American, you better make an effort to learn. How many of the history books did you read last night?”

  “The same number that you did. If you think that I am going to pack your suitcases—”

  She was interrupted by a loud knock and a call of “Room service.”

  When he saw that she had ordered only one breakfast, he was furious. He said she had no idea what it meant to be a wife and she pointed out that she couldn’t order for him as she had no idea what he liked to eat. He said it was obvious to him that she wasn’t really interested in being an American or in helping her country.

  That made Aria stop arguing. Very calmly, she went to the telephone and ordered a second breakfast, the particulars of which he dictated to her with an air of smugness that she hated.

  She kept trying to remember how she had come to be under this detestable man’s rule and how important Lanconia was to her, but it was difficult. He sat at the table and ate while she tried to pack all their clothes, eating her eggs while packing. He ate; she worked. He read the newspaper; she worked.

  “Why do American women do this?” she muttered. “Why don’t they revolt?”

  “Are you ready yet?” he asked impatiently. “Why does it always take women so long to dress?”

  She looked at the back of him and imagined hitting him with a suitcase. Her mother’s lessons in princesslike behavior had not prepared her for this.

  The telephone rang and it was a soldier saying their transportation was downstairs.

  “Does an American wife also carry the luggage?” she asked innocently.

  “If her man wants her to, she does,” he answered. He called the bellhop and they brought a cart for Aria’s many bags.