Rae held her cell phone to her ear and contemplated the noble lady in the portrait. The pale overhead spotlight lit the noblewoman’s face as if she were smiling out of the canvas at Rae. She begged the lady for help across the centuries.
The lady sat immobile.
Her mother said, “Reagan, I can’t condone what you’re doing.”
“I don’t expect you to. But we’re family. Can’t we still be family?”
“Your father has forbade it.” Her voice drifted up at the end, as if that wasn’t an ironclad pronouncement.
“He doesn’t have to know, Momma.”
“I can’t keep secrets from my husband.”
“It’s not like it’s a secret from Daddy. It’s just a female thing, which we never discuss with him.”
“That seems like equivocating.”
“Sure it is, but nothing should come between a mother and her children.”
“—There is that.”
Rae sank onto the padded bench and stared at the oil paintings and soft pastels. “I’ll call you when I get back to college, Momma.”
“You should use your brother’s phone number. We don’t want to start a fight over female things.”
“Thanks, Momma. I love you.”
“I love you, too, sugar.”
Rae hung up. Her hands shook so badly that she let the phone fall to her lap and clasped them together.
Mascara. Professionally applied mascara. Her breath trembled in her chest, but she held it in.
It was done. It couldn’t be undone, but elation filled her lungs and she thought she might float.
Making the choice had freed her. She could take that next step into the rest of her life.
She stared at the accomplished lady in the portrait, who looked composed and happy.
Wulf’s voice rode the air to Rae and echoed off the paintings and the ceiling far above. “You told her that you aren’t going back.”
Rae looked up. In the gloom, she could see only his strong form standing in the shadows and overhead light glinting on his blond hair. Rae told him, “She said that I had to come home immediately, and I obviously can’t.”
“I can call the pilot. We’ll be in the air within the hour.”
“This is your sister’s wedding reception.” The phone teetered on the crystals and crinolines of her skirt, nearly falling.
“Fine. You will be in the air in an hour. I’ll stay.”
“I’m just making excuses. Please, Wulf, please let me tell you excuses.”
“You can tell me anything.”
She squeezed her hands into fists to hold in the tears. Even though it was the right thing to do, even though she would have been miserable otherwise, it was still hard to walk away from her family. “I don’t want to go back. I’ve been trying to get out my whole life. I feel like a snow crocus planted in the desert. My whole life, I’ve thirsted for something, and everything around me felt wrong no matter how hard I tried to take root.”
He shifted on his feet, and his broad shoulders slid sideways in the shadows to lean against the wall. He was waiting, letting her speak.
“I want to make a difference. Even if it costs me my relationship with my dad and my brothers and the rest of them, even my momma, I want that clinic. I want to make a difference. I’ll work eighteen hours a day and live in a shack to make it happen.”
“We can do it together.”
“We can’t. I won’t make a scene or anything. You’re moving away, and it’s right that you should. Like Yoshi and Flicka, we shouldn’t prolong this.” Her heart hurt. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I’ll work at The Devilhouse. If I can’t, if the new owner goes another direction, I’ll figure out how to get it done, but I will make it happen.”
Wulf walked through the pools of light to where she sat. “I meant what I said. I’ll do anything.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
The phone fell off her blue-sparkled skirt and tumbled to the floor. It skittered away.
Wulf flipped it off the floor and handed it her. Their hands touched, and Rae felt his hand, warm under hers.
As she took the phone from him, he switched his hand under hers and tugged her to standing with a practiced twitch.
Just like when they were waltzing, she followed his lead.
With her heels on, her eyes were just below his, and his blue eyes searched hers. “Wulf—”
His lips came down on hers, and he kissed her softly, so softly, like he was saying goodbye.
Tears gathered on Rae’s eyelashes, and she wished she had tissues to blot them before she ruined her make-up.
He slid down her body until he kneeled on one knee in front of her.
No.
“Oh, my word, Wulf, get up. That photographer might still be stalking us and everyone will get the wrong idea.”
“Rae—”
Couldn’t he see that her heart was breaking? She had been trying so hard all week to not let the regret and anger surface, but this was their last night. She couldn’t hold herself together if he made this so hard, and she had no one to help her pick up the pieces of herself.
Her fluttering hands and her frantic voice rose. “Please, Wulf. Please get up. You’ll give me the wrong idea and you’ll make me cry and I don’t want to cause a scene at your sister’s wedding. Get up.” She tugged at his arm. “Up! Up!”
Wulf’s blue eyes and all his energy and intensity focused on her, and the warmth scared her. This was too hard.
His whisper was as intense as his gaze. “Marry me.”
From around the corner, a man muttered, “Sheisse.”
Surely this wasn’t happening. Surely he couldn’t propose to her, not when she had been steeling herself to let him go. “So you’re not leaving?”
