“I know,” he said, and kissed her—soft, at first. “But I’m giving it to you willingly.” Another kiss, hesitant, growing bolder. “Catherine,” he murmured against her, “you taste like treacle.”
Catherine grinned, delirious once more, and pulled him down onto the grass.
CHAPTER 37
CATHERINE WAS GIDDY when Jest’s mysterious tower of stone deposited them into the Crossroads—arms linked, faces flushed, and lungs full of laughter. Her hair was a tangled mess, her toes were uncomfortably cold on her one bare foot, and Cath had not known before what happiness was. Her whole body was smiling. She felt that she could step off the checkered-tile floor and fly up, up, up if she wasn’t careful.
They found the door to Rock Turtle Cove, and Jest opened it for her with an elaborate bow. “After you, my lady.”
She curtsied. “Why thank you, good