The Princess

  “He’s a homosexual, sir.”

  “Next one,” the general barked.

  The next man, the businessman, had married a woman from the wrong side of the tracks when he was sixteen and now paid her enormous sums to keep out of his life. There had been no divorce.

  Another man was a compulsive gambler, another one’s family was making a fortune off the war with black-market goods. One of the young congressmen was selling his votes.

  “And the last man?” General Brooks asked wearily.

  “German grandparents. We could never be sure of his loyalty.”

  “Now what do we do?” General Lyons asked. “We’re running out of time. The imposter returns to Lanconia in two weeks and she’ll award the vanadium contract then. If she gives it to Germany, we’ll have to take the war onto Lanconian soil and then no mining will be done.”

  “I have a brother,” one of the WACs said, but no one laughed.

  After a moment of silence, a young second lieutenant stood. “Sirs, I have a report that might be of interest to you. It’s on the Lieutenant Montgomery who saved the princess’s life.”

  “We don’t have time—” Congressman Smith began.

  “Read it,” General Brooks barked.

  “Jarl Tynan Montgomery grew up in a small town on the coast of Maine, a town which his family virtually owns. They are Warbrooke Shipping.” The lieutenant paused a moment because he had the room’s attention now. Warbrooke Shipping was vast, and when the war broke out the company was the first to convert its plants to making warships. The navy owed much to Warbrooke Shipping.

  “His family first came to America during Elizabeth the First’s reign—some of them were here to greet the Pilgrims. The family motto is ‘Never sell the land,’ and they’ve kept the vow. They still own land in England that once belonged to an ancestor, Ranulf de Warbrooke, who lived in the thirteenth century. In eighteenth-century America they were rich by any standards, but one of the men married a woman named Taggert and the two of them ended up owning half the state of Maine. In the early nineteenth century, some of the Taggerts left the East Coast to seek their fortunes and lost everything until in the 1880s one Kane Taggert made the money back in spades. An aunt of Lieutenant Montgomery’s went to Colorado around the turn of the century and ended up marrying the son of this Kane Taggert. They now live in a marble mansion and own Fenton-Taggert Steel.” This was another supplier for the war.

  The lieutenant took a breath. “Lieutenant Montgomery is also related to Tynan Mills in Washington State. Besides the money, which the Montgomery family is rolling in, he’s got an ancestor who was a grand duchess in Russia, another one who was a French duchess, and several English earls as well as a few gunslingers. His ancestors have fought in—and been decorated in—every American war. Hell, even the women in his family have been decorated.

  “As for Lieutenant Montgomery himself, I couldn’t find a hint of scandal. He’s worked in his father’s shipyard with his three brothers since he was a kid. He’s a loner, spent more time on his boats than on anything else. Good grades in school, three years captain of the local rowing team. Enlisted the morning after Pearl Harbor—as did his brothers—and after boot camp was sent to Italy. A year and a half ago he was brought back to the States, given a commission, and put in charge of converting civilian vessels to military use in Key West. Two months ago a PBM came in too low and hit an ammo igloo and caught fire. Eleven people were killed but Lieutenant Montgomery got the fire out before the ammo blew. He was badly burned, spent a few weeks in the hospital, and was recuperating on the island when he saved the princess.”

  The lieutenant put down his papers. “In conclusion, sirs, I’d say that this man Montgomery is about as blue blood as America has to offer.”

  * * *

  “Absolutely not!” Aria gasped. “Under no circumstances will I marry that rude, boorish man. I will beg on the streets before I marry him.” For once in her life she didn’t bother trying to cover her emotions. She allowed her disgust, her horror, her repulsion to show to everyone. These Americans were insane!

  Congressman Smith looked at her with contempt. “If it were only you involved, there would be no problem. I hate to think what this imposter princess and her advisers will do to your country. I hope they don’t kill your grandfather.” He closed his briefcase. “It was nice meeting you, Princess. I wish you well, whatever happens to you.”