“I am leaving America,” Wulf said. “It is too dangerous for me to live there much longer, and it is far too dangerous for you to be so near the Border. Come with me.”
“I can’t.” All the old excuses ran through her head: she couldn’t leave, she couldn’t leave her family, her family and church would be against it, she couldn’t go out and become too worldly, she couldn’t do anything that would cause her to be disfellowshipped, but she pushed all that aside. “I just cut myself off from my family because I want to finish school. I have a six weeks left of this semester and another year past that. I can’t leave now.”
Even though her heart was longing to, she wouldn’t.
“Finish the semester, and then you can complete your degree at any university in the world. You can go to graduate school or medical school, whichever you wish, wherever you want.”
“You’ve thought this all out, and I haven’t. I was ready to let you go. I was ready to walk away and not look back.”
“Say yes.”
“I can’t.” She couldn’t fathom it. His voice was so far away that she felt like she was falling. “We can’t. Your father was clear. He said that he would disapprove.”
Wulf’s frown was more in amusement than concern. “I wonder where he has gotten the idea that his disapproval carries any weight at all.”
“He’s the King. He’s your king. And your dad. Can’t he cut you out of the line of succession or your inheritance or something?”
“Not at all. The Hereditary Prince is a figurehead title. The members of the House of Hannover elected me as the Head of the House a few years ago. I gave Flicka permission to marry Pierre under House rules. I could sell Schloss Marienburg out from under him. The only person who needed to grant permission for me to marry was the Sovereign Head of the House of Welf, of which the House of Hannover is a cadet branch.”
Rae wanted to wail but she knew people must be listening. She whispered, “But he won’t give you permission. I’m nobody.” Desert rat. Desert rat.
“She already has. I spoke to her this evening.”
“She’s here?” To head a royal house, the woman must be an enormous Viking woman, the warrior-queen of the House of Welf, wearing a bronze breast-plate. “Do I have to meet her?”
“She’s not here. Wills phoned her so I could ask.”
“Prince William phoned her?” Under the Louvre’s glass pyramid, Wulf had asked to speak to Prince William’s grand-mère, his grandmother, and across the ball room. Rae watched the moment between William and Wulf with the cell phone.
Her knees gave out and she sat on the padded bench with him still on his knees in front of her. “Oh.”
“She’s very gracious. I think you’ll like her.”
“I think I’ll fall flat on my face and embarrass you.” And she would. She would do something stupid and redneck and horrify everyone, even Wulf.
“You could never embarrass me.”
“You say that now, but after a while, my stupidity won’t be cute any more. I’ll just be a country drudge to you.”
His smile dropped away. “Never.”
“Sooner than you think.”
“Every time you talk about helping people, especially about your clinic, you smile. Your face shines. You look like an angel.”
He could remember every time. Rae felt like she couldn’t breathe.
Wulf said, “Your heart and your kindness are nothing to ever be ashamed of. You are the person I need by my side when I’m funding an orphanage in Kenya or meeting with people who have had their lives destroyed by an earthquake. I want to spend my life with you, a woman who can dream up autism clinics.”
“You could have any woman in the world. You don’t want me.” Her voice choked. “You’re the Prince of freaking Hannover.”
“The first night we met, you asked if I was a sparkly vampire or a werewolf.”
He could probably recite her stupid patter. Her choked laugh was a desperate hiccup. “I didn’t think to ask if you were Prince Charming.”
His voice focused to a laser-point whisper. “I was neither. I was a ghost. I had been floating through life, insubstantial, watching the world through a veil, unable to touch or be touched. When I touched someone, anyone, I felt cold.”
“Oh, Wulf.” She laid her palm on his face because she couldn’t bear the thought of him being so closed off and alone.
“I can’t keep my hands off you because I can feel you. Every time I look at you, I can feel that first moment when I knew I loved you.”
Every time. Rae’s whole body trembled. “When?”
Wulf’s throat worked as he swallowed. “In the Marsden Hotel, two weeks ago. I already admired so much about you—your strength, your resilience, your ambition, your heart—and those men nearly killed you. I would have left America to keep you safe, but since I couldn’t buy your safety, I couldn’t leave. Holding you in my arms while you slept shook me to my core. Every time I look at you, it feels like I’m standing in the warmth of the desert sun, and everything else in my life falls away.”
Her chest was fluttering so much that she couldn’t say anything. She touched his arm with her other hand. His biceps were hard under his tuxedo, but he wasn’t shaking at all, certainly not like she was.
He held her hand against his smooth cheek, pressing her flesh to his, and said, “You have brought me to life. I love you, more than I have ever loved anyone.”
He took her hand from his face and pressed it to his chest. Even though all the layers of the tuxedo and the silk crimson sash, his heart beat against her palm. “I would defy them all for you. I would abdicate everything and give it all away, or you can take me as I am, and we can change the world together.”
