Page 94 of Once Upon A Time

Dieter’s heart wrenched. He understood every nuance in her words: that she might not go back to Monaco at all, and that she was afraid to. “How many documents?”

“Five.”

“My computer is in my room. It’s set up for things like that.” He patted the pocket of his trousers. “I’ll get to it as soon as I can, but I’m running a war, here.”

She touched his hand, and his craving for her started all over again. “Thank you.”

“Anything, always,Durchlauchtig.”

The fear in Flicka’s eyes, even as tipsy as she was, worried Dieter.

He needed to talk to Wulfram, so he headed for the stairs.

On his way, a man touched his arm. “Raphael?”

Dieter dropped into guttural German, burying his lighter Swiss-Deutsch accent,“Nein,”and walked on.

Damn, nothing like that had happened for years.

But Dieter didn’t know anyone namedRaphael at all.

The German accent was easy for him after hanging around the very German Wulfram von Hannover for so many years. Wulf thought he had perfect Swiss-Deutsch inflections, the funny guy.

The man who had touched him sounded confused enough that Dieter wasn’t too worried, and his accent had sounded Swiss, not Russian.

That would have been disastrous.

Not A Monarchy

Dieter Schwarz

I had to talk to Wulfram about it.

Dieter left the ballroom and found Wulfram and Rae waiting to be announced to the world as Mr. and Mrs., Prince and Princess von Hannover, or whatever it was, in the room near the top of the staircase. Voices from the packed reception below echoed up here, halfway to the high ceiling.

He pulled Wulf aside. “We need to talk about Flicka.”

Wulf strolled a few yards away from Rae, where an admin of some sort was touching up her hair for the entrance. Another was plucking invisible wrinkles out of her dress.

“I’m worried about her,” Dieter told Wulf. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Reagan.”

Wulf nodded. “Pierre.”

“If Flicka were to divorce Pierre, he would lose his place in the line of succession in Monaco. It’s a Catholic country and a Catholic monarchy.”

“It’s not amonarchy.”Wulf’s touch of emphasis might have been a sneer on anyone less subtle.

Dieter supposed that the fine line between amonarchy,and whatever Monaco was, must be important to someone who gave a shit. “A principality, then,Durchlaucht.But if he thought he might lose it, he might become desperate.”

Wulf crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you have any reason to think that she might have cause to divorce him?”

“No,” Dieter lied. The tiny flash drive weighed in his pocket. “But I worry what might happen if he thinks she will.”

Wulf nodded. “Maxence would inherit. No one has seen him in years. Last I heard, he wanted to be a priest.”

“A Jesuit, Quentin said.”

“Has he taken Holy Orders yet?”