  Images flew through Aria’s mind: Cissy on the throne with someone—a murderer—controlling her. Lanconia had once been a warlike country. Would the murderer enter Lanconia in this war that raged around the world? Some Lanconians, usually older men without children to lose, said the lagging Lanconian economy would be helped greatly if the country joined the war.

  Aria imagined living in some American hotel and reading about the war-bombed Lanconian countryside. All those deaths would be her fault. To prevent hundreds, maybe thousands of deaths, all she had to do was marry a man she disliked greatly.

  “Wait!” she called to Congressman Smith.

  He stopped at the door but didn’t turn.

  “I…I will do what you want,” she whispered. She kept her back straight, her muscles tight. She felt that if she loosened one little bit, she would dissolve into a heap of tears.

  “Lieutenant Montgomery has already been sent for,” Congressman Smith said with a smirk before he left the room.

  “Bastard,” the WAC behind Aria muttered. She took Aria’s arm. “Honey, what you need is a good cry. Come with me. I’ll take you to General Gilchrist’s office. He’s away right now and you can be private in there. Is this Montgomery a real jerk?”

  Aria allowed herself to be pulled along and the lump in her throat prevented her from talking. She managed to nod.

  “Brother!” the WAC replied. “Am I glad I’m an American. Nobody tells an American what to do. I can marry whoever I want.” She unlocked a door. “Now, you stay in here. Leave the lights off and nobody’ll know you’re here. I’ll come pick you up at five. Until then I won’t have any idea where you went.” She winked at Aria and shut the door.

  Aria sat down on a little leather-covered sofa and clasped her hands together tightly. If she started to cry, she was afraid she would never stop. She forced herself to visualize her country under attack, then she thought how she was saving it from destruction by this selfless, noble act of hers. Unfortunately, she also kept remembering Lieutenant Montgomery sneering at her, his rudeness, the way he pulled her about, tossed her into boats.

  How could such a man be trained to be a prince consort?

  The more she thought, the worse she felt. She prayed that her grandfather would understand that she had had to do this.

  Chapter Six

  TWENTY-FOUR hours later the six men who were working on what had become known as the Lanconia Project had dwindled to four. Two men pleaded that they had more pressing matters to attend to and left the conference room. The truth was that if they had found the princess difficult, they weren’t prepared for the muleheaded stubbornness of Lieutenant Montgomery.

  General Brooks’s eyes were red and his throat raw from talking. “The son of a gun still laughing?”

  Congressman Smith was too angry to do more than nod.

  “What’s the latest?” General Brooks asked the pretty young WAC. They had tried using men to talk some sense into Montgomery and that hadn’t worked, so they had started using women. So far that had met with no success either.

  “J.T.…er, ah, Lieutenant Montgomery says he’ll stand a court-martial before he marries the princess. When I told him he was wanted because of his family history, he did, however, suggest that we offer Her Royal Highness to one of his brothers. He said that they might be tempted since they hadn’t met the—” She looked up. “Expletive delted.”

  “His brothers?” General Brooks’s face showed a little hope.

  “I checked, sir,” said a young captain. “The eldest brother is in intelligence, so far underground that only
the president and two others know where he is. The second brother is now in a hospital. Last week his leg was nearly blown off by machine-gun fire. The third brother married an English girl last month. The family doesn’t know of it yet.”

  General Brooks’s face fell. “Any cousins?”

  “We don’t have time!” Congressman Smith said, slamming his fist on the table. “This Montgomery is perfect. He’s about as American as a human can get, and he has the looks of a prince.” He raised an eyebrow at the fervent agreement from the WAC. “His IQ tested out at one hundred forty-three and he’s rich. According to our reports, Lanconia is barely surviving. The Montgomery family’s money could put it on its feet.”

  “And spread American goodwill throughout the country,” General Brooks added.

