“Oh.” Josephine’s sigh was sad enough that her date looked sharply at her. “I had hoped—but no matter. Do you have someone to dance with to open the cotillion?”
“No, but I’m fine,” Flicka said.
Her pale green eyes took on a little more sparkle. “I can lend Cyprien to you.”
“Hey!” Cyprien (Flicka assumed) said, laughing. “Don’t I get a vote in this?”
Josephine poked Cyprien in the ribs without glancing in his direction. She told him, “You know you want to.”
“But I’m supposed to protest or have an opinion or something,” he said.
Flicka said over their shenanigans, “I’m fine. Thank you, but I’m fine. I sprained my ankle yesterday. I’d do better just sitting here while the little debs have their first dances with their donors, I mean,fathers.”
Josephine laughed. “All right, then.”
Cyprien led Josephine out to the dance floor as the orchestra struck up the first waltz.
Flicka had already coached the class of debs that she might not be out there, so they should stand up and lead the dance. They’d thought this was yet more Junior League training and nodded solemnly.
But no, it was just that the only man whom Flicka wanted to dance with didn’t want to be seen in public with her, supposedly for her own protection.
Flicka arranged her silverware on her half-full plate and sighed, ready to watch the dancing with matronly interest since she wasn’t taking part.
Behind her, a man’s voice said,“Prinzessin,may I have this dance?”
For a second, her heart leaped as she turned, wishing that Dieter had rushed over to her, but the accent was wrong. Dieter’s Swiss accent sounded like a flat German march mashed together with a lilting French sonata, but this guy’s accent was more South of France, more lush, more romantic. Sort of like an Italian opera.
When she looked up, Prince Pierre Grimaldi, the heir to the throne of Monaco, stood in front of her, his hand extended.
He was glamorously, impossibly beautiful.
She knew Pierre Grimaldi, of course. When she’d been a little girl and sneaking into Wulf’s Le Rosey Boarding School dorm room at midnight to be near her brother, Pierre had slept on the floor so she could have his bed. Wulfie had tried to sleep on the floor and let her sleep in his bed, but he had some problems with his shoulder the day afterward. Pierre had told him to stop being a dumbass and switched with him. She had peered over the edge of the mattress at him, already enamored by the dark, handsome, popular teenager at the age of six.
Wulf had convinced the Le Rosey administration to let them move off campus because Flicka was just going to keep sneaking out of the little girls’ dorm and driving the dorm mothers devil-fox wild—Fuchsteufelswild,as Wulfie said. Afterward, Pierre often visited the house every night for years. He and Wulfram had been friends and roommates at Le Rosey most of their lives. Why wouldn’t Pierre visit?
Every time he was there, before Frau Keller took Flicka up to bed at eight-thirty, Pierre had kissed Flicka’s knuckles and told her that she was the most beautifulprinzessinhe had ever seen or something like that. She’d giggled, but she’d heard Pierre and Wulfram chuckling after she’d left the room. All three of them knew he was playing with her.
Their social circles had overlapped deeply, of course. Pierre’s younger cousins Marie-Therese and Christine were both also musicians and nearer to Flicka’s age, and when they had been teenagers, Flicka went to Monaco with the girls for vacations sometimes. Pierre was always there, ready to kiss her knuckles with his dark eyes sparkling with mischief before he disappeared into the Monte Carlo casino or other nightclubs for the night.
Like everyone else, Flicka had seen the magazine articles about how the Prince of Monaco was the most eligible bachelor in the world, which was exactly like seeing your junior-high crush become a movie star. The sun-drenched photos of Pierre swimming in the pool behind the Prince’s Palace showed evidence that he spent a lot of time in the gym, too. All those abs couldn’t have been airbrushed on.
He had, like, ten abs.
A ten-pack.
He lookedquilted.
And now the Ten-Pack Prince, Pierre Grimaldi, wanted to dance withher.
What girl wouldn’t have danced with the most eligible bachelor on the planet, the gorgeous and ripped Pierre Grimaldi?
Even though she knew that her brother’s oldest friend was just rescuing her from being a wallflower, this was still a dance with the Prince of Monaco.
Besides, Dieter had insisted in no uncertain terms that she was to behave normally.
She was a single woman and the hostess of the night. Men would ask her to dance.
If she and Dieter were to maintain their secrecy, she should dance with them.