Rae’s heart thumped in her chest, and her knees twitched under that full silk skirt.
She didn’t have to let him go.
Her heart opened, and she could breathe. She wished she had a smart-aleck answer to make him laugh but she just wanted to say yes.
“Marry me.” He kissed her palm, then the inside of her wrist, and his soft lips made the whole world go away for a few moments.
“Oh, Wulf. Yes.”
He pulled the ring box from his pocket and showed her the ring. She had expected a huge honkin’ diamond, but the modest navy blue stone at the center was far more beautiful.
He said, “Do you like it?”
“Oh, yes! It’ll match denim perfectly. I’m much more of a blue-jeans person.”
“It’s a blue garnet.”
“Garnets are semi-precious, right? It’s so much better than something unreasonable.”
Wulf blinked. His golden eyelashes and pale lids slid over his blue, blue eyes, twice.
She could see the gears spinning in his head.
He said, “I’m glad you like it.”
“I feel like I’m missing something again.”
Wulf still kneeled in front of her. “Blue garnets are quite rare.”
Yeah, this was what she was missing. “How rare?”
“Exceedingly rare, like you.”
“How flippin’ rare?”
“Far more so than diamonds. This one is insured for three million Euros.”
“That’s insane! You can’t give me that! It’s not right.” She snapped the box closed and tried to shove it back into his hands.
He pried it out of the box and slipped it on her finger. “I will spend the rest of my life convincing you that you are worth these trivial things.”
The blue garnet and diamonds glittered on her finger. The white metal swirling around the stones shone like moonlight.
Good Lord, it meant that she was marrying him. That’s what that ring meant, there on her finger, that she was marrying His Serene Highness Prince Wulfram Augustus of Hannover, The Dom of the Devilhouse, The Blond Hottie, her Wulf.
Rae’s breath rose in her chest and became fluttery again. “At least it doesn’t look ostentatious.”
Wulf sat beside her and kissed her, not softly this time, but his kiss was deep and thorough. He drew them both up to standing like energy had lifted him to his feet, but Rae’s legs felt like rubber bands. The ring weighed heavy on her hand, but she was too busy kissing him to admire it.
When he broke away for air, his voice was hoarse with emotion. “Marry me right now.”
His arms were still around her, and it was a good thing because her high-heeled shoes had become teetery. “What?”
“Tomorrow, before we fly back to the States. We can have the civil ceremony tomorrow and the religious one in Helvetica in a few weeks. We don’t need a parade like Flicka, unless you’d like one. There’s no reason to wait another minute.”
“I have class on Monday.”
“We’ll make it back in time.”
“But you sold your house.”
“I’m renting it to Yoshi. He would like to live quietly for a few years. I can stay with him for a month.”
“Did you sell The Devilhouse to Yoshi?”
“God, no. I found proper buyers for The Devilhouse, people with the necessary skills and background.”
“But tomorrow’s so soon. I can’t wrap my head around it.”
His eyebrows twitched, and he looked into her eyes as if he was searching for something. “Time is of the essence, isn’t it?”
His look stopped her prattle. She said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
Wulf studied her for another few seconds, his sharp blue eyes so solemn, while Rae rotated through three different facial expressions that meant she had no freaking idea what he was talking about.
He said, “Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I don’t think I am.”
“It’s all so rushed.”
“It’s only the afternoon in the States. You could call Georgie and Lizbeth or anyone, and I’ll arrange for tickets on an overnight flight. They can be here tomorrow morning.”
“But your family,” she said.
“Everyone I care about is here. My sister won’t leave for her honeymoon for a few days. Yoshi and Wills will stand up with me. My mates from the military are all in my security detail. Rosamunde could see both of us get married in one weekend.”
“But we could get married this summer. Or Christmas. Or after I graduate.” Her eyes burned. She was getting all blubbery again, dang it.
Wulf sucked his lower lip into his mouth and bit it.
Oh, good God, he was so hiding something! “What!”
“I want to spend my life with you, every moment of every day. Don’t forget that. I almost asked you to marry me when we returned home from Los Angeles two weeks ago, but you jumped out of the SUV. I didn’t even have a ring, but it seemed that you thought those titles and rubbish made some sort of a difference. I wanted to propose then, before I suspected.”
“Suspected what?”
His gentle smile was reassuring. “Unless I’m mistaken, a short engagement might be best.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She might strangle the Prince of Hannover in the Louvre if he didn’t spill it. Dieter would probably let her strangle Wulf at least half to death before he pulled her off.
“I’ll tell you tomorrow, after you marry me.” He kissed her forehead, “But I assure you,” he kissed her nose, “that whether I am in error or not,” he kissed her mouth and Rae melted into his arms, “you have made me the happiest I have ever been in my life.”