The Princess

by Jude Deveraux

  In an instant, Aria went from being an American wife to being a royal princess. She was on her feet. “How dare you use such language in my presence!” she yelled back at him. “You are dismissed! Go! Leave my chamber.”

  The crowd in the ice cream parlor had come to a halt at J.T.’s first shout. Some of them had smiled at his words. But Aria’s command left them stunned.

  Dolly recovered first and, at the moment, she feared J.T. less than she did the autocratic Aria. “J.T., honey, sit down and stop glaring so. Waitress, bring this man a root beer float.” She turned to Aria, her voice automatically lowering. “Your Royal—I mean, Princess, please have a seat.”

  Aria was recovering and she realized how she had called attention to herself and how she had reestablished herself as a foreigner. She felt Mitch take her hand and give a gentle tug. She sat, J.T. still standing, still hovering, still frowning.

  “Sit down, J.T.,” Dolly commanded, her voice filled with disgust. “Newlyweds,” she said loudly to the watching crowd, and gradually they turned back around, although one ensign muttered, “Who’s married to who?” as he nodded from J.T. to Aria to Mitch.

  J.T. sat down at last and fastened his glare on his root beer float.

  Gail patted Aria’s hand. “I think you were right, Princess. Never let a man use the Lord’s name in vain. Once he starts, he’ll never stop.”

  Aria looked at the strawberry sundae someone had ordered for her and wished the floor would open up and swallow her. Mitch still had his arm around the back of her chair but it was different now. He was no longer leaning toward her but, instead, leaning a little back.

  Once again she was a freak. Just as she had been the day they had arrested her. They had put her in a glass-walled cage and stared at her and laughed at her. Everything she did seemed to amuse them. And the only person she had known in America—Lieutenant Montgomery—had treated her the worst of all. Yet she had tried so very hard to please these new people. She had tried so hard to fit in.

  “Let’s go to the beach,” Dolly said cheerfully. “We’ll get our suits and go swimming at sunset, and J.T., you can catch us some lobsters and we’ll grill them.”

  “I have work to do,” J.T. muttered, moving his straw up and down in his untouched drink.

  Dolly leaned forward. “Then maybe you’d be so kind as to drive your wife”—she emphasized the word—“to my house so I can loan her a bathing suit.”

  “Sure,” J.T. said, fumbling for his keys. “You want to go now?”

  Dolly stood. “On second thought, why don’t you and I go and we’ll all meet at Larry and Bonnie’s apartment in an hour? Take care of our princess,” she told Bill, then had J.T.’s arm and was leading him out the door.

  “You bastard,” Dolly said as soon as they were in the military car that was at J.T.’s constant disposal. “Bill told me everything and I think you’re being a bastard.”

  “I’ve had all the abuse from women today that I can take. Don’t you start on me.”

  “Someone should. The way you’re treating that lovely girl is disgraceful.”

  “Lovely? Lovely girls don’t allow men who aren’t their husbands to drape themselves all over them.”

  “Hallelujah! You noticed,” Dolly said sarcastically. “Mitch likes her, as we all do except you.” Suddenly, she softened. “J.T., I’ve seen you charm lady sergeants, tough old broads who terrified every other man, but you had them eating from your hands. So why aren’t you using some of your charm on your wife?”

  J.T. turned a sharp right. “Maybe it’s because she hates me, or maybe it’s because she looks down her nose at me. She thinks I’m a commoner. Or maybe because she can’t do anything useful. My job is to teach her to be an American and I’m doing that.”

  There was something in his tone that made Dolly change hers. “She’s pretty, isn’t she?”

  “She’s all right if you like the overbred type.”

  “I see,” Dolly said.

  “You see what?” he snapped.

  “You’re afraid of her.”

  “What?” he yelled, and slammed on the brakes at a stop sign.

  “You’re afraid that if you unbend a bit, you’ll find she’s quite courageous and rather likable. I’d never be able to do as well as she has. Bill said she couldn’t even dress herself when she came to America but now she’s cooking your breakfast.”

