“The messenger came ahead. The whole Kentish royal family is on their way.”
Summer just turned into Isaac, fisting her hands in his shirt, hiding. She didn’t know how to feel. Her family — but maybe not really. They would want to separate her from Isaac. But a family. People who wanted her. More people who wanted her.
“We should go meet them. Maybe they’re wrong,” someone said, and then she realised it was her.
“But…I’m her family…”
He breathed out the words, terrified that these strangers would take away the only woman that he’d ever loved, the only person that meant the world to him, other than his adopted family.
“Do you want to meet them?” he whispered then, turning to block out everything and everyone else, cupping her face.
“I — I — ” She was trembling, overcome. “I need to know,” she whispered. “I need — I need to know. I need to be sure.”
Vaguely, beyond the roaring in her ears, she could hear the Prince giving orders to care for the messenger. Someone’s hand rested on her shoulder for a moment, someone said softly to Isaac, “It will be all right.” Cora. Cora would —