Honeymoon
Flicka von Hannover
We canceled our honeymoon in the Seychelles.
I’m still not sure why.
The Prince’s Palace in Monaco was a fortress.
Literally.
Stone walls rose around the stronghold that overlooked the dark blue harbor. In the Middle Ages, the castle had been a working fortress and defended the ships docked in the port far below. A fresh, salty breeze blew off the Mediterranean toward the palace, ruffling the flags flying above.
Security guys hustled Flicka and Pierre from the helicopter that landed at Monaco’s small heliport to a waiting SUV and ferried them in a caravan, through red stop lights, toward the Prince’s Palace on the headland Monaco Ville, high on a cliff that overlooked the Mediterranean harbor and port.
Jordan Defrancesco drove them, as usual. He’d taken a special defensive driving course and could spin the car in a one-eighty if they needed to turn around.
Quentin Sault rode shotgun.
Although the Palace had a small, militarized unit of bodyguards and soldiers,the Compagnie des Carabiniers du Prince,they and their uniforms had become more ceremonial the last few decades. Now, they mostly paraded around the Prince’s Palace for the tourists while the Secret Service and the army provided the royal family’s security.
And that was Quentin Sault,et al.
On the way, Flicka turned to Pierre, who was sitting beside her in the back seat. “You need to be more discreet.”
He looked at her and raised one dark eyebrow.
“Anne Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire, was hinting that you and she went away for a weekend a few weeks ago.”
He frowned and took Flicka’s hand. “I’ll talk to her. Did it upset you?”
“Only in that she thought it was acceptable to bring up the subject.”
He kissed her knuckles. “I’ll make sure that it never happens again, and I’m sorry about that.”
“Thank you.”
Flicka went back to looking at the scenery. Monaco was such a beautiful place. It was the gold coast of the Mediterranean near the French Riviera, and the pristine sea and blinding white beaches pleased her.
With the caravan tucked inside the courtyard, the Secret Service men fanned out to secure the perimeter.
It was nice that Pierre was taking no chances with her safety. He was even holding her hand, resting it on the seat so outsiders couldn’t see, of course, as the SUVs wheeled into the courtyard of the palace. Their security detail emerged first, reconnoitering the area, an unusual move in one of the safest countries in the world.
Usually, the prince’s entourage pulled up to the front of the palace, and he walked inside while waving to the few tourists and staff who happened to be around.
Flicka’s ancestral home,Schloss Marienburgin Hannover, Germany, was a European castle built during the Victorian age, so it was relatively new. Like the other royal families of the Romanovs, Hapsburgs, and Bourbons, the Hannovers simply built a new palace every few centuries when their fortunes allowed it.
Schloss Marienburgwas a Gothic Revival, fairy-tale castle like something out of a Disney cartoon. Its ivory spires rose on a mountaintop above a dense, lush forest that looked like it hid houses built by dwarves and was infested with granny-eating wolves, but the only Big, Bad Wulf in Hannover was Flicka’s older brother. Though the castle appeared far older, perhaps a thousand years old with its turrets, towers, and portcullises, it was only a hundred and fifty years old, give or take a bit. Some of the houses in America’s New England were older, which had always amused Flicka.
Schloss Marienburgwas a true royal castle, built as the summer seat for the kings of Hannover when they were not residing at their other castles, the Royal Leine Palace and Herrenhausen Gardens in Hannover, and there was a throne room there that housed the 1720 Augsburg silver throne. Her family had loaned the silver throne, together with the other silver furniture, to England for their exhibition about the Hannover kings of Great Britain, when her family had ruled England, Scotland, and the rest of the UK as well as vast swaths of Europe.
As far as Flicka was concerned, her family still did rule the UK. No war had deposed them. No palace coup had installed another house on their throne. Everyone in Kensington and Windsor Palaces was a direct descendant of Queen Victoria, just like Flicka, herself.
Many of her friends shared Queen Victoria as an ancestor, too.
And some of Flicka’s acquaintances.
Most of the descendants of European royalty looked vaguely similar, like perhaps some of the founding members’ genes were, ahem,overrepresented.