  “Sort of. She burned herself.”

  “Yes, but she’s trying. Did you ever think how lonely she must be? She’s in a strange country married to a man who despises her, but she’s made the best of it. In spite of you, she’s surviving.”

  “In spite of me? Because of me she’s surviving.”

  They were silent for a while then J.T. spoke quietly. “I don’t want to get involved with her. As soon as the army takes the imposter princess, she goes back to her throne. Then, no doubt, she’ll hold out her hand for me to kiss and say ‘so long, sucker.’ Or maybe she’ll give me a medal on a ribbon and she’ll hang it around my neck.”

  “You didn’t mind getting ‘involved’ with Heather Addison, or Debbie Longley or Karen Filleson or—what was the redhead’s name?”

  J.T. smiled. “Point taken. Aria’s different, as you well know. You can’t very well have a one-night stand with a royal princess. She doesn’t dream of cottages with white picket fences, she dreams of castles and land management and lifelong servitude. Kings have no privacy or freedom.”

  “So you’ll be mean to her instead.”

  “I’m not mean exactly, I just keep my distance. As that Mitch goddamn well better do. Oh, sorry.”

  Dolly turned away to hide a smile. Her Royal Highness had made her point about cursing. “I think she may be falling in love with Mitch.”

  “What!” J.T. slammed on the brakes again as the car skidded into the parking lot of the Marina Hotel.

  “I don’t blame either one of them. She needs a little kindness and every woman needs a man to tell her she’s beautiful. She looked great today, didn’t you think so?”

  J.T. seemed to be deep in thought as he got out of the car and started toward the hotel, leaving Dolly sitting. She smiled as she got out of the car and went after him. At least she had made him think.

  The hotel had once been a resort for the rich but the war had changed that and it was now used as temporary quarters for married officers. But the magnificent old lobby was the same and there was still a gift shop off to the side.

  “Wait!” J.T. said as they walked past the window.

  “Think she’d like that?” He pointed to a Catalina swimsuit, straight cut legs, a deep, square neckline.

  “Sure,” Dolly said, following J.T. into the store. She helped him choose a beach cover, a straw hat, “to protect her white skin,” he explained, and a big matching straw beach bag.

  “What else does she need?”

  Love, Dolly almost said, but didn’t because she didn’t want to push too hard too fast. “Something to take her mind off Mitch.”

  J.T.’s smile left at that. “You have any jewelry?” he asked the saleswoman. “Any diamonds? Emeralds maybe.”

  She swallowed. “No sir, but we do have a rather fine selection of French perfumes.”

  “Good. I’ll take a quart of whatever you’ve got. No, make that a half gallon.”

  “It’s sold by the ounce,” the woman said meekly.

  “Then add up the ounces,” he said impatiently. “You ready to go?” he asked Dolly.

  “As soon as I go upstairs and get my suit.”

  J.T. smiled at her. “Need a new one?”

  Never pass up a gift from a handsome gentleman, Dolly’s mother used to say, and worry about the price later. “I would love a new suit.”

  Chapter Ten

  ARIA was quiet during the drive to Larry and Bonnie’s apartment. The others tried hard to lighten the atmosphere but she kept thinking that they were watching her and that they somehow knew she was different from them.

  And it wa
s Lieutenant Montgomery’s fault. That awful, dreadful man had been the cause of everything bad that had happened to her in America—except the kidnapping, of course. He had saved her life then. At this moment she wished he had let her drown.

  She was standing in Bonnie’s tiny living room when the door opened and in walked J.T. and Dolly. Immediately, Aria went to the kitchen and J.T. followed.

  “I brought you something,” J.T. said softly from behind her.

  She turned. “A biography of George Washington including ten essay questions at the end?”

  He gave a little laugh then held out a paper sack.

  Tentatively she took it and withdrew the dark blue swimsuit. She gave him a skeptical look.

  “I picked it out myself. And there’s a hat and purse and a little robe in here. And I got a sack of perfume in the car.” His eyes sparkled. “And not one history book.”

