Another Message
Flicka von Hannover
Fire is pretty.
While Alina played on the floor, Flicka was drinking tea that was just tea when Kyllikki brought her a sealed envelope, presented on a silver tray.
When Flicka had been a princess living in a castle, one of the staff had just handed her the mail, not delivered it on a silver tray like a roasted goose.
The square,gray envelope did not have a stamp or an address, just her name in block handwriting. It hadn’t come in the post.
She thanked Kyllikki. “And where did this come from?”
“A man brought it and asked that I give it to you.”
Flicka stood and walked across the room, as far away from Alina as she could get.
Did these bankers have no sense of operational security? Anything could be in that envelope,from anthrax to ricin or worse. “Did you get his name?”
“Quentin Sault.”
Flicka’s hands itched for firearms. “And what did he look like?”
Kyllikki described Quentin Sault right down to his limp, thinning hair.
Nausea rose in Flicka’s stomach, and she swallowed hard.
Pierre and his Secret Service wouldn’t allow Quentin Sault to openly deliver a poisoned letter.
She tore open the envelope.
Inside, she recognized Pierre Grimaldi’s precise cursive handwriting, also a side effect of graduating from Le Rosey boarding school. Everyone had nice handwriting and elegant table manners, if they chose to use them.
My Dearest Flicka,the letter read.
Flicka snorted and did not allow herself to descend into her rage about that salutation again.
Pierre’s voice sounded in her head as she readhis words:I miss you. I love you. I have always loved you.
That sounded a lot different than when Raphael said it. Pierre’s voice didn’t have that ring of authenticity. It didn’t make her believe it.
I need you to come home to Monaco. I need you to be with me, even if you can’t forgive me. If you can’t, I understand. But I need you. Monaco needs you.
Flicka scanned the rest of the letter,picking topics out of the false sentiment. The prose was remarkable not for what it said—the same declarations of love and devotion, solemn promises, pleas, and offers of negotiation and contracts—but for what it didn’t say.
Pierre didn’t mention Flicka’s remarriage to Raphael just a few days ago. He must not know, or he chose to ignore it as irrelevant and not a legal impediment because he wouldhave the courts nullify it.
He also didn’t mention that his uncle was in a persistent vegetative state and being kept alive by machines, as Maxence had told her, and that Pierre would need to be declared the reigning monarch of Monaco soon or he would lose it all. There was one short note near the end,I beg you to return as soon as possible,but other than that, nothing.
Flicka asked Kyllikki,“Could you please supervise Alina for just a moment?”
“Certainly, ma’am.”
Flicka walked out of the room, the paper in her fist, at a serene pace.
Three Russian guards followed her at a discreet distance. They were inside the Mirabaud estate and still had Alina under their control, so they probably thought she wasn’t a flight risk.
Flicka sauntered around the second-story walkway that overlookedthe entryway below to the large sitting room. During parties, this room must be used as an open bar, as there was a bartender’s set-up in the corner and cocktail tables with ample seating. The exterior wall was composed of windows and rose an additional story into the air, overlooking Lake Geneva and the mountains. French doors opened to a balcony outside.
She plucked Raphael’s lighter from abowl beside the French doors. His half-full pack of cigarettes with the odd ink blotch in the corner was the same one that had lain there for a week, she noted, and was pleased with that.
She walked out onto the balcony.
The frigid winter wind caught her and knifed through her clothes the moment she walked outside. White chop covered the blue of Lake Geneva, and snow crept farther down the Alpsin the distance every day.
Flicka snapped open the lighter and lit one corner of Pierre’s letter on fire, holding it aloft by the opposite corner and letting the icy wind fan the flames until the fire licked her fingertips. Her fingernails began to shrivel in the heat. She released the burning paper over the balcony’s railing. The flames consumed the last bit of it as the scrap rode the windtoward the lake. Ash scattered on the frozen grass below.
One of the Russian guards was leaning out the door behind her. “Madame? Would you like a coat?”
“No, thank you. I’m coming in.” She dropped Raphael’s lighter into the bowl on her way back to her suite and Alina.
