In Shining Armor

by Blair Babylon

  Wulf had nodded. “Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand, the Hereditary Prince and Duke of Brunswick, married the British-Hannoverian princess, Princess Augusta Frederica of Great Britain, the older sister of King George the Third, who is my direct ancestor.”

  “Princess Augusta Friederike, huh?”

  “The same names occur over and over in my family tree,” Wulf said. “Sometimes they’re even different people.”

  “And Clausewitz was an aide-de-camp to Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia.”

  Wulfram had been lounging in his chair and nearly slid to the floor as he gazed at the ceiling. “Youngest child of King Frederick William the First of Prussia and his wife Sophia Dorothea of Hannover. She was the daughter of King George the Second of Britain, so she was an aunt of mine, too, somehow.”

  “How do you remember all that?” Dieter had asked him.

  Wulfram had shrugged. “I have a knack with names. It’s nothing. A trick.”

  Dieter had suspected more, even then.

  He touched the leather binding of the books, feeling like he was reaching across the centuries to von Clausewitz, a professional combat soldier who had studied at the Kriegsakademie, the Prussian War College, eventually becoming a major-general and writing the predominant treatise about the philosophy of war.

  Not a how-to book, but a why-to. It was philosophy, not strategy.

  And so here they were again, the Duke of Brunswick and the mercenary, the intellectual descendant of Clausewitz.

  History was repeating itself.

  But Clausewitz never betrayed Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand the way that Dieter was betraying Wulfram, by seducing his sister.

  Because he could not resist her.

  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 at Schloss 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 how royalty threw 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.”

  She walked over and hugged him around his waist. “Lieblingwächter, no one would care.”

  “I think they would. You don’t know what the men of your social circle say, but I do. I’m standing right behind them, watching, while they talk.”

  “Wulfram would never be so callous.”

  “Of course not. That’s not what I meant. That’s not who I meant.”

  “Then whom did you mean?”

  “Nevermind. Besides, I’ll be on duty. I can’t watch for jackals and true believers if I’m dancing with you.”

  “Come on. If you don’t dance with me, I won’t have anyone to dance with. I’ll be sitting over on the sidelines, looking stupid because I couldn’t find a date to my own dance.”

  “So take a date. I always tell you to take a date.”

  “Wulfram usually squires me to the Shooting Star, but I don’t want to take a date. I want to dance with you.”

  “How about Maxence Grimaldi? You’ve been friends with him since you were in kindergarten.”

  “No, he’d convince me that it was a great idea to write a check for all my wealth for his causes instead of funding my own.”

  “Then you wouldn’t have to throw this insane party every year that has you up nights, fretting over insignificant details.”

  “Seriously, no. Maxence can convince anyone of anything, and some of the things that he’s into would turn your hair white.”

  Dieter looked upward, like he was trying to see his own, ash blond hair. “No one would notice.”

  “No, listen to me. Some of the things he’s into—”

  He cocked one eyebrow up at her. “How do you know?”

  “I’ve heard the stories.”

  “I believe you; I believe you. Okay, I don’t want him anywhere near you. Who else is there? His cousin Alexandre?”

  A chill crawled up the back of Flicka’s neck. “Worse. Way worse. Trust me on this one.”

  “How about your cousin
Casimir?”

  “He’s going to law school in the States. He’s not even in Europe, let alone London.”

  “Somebody here?”

  “No, there’s no one here whom I want to go to the cotillion with. There’s no one but you, for me. Dance with me.”

  Dieter wouldn’t answer her.

  That night at the cotillion, after she had dined with her cousins and the orchestra had warmed up to play the first waltz, Dieter was standing against a far wall, watching the exits and balconies, as usual.

  Which meant that he had decided not to dance with her.

  Flicka melted into her chair but kept a smile on her face.

  She might have been distressed by his distance. She might have even thought that his refusal was a harbinger of worse things to come that night, but if she did, not even the debs around her noticed. Flicka snapped shut her suit of bright, shiny Hannover armor—the one that all Hannover daughters and sons grow when they realize that they are ultimately alone in the world and the whole world is watching them—and played the perfect hostess for the Shooting Star Debutante Ball.

