Oh, good.The poor girl wasn’t going into this completely blind. “I’ll take that as yes. His memory is better than whatever he has told you, no matter what he has told you.” Wulf’s preternaturally sharp memory was a Hannover family trait, along with blond hair and brightly colored eyes. “He hides it. He puts up a false front so that no one will know.”
Rae nodded. “A shiny, mirrored shell.”
Flicka liked that analogy. “Yes, just like that. I didn’t realize why until I was sixteen, and I think I’m the only one who knows the extent of it. I was a terrible person at sixteen. A monster.”
“Everyone is. It’s developmentally normal.” Rae was a psych major.
Flicka glanced back over the crowd, where Wulf was edging closer to them all the time. This had to be fast, but Raemustunderstand. “I was a spoiled brat of the worst kind. Too much money, too early.”
She stretched to whisper everything just past Rae’s shoulder. Her friends, duchesses and princesses and ladies, surrounded them. All looked elsewhere, studying the crowd, enjoying the music, and pointedly not eavesdropping. Yes, Flicka’s girls had her back.
She whispered faster, spilling secrets. “He forgave me. He’s not cruel with it. He will forgive anything, but he cannotforget.”
Yes, Wulf could forgive anything, but if this little ingenue cut into Wulfram with sarcasm when he proposed, so help her God, Flicka would take Rae down hard.
Flicka looked up and followed Rae’s line of sight to Wulfram, only three rows of people away. He dodged left, going around the Deposed Duchess of Somewhere in Eastern Europe. Even Flicka couldn’t keep them all straight.
Flicka whispered quickly to Rae, “Please, if you have to tell him no, please be kind. That moment will stab at him for the rest of his life.” She stepped backward. “Wulfie! I was just telling your friend here how beautiful she looks.”
Her brother looked back and forth between her and Rae, his crystal-blue eyes as emotionless as sapphires.
Flicka beamed at him, certainly giving nothing away, certainly not letting him know that she had just spilled to Rae things that he might not want her to know but that she absolutely needed to.
Wulfie was ramrod straight beside Rae, not showing any indication at all that he had just asked the Queen of England for permission to marry.
It was disconcerting. Flicka wanted to stamp her foot and swear like shit, but she didn’t, of course. Her Serene Highness was attending her own wedding reception, not making a scene in a restaurant in the bad part of London.
Maybe she should grab Wulfie and drag him off amidst the Louvre’s many art galleries and small viewing areas and demand to know just what the hell he was thinking.
Marriage!
Seriously!
Wulfram wasn’t the marrying type. He wasn’t the falling-in-love type, not in the slightest. That kind of love was a vulnerability that neither of them could afford. Yes, they loved each other in a very odd siblings-mixed-up-with-parent-child way, but that was to be expected.
It wouldn’t utterly destroy the other if one of them were killed.
Flicka followed Wulf and Rae back to their assigned dining table, fully intending to drag Wulf off to the side and talk some sense into him, at least for the night. Yoshi had been pouring scotch into him all damn night long. No matter how steady he seemed, he was probably wasted.
Dieter met Wulf and Rae at the table. The bulk on his right arm under his black suit must be the bandage after they had sewn him up.
Flicka took a step toward him before she remembered herself. She just wanted to make sure he was all right.
“Ms. Stone.” Dieter held her phone out to her with his left hand. “You’ve had a phone call on your mobile.”
“I did?” Rae glanced at the phone, her auburn hair swishing around her shoulders.
Maybe if Dieter took Rae off somewhere, she could talk some sense into Wulfie.
Rae turned to Flicka. “I need to make a phone call. Is there someplace quiet, someplace private?”
Perfect.“There are a thousand little rooms in here. I’ll have someone take you up.”
She signaled one of the waiters, who called a man in a black suit.
When Rae walked away with him, Flicka tried to snag Wulf’s arm, but he shook her off and walked after Rae Stone as if hypnotized.
That failing, Flicka tried to grab Dieter to tell him to bring Wulf back down to her, but Dieter had already turned to follow them to the elevator.
