At noon she moved back to the palm tree. The heat, her hunger, and the lack of sleep were too much for her. She stretched out on the sand and went to sleep.
When she woke it was dark. There were the calls of strange birds and she could hear movement in the bushes behind her. She moved nearer the palm tree and drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. She dozed a bit but mostly she stayed awake and wondered what was happening on the naval base. If they told her grandfather the king she was missing, he would be very worried. She had to get back as soon as possible and let the world know she was safe.
The sun rose and she sat up straight. Perhaps the naked man had left the island and she was alone here. Perhaps she would die after all.
A shadow blocked the sun and she looked up to see the man standing over her. He wore an unbuttoned shirt that exposed a great deal of his chest which was covered with dark hair. She could not possibly look directly at him.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered.
He held a string of fish in front of her but she looked away. He tossed the fish onto a patch of grass then began gathering wood.
“Look, I guess we got off to a bad start,” he said. “Maybe I was a little too friendly and maybe getting shot before breakfast doesn’t put me in the best of temper, so what do you say we start again? My name’s J. T. Montgomery.”
She turned to look at him as he squatted over a fire, the fish on sticks as he turned them. With his shirt open and hair on his chest and black whiskers on his face, he looked very primitive, more like something out of a history book about Attila the Hun than what a proper man should look like. Her mother had warned her about men like him, or at least her mother had warned her about improperly attired men. She doubted if her mother had ever imagined that men such as this one existed. Such men were never to be allowed to take liberties.
“What’s your name?” he asked, smiling at her.
She didn’t like that overly familiar smile. It was imperative to stop it at once. “Your Royal Highness will do,” she answered, her jaw set.
The man looked away, his smile gone. “Okay, Princess, have it your way. Here.” He thrust a fish on a stick at her.
She looked at it in bewilderment. A princess was to eat whatever was offered to her, but exactly how did one eat this?
“Here,” J.T. said, and dumped the fish on a leaf of the palm tree. “Have at it.”
Aria looked at the fish with horror, then, to add to her horror, she saw the man was about to sit down on the other side of the fire and eat his fish.
“You cannot,” she gasped.
“Can’t what?” he asked, squinting at her, a piece of fish halfway to his mouth.
“You cannot sit with me. You are a commoner and I am—”
“That’s it!” he shouted, coming to his feet and towering over her. “I’ve had it with you. First I risk my life to save you and all the thanks I get is a ‘you can’t touch me, I’m royalty!’ ” he mocked. “Then I bring you food that you won’t eat and I’m told to call you Your Serene Highness and now—”
“Royal,” she said.
“What?” he sputtered.
“I am a Royal Highness, not Serene. I am a crown princess. Someday I will be queen. You must address me as Your Royal Highness and you must take me to the naval base immediately. Also, I need a knife and fork.”
The man said a few English words her tutor had not taught her.
Was it possible, Aria thought, that the man was angry? She couldn’t imagine why. He would have the honor of escorting her back to the base—it would be something he could tell his grandchildren about.
It was better to ignore commoners’ outbursts. It was their lack of breeding and training that made them so emotional, “I should like to leave as soon as I’ve eaten. If you wash that knife you’re carrying, I will eat with it.”
The man removed his knife from his belt, opened it, and tossed it blade down so that it stuck into the ground an inch from her hand. She didn’t flinch. Commoners were so unpredictable—and their tempers made them dangerous. One must take the upper hand.
She took the knife from the ground and waved it at him in dismissal. “You may go now and prepare the boat. I will be ready.”
Above her, she heard the man give a little laugh. Good, she thought, at least he was in better humor. Even he had to see how childish his temper was.
“Yeah, Princess, you just sit there and wait.” With that he turned away.
Aria waited until he was out of sight before looking back at the fish. “Princess,” she murmured, “makes me sound like a collie.”