The Princess Read online

  He ignored the guardsmen standing at the door as he hurried down the corridor, down the stairs and out into the garden. He made it to the King’s Garden before stopping. As he lit a cigarette, his hands were shaking.

  Seduction, he thought. Everything about the country was seductive.

  Whenever he wanted food, it was there waiting for him. He dropped his clothes wherever they fell and minutes later they were gone. There were always silent people standing nearby waiting to obey his merest wish. If he wanted a car, he merely had to ask and it was readied for him.

  And the choices he had! He could drive or be driven. He could get up early or sleep late. He could do nothing or work twenty hours a day. He could swim, ride a horse, climb a mountain, train with athletes, walk through acres of beautiful gardens. The freedom of so many choices was intoxicating.

  J.T. leaned against a tree and inhaled on the cigarette.

  And there was Aria—the most seductive of all. He had looked at her tonight, her dress damp from the children’s bathwater, and he had remembered her on the island. The king had said she was a warm and kind person but J.T. hadn’t believed it. She was, but she had covered it with her haughtiness, and her rules to live by.

  He understood better now, understood how she had been trained to believe that the world was her servant. He wondered what he would be like if he had been raised like she had. Would he be like Toby and pout because there was a tiny bit of green on one of his strawberries? Would he get so used to cashmere sweaters that he would toss them on the floor like Gena did? Would he become so used to the servants that he would walk in and out of rooms and not see them? Would he believe he was someone else’s superior by divine right?

  He knew how bad the atmosphere of this place was, but he was also feeling seduced by it, sucked into the vortex of it. Ever since he was a child he had loved hot chocolate. He had never mentioned it because he knew that people—these unbelievably well-trained servants—watched what he ate and drank and made sure that what he liked was always near. Now Walters brought him a pot of hot chocolate as soon as J.T. woke and pulled the bell by his bed.

  For the last several days, ever since he had felt confident that the Royal Guard could protect Aria, he had worked long hard hours. He had enlisted a couple of Aria’s secretaries, both intelligent men who generally had too little to do, to help him find out who needed money or who would most benefit from Aria’s death. Aria walked about the countryside as if there had never been an attempt on her life, but he never forgot for a moment. He had spent hours with the kitchen staff, much to the chagrin of Aria’s butler, who considered J.T. part of the royal family, trying to find out what gossip he could. But as far as he could tell, no one knew anything.

  He was no closer to finding who had tried to murder Aria than he ever was.

  He had tried his best to treat his time in Lanconia as a job and nothing else, but he wasn’t succeeding. When he and Aria had parted the first time, he had been so angry he was almost glad to get rid of her. He still remembered his fury when he had found out that she had tricked him and he was to remain in Lanconia forever. At the time all he could think of was that he was a sailor and she was asking him to live inland. He had also been enraged that he had been tricked so easily. His temper hadn’t been helped by her grandfather ordering him to remain in Lanconia.

  But now, a few weeks later, he understood more of what it meant to be part of the royal family. He saw how much Aria meant to the people. He had been among them and heard the special tone of reverence they used when referring to her.

  He finished his cigarette, crushed it under his foot, and smiled as he remembered the day they had gone to see the vineyard. She hadn’t been a princess then, she had just been his girl, and he had been proud of her. He had watched the faces of the people, seen how wary they had been of Aria, then he had seen how much they had liked her. Ol’-fashioned liked her, not because they were supposed to, but because she was pleasant and amusing and interested in them.

  It had been so very, very difficult to leave her that night. It would have been perfectly natural to climb into bed with her, just as every husband had a right to do. But he knew better than to touch her because he knew she was borrowed and he had to give her back.

  He had stayed away from her after that day, deliberately trying to forget her and hoping that she would forget him. He had felt his chest tighten every time he saw her with her little count, but he had not interfered. Of course he had to admit, though, that some of the gossip had given him great pleasure. Aria had pushed through the crowds and eaten a sandwich made by a peasant woman—and later she had sent the woman a flock of chickens in gratitude. He doubted if she had any idea how such actions pleased the people of Lanconia.

  So far, J.T. had been able to force himself to stay away from her but sometimes he couldn’t control himself. When she had shown up at the guards’ training ground and threatened a guard’s life as if she were a warrior queen of old, he had been very pleased. And then her jealousy attack over Gena later! It had been a woman, not a crown princess, who had stormed off that field. Then he had had to sit back and watch her ushered away by that pompous little count. The twerp didn’t understand that what Aria did outside her official duties was more important than having tea with a bunch of fat, pedigreed women.

  The captain of the guard had put his hand on J.T.’s arm just as J.T. was about to nail the little overbearing fop.

  So now, J.T. had done the worst thing he could have: he’d made love to her again. Not really the long, slow all-night lovemaking that he dreamed of at night, but he had attacked her with all the pent-up passion that he felt every time he saw her. And she had responded in just the way he remembered.

  He had to stop! He had to keep his hands off of her and his mind on the work that needed doing. He had asked the guardsmen to be especially vigilant in the coming days because he felt that another attempt would soon be made on Aria’s life. This time he was sure the murderer would be caught, and as soon as he was, J.T. meant to return to America.

  He closed his eyes, smelled the pine trees and the soft mountain air blowing across the acres of flowers that were planted everywhere, and tried to remember the sea. He would marry some pretty little woman who liked the sea and after the war he would settle in Warbrooke, work in the family’s shipyard, and raise a few kids. He wanted only the average things in life, nothing special. No kingdom to rule. No gold-plated throne to sit on. No crown to wear. No pretty princess to make him laugh.

  “Damn!” he cursed aloud. Maybe he’d go wake up Frank and they could work on some more plans, or better yet, they could start rebuilding a few car engines. He had never seen people who knew as little about machine maintenance as these Lanconians. What they needed were a few good vocational schools to teach the young people how to maintain equipment. And why wasn’t there a good agricultural college here? And why weren’t the girls learning to be nurses and secretaries?

  He stopped and took a deep breath. Lanconia wasn’t his responsibility. In another few weeks he would be gone and what King Julian and Queen Aria did was their business.

  As he passed the garage, he saw that all the lights were on and he heard Frank Taggert’s deep, angry voice. “A crescent wrench, not a ratchet wrench.”

  “How am I supposed to know which is which?” J.T. heard Gena say with just as much anger. “I’m a princess, not an auto mechanic.”

  “You have yet to prove to me you’re worth anything. This is a crescent wrench. Oh, honey, don’t cry.”

  J.T. laughed in the darkness and thought it would be better not to disturb the two of them. It looked like Gena wouldn’t be following him anymore. Probably tomorrow she would be wondering what she ever saw in somebody as old as him.

  Smiling, he went up to his lonely, empty bedroom. At least somebody somewhere was happy.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  SLOWLY, Aria got out of the car at her grandfather’s hunting lodge. It was dusk and she was tired after a long day o