Aria didn’t speak but slowly rose with great dignity and walked away. She reached her horse before J.T. caught up with her. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the trees. Aria squirmed to get away from him.
“Come on, baby, don’t be mad,” he coaxed, running his hands up her arms.
His bare skin was hot and sweaty and her face was inches from his chest.
“I had to do something with her. She was following me everywhere, so I gave her to the women to train. It’s keeping her out of trouble.”
“And you enjoy her. No doubt the sight of her in that little skirt—” She broke off as he kissed her.
She was breathless when he finished and she clung to him, her cheek a
gainst his damp chest.
“We shouldn’t do this,” he said after a long while. “This kind of thing will make our parting harder. Tell me what you did this morning.”
“Gena is so pretty,” Aria said, holding on to him.
He pushed her away just enough to look at her. “Not as pretty as you. Not as smart as you. Not as much woman as you.”
“Really?” she asked, beginning to smile.
“Really.” He kissed her again, but lightly. “Now tell me what you did. Did the guard protect you? Were you safe? Come back to the field with me and I’ll give you some beer and we can talk.”
Aria ended by spending the afternoon at the guards’ training ground. For the first time she met the guardswomen and she saw Gena trying to learn to wrestle. The men were watching the event as if it were very serious, but Aria saw the light in their eyes. She was sorry she had been jealous of her little sister when she saw the way Gena looked up at her with such adoration in her eyes.
Aria leaned toward J.T. “This Frank who is to come, what is he like?” she asked.
J.T. looked at Gena and began to smile. “He may be exactly right for her, although I don’t think he’ll want to stay here. He won’t fit any more than I do.”
Aria felt like laughing because if anyone fit it was Jarl. He was dressed in a white robe, his big legs bare, sitting on one of the wooden chairs, drinking beer. He could have been one of the guardsmen. The captain of the guard caught her eye and smiled as if he knew what she was thinking.
Five minutes later all hell broke loose because Julian arrived in a long black limousine. He was horrified by Aria’s common behavior and told her she was late for tea with the Ladies’ Historical Guild.
Aria left with him, surrounded by guardsmen, before he saw Gena in her skimpy dress.
For four days Aria tried to behave herself. She rode with Julian and six guardsmen in the morning, then answered requests from people until midmorning, and at ten she left the palace to attend one function after another. She did not see Jarl. He did not come to dinner nor did he attend one evening’s festivities when the Lanconian Opera Company performed. The soprano was not very good and the tenor kept stepping in front of her so the audience could not see her—which made the soprano angry and her singing worse. Aria was afraid she might nod off.
On the fifth morning, she was having breakfast when J.T. strode into the room. He looked tired. “Frank’s plane is about to land. You coming?”
Aria gulped a cup of tea and left with him to the astonishment of her relatives at the table. He didn’t speak until they were in the backseat of the car and on their way to the airport. He turned to her and his eyes seemed to eat her.
“I’ve missed you,” he whispered, then took her hand in his and held it tightly. They were silent for a moment, then both began to speak at once.
J.T. told her how he had been working eighteen-hour days, traveling all over Lanconia, trying to educate the farmers about selling their grapes as raisins. He had twice been in radio contact with President Roosevelt and it looked like America was going to buy raisins. “But not very many,” J.T. said. “America has California with millions of raisins.” He sighed. “There has to be something else we can do to help this country stand on its own feet.”
“We,” Aria whispered. “We.”
The two American airplanes were just landing when they arrived at the airport. Out of the first plane came several older American men then a hundred soldiers. These were the men to mine the vanadium.
Off the second plane came a six-foot-tall man who could have been twenty or forty-five. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and a big, thick body that looked like it could carry a great deal more weight than it did and a handsome face set in a scowl.
“There’s Frank,” J.T. said, taking her hand and pulling her behind him.
“He is seventeen years old? Why is he angry?”
“He was born angry but don’t let him scare you. He’s a good kid.”
Aria stood back while J.T. and Frank shook hands.