The Princess Read online

  “Fine, one boy at Yale, the other in the air force. How’s your mother?”

  “Worried about her sons, of course.”

  The older man smiled and took out his wallet from his inside coat pocket. “I hope this is enough.”

  Bill’s eyes widened as the man handed J.T. a four-inch-thick wad of money.

  “It should be,” J.T. said, grinning, “but you know ladies.”

  “May I meet her?”

  J.T. went to the taxi door and opened it. Aria gracefully left the car.

  “Your Royal Highness, I am honored,” the older man said.

  Aria would never get used to American manners. The man was not to speak until spoken to and he was to be presented to her. But considering the way she had been treated by the odious Lieutenant Montgomery on the island, this man’s behavior was the height of protocol. She inclined her head in his direction.

  J.T. seemed about to reprimand her about something when a dark Chevrolet pulled up beside them and a thin, hawk-nosed woman got out. She was obviously angry about something.

  As every woman knows, there is no snob like a saleswoman in an exclusive dress shop. And this particular clerk had been ordered from her bed in the middle of the night.

  She looked at the men. “I don’t appreciate this,” she snapped. “I don’t care if there is a war going on. I won’t stand for this.” She turned to Aria and looked down her long nose. “This is what I’m to work with?”

  All three men opened their mouths to speak but Aria stepped in front of them. “You will open your little shop and show me your wares. If they are good enough, I will purchase an item or two.” She said it in such an autocratic way, as if she were granting the woman a favor, that the men were stunned. “Now!” Aria said in a clipped voice.

  “Yes, miss,” the woman said meekly as she fumbled at her keys.

  Aria entered the store as soon as the lights were turned on. It was the first store she had ever entered and it intrigued her. Rather than being presented with drawings of dresses and swatches of fabric, here were dresses already made. How very odd to think of wearing a dress that had not been designed for her alone.

  Behind her the saleswoman was talking to the lieutenant and Aria touched a blouse hanging from a long rack. The ivory silk crepe was rather nice. Next to it was a yellow blouse with small black dots on it. She had always wanted to see how she looked in yellow. Perhaps she could see if the blouse fit.

  She began to see possibilities in this idea of previously made clothes. She might be more inclined to be adventurous if she could see what something looked like before it was sewn.

  “Here!” the saleswoman hissed at J.T., handing him a piece of paper with a telephone number on it. “Call this and tell Mavis to get over here instantly.”

  J.T., like all men, was out of place in the female atmosphere and docilely did as he was bid.

  “Who is he?” Bill whispered as J.T. was dialing, nodding toward the older man who had managed to open the store in the middle of the night.

  “A friend of my mother’s. He owns a bank or two,” J.T. said as he dialed. “Hello, Mavis?” he said into the telephone.

  “I am waiting,” Aria said impatiently from the dressing room.

  The banker left, Mavis arrived, and Bill and J.T. sat down on little gold chairs to wait. Bill dozed while J.T. shifted on his chair impatiently.

  “This will not do at all,” Aria said, examining herself in the mirror.

  “But it’s a Mainbocher,” the woman protested. “Perhaps a tuck taken in here and one here, and with the right gloves…”

  “Perhaps. Now, about this one.”

  “The Schiaparelli?”

  “I will take it. You must pack it carefully.”

  “Yes,” the woman said hesitantly. “Does madam have her luggage here?”

  “I have no luggage. You will have to provide it.”

  “But…but, madam, we do not sell luggage in this shop.”

  Aria found the woman quite tiresome. “Then you must obtain some. And I want the clothes packed carefully, with tissue paper.” As far as Aria could tell, Americans were so odd, it was no telling what they would do with one’s clothes.

  The woman was backing from the dressing room. She whispered something to Mavis, who ran out of the shop. She turned to J.T. “This will take a while. There are alterations.”

  J.T. stood. “We don’t have time. I have to report for duty in Key West in a few hours. What size does she wear?”

  “Six. She is a perfect six but sometimes the dresses are not perfect,” the woman said diplomatically.

  “Then give her one of every size six you have in the shop.”

  Her eyes widened. “But that will cost a great deal. And the clothing coupons—”

  J.T. took the roll of money from his pocket. They were hundred-dollar bills. He began counting off bills. “Perhaps you can say that all your size sixes were damaged and they had to be discarded. Believe me, Uncle Sam won’t mind giving up a few pieces of clothing for what this lady will bring him in return.”

  The woman’s eyes were on the money. “There are shoes.”

  J.T. kept unrolling layers of bills.

  “And gloves. And hosiery. And, of course, underwear. We also carry a line of costume jewelry.”

  J.T. stopped counting. “Princess,” he yelled, startling Bill awake so that he nearly fell off the chair, “you want jewelry?”

  “I’ll need emeralds, and a few rubies, but only if they’re deep red. And of course diamonds and pearls.”

  J.T. winked at the saleswoman. “I don’t think she’ll wear glass and gold paint, do you?”

  “We do have a pair of diamond earrings.”

  J.T. unrolled a few more hundreds. “She’ll take them. Give her whatever you have in her size.”

  At that moment Mavis appeared at the door. Behind her was a sleepy-looking man with a hand truck piled high with matching blue canvas luggage trimmed in white leather. “Where you want it?” he asked sullenly.

  J.T. stepped back as the saleswoman took over.

  “Beautiful, madam,” the saleswoman said moments later to Aria in the dressing room. “You are utterly lovely.”

  Aria studied herself in the mirror. All her life she had been on display and how to look good was something she had learned at an early age. Yes, the clothes were beautiful, very little fabric used because of the war, of course, but they were cut well and they draped and clung to her body in a very pleasant way. But from her neck up she thought she looked very different from these Americans. Her long hair was scraped back and untidily wrapped into a knot and her face was pale and colorless.

  “Your handsome young man is growing impatient,” the saleswoman said, some apology in her voice.

  “He is neither mine nor do I find him particularly handsome,” Aria said, twisting to look at the seams in her stockings. “Are you sure American women wear dresses this short?” The clerk didn’t answer so Aria looked at her and saw her staring.

  “Not handsome?” the woman said at last.

  It occurred to Aria that she had never actually looked at Lieutenant Montgomery. She opened the curtain to the dressing room and peered out.

  He was sprawled across a small antique reproduction chair—and not a very good one at that—his legs stretched out across the floor so that Mavis had to walk around him, his hands deep in his pockets. He was broad-shouldered, flat-bellied, with long and surprisingly heavy legs. He had dark hair that waved back from his face, blue eyes under thick lashes, a straight thin nose, and perfectly cut lips above a slightly cleft chin.

  Aria returned to the dressing room. “I believe this hat will do.”

  “Yes, madam. He is handsome, isn’t he?”

  “And I’ll take all the hosiery. You may pack the dark green silk suit also.”

  “Yes, madam.” The woman went away without an answer to her question.

  When she was alone, Aria smiled at herself in the mirror. She had spent days alone