Page 86 of Happily Ever After

When Your Daughter Is Running

His Royal Highness Phillipp Augustus,

the Hereditary Prince von Hannover und Cumberland,

Prince of Great Britain and Ireland,

Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg,

et cetera.

My daughter,

my heart.

Phillipp Augustus tapped the screen of the phone in his hand and tipped his head back to roar, “All hands on deck!”

Butlers wearing black suits emergedsilently from where they had been readying themselves to serve tea. Housemaids bustled into his sitting room from whatever they had been cleaning. Chauffeurs and security people jogged in from their respective duties.

Within minutes, twenty people assembled in his large sitting room among the antique, golf-leafed furniture and paintings of Phillipp’s noble and regal ancestors. Haughty kings,princes, and duchesses looked down their noses at Phillipp and the servants.

Yes, they looked down upon him. Phillipp had been removed from the Hannover family seat atSchloss Marienburg,the Gothic revival castle in the mountains of the Black Forest, toKaiserhaus,a twenty-room cottage in the city, because he had played court games badly. His son, Wulfram von Hannover, had taken over the family’sfinances and left Phillipp destitute.

Destitute.

He was sequestered here in this shit hovel with no one and nothing, and he hated Wulfram for it.

Phillipp Augustus, the hereditary Prince of Hannover, drew himself to standing at his full height and surveyed his meager staff. They shuffled, standing in three lines before him. “My daughter, the Princess of Hannover, is in danger. All staff willready themselves to meet her atLe Roseyschool in Rolle, Switzerland, tomorrow morning. Security is paramount. Everyone will go, however, to see to her every comfort and need. She will be removed toSchloss Marienburgimmediately after we retrieve her. I’ll await her there.”

The security guys, standing in a group with their dark suits that bulged oddly around their armpits and hips, glancedat each other. One of them said, “We’ll need to get approval on this.”

“I’ll be discussing the matter with Prince Wulfrum presently. He’ll confirm my orders.”

The guard nodded and stepped back.

One of the butlers, a rail-thin, hard woman with her hair tied at the nape of her neck, stepped forward. “Everyone, sir?”

“Everyone.”Phillipp Augustus surveyed his staff, which he found more lackingthan usual. He needed more security guards and fewer maids to dust the priceless antiques of his ancestors that surrounded him. He wanted commandos and ex-special forces soldiers, not this group of soft-bodied snotnoses whose job was to keep him in line.

He told them, “Call in any reinforcements you know. Hell, call ineveryreinforcement you know. I want my daughter back here in Germany tomorrow,safe, and far away from that rat bastard of an ex-husband of hers.”

Wulfram might be Phillipp’s blood and bone and the future of the Royal House of Hannover, but Flicka was his heart. Her mother had insisted on keeping Flicka around more than she had the boys, and Flicka had been a cute little blond thing around the castle for several years. He’d doted on her, in his fashion, several times.

One of the maids stepped forward. Her name was Elise or Liesel or something like that. “Do you mean that we house staff should go, also?”

Phillipp Augustus scowled at them. “All of you. I want every single one of you in Switzerland tomorrow. Every last, goddamn one of you. Get Flicka and bring herhome.”