The Princess Read online

  “I…I don’t think this is possible. Of course my grandfather knows nothing of what has actually occurred between us, but he cannot ask this of me.”

  “He knows enough to know that your life may be in danger. Look, are you sure it’s good for you to be in here with me? People must have seen you enter.”

  Aria blinked a couple of times. She knew no one had seen her enter but the sight of Jarl and his bed was making her forget her newfound promise of happiness with Julian. “I must go.” She started toward the door.

  “Not that way,” he said, clutching her arm. He went to his duffel bag lying on the floor and withdrew a sheaf of papers. “Your grandfather gave me some maps of underground passages in this place.”

  “He did what?”

  “He said that each monarch inherited these maps at the reading of the will but he thought this was a time for extreme measures. Here we are,” he said, looking at one of the maps. “This room is called the State Bedroom, right? I knew he had a reason for putting me in this room. He seemed to think it was special.” He began running his hands along the oak paneling. “Here it is.” He pushed a button but nothing moved. “I imagine the door needs oiling.” There was a letter opener on the desk and he pried open the door until he could get his fingers into the opening then pulled the door open. A musty smell filled the room and they could hear the movement of wings.

  “If you think I’m going down that, you are wrong,” Aria said.

  J.T. got a flashlight from his duffel bag. “If you leave this room dressed like that, you will have the whole place gossiping. Your Count Julian won’t marry you because your reputation will be ruined and they’ll probably hang me, a commoner, for daring to look upon the royal nightgown. Come on. How bad can it be?”

  It was awful. It looked like no one had been inside the passage for centuries and cobwebs and bat droppings covered the damp stone steps that led downward. It was very dark and her slippered feet kept sliding.

  “Why do I not know of this place?” she whispered.

  “It seems that one of your past kings had everyone who knew about the tunnels put to death. He wanted only the king himself to know of them.”

  Aria put up her hand to protect herself from a hanging web. Her slippers were so filthy they would have to be discarded. “That would have been Hager the Hated in the fourteenth century. He used any excuse to put people to death.”

  “Fine relative to claim. Who built this place?”

  “Rowan,” Aria said, and something in the way she said it made him look at her.

  “I take it he was a good guy.”

  “The best. Where does this lead?”

  “Here,” J.T. said, stopping at a rusty, iron-clad door. “Let’s just hope we can get it open.” He handed her the flashlight.

  “Where does that lead?” she asked, pointing the light toward a corridor heading toward the left.

  “Down to your dungeons then underground to somewhere in the town. Your grandfather said the way out was probably blocked now since a house was built over the old exit. I got it open! Turn off the light.”

  Aria looked at the cylinder. “How?”

  He took the flashlight from her and turned it off. “According to the map we’re at the north end of the King’s Garden. Do you know where that is and how to get back to your room?”

  “Of course.” She walked out into the cool night air.

  “Wait a minute, Princess, you haven’t told me where you’ll be in the morning. I don’t plan to let you out of my sight.”

  Aria wasn’t about to tell him she was riding with Count Julian in the morning. “My calendar has my first engagement for nine A.M.,” she said truthfully. “I will go riding.”

  “Stay in your room, I’ll meet you.”

  “But I’m not supposed to know you. We’ll have to arrange a formal introduction first.”

  “You can say your grandfather telephoned you—if this falling-down pile of stones has telephones.”

  “We are more modern than you believe,” she said, her chin up. “Good night, Lieutenant Montgomery.” She turned away.

  “Wait,” he said, putting his hand on her arm. He looked at her in the moonlight for a long moment. “Go on, get out of here.”

  She nearly ran from him, hurrying down the paths she knew so well, then through a servant’s door, up the stairs, and into the newer wing where her rooms were.

  “I am going to love Julian,” she whispered to herself. She was going to compel herself to love Julian and she was going to forget about the crude, insolent American who was temporarily her husband. He had told her that he thought she was cool and remote, not quite human. She was going to show him how haughty a royal princess could be. No matter how much time they spent together, she was going to treat him as the lowliest commoner.

  There was no one in the hallway except for the guard who stood outside her door. She had to get past the man and into her room and be there when her dressers arrived in the morning. If there was gossip that she had left her room wearing her bedclothes late at night, her dressers would say it was impossible since she was there in the morning and no one had seen her reenter.

  American movies had taught her a great deal. She picked up a valuable egg-shaped piece of malachite from its stand on a table and sent it rolling down the hall at the feet of the guard. He watched it for a moment, then, as she had hoped, he went after it. Aria slipped into her room as fast as possible. Her heart was pounding as she leaned against the closed door.

  Of course, she had to change her clothes and she was glad she knew how to dress herself. She was also glad she knew how to take a sponge and get most of the cobwebs from her dressing gown. The slippers were beyond hope, so, to keep her dressers from finding them, she stuffed each into a sleeve of a ceremonial gown.

  It was late when she was able to slide into bed beside a warm, sleeping Gena. For a moment, Aria thought she was with J.T. and snuggled against her. Then she caught herself. She was not going to let that man back into her life. There were more important things to life than what one did in bed.

  Tomorrow she would have time alone with Julian and she would allow him to help her forget.

  * * *

  “Your Highness!”

  Aria woke slowly to her dresser’s voice.

  “Count Julian is waiting for you.” The woman smiled smugly. “He seems most impatient to see you.”

  Sleepily, Aria pulled herself out of bed and made her way to the bathroom. Slowly, she began to waken and remember the events of last night. This morning she meant to begin forgetting her American husband. She would have hours alone with Julian—alone in the dim early morning light in the mountain forest.

  She was impatient with her dressers but she couldn’t dress herself and make them wonder where she had learned how.

  Once in her riding habit, she hurried out of the room. She stole a glance at the guard outside her room but he had his eyes straight ahead. She must remember his face because if there were rumors that she had not been in her room last night, he would have spread them.

  “Good morning, Your Highness.” Julian greeted her at the door to the stables, then, as the groom walked inside, he leaned forward and planted a kiss just below her ear. “Or should I say ‘my darling’? You look ravishing.”

  Aria blushed prettily. “You may call me what you wish in private,” she said demurely.

  “Then I would like most to call you wife,” he said seductively. “Shall we go? In an hour we can be deep within the forest. Just the two of us alone. We don’t have to be back for hours.”

  Aria continued blushing.

  “Well, Count, that being alone part isn’t exactly right.” J.T. lazily moved out of the shadows of the stable door.

  “You!” Aria gasped.

  “Do you know this man?” Julian asked, looking from one to the other.

  She squinted her eyes at J.T. “I had the misfortune of meeting him in America. We had business dealings there.”

  J.