That her dogged determination to prove herself got in her own way. The king wasn’t collecting his information firsthand, was he? Perfectly capable people delegated tasks. Let Graham help her, just as she’d been helping the Wynchesters. Resourcefulness didn’t mean doing everything on one’s own. It meant getting the job done, however it needed to happen.
Kuni did not look down at the album he’d made her, but up at all the other albums just like it, tucked in tight against each other from floor to ceiling.
Graham possessed all of this intelligencebecausehe wasn’t limiting himself to what he could collect on his own. His library was stronger than he could make it on his own because he allowed others to add their voices to it.
The answers she’d been looking for were literally in her hands. As he had pointed out, shecouldhave collected much of this reconnaissance by herself, given the time and opportunity. If she hadn’t spent twelve of her precious forty days traveling to Manchester and back.
But in the king’s eyes, what would show more intrepidity? Reinventing the wheel to prove she could, or acquiring information from the person who had it?
Kuni pushed to her feet with determination. In the end, Graham hadn’t forced the book upon her. He’d letherdecide how best to do her job. And there was only one answer.
She would take the album with her.
Outside in the corridor, she heard the siblings go up the stairs to bed. They must have finished their champagne. The celebration was over.
Kuni strode to the large table where she had caught Graham in the act of creating the original album.
The surface was tidy, though it still contained pencils and ink and paper. She took a sheet and wrote Graham’s name across the top. Writing swiftly, she said she would report to the king that the Wynchesters—and Graham in specific—had been an instrumental help to the Balcovian royal family.
Then she slipped the letter into the gap left behind by her missing album.
In the early morning, they would be too busy rushing off to the port for Graham to notice the book’s absence. But when he came home, the note would be there for him. He’d know Kuni had not forgotten him, and that the King of Balcovia would remember Graham’s name, too.
She pressed the album to her chest. It was for her, but at the same time, it was a gift as temporary as the Wynchester family themselves. Leaving was already difficult. She wouldn’t even be able to keep this book to remember Graham by. It would become part of her report.
All she would have left were her memories of the time she came to England, and met a man, and fell in love. Her chest tightened in protest.
What used to scare Kuni most about her impending departure was forcing herself back on a wooden boat floating in water. She was terrified of drowning. The sight of all the water and the knowledge of its deadly currents beneath filled her with panic.
Now what she most dreaded was saying goodbye to Graham. No more adventures together. No more passionate kisses. No more candlelit romantic snacks for two. The next time she faced water, he would not be there with trick horses to help her through.
She leaned her shoulders against the bookcase and wished it was his warm chest that supported her. That was the worst part. Despite her best efforts, she had come to rely on him after all. He had brought out the best in Kuni, even when her fears got in her way.
And they would have to say goodbye.
It would happen soon. At dawn. Each hour, each minute, each second ticked hollowly inside Kuni’s chest. She wished she could divide in two. Be in Balcovia as a Royal Guard and here in England with Graham at the same time. It could not be done.
The boat would take her away tomorrow…but they still had tonight.
38
An hour later, Kuni tapped on Graham’s door wearing nothing but a night rail.
He answered her knock, tying a soft, leaf-green dressing gown over his nightclothes.
His pupils dilated, and he pulled her into the room. Against his chest, as she’d longed for. Into his arms. Kuni’s body trembled. A fire burned behind the grate just a few meters from where they stood, but it was the fire within her that had taken hold.
She had never seen a man in a dressing gown and nightshirt before. Never roamed her greedy hands over every hard plane, memorizing the contours of his back, the muscles of his arms, the width of his shoulders, the feel of his chest.
Kuni tried not to cling to him, but it was impossible to lift her cheek from the warmth of his chest. Impossible to stop breathing in the familiar scent of his skin. Impossible to pull her hands from the dressing gown and the way its silk slid across his tall, masculine form, no longer hidden beneath waistcoat and frock coat and trousers.
His skin was hot through the fabric, warming her in her own flimsy night rail of pale pink linen. She could feel his defined muscles beneath her palms.
She slid her fingers up the back of his neck and into his hair, lifting her chin to beg him for a kiss.
He did not disappoint her.
His mouth took hers. His hands traced her curves reverently as his tongue plundered hers as though his whole life had been spent waiting for just this moment.