  Aria didn’t smile.

  “What did you get?” Gail squealed from the doorway.

  Aria held out the bag and Gail took it and rummaged inside.

  “Not a bad apology, J.T.,” Gail said. “You might make a good husband yet. Well?” she said, looking at Aria.

  Aria realized Gail was expecting something from her but she didn’t know what.

  “When a husband apologizes, you kiss him and make up. Now get to it. I’ll give you two minutes, then it’s upstairs to change and we go to the beach. I’m hungry.” She left them alone in the room.

  “I…ah, I guess it is a peace offering,” J.T. began. “I guess I shouldn’t have said what I did. It was just such a shock seeing you look so different.”

  “I guess so,” Aria said. “I wanted to look American and the long hair was so old-fashioned.”

  “I liked it.”

  “Did you?” she asked, surprised. “I never knew. I mean, you never said one way or the other.”

  He took a step closer to her. “Well, I did like it. It suited you.”

  “This feels so nice,” she said, touching her hair.

  “Does it?” He put his hand up and wrapped a fat curl around his fingers. “It does at that.”

  “I meant—”

  “Time’s up,” Gail called. “Let’s go.”

  Confusion showing in her eyes, Aria stepped past him and left the kitchen. Upstairs she forgot about the curious incident when she found that the bedroom was to be a communal dressing room. It was one thing to be nude before your ladies-in-waiting, but before strangers! Besides, it took her forever to get in and out of clothes and this swimsuit had a zipper down the back.

  But Dolly didn’t give Aria time to think. She unbuttoned the back of Aria’s sundress and began to help her out of it. “Now me,” she said when Aria was wearing only a borrowed rayon teddy.

  Thanks to Dolly, the disrobing was easier than Aria expected, and when she pulled on the boned, stiff swimsuit, she felt as if she had accomplished something grand.

  She was smiling when she went downstairs. And there stood two men, the handsome, smiling Mitch and her husband. But this husband was someone she had never seen before. He was lazily leaning against the staircase and laughing at something Bonnie was saying. Now what does he plan? Aria thought. Is this some special American torture he had planned for her?

  “Princess?” Mitch said, holding out his arm for her.

  Smiling, she took it.

  J.T. pushed his way between them. “I think I’ll escort my wife myself.”

  “It’s about time,” Mitch muttered, and after one sad look at Aria, he excused himself from the night’s revelries.

  They all piled into J.T.’s car, the women sitting on the men’s laps except that J.T. drove and Aria sat beside him. He kept smiling at her, and the more he smiled, the more suspicious she grew. What terrible thing was he planning now?

  At the beach the men stepped into the darkness to don swim trunks while the women gathered driftwood for a fire.

  Dolly whistled when J.T. came into the light wearing nothing but the black trunks.

  He winked at her then turned toward the ocean waves. “Want to swim, Princess?” he called back.

  “Not at night in that water,” she answered.

  J.T. did what he was supposed to and returned with a dozen lobsters, which the group dispatched in a hurry. After dinner, with the fire nearly out, the couples entangled themselves about each other and began kissing.

  Aria looked away in embarrassment.

  “J.T.,” Dolly called when she came up for air, “why don’t you introduce your princess to the good old American custom of necking?”

  “I think I will,” he answered, then picked up Aria’s hand.

  Before he could get it to his lips, she pulled away. “You cannot possibly consider doing to me—in public—what they are doing,” she hissed at him.

  “Is everyone in your country frigid?”

  “I live in a warm country,” she said, confused. “We have winters but they are mild.”

  “You want to be an American or not?” he snapped.

  “I am trying to learn.”

  He calmed himself. “Yes, and you’re doing a fine job of it. Look at them.” He gestured to the other couples. “They wouldn’t be aware of a German invasion right now so they won’t notice us. What they’re doing is called, among other things, necking, and it’s what newlywed couples are supposed to do.”

