The Princess (Montgomery/Taggert 10)

Aria kept looking out the window. Part of her was beginning to feel sorry for Princess Aria, who never got to play. But now she was a new Princess Aria. Her experiences in America had changed her—and she meant to change the life in her palace.

Lady Werta had shown Aria a floor plan of the palace but she had been told that the Lord High Chamberlain would show her as many rooms as possible before taking her to her own chambers. Even with her heavy veil he predicted that many of the retainers would recognize her. The story they had spread was that, after her American tour, she had been felled with a particularly nasty strain of flu and had been taken to a private clinic in Austria until she recovered. No one knew when Aria was to return, and there were rumors that she had died.

The Lord High Chamberlain started to lead her into the palace, but Aria stood where she was, refusing to let him precede her. He gave her a look of hatred then stepped behind her.

The grand entrance hall was designed to impress people. Scrolled plaster work made panels on the walls and ceiling. The panels on the ceiling were filled with paintings depicting Rowan the Magnificent’s exploits. The wall held carved oak medallions of the coats of arms of every monarch and his queen. Aria’s arms were on the east wall, with a space below for the arms of her husband. For a moment she wondered what Lieutenant Montgomery would have put in that place. An UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU poster?

The Lord High Chamberlain cleared his throat behind her and she walked through the big doorway into the war trophy room—another room made to impress. One wall held a twenty-foot-square portrait of Rowan on a rearing horse. Since Rowan had left behind no likenesses of himself, it was an artist’s conception of a magnificent warrior. Aria’s grandfather said Rowan probably looked a good deal more tired and dirty and wore quite a bit less gold braid than the artist depicted.

Aria smiled at the memory and then remembered how Lieutenant Montgomery had said the people of Lanconia were now cowards.

She sniffed and walked ahead toward the grand staircase, a staircase that a six-horse carriage could be driven up—Hager the Hated had proved that. Of course the driver of the carriage’s life depended on his winning his king’s wager. He had succeeded but the deepest nicks in the marble stairs had never been smoothed out.

Behind her, the Lord High Chamberlain was whispering directions but she ignored him. At specific intervals along the stairs and outside the rooms stood the Royal Guard. They stood, with only one break, for eight hours at a time. Aria had never given them a thought before but now she knew a little more about waiting. Later, when this problem of her identity was solved, she might do something about these Royal Guards.

The Lord High Chamberlain’s whispering became frantic with insistence as Aria approached her apartment, but she continued to ignore him. In the hall portraits of her ancestors looked down at her, their eyes solemn, as if they knew she was harboring unroyal thoughts. She could almost feel her mother’s horror: shall we supply the guards with chairs? Perhaps Rowan would have won his battles sooner if he had fought with his men in lounge chairs.

Aria braced her shoulders and entered her bedchamber as the two guards opened the doors. Behind her the Lord High Chamberlain’s voice died away as the doors shut.

On their knees in a deep curtsy before her were her four ladies-in-waiting and two dressers. They were all older women, all chosen by her mother, and Aria’s first impulse was to tell them to get off their knees.

“Welcome, Your Royal Highness,” they chorused.

She nodded to them but made no answer to their welcome. She really knew very little about these women as her mother had trained her not to be intimate with her attendants.

“Leave me,” Aria said. “I want to be alone.”

The women looked at

one another in question.

Lady Werta stepped forward. “Perhaps Her Royal Highness would like a bath drawn.”

Aria gave the woman a look that sent her retreating. “Must I repeat myself?”

The women left and Aria breathed a sigh of relief. She lifted her heavy veil and looked about the room. This was her room, a room where she had spent many hours, a room she had had done, against her mother’s wishes, in yellow. The walls were silk moiré with the same draperies surrounding her many tall windows that looked out onto the wild wood.

There were eleven tables in the big room, all of them with delicate legs, all of them in some way unique and precious. One was a gift from a sultan, inlaid with tiny bits of precious stones. Another had an enamel portrait of Aria, her parents, and sister, each holding a musical instrument. Several of the tables were covered with family photographs in silver frames.

There was a seating arrangement of a tiny couch and three chairs, each covered with yellow and white silk. On the floor was an enormous blue, white, and gold Aubusson carpet. A year after her mother’s death, Aria had walked about the palace and chosen all the portraits and miniatures of the most beautiful women and had them moved to the walls of her rooms.

Her desk was here, a small, exquisite ormolu and mahogany creation. Each instrument—letter opener, fountain pen, stationery holder—was a work of art, none of it chosen by her but given to her as her right. “Rather like Julian,” she whispered, but corrected herself immediately.

Through the sitting room was her bedroom, done in the palest of sea green, the walls painted over a hundred years ago for another queen with fantasy scenes set in an imaginary forest peopled with unicorns and wood sprites. Her bed had been made for Queen Marie-August in the seventeenth century and had taken six men two years to carve the delicate tendrils and leaves and vines winding their way up the four posts. It was said that Queen Marie-August’s husband never saw the bed—nor did any man for that matter.

One wall of the bedroom was a series of semihidden doors that led into her four closets. Each closet was actually the size of the bedroom she had had in Key West.

The first closet contained her daily clothes, hundreds of silk blouses, many hand embroidered by the women of Lanconia. There were rows of tailored skirts and a wall-length rod hung with her silk dresses.

She took one off the rod and looked with dismay at the buckram in the waist. “No more loose-fitting little rayon numbers.” She sighed, but then the feel of the silk made her smile.

The second closet contained her ballgowns and ceremonial garments, each in a specially made cotton sack with a transparent voile shoulder so one could see the dress. Even under the voile, the gold work, the sequins, the tiny diamonds, even the pearls, glowed and made the pale pink of the walls look like a sunset.

The third closet contained her accessories: hats, gloves, rows of handmade, hand-fitted shoes, purses, boots, scarves. One wall was lined with drawers filled with handmade underwear: slips, underpants, nightgowns. And the heavy, elastic Merry Widow foundations. She grimaced at those and shut the drawer.

The fourth closet contained her furs, her winter suits, and, behind a mirror, the safe for her jewels. She tripped the three latches to the mirror, swung it back, then turned the combination to her safe. Two six-foot-tall rows of velvet-covered drawers greeted her. Red velvet meant sets: necklace, bracelet, earrings. Black velvet was for rings, yellow for earrings, blue for watches, green for brooches, and white was for her tiaras: pearl tiaras, diamond tiaras, rubies, emeralds. Each piece was in its own fitted compartment.

Aria smiled as she opened drawer after drawer. Each jewel had a history; each had belonged to someone else. Aria had never purchased a jewel nor had she been given one that had not belonged to generations of royalty before her.