First Dance
Flicka von Hannover
If I had known
that would be our last night,
I would have insisted that he dance with me
at least once.
Flicka was a real-life princess, and so even while she attended the Royal College of Music in London for piano performance, she was still involved with the House of Hannover charities. Because her time and creativity were sucked away by the conservatory, she mostly threw money at the charities, not time.
Because merely tossing cash to make the charities go away would not be perceived as enough, and because she had an older brother who was an incorrigible hermit no matter how people talked, she masterminded a debut cotillion every spring that benefitted her causes and got it all over with on one night.
Her coming-out debut ball, the Shooting Star Debutante Cotillion, took a lot of time and effort, but Flicka made time for it.
Before Flicka created the Shooting Star Cotillion, most of the upper-class English debutantes made their entrance to society at Queen Charlotte’s Ball. Queen Charlotte’s Ball, held at the Royal Courts of Justice, was the oldest debutante ball, first begun by Flicka’s ancestor King George the Third in 1780 for his wife’s birthday. Ever since Princess Margaret had observed in 1958 that “every tart was getting in,” the British royal family had distanced themselves from it, preferring a more modern profile for the monarchy.
While many heiresses still attended Queen Charlotte’s, Flicka’s ball had quickly become the more chic cotillion, as the emphasis on charitable works lightly turned to displays of political power and small, subtle incursions into international relations. The Shooting Star Debutante Cotillion was practically the equivalent of an internship at the United Nations, and the relationships formed there lasted beyond the dance.
First, Flicka shoveled money at the Dorchester Hotel for their Ballroom Suite of rooms, and then she micro-managed the event down to the napkin origami and the salt shakers. She would rather have held it atSchloss Marienburg,her family’s ancestral neo-Gothic castle in Hannover, Germany, and maybe Flicka would re-locate it there after she graduated, depending on which orchestra she associated herself with as she began her career as a concert pianist.
She also pressed each years’ crop of international, upper-class debutantes into service, showing them howroyaltythrew a charitable event.
But the Shooting Star Debutante Cotillion was beautiful.
And it raked in the cash.
Her charities usually netted hundreds of thousands of pounds, if not millions, from the Shooting Star.
However, for her long-term goals, Flicka was building a network of upper-class women, many of whom had the treasure and willpower to change the world.
Even Dieter had no idea of her real long-term goals.
They’d had the smallest of spats earlier, but she was sure it was nothing.
She and Dieter had been lounging in their Kensington Palace apartment. Flicka had already had her makeup applied but had been wearing a bathrobe until right before they left, lest she wrinkle. Dieter had been wearing his tuxedo pants and a tight, white tee shirt.
She had—horror of horrors—wanted the first dance to be with him at her cotillion that year.
She usually danced with Wulfie, but he hadn’t been able to make it to her cotillion, something about a business emergency in the Southwestern US that required his immediate, personal attention.
“All the debutantes will be dancing with their fathers,” Flicka insisted to Dieter. “Everyone thinks you’re like an uncle to me, so no one will bat their eyelashes or clutch their pearls about it.”
He said, “This is not making me feel any better.”
“I’ve never danced with you. It’s unfair that everyone gets to dance with their boyfriends, and I don’t.”
“I thought you said it was the fathers’ dance.”
“Yes, the first one is the fathers’ dance, and that’s when we’ll dance so that we stay below the radar, just like you want.”
“You need to dance with other men to maintain your cover.”
“My cover,that’s so funny, and there are at least twenty dances planned. I’ll dance with other guys.”
“It’s better for you if you don’t advertise that you’re screwing your bodyguard.”
