He stopped and took a deep breath. Lanconia wasn’t his responsibility. In another few weeks he would be gone and what King Julian and Queen Aria did was their business.
As he passed the garage, he saw that all the lights were on and he heard Frank Taggert’s deep, angry voice. “A crescent wrench, not a ratchet wrench.”
“How am I supposed to know which is which?” J.T. heard Gena say with just as much anger. “I’m a princess, not an auto mechanic.”
“You have yet to prove to me you’re worth anything. This is a crescent wrench. Oh, honey, don’t cry.”
J.T. laughed in the darkness and thought it would be better not to disturb the two of them. It looked like Gena wouldn’t be following him anymore. Probably tomorrow she would be wondering what she ever saw in somebody as old as him.
Smiling, he went up to his lonely, empty bedroom. At least somebody somewhere was happy.
Chapter Twenty-one
SLOWLY, Aria got out of the car at her grandfather’s hunting lodge. It was dusk and she was tired after a long day o
f meetings with the Americans, but she so badly wanted to talk to her grandfather. It had been a harrowing day trying to bargain with the Americans over the price of the vanadium. Julian had insisted that she sit back and allow him to handle the negotiations but Aria soon realized he knew no more about bargaining than she did. Unwisely, she suggested they ask Lieutenant Montgomery to attend the meeting. Julian turned furious eyes on her until she was quiet.
After two hours, Julian seemed satisfied but Aria was not. She sent for Lieutenant Montgomery. He arrived wearing a sweat-stained undershirt, and when he saw the contract the Americans were offering, he laughed. Thirty minutes later he had sold half as much of the vanadium for twice as much money. “We’ll negotiate for the rest of it later,” he said. To Aria’s disbelief all the Americans seemed happy with the deal and very pleased with J.T., yet they gave looks of contempt to Julian. Aria didn’t understand at all because she would have thought the Americans would have liked Julian better.
After the meeting she wanted to talk to J.T. but he brushed her aside, saying he had to get back to the engines. She had felt rejected, and worst of all, she felt lonely. The rest of the day she had performed her duties but her heart hadn’t been in them. At four P.M. she told her secretary to call her grandfather and tell him she was coming to visit him.
Lady Werta had nearly died when she heard of Aria’s planned visit but Aria was getting good at ignoring the woman.
And now she was here and Ned was opening the front door to her. “He is in the garden, Your Highness,” Ned said, bowing to her. “I have presumed to prepare a supper for you and set it in the garden. His Majesty said you wanted to be alone.”
“Yes,” she said as she hurried forward. Now that she was this near, she desperately wanted to see her grandfather. He was standing under a big elm tree and waiting for her with open arms. To the world he was a king but to her he was her grandfather, someone who had held her on his lap and read her fairy tales. With her mother and the rest of the world she had had to be a princess but with her grandfather she could be a little girl.
He held her close, his big, heavy body enveloping her, and she felt safe and protected for the first time in a long while. She could feel tears gathering in her eyes. She who a few months ago never cried seemed to always be crying now.
Her grandfather held her at arm’s length and studied her. “Sit down here and eat,” he said gruffly. “Ned’s given us enough to feed Rowan’s army. It’s about time you came to see me.”
Aria took a seat and gave him a guilty little smile. She could feel herself becoming a little girl again, especially when she saw a dishful of the tiny chocolate cakes Ned had made for her, just as he had done all her life. But she had no appetite.
“What’s on your mind?” the king asked.
Aria hesitated. How could she burden her grandfather with her problems? He was an old man and not well. She took a seat across the table from him.
The king raised one eyebrow at her. “Turning coward on me, are you? Has someone shot at you again? Or tried to drown you? And how’s that American husband of yours doing with the car engines?”
Aria choked, and while her eyes watered and she gulped hot tea, her grandfather smiled at her.
“Why is it that young people think age brings stupidity? We’re smart enough to raise children and run our lives for fifty-odd years but when we turn sixty, young people assume we’re senile. Aria, I know everything. I know you were kidnapped in America and I was told you were dead. I knew there would be a scandal if you were killed on American soil, so I sent Cissy in your place.”
“But I thought—”
“That Cissy wanted to be queen? She’s got too much sense for that.”
Aria was silent for a moment. “I see.”
Her grandfather reached across the table to take her hand. “No you don’t see at all. You aren’t easily replaced if that’s what you’re thinking. I went through hell when I thought you were dead.” He squeezed her hand. “You can’t imagine my joy when the American president radioed me that you were safe and well. Of course by that time you were already married. He apologized for that and offered to have the marriage annulled and you returned to me.”
Aria’s head came up. “But you didn’t.”
“For all I knew, it was a love match. After all, he had rescued you from being killed. I was very grateful to the man.”
Aria was pushing a bit of thinly sliced beef about on her plate. “So you let me stay with the man and fall in love with him.” There was bitterness in her voice.
The king speared a turkey leg. “Why don’t you tell me about that place where you stayed? Awfully hot, wasn’t it? And whatever was that photo in the newspaper? Was that actually your lieutenant’s mother? Good-looking woman she looked to be. My sources said you cooked dinner and did the laundry. Not possible, Aria, really not possible.”