  “All right,” she said, leaning away from him and holding out her hand. “You may kiss my hand if you do not twist my arm or pull it or do any of the other painful things you are inclined toward.”

  “Listen, lady—”

  “It’s Your—”

  He slipped his hand behind her head and kissed her before she could say another word.

  Only twice before had she been kissed on the lips, once when Count Julian asked her to marry him and once by Lieutenant Montgomery on the island. Neither time had prepared her for this.

  First one of his hands and then the other enveloped her head in a gentle, protective gesture and his lips played on hers softly. Aria kept her eyes open and her hands moved as if to push him away, but then she began to feel quite different. Her hands moved to his shoulders and she liked the feel of his bare skin under her palms. Gently, he moved her head to one side and his kiss deepened.

  Aria closed her eyes and leaned forward ever so slightly.

  When he moved away from her she stayed where she was, eyes still closed. “Lantabeal,” she murmured. Then slowly her eyes fluttered open. He still had his hands on the side of her face.

  “That’s one of our American customs. You don’t have that in Lanconia?”

  She knew he was teasing her, but she didn’t care.

  “And how does my kiss compare to Mitch’s?” he asked.

  She straightened at that, and before he knew what hit him, she gave him a resounding slap. “I learned that American custom from your friend in Washington.” She stood. “Someone may take me home now.”

  “Listen,” J.T. said, standing in front of her, “we aren’t your servants. You ask for things here, you don’t command them.”

  “Then I ask to leave this place.”

  “I’ll take you. I’m your husband, remember? Although a fat lot of good it does me.” He turned to Dolly. All the couples were gathering their gear. “I tried. I bloody well tried. Come on, Your Royal Highness, I’ll take you home.”

  The trip around town to let the other couples off was made in silence. Aria’s heart was still pounding. She knew she had made too big a fuss over something that wasn’t such a terrible thing to say—in fact she rather liked her husband’s display of jealousy—but what had prompted her attack was fear.

  From the time she could walk, decorum and self-discipline had been drilled into her. At all times she was to control her emotions. She had attended the funerals of her beloved parents and never shed a tear in public. She had suffered a couple of physical injuries and never cried. She had been through two kidnappings and never lost her wits. She had always controlle
d herself.

  Yet, tonight she had come closer to losing control than she ever had before. What that man’s kiss had made her feel!

  She wished she could talk to her grandfather about this. Was this right? Count Julian had never made her feel like this. But then she had never lived with him, slept in the same bed with him, had never even dined alone with him. Maybe this feeling would have come if she had married the count.

  Right now she could feel Lieutenant Montgomery’s side pressed against hers and he touched her knee every time he shifted gears. It made her heart beat harder.

  When they were alone in the car, she wanted to apologize to him, but he said, “Over there. I want you to move to the far end of the seat. As far away from me as possible.”

  Aria did as he bid and they didn’t speak again.

  * * *

  The next two days were miserable. She went shopping with Bonnie and Dolly, had her hair done, went swimming, but it wasn’t the same. J.T. returned to his old, cool self, no more laughing and asking where his briefcase was, and he lost patience with trying to show her how to cook and do laundry.

  “But I washed dishes yesterday,” Aria said.

  “Yes and they have to be done again today. They have to be done three times a day, seven days a week.”

  “You are making a joke, aren’t you? If I wash dishes every day, dust the furniture every day, wash the clothes, cook the food, buy the groceries, when do I get to read a book? When do I get to shop with Dolly and Bonnie? When do I get to be Aria and not Mrs. Montgomery? When do I get to think about something besides which dishwashing detergent to buy?”

  “I have to go to work.”

  Later that morning a Mrs. Humphreys, hired by J.T., showed up to clean the house and bake a casserole for dinner.

  That night Aria set the table with candles and made the room as attractive as she could with the little the navy had used to furnish the house.

  J.T. turned on every light and blew out the candles.

  She knew he was very angry with her and she wanted to make him smile at her again. He thought their marriage was temporary but she knew better. She no longer hated him but he was still a stranger to her.