“Not much. That is why I sneaked away at every opportunity. From dawn to noon, I was usually with the soldiers.”
“You weren’t dismissed from your post for insubordination?”
“Princess Mechtilda was my coconspirator. There was not much supervision once we were out of the schoolroom. Guards roamed in the corridors, of course, but were not in our rooms with us. If a minder stuck his nose into a room containing the princess, she would send him scurrying away with frigid imperiousness.”
“She knows you’re here now, and why?”
“We planned it together. She told the king she had sent me on a special mission and implied it had to do with vague womanly concerns so that he would not ask too many questions. Not that he would. Companions are for children. Now that Mechtilda is of marriageable age, her father hopes she will dismiss her companions in favor of taking a husband.”
“So the princess always knew you planned to be a Royal Guard.”
“She will ensure I am assigned to her specifically. That was our pact. Becoming her personal Guardswoman is my honor and my duty. After all, the Balcovian Crown has essentially been paying me to train for that role all of these years. This is how I pay her back.”
“Even if the princess hadn’t asked you to, it sounds like you and your brothers would’ve joined the Royal Guard to be close to your father.”
“We want to honor our ancestors. They have all been Royal Guardsmen fully committed to protecting people like Princess Mechtilda. My great-great-grandfather Willem was born a slave, and became the very first Royal Guard. He set Balcovia on a path to freedom. Each new generation strives to live up to that heritage.Allof the royal guards exist because of my family.”
“It sounds like something to be proud of. And a lot of responsibility.”
“My brothers and I fully realize what we’re signing up for. No one has fewer illusions about life in the military than a child of a soldier.”
“Your mother,” he said in understanding. “Have Reinald and Floris married?”
She shook her head. “They say they would never live apart from someone they loved, unlike our father and his before him. Which means they’ll either leave their posts prematurely in order to start a family, or remain bachelors until they retire and marry in the last years of their lives.”
“Those…aren’t great choices.”
“They are lonely choices. We were all elsewhere when my mother died. She and a few other Guardsmen’s wives had taken an afternoon trip on an oyster boat. My mother fell over the railing and was caught in a current. By the time they found her…” Kunigunde trembled. “I got word whilst taking dancing lessons with Princess Mechtilda. My brothers were practicing routines on the battlefield. By nightfall, Mother’s rooms belonged to someone else.”
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “It is not easy to lose a mother.”
“I am so glad that youknewyours.” Her dark eyes were mournful. “Not spending any more time with her than our father had is my greatest regret. It helped me to see what kind of life I did not want to have—and what kind I do.”
“Do you not want to marry…anyone at all?”
“I saw my parents’ marriage. If I wed, I want many happy years with my husband. For that, I need to be on an equal footing. There can be no betrothal, no courtship, until I am a Royal Guard. Then he cannot think he is elevating me with his attentions or talk down to me like I am his inferior in intelligence and worth.”
Graham swallowed. His would-be poetry album had not painted him in the best light. He had never broken a vow of silence, even to his siblings. But how could he leave Kunigunde in pain, over such a mundane misunderstanding?
“I don’t know if this makes it better or worse,” he said haltingly, “but it wasn’t actually for you. Not directly. I would have given it to you if you wanted it, but since you did not… The truth is, I was commissioned to create that album before I’d met you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Is that true?”
“I swear on my own mother.”
She nodded. “Then it is true. And so is the part where you hoped I’d stumble across it because you believed I needed assistance. You still do not believe in me, after all this time.”
“Not so,” he said quickly. “My siblings are very talented and I have full faith in all of their skills, but each of us hasdifferentstrengths. Mine is intelligence-gathering. Yours is being a guard. Being employed to exploit my own abilities does not mean that I doubt yours. I was and am certain youwouldbe part of the royal entourage, as a Guardswoman.”
“If that’s true, you’re the second person to believe I can do it.”
“Who was the first?”
She reached into her bodice and pulled out a fringed epaulet in the shape of a stripe beneath a chevron. “This was my father’s. He gave it to me just before he left for Waterloo.”
“He must have suspected he wouldn’t be coming back.”
“One out of three soldiers at that battle never returned home. Seventeen thousand on our side, and something like thirty thousand on Bonaparte’s. That’s more deaths in total than the entire population of Balcovia. Our army’s losses were immense.”
