“What?” Aria gasped.
“Well, honey, I have to think of the future. You’re going to stay in Lanconia with your scrawny count and I find I’m growing rather fond of marriage.”
“Oh? How so?” she asked, snuggling against him.
“I don’t know. It’s sure not the peace and quiet it’s added to my life.”
“I wonder, Lieutenant Montgomery, maybe you could stay in Lanconia and remain as my husband. My country could benefit from some of your knowledge.”
“And be king? I’d just as soon be put in a zoo. No thank you. No woman is worth that. Hey, where you going?” he asked.
“As you say, to the can.”
“Now what did I do wrong?” he muttered.
* * *
Dolly and Bill came to the plane to say good-bye and it felt natural to Aria when Dolly hugged her in public.
Dolly held out a package. “It’s just a little something to help you remember America.” There were tears in her eyes.
J.T. shook hands with Bill. “I’ll be back as soon as…as soon as this is done.” He was hovering over Aria as if he thought she might fly away.
“Good-bye,” they called as Aria and J.T. boarded the airplane.
It was to be a long flight because they had to go north over Russia instead of risking being shot down over Germany.
Aria leaned back in the hard leather seat and looked out the window at Dolly and Bill on the ground.
“Cheer up,” J.T. said. “You’re going home. What did Dolly give you?”
Aria blinked away tears and opened the package. The box was filled with chewing gum. She laughed.
“I’ll get her back,” J.T. groaned. “A princess who likes bubble gum.”
When they were in the air, the copilot brought J.T. a fat package. “It’s our orders,” J.T. said. “By the time we get to Lanconia you’re to have memorized a new background and assumed a new identity. Look at this!” he said, scanning the cover letter. “General Brooks recommended that you come from Warbrooke, Maine, and that you and I have known each other all our lives. That way I can tell you about my hometown. And your name is Kathleen Farnsworth Montgomery. Okay, Kathy, let’s get to work.”
Aria couldn’t help contrasting this trip to their earlier flight from Washington to Key West. J.T. didn’t doze while she studied; instead, he told her about his hometown and the people who lived there. He told her about his father, who was now single-handedly running what J.T. described as the family’s modest shipping business. He told her about his three older brothers, about the rowing races they used to have.
“I always won,” he said smugly. “I was the smallest and strong for my size.”
She looked at the length and breadth of him sprawled in the airplane seat. “You’re not still the smallest, are you?” she asked, and her voice conveyed her fear of a family of giants.
“Of course not,” he said, eyes twinkling, and leaned over to kiss her, then he shoved the papers off his lap and gave all his attention to kissing her.
“Not now!” she hissed at him, and he withdrew, grinning at her flushed face.
“Where were we?” he asked. “Oh yes, Warbrooke.” He continued to tell about his town and his family until she began to feel she knew the place.
The plane landed in London for refueling and for hurried dashes to the rest room for the two passengers. When they reboarded, they started again with the study. This time J.T. asked her questions about her upbringing in America and about her own vital statistics.
They fell asleep against each other somewhere over Russia and didn’t wake until they landed in Escalon, the capital city of Lanconia.
J.T. looked out the window and saw blue-green, snow-topped mountains in the distance.
“Most of Lanconia is very high. We’re about seven thousand feet elevation now, so the air is thin.”
He kissed her. “You know nothing about this place, remember? Neither of us has been here before.”