The Princess Read online

  “We’re here, sir,” the driver said as J.T. untangled his long body from the car.

  J.T. looked at the hotel as if he had never seen one before. “Good,” he mumbled, and went inside, leaving Aria standing. He returned a few seconds later, grabbed her arm, and pulled her along behind him.

  “Which room is yours?”

  “It is a pink one.”

  J.T. stopped and turned to look at her. His eyes were red and his beard was darkening by the minute. “When you get back here after being gone, how do you find your room?”

  “I have to go there.” She pointed to the desk. “Sometimes I have to wait, then someone escorts me.”

  “They didn’t give you a key?”

  “A key to the city? Why no, no one has mentioned it.”

  He closed his eyes a moment. “Stand right here. Don’t move, understand?”

  She nodded, then looked away to hide her smile. He was certainly anxious to keep her near him.

  After some discussion at the desk and after shaking hands with Mr. Catton, J.T. returned and led her to the elevator. “I’ll never be more glad to get into bed in my life,” he said when the doors closed.

  Aria did smile at that.

  He unlocked the door to the room, went inside, leaving her standing in the hallway. A moment later his arm shot out, caught her hand, and pulled her inside. He stood very close to her as he locked the door and Aria modestly looked at her clasped hands. Now they were alone.

  J.T. yawned and stretched. “Bed. I can see it,” he said, and began to stagger through the living room into the bedroom. He got one shoe off then fell across the bed and was asleep.

  Aria was still standing by the door. She waited a few minutes but heard no sound from the bedroom, so she timidly crossed the room. He was already in bed. He seemed to be asleep but she knew he was waiting for her.

  “I’ll…I’ll get ready,” she whispered, and went to the bureau to get a nightgown.

  She saw immediately that there was nothing appropriate for her wedding night. This was a night that happened only once in a woman’s life and she wanted to look her best.

  She glanced at J.T. and thought he looked suspiciously as if he were asleep. A moment later he twitched and made a noise like a snore.

  Glancing at the little clock by the bed, she saw that it was only four P.M. Perhaps she could go to one of those American stores she had seen on the way here and get a proper nightgown—one that would keep a new husband from sleeping.

  Softly, she crept from the room after checking that her handbag had a clean handkerchief. All the green money papers Lieutenant Montgomery had given her were gone.

  She did what she always did when she wanted to go out: she asked for Mr. Catton and he got a car for her and paid the driver. She had some difficulty explaining where she wanted to go without losing her dignity. He finally asked a pretty young girl who worked in the hotel and soon Aria was on her way.

  The taxi driver let her off in front of a very large building; Aria had never seen a department store before. Perhaps it was the way she carried herself or perhaps it was the sight of a Paris original dress, but three women nearly ran to wait on her. She chose the oldest woman.

  “I wish to be shown ladies’ sleeping attire.”

  “Right this way, ma’am,” said the saleswoman, feeling superior for having been chosen.

  Two hours later, the woman was not so pleased. Aria had tried on every nightgown in the store and discarded most of them on the floor. The saleswoman had difficulty keeping up the supply and refolding them, as well as having to help Aria take them off and on.

  At last Aria seemed to settle on a low-cut, off-the-shoulder, heavenly concoction of pink silk voile and satin.

  The saleswoman sighed in relief. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll box it for you.” When she found she had to help Aria dress, she also found she was losing her temper.

  Moments later the saleswoman was slamming the nightgown into a box. “Expected me to wait on her like I was her damned servant or something.”

  “Shh,” said her fellow employee. “The floor walker will hear you.”

  “I’ll let him deal with her.”

  Aria came out of the dressing room just in time to see the clerk close the lid on the pink nightgown. As the woman turned away to make out the sales slip, Aria picked up the box and started walking toward the door.

  “Oh my God!” the clerk gasped. “She’s stealing it.”

  * * *

  The telephone rang eleven times before J.T. awoke fully enough to answer it. “Yes?” he said groggily.

  “You Lieutenant Montgomery?”

  “Last I heard I was.”

  “Well, this is Sergeant Day at the Washington Police Department and we got a lady down here under arrest for shoplifting. Says she’s your wife.”

  J.T. opened his eyes more fully. “Have you booked her?”

  “Not yet. She says she’s valuable to the war effort, but then she’s sayin’ a lot of things. She’s too much of a screwball for us to make out. She says she has no last name and that she’s a queen and we’re to call her Your Majesty.”

  J.T. ran his hand over his face. “Princess, and it’s Your Royal Highness.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Sergeant, it may seem hard to believe but she is valuable—at least to somebody. If you lock her up, it could cause a lot of problems with the government. Could you just put her in a room and give her a cup of tea? And give her a saucer with her cup.”

  There was a pause from the sergeant. “You really marry this fruitcake?”

  “Lord help me but I did. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “We’d sure appreciate your takin’ her off our hands.”

  J.T. hung up the phone. “Who’s going to take her off my hands?” he mumbled.

  Chapter Seven

  ARIA sat in the chair in the glass-walled office in the police station and tried her best to ignore the gaping people on the other side of the glass. They had put a heavy white mug of what they had told her was tea beside her, but for some odd reason, they had put the cup in an ashtray. She hadn’t considered touching it.

  The last few hours had been miserable, what with people touching her, shouting at her, and asking the same questions over and over—and they hadn’t believed her answers.

  She was almost glad when she saw Lieutenant Montgomery’s unshaven face appear in the room outside. He gave her one quick, angry glance then was surrounded by all the people who had moments before been shouting at Aria. She wanted to see how an American handled these other Americans. He distributed several of the green money papers, signed some white papers, and all the while talked to the people, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

  She was sure she could have done the same thing if she had just understood what they wanted. Perhaps it was going to be very easy to learn to be an American.

  The crowd moved away from Lieutenant Montgomery and he strode toward her.

  “Let’s go,” he growled after throwing open the door. “And not one word from you or I’ll let them have you.”

  Aria held on to the box containing her nightgown and left the room, her head held high.

  He didn’t speak to her on the way back to the hotel and constantly he walked in front of her. Once inside the room, he went to the telephone.

  “Room service?” he said. “I want dinner sent up to the Presidential Suite. No, I don’t have a menu. Send me dinner for four, whatever you have, and a bottle of wine, the best you have in the cellar. Just hurry it up.”

  Aria stood there blinking at him when he had hung up.

  “Could you keep out of trouble for a while? All I want is a decent meal, some sack time, a shower, and I’ll be all right. Just give me that and maybe then I can tackle you and the U.S. government.”

  Aria didn’t understand half of what he was saying, but she did understand that he planned to eat dinner now. She blushed. After dinner he would make her his wife.