  Her friend Grand Duchess Josephine Alexandrovna was there with a date, some dark-haired guy whom Flicka didn’t know. When she stood to go to the dance floor, she looked around, concerned. “Isn’t Wulfram here?”

  “Not this year,” Flicka admitted. “He was busy.”

  “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 beautiful prinzessin he 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 looked quilted.

  And now the Ten-Pack Prince, Pierre Grimaldi, wanted to dance with her.

  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.

  So Flicka laid her white-gloved fingers in Pierre’s large hand and waltzed with him.

  After that, Josephine did lend Cyprien to Flicka for a foxtrot, and she whirled around the floor in his arms.

  If Dieter wasn’t going to dance with her, she was still going to dance.

  After that, Maxence Grimaldi appeared, younger and somehow more handsome than his older brother Pierre, and they swung around the dance floor for another waltz.

  More of the most eligible bachelors in the world asked Flicka for a dance, and she accepted them all. Of course, she did. She was young, ostensibly single, and becoming a power player in high society.

  An hour later, Pierre was back, and she danced in his arms again.

  This time, the photographers noticed. Their cameras fluttered in a flurry of clicks from the balconies and edges of the room where the security guys were keeping them.

  Flicka didn’t sit down the rest of the night. Every man in the room, from the debutantes’ older brothers who had been forced to attend, to the debs’ widowed or divorced fathers, to the cousins who had been pressed into service as “dates” for the debs, every single one wanted to form a connection with Her Serene Highness Friederike Augusta of Hannover, whether romantic or political.

  It was becoming increasingly evident as each crop of debutantes moved on to graduate schools and careers, that Flicka knew everyone.

  She danced with Valerian Mirabaud, one of the partners of the private Swiss bank Geneva Trust, who attended because his niece, Anaïs, was one of Flicka’s debutantes. Anaïs’s father had been called away on business at the last minute, so her uncle had stepped in. Valerian often stepped in for social functions, as he was the oldest brother of his generation and because he was good at it. Even though he was in his late sixties, he was so very tall and agile. His sharp, gray eyes roamed the
crowd, missing nothing.

  Flicka had met several of the Mirabaud girls through friends, though the Mirabauds did not send their next generation away to boarding schools like Le Rosey, preferring one of the private day schools in Geneva. Valerian’s French was rounded with a Swiss accent, as his family had owned Geneva Trust for generations. Flicka’s father and brother had worked with the Mirabaud family’s bank during several projects, utilizing its variable and relaxed reporting rules. One paid dearly for private banking, but private banking often had an excellent return on that investment.

  Anaïs was Flicka’s special project, not that Flicka had told Anaïs’s uncle about that. Flicka had chosen Anaïs as a deb because she was an ugly duckling, studious, serious, and hampered by thick, chunky glasses. Her project had been to raise money and materials for orphanages in Eritrea, Africa, and she had done splendidly in only six months. A fire had lit in the girl’s gray eyes, and Flicka knew that Anaïs had great things in her future. Instead of working at her family’s bank that summer, Anaïs was planning to apply to intern at UNICEF in New York.

  Flicka was very pleased with the prospect of another contact at the United Nations.

  Maxence Grimaldi also claimed a second dance, saying that his older brother shouldn’t get to have all the fun. When she asked him why he was at the cotillion at all, he laughed out loud, his dark eyes sparking like fire. “I’ve promised my aunt that I will attend at least five events a year where I may meet ‘a suitable young woman’ because, her words, she hasn’t given up on me yet. I’m doing all five this week, and I’ve got a flight to South America next Tuesday.”

  Flicka teased him, “Am I a ‘suitable young woman?’”

  He smiled down at her, his dark eyes half-hooded, and his hand firmed on her back through the thin silk of her dress. “Of course, you are. You’re a Hannover princess, the only one of your generation. My uncle would do anything to bring you into the family, and you might be the only woman on Earth who could tempt me to marry and have a family instead of, well, you know.” He bent as they danced, his full, lush lips nearing hers. “The only real question would be, could you be ‘a suitable woman’ for me?”