The Princess Read online

  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