“Really.”
Slowly, she rose from the table and left the dining room. Her mother had been right: one cannot trust people not of one’s class. Right now she greatly regretted how much she had relaxed in his presence. She had let him see her as no one else ever had. She had even let him see her cry.
The ambassador had shown her on a map where she was to walk, the place where she would be most visible to the townspeople. As a side street curved around, there was a dirt goat path winding up around the mountain.
Her shoes weren’t made for climbing but the exercise felt good and she began to walk faster.
She was startled when a man jumped from behind a bush at her. In her bewilderment, she almost greeted him by name. He was the king’s third secretary, a mild, quiet man one rarely noticed and certainly never thought of as a villain.
“Mrs. Montgomery, would you come with me?”
“Not on your life, buster,” she said, and turned to go back down the hill.
Another man blocked her path. He was the Master of Plate’s assistant. “This is more than a request.” He took her arm and led her away as she yelled in protest, but they were too far away from town for anyone to hear her.
She was taken to a goatherder’s hut and sitting inside was the Lord High Chamberlain. Aria had to conceal her anger. This was a man her grandfather had always trusted.
He didn’t conceal his contempt for her. “Mrs. Montgomery, I have a proposition for you.”
Twenty minutes later, Aria leaned back in her chair. “Let me get this straight. You want me to be your princess?”
“For a short time only. We fear that the news of his granddaughter’s kidnapping will kill the king. He is old and his heart is bad and this news could be too much for him. You won’t have to do anything but stay in Her Highness’s apartments and be seen from a distance now and then. We shall say that you have an illness and cannot leave your room. Now and then someone will look in on you and you will have to play the invalid in bed, but for the most part you will be free to read or listen to records or whatever you Americans do.” There was a sneer in his voice.
“So I’m to be a prisoner in a couple of rooms. I see what you get out of this but what’s in it for me?”
The Lord High Chamberlain stiffened. “You will be helping an old man who is near death, and our country needs you.”
“That’s just what I said: what’s in it for me?”
The man’s eyes blazed. “We are not a rich country.”
“Well, maybe you can pay me some other way. How about a title? I’d like to be a duchess maybe.”
The man’s face showed his revulsion. “Duchess is a hereditary title. Perhaps a directorship. You would be addressed as Mistress.”
“Mistress!” she gasped. “That’s what my husband’s got. I’ll not be called a mistress.”
“It does not mean the same thing in our country. It is a title of great honor.”
She stood. “Look, I gotta go. It’s been real nice meetin’ you, but no go. I don’t wanna sit in some rooms for a couple of weeks and pretend I’m sick.”
“All right then, what can I offer you?”
Aria thought a minute then sat back down. “Me and my husband ain’t been gettin’ along so well. I’d like to be this princess for a while, know what I mean? You teach me how to talk like her and act like her and maybe I can get somethin’ on with one of your dukes or somethin’. Then when your real princess gets back maybe I can stay and be married to a duke. Or maybe a prince. A prince would be nice.”
The Lord High Chamberlain could not conceal his horror.
“Take it or leave it, buddy,” Aria said, rising. “And who knows about what you’re tryin’ to do? This sick ol’ king know about this? The American ambassador? Are you sure this is on the up and up?”
The Lord High Chamberlain left the room and a second later returned with Princess Aria’s lady-in-waiting, Lady Werta.
“Can it be done? Can she be trained not only to meet Princess Aria’s family but also to carry out her rigorous schedule?” he asked.
Lady Werta gave Aria a condescending look. “Stand,” she ordered. “And walk.”
It was on the tip of Aria’s tongue to tell the woman to mind her manners, but she did as she was told. She slouched across the room, putting lots of wiggle in her hips.
“Impossible,” Lady Werta said. “Totally impossible.”