The healing gunshot wound on his arm itched under the bandage.
Georgiana Oelrichs
Flicka von Hannover
No one’s demanded pistols at ten paces yet.
So, that’s good.
Sometimes, the universe hands you clues as to what the future will bring.
It’s never as obvious as a fortune cookie telling you not to trust the woman in the red dress or a suicide king turning up three times during blackjack.
Sometimes, it’s a closure that leaves a void.
Someone is found.
And then someone has to run away.
Flicka was standing in the small luncheon wedding reception for her brother and his new wife. She and the hotel concierge staff had managed to throw it together within a few hours in a nice little salon at the rear of the hotel.
The staff had commandeered most of the hotel’s daily flower delivery and arranged the maroon, violet, and Delft blue hydrangea blooms into low centerpieces, their colors saturating the room as much as their scent. The tables and chairs were dressed in royal purples and blues with crisp, white tablecloths on top. Bright sunlight showered outside the long windows, a beautiful day for their wedding.
Just enough guests circulated among the tables. All of Wulf’s and Rae’s closest friends had managed to stay over or fly in, but the reception was small enough to be intimate and lovely. There were only two hundred people or so there.
Flicka sort of envied Wulf in that he had such a sweet little reception instead of the three extravaganzas that she had thrown.
She’d funded three schools, maybe five, in perpetuity though. Their differing goals had been met.
Other than the head table for the wedding party and a reserved table for Flicka and her friends, guests were left to find their own seats.
Flicka had been talked into thelaissez-fairerisk by Huguette and the other concierges. She hated how much could go wrong withunspecified seating arrangements,for the love of God.
The guests filled the room, many of whom had been in Paris for Flicka’s wedding the night before and were just waking up after those parties.
Yes, well, Flicka had slept even less, and she wasn’t complaining. She hadn’t gotten anywhere near her usual four hours of rest.
After all, what good is a princess if she can’t throw a fairy tale wedding in a few hours? Flicka didn’t need a fairy godmother to work her magic, just a competent concierge staff.
She flitted around the room, heading off people who were about to make unwise seating choices and settling them with company more congenial to their interests and predilections.
Lord in Heaven, if one more married geezer tried to wedge himself between two of her school friends, she would simply explode.
But in a sophisticated manner, as was befitting a princess.
She stalked over to intercept Duchess Lassiter from inviting herself to sit at a table with a group of men who preferred each other’s company. The Duchess was notoriously closed-minded and loud-mouthed, and her last encounter had resulted in drinks thrown in people’s faces. The Duchess had deeply deserved it, but that didn’t mean that Flicka wanted a repeat.
With Flicka’s constant vigilance, Wulfram’s reception had come off beautifully, complete with champagne, lunch, and cake. So far, no invitations for satisfaction with pistols at ten paces had been issued.
Flicka had earned her princess stripes that day.
Over on the side of the reception, DieterSchwarz and Wulfram’s other security guys watched the crowd, the windows, and the doors that led to the George V Hotel lobby. Some of the other security men looked tense as they watched, but Dieter didn’t. His hunting stare and easy movements reminded Flicka of a stalking tiger, always ready to flow across the room and attack.
Even with a bulky bandage under the arm of his suit jacket, he looked masculine and graceful, not jumpy.
The bulge of that bandage wove guilt through Flicka again.
The champagne was flowing freely, and Victoria Adelaide leaned across the table to top off Flicka’s and Alexia’s glasses as soon as they dipped at all. Flicka was a tall woman, a tad over five feet, ten inches, but she had the liver of a sumo wrestler tucked inside her rib cage. Considering how much she’d drunk at her three different receptions last night, that outsized liver might have saved her life. Indeed, she wasn’t even hung over, so she poured more alcohol into her body.
