Frowning, she shut the drawers and mirror abruptly since she heard someone in the outer chamber. On walking out of the closet, she saw Lady Werta standing there.
“Very good. You are examining the princess’s belongings.”
Aria was not going to allow this woman to think she could rule her. “How dare you enter my room without permission,” she said, all her anger showing.
Lady Werta looked surprised for a moment then recovered. “You can stop the act with me. I know you, remember? We have to talk about tonight. Count Julian is here.”
“I’ll discuss nothing with you.” Aria started toward the door leading to the hall.
“Wait a minute,” Lady Werta said, grabbing Aria’s arm.
Aria was actually horrified at the woman’s touch. She wasn’t the new American Aria pretending to be the princess. She was the princess.
Lady Werta stepped back. “We have to talk,” she said, but there was no strength in her voice.
“Call my ladies,” Aria said, turning away. “I must dress for dinner.”
Aria wore a long white gown that was embroidered with thousands of seed pearls to dinner. It was high-necked, long-sleeved, very prim, very proper—sexless. The diamonds she wore in her ears Lady Werta had fetched for her, not showing her where the major jewel chest was hidden, probably for fear the American would steal the contents. Instead, she had selected three pair of insignificant earrings and presented them to Aria. “This is all?” Aria had complained so only Lady Werta heard.
“We are a poor country,” Lady Werta sniffed, her eyes showing she was angry.
“We are glad to see that you have fully recovered from your American illness, Your Highness,” her three other ladies-in-waiting said as they moved about the room, waiting to obey Aria’s merest whim.
One of her dressers looked her over critically. “You are thinner than you were in America.”
Aria gave the woman a withering look. “You will keep your personal remarks to yourself. Now dress me.”
It was difficult not to be impatient with the women because she knew she could have dressed herself in half the time. The long foundation garment felt familiar and strange at the same time, and she felt as if the last vestiges of the American Aria disappeared when her dresser pulled her much shorter hair back into a tight chignon. Her secretary sat in a chair behind a screen, the princess’s social calendar in her hand.
“Tomorrow at nine A.M. is riding; at ten-thirty, you will visit the new children’s hospital. At one you lunch with three members of the council to discuss the American vanadium contract. At two you will hand out gold watches to four railroad employees. At four you have tea with council wives. At five-thirty the Scientific Academy is giving a speech on the insect life of the northeastern Balean Mountains. At seven you return to ready for dinner at eight-thirty. And at ten—”
“There is a jitterbug contest in the ballroom,” Aria said, making everyone in the room stop.
Lady Werta gave her a quelling look. “It is from Her Royal Highness’s visit to America. She makes a joke.”
Politely, the women laughed, but they looked at her oddly, as if her making a joke was a very, very strange thing to do.
“Don’t do that again,” Lady Werta warned under her breath.
Later, when Aria walked into the dining room, everyone came to a halt. They stared at her, waiting for some signal from her as to how to act. When the king was away, the crown princess set the tone.
Aria took a deep breath. “Well, Freddie,” Aria said to her second cousin, Prince Ferdinand, “I can see you still have no manners. Do I deserve no greeting?”
He came to her and bowed over her extended hand. “We have been worried about you,” he said in Lanconian.
For a moment, Aria hesitated. This man was her cousin, they had spent a great deal of time together, yet he greeted her after a long absence as if she were a slight acquaintance. “In English please. If we are to deal with these Americans, we must be able to understand them. They do not learn other people’s languages.” She looked at him as if she had never seen him before. Freddie was a small man, a few inches shorter than Aria and quite thin. He slouched when he walked. Aria had always
ignored Freddie—as everyone did—but now she thought she saw anger burning in his dark eyes. He was third in line for the throne after Aria and her sister. Could he want the throne enough to kill for it?
“You look good, Aria,” her Great-Aunt Sophie shouted. The old woman was nearly deaf and compensated by shouting at everyone. She was dressed as only Aunt Sophie dressed, in layer upon layer of baby-blue chiffon, big blue silk roses around the indecently low neckline that exposed her wrinkly bosom. What was that American saying? Mutton dressed as lamb. Her grandfather said Sophie had always had hopes of snagging a husband but so far no man had been so stupid as to ask.
“Well enough, I guess, after having nearly died,” Aria shouted back, making everyone in the room look at her in surprise. Princess Aria did not shout.
“Good!” Great-Aunt Sophie shouted back, and turned away to yell at a waiter that she wanted more brandy.
“I am glad too that you are well” came a suave voice, and she was face-to-face with Count Julian.
Lieutenant Montgomery had always referred to the man as Count Julie and had always insinuated that he was effeminate. But Aria saw virility in the man’s eyes. He wasn’t big and strong like Lieutenant Montgomery, but a woman could do worse. He was quite handsome, about the same height as she was, with the erect, straight carriage of a military man. Her grandfather said Julian had been forced to wear a steel back brace from the time he was four until he was sixteen.