  Congressman Smith stacked the papers in front of him. “We can’t threaten him and risk losing the support of Warbrooke Shipping—”

  “Or Tynan Mills or Fenton-Taggert Steel,” the captain added.

  “So we’ll lie to him.”

  That succeeded in quieting the room.

  Congressman Smith continued. “He can’t stand the princess, right? He laughs at the idea of being king so we tell him the marriage is a sham, that he’s to think of this as a temporary intelligence operation. He’s to live with her, teach her to be an American, take her to Lanconia, then, when she’s on the throne again, he can walk away.”

  “But in Lanconia he finds out the marriage is permanent and he’s to be king?” General Brooks asked.

  “Something of the sort. We do what we can now to get them married and America’s foot in the door. We worry about the consequences later.”

  “Won’t the princess give it away?” the captain asked.

  Congressman Smith snorted. “She’d sell her soul for her country. She’ll lie to him or do anything else to keep her country. I have a feeling that she has no plans to make Montgomery king. We shall see what he says about that. Well, shall we go? I don’t want to give him time to think about this. How long has he been without sleep now?”

  The captain looked at his watch. “Thirty-eight hours.”

  “And food?”

  “He’s had a sandwich and a Coke in twenty-two hours.”

  The congressman nodded. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Aria had difficulty concealing her astonishment. “Lieutenant Montgomery did not want to marry a royal princess? He does not want to be married to a queen?”

  The WAC was not going to tell Aria the dreadful things J.T. had said about her, that she was inhuman, a piece of marble, that she wasn’t anything like a woman, that he would much rather give his love to the statue of Venus de Milo. Instead, the WAC explained what they had had to do to get J.T. to agree to the marriage.

  “He believes there will be a—what is that word?”

  “Divorce, or annulment.”

  “But royalty is not permitted to separate—no matter what. A royal princess marries once and that is all.” Aria looked at a picture of President Roosevelt on the wall. Too clearly she remembered the time on the island with this insolent, despicable man named Montgomery. For the sake of her country she had agreed to marry him, agreed to spend the rest of her life with him, but now he was saying he didn’t want to marry her.

  “I will not tell him we are to be married for always,” she whispered.

  “I’m afraid there’s more.” The WAC cursed Congressman Smith for detailing this job to her. She rather liked the princess, liked anyone who was willing to fight for her country.

  “The army had rented a house for the two of you in Virginia, complete with horses and a butler, but the lieutenant refuses to have anything to do with it. He says he wants to return to his job in Key West and you two are to live in a single-family house—no servants, no special privileges. You’re to live on his military pay also.”

  The WAC was well aware that no one had told the princess of J.T.’s wealth, and now, looking at her, the WAC thought she had no idea what J.T. was demanding of her. She couldn’t imagine this elegant woman donning an apron and washing a sinkful of dishes. “He says that if you’re to learn to be an American, he wants it done properly.”

  “The lieutenant certainly has many opinions, doesn’t he?”

  You don’t know the half of it, the WAC thought. “Then you agree to his terms?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “No, I guess not. If you’re ready, the chaplain’s waiting.”

  Aria didn’t say a word but stood, her head held high. What she was doing was so much more important than the romantic nonsense of a white wedding gown and people wishing her joy and happiness. It didn’t matter that the dress she was wearing was one she had had on for two days, that it was wrinkled and sagging in places.

  She stood before the door until the WAC opened it.

  Outside were waiting six other WACs, all of them smiling happily.

  “They don’t know who you are,” the first WAC whispered. “They think the army’s reunited you with your lover and you’re to be married today.”

  “Something old,” said one woman holding out a little gold locket. “It’s also something borrowed. It was my grandmother’s.”

  “Something new,” said another, offering her a pretty little handkerchief.

  “And something blue.” A third woman gave Aria a corsage of blue-dyed carnations. She pinned it on Aria’s shoulders as another woman took Aria’s shoe and slipped a penny inside for good luck.

  Aria was bewildered by this treatment. So far, the women in America had been very good to her, but the men…! She wondered how the women coped with the rude, ill-mannered men.

  The conference room was to be used for the ceremony. No one had so much as bothered to push the table out of the way so there was no aisle for her to walk down, no older man to give her away. She walked along the wall beside the WAC toward the group of men at the far end. There were a few men in suits but about a dozen men wore uniforms, their chests resplendent with medals. It seemed that at least there was enough significance to this wedding that some of the higher officials attended.

  Lieutenant Montgomery was sitting in a chair, half asleep, his head propped on his arm. His cheeks and chin were dark with unshaved whiskers. His uniform was dirty and rumpled.

  Aria’s anger rose immediately. Perhaps these men were afraid to tell him how disrespectful he was, but she wasn’t afraid. She stood in front of him. “How dare you appear before me looking like that,” she said, glaring down at him.

  He didn’t even open his eyes. “The dulcet tones of Her Royal Highness.”

  General Brooks took Aria’s arm and pulled her to stand in front of the chaplain. “He’s had a long few days. Perhaps we shouldn’t annoy him until after the ceremony. He might change his mind again.”

  Aria clenched her hands at her sides. Was she worth so little that she had to beg a man to marry her?

  Lazily, J.T. stood. “Want to change your mind, Princess? I’m willing.”

  She didn’t look at him but instead concentrated on an image of Lanconia.

  The chaplain hesitated over Aria’s name.

  “Who?” J.T. said, scratching at his whiskers.

  “Victoria Jura Aria Cilean Xenita.”

  “Yeah, I take her,” he said.

  Aria glared at him. She promised to love and honor Jarl Tynan Montgomery but she left out the word “obey.”

  “Your Royal Highness,” the chaplain said. “It’s love, honor, and obey.”

  Aria looked at J.T. and didn’t say a word.

  “We have enough lies today,” J.T. said. “Get on with it.”

  The chaplain sighed. “I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

  J.T. grabbed Aria’s wrist. “Hell, I’m going to bed.”

  Aria barely had time to return the little gold locket to the WAC before J.T. pulled her out of the room.

  General Brooks was chuckling. “It looks like they’re off to a fine start.”
br />   Congressman Smith grunted.

  * * *

  Aria leaned back against the seat of the plain black car the army had provided and concentrated on controlling the smile that was threatening to escape. At the other end of the seat, as far from her as he could get, sat the man who was now her husband. His head was resting against the window and she couldn’t see his face, but he had certainly made his feelings clear.

  Again Aria had to control her smile. While they were marooned on the island together, he had pretended she wasn’t a woman to him. He had also ignored the fact of her royal birth, but somehow that hadn’t hurt as much as when he had told her he didn’t think she was pretty or appealing. No matter how royal a woman was, she still wanted to be desirable.

  Aria closed her eyes a moment. It had been a long two weeks since she had been kidnapped and many awful things had happened to her, but now it was over. She was married—she stole a look at Lieutenant Montgomery as he sprawled in the back seat—and she could have done worse. He might look all right in evening dress and he certainly looked strong enough to carry the heavy state robes. Of course she still had to learn how to be an American, but how difficult could that be? There seemed to be many people doing it with ease.

  But first there was her wedding night. Her mother had talked to her about this night, had explained what men did to one and how they were driven to it by a passion not felt by women. Her mother said Aria was always to look her best for her husband and she was to encourage this desire in him—it perpetuated the line.

  So tonight was to be her wedding night. Of course her husband was virtually a stranger but then Aria had always expected to marry a man she barely knew. Perhaps after tonight Lieutenant Montgomery wouldn’t be so rude to her. Perhaps tomorrow morning he would kneel by her bed and kiss her hand and beg her forgiveness for the terrible things he had said to her. Perhaps after tonight…

  She hadn’t realized that the car had stopped until the driver opened her door. They were back at her hotel. She got out then waited while the driver opened the door for her husband. He had to catch J.T. before he fell.