How did Kuni even answer that?
Ada did not give her time to speak. She tried to push Kuni this way and that, scrutinizing her from head to toe as best she could with Kuni’s fingers glued to the railing. “I feared you would not get on without me, and look at you! Even your braids are perfect.Howare your braids perfect?”
“I stayed with the Wynchesters instead of at a hotel. Graham found a maid who knows about hair. And I can dress myself if need be.”
Ada blinked. “What is a Wynchester?”
Kuni didn’t even know where to begin. Perhaps once her brothers weren’t lurking nearby, she’d tell Ada the whole story.
“Come.” Ada hooked her arm through Kuni’s. “Shall we remove to our cabin so you needn’t see the water?”
“No,” Kuni said firmly. “I promised to wave goodbye.”
The ship lurched.
Kuni yanked her arm from Ada’s and wrapped her fingers back around the railing. This was it. The ship was sailing. Her eyes searched for Graham.
Ada muscled Floris aside to stand at Kuni’s side. She followed the direction of Kuni’s gaze. “Is that…your father’s epaulet?”
“That’s a Wynchester,” Kuni answered softly. “Graham Wynchester. He holds my heart in his hands.”
Dockworkers unwound ropes from wooden posts. The ship drifted farther from the port.
Kuni had feared open water ever since her mother’s death. The sea had stolen her mama, and now it was taking Kuni away from Graham. She tried to lift her fingers to wave, but she could not peel her hand from the railing.
Graham wasn’t waving either. He was standing there, her book in his hand and her father’s epaulet on his chest. All alone.
She would miss his siblings as desperately as she missed Graham. Secret projects with Marjorie, blades with Elizabeth, Parliament with Chloe, costumes with Tommy, the reading circle with Philippa, Jacob’s animals. Missions together. Meals together. They might never believe it, but to Kuni it had felt like having a family. Arealone. Siblings who believed in her, welcomed her, cared about her.
She was leaving them behind, too.
“We have a new cabin,” Ada said. “A bigger one. I can ring for whatever food and drink would please you.”
“Not now. Go on ahead if you like. I’ll meet you there when I’m ready.”
Would she ever be ready?
The dockworkers had already quit this pier for the next. There was work to be done. The river was full of boats, and the port bustling with activity.
Kuni couldn’t look away from Graham.
She would miss him more than her heart could bear. It was already breaking. Or perhaps it had broken the moment she’d pinned the epaulet to his lapel. And now all that was left were tiny pieces, grinding into each other, turning to dust.
“All right, that’s enough,” Reinald said. “I don’t see what’s so wonderful about a Wynchester, when back home you could have—”
“Youwouldn’tsee,” she said with a sigh. “The Wynchesters are every bit as capable and honorable as the Royal Guard, and they possess skills you’ve yet to master. Likelistening. Like empathy.”
Like family.
Like love.
“Now, see here,” Reinald began.
Kuni wasn’t done. “Do you know where I’ve been this past fortnight?”
“Playing at surveillance as if you were a Royal Guardsman?” he said in his poor-little-Kuni voice.
She gripped the railing. The wind sprayed cold mist against her face. “No. I journeyed to Tipford-upon-Bealbrook, where I helped the Wynchesters protect hundreds of exploited laborers and tear down the kingdom two greedy men built on the backs of desperate women and children.”
