J.T. pushed past her and pulled Aria inside.
“Your Royal Highness,” the older woman said, bobbing a curtsy.
“It’s all right, Brownie,” Aria said. “This is Lieutenant Montgomery, an American,” she said, as if that explained his manners. “Could we have some lunch?”
“No one told us of your coming. We aren’t prepared.” The woman looked as if she were about to cry as she stood there fiddling with her apron.
J.T. moved away from the window he was looking out. “What are you having for lunch?”
Brownie gave him a quick look up and down as if to determine what his status was. “A humble shepherd pie with a potato crust. It’s not fit for a princess.”
“Sounds great to me,” J.T. said. “How about you, honey?”
Brownie’s face showed her shock.
“He is an American,” Aria reemphasized. “The pie sounds excellent. May we have one?”
“Yes, my lady.” Brownie disappeared into another room.
“Stop calling me honey!” Aria said the minute they were alone.
“Is ‘darling’ the name royalty use?” He was looking out the window again.
“Do you see Julian yet?”
“No sign of the front or back of him.” He turned toward her. “You seem to be taking this well. But then you always recover from assassination attempts rather quickly. They only seem to make you hungry.”
“It is part of my training. Since the beginning of time, people
have wanted to kill royalty, either for the attention it brought them, for personal grievances, or for political ideals.”
“Who taught you to spout out that answer?”
“My mother,” Aria said before she thought.
He looked at her awhile. “You know something? I think I’m beginning to get to know you. How about a double whiskey?”
“Please,” she said gratefully, and he smiled.
She was doing her best to remain the princess, to keep her head high, but inside she was shaking. Someone here in Lanconia was trying to kill her. One of her own people wanted her dead. She was almost grateful when J.T. pulled her from the foyer into the parlor hung with medieval tapestries and filled with chairs covered in dark, threadbare needlepoint.
“Sit down,” he ordered as he went to a sideboard and poured a Waterford glass three-quarters full of whiskey.
She gulped a third of it. Her eyes watered but she needed the whiskey’s warmth.
“I know about the time on the island and now this. Have there been any other attempts on your life? Maybe some ‘accidents’?”
“I tripped over something on the stairs a week before I left for America. Lady Werta was behind me and caught my dress or I would have fallen.”
“What else?”
Aria looked away. “Someone killed one of my dogs,” she said softly. “I felt it was perhaps a warning to me.”
“Who did you tell about these things?”
“No one. There was no one I could tell. My grandfather is too ill—”
“He’s as much ill from pampering as anything else,” J.T. said as he poured himself a whiskey. “I’m going to stay by you every moment. You’re not getting out of my sight. You’re to go nowhere without me.”