It wasn’t easy dressing alone, but the beautiful nightgown did just slip over her head so she managed. For several minutes she had not heard anything from the other side of the door and she supposed he was readying himself also.
Cautiously, she opened the door.
In the living room stood a large table with the remains of a banquet. The cad had eaten their wedding supper without her! Nose wrinkled, she looked at the dirty dishes, which seemed to be all that was left of the feast. This man might teach her how to fill a bathtub but she planned to teach him some manners.
She turned toward the bedroom. He was sprawled on his back on one side of the bed, a newspaper over his face. He didn’t move when she tried to pull back the spread and get into the bed. Even when she gave an unladylike yank, he didn’t move.
Taking a deep breath, she lay down on top of the spread beside him, her hands clenched at her side. “I am ready,” she whispered.
He didn’t move, so she repeated herself. He still didn’t move.
Even for a husband, this man’s conduct was beyond the limits of decent good taste. She pushed the newspaper off his face. He was sleeping with his mouth half open, and with his whiskers he looked like the town idiot.
“I am ready!” she bellowed into his face in a very unprincesslike fashion, then lay down again.
“Ready?” he mumbled, coming awake slowly, then sitting up with a jolt. “Fire!” he said, then seemed to realize where he was. He turned and looked at Aria, his eyes going up and down her lavishly clad body.
Aria kept her hands at her sides, her legs stiff, and her eyes on the ceiling. This was it. This was when men turned into basic animals—all men did this, her mother had said, whether king or chimney sweep. And now was her turn to be ravaged.
“Ready for what?” Lieutenant Montgomery asked groggily.
“The wedding night,” she said, and closed her eyes against the coming pain. Would he hurt her terribly?
She opened her eyes when she heard him laugh.
“The wedding night?” he said, laughing. “You think that I…? That you and me…? That’s a good one. Is that why you spent half the night in the bathroom?”
He was laughing at her.
“Listen, lady, I married you only to help with the war. No other reason. I don’t have any designs on your body, no matter what silly thing you wear, but most of all, I don’t want anything to stand in the way of our ending this marriage once you get back on your throne. I somehow think your Count Julie will frown on your carrying my brat. Now, will you go in the other room and let me get some sleep? But don’t leave the hotel! Next time you’ll probably do something that’ll cause another country to declare war on us.”
Aria was thankful for her years of schooling that had shown her how to control her emotions. To be rejected as a princess was one thing but to be rejected as a woman was hurting her deeply.
“Out!” he said. “Get out of my bed. Go sleep in the other room. Here, I’ll call housekeeping and have the couch made up for you.”
With all the dignity she could muster, Aria rose from his bed. “No, Lieutenant Montgomery, I will manage on my own.” She did not want another woman to know she had been rejected on her wedding night. She walked into the living room. Behind her, he closed the door loudly with a muttered, “Damn!”
Aria sat on the couch for the rest of the night. She did not close her eyes once. She kept thinking of all the things she should have done, should have said, but what she remembered most clearly was how much trouble she had gone to to please him and he had rejected her.
She hated him.
She wasn’t well acquainted with the emotion but she certainly recognized it. Several of her ancestors had made marriages, for political reasons, with husbands or wives they hated. In the eighteenth century one couple had not spoken for over twenty years. Of course the woman had three children during that time, all of them looking like her husband the king, Aria thought.
She sat rigidly on the couch waiting for daylight. She would learn what he had to teach her so that she could get her country back, but all hope of anything else between them was gone. Perhaps her sister could produce an heir to the throne.
Aria did not cry—and holding the tears back now was much more difficult than when she had broken her arm.
J.T. woke slowly, his mouth tasting foul, his eyes heavy, and a pain in his back. He lifted himself and removed his twisted belt from where it was gouging in his kidney. He still wore his uniform and his shirt was twisted tightly about his body.
He knew without looking that the princess wasn’t in bed beside him and he also somehow knew that she was in the living room of the suite. Probably sulking, he thought with a grimace. Probably hating him even more because he wasn’t doing what she thought he should.
He closed his eyes a moment and thought of the past events. She had been impossible since the day he had rescued her. She had been demanding, overbearing, autocratic, always wanting more from him. No matter how much he gave, she expected more. He handed her an enormous amount of money—his money, which he had been saving for a new boat—and she never so much as said thank you.
He had never been so glad to get rid of anyone in his life as when he put her on that train and sent her to Washington. He sincerely hoped he would never have to see her again.
But he had not been so privileged. A few days later, by order of the president, J.T. was “requested” to go to D.C. They did everything but put a gun to his head in order to enforce their “request.”
No one would tell him what was wanted of him but he knew it had something to do with Her Royal Pain in the Neckship. Repeatedly, he cursed having met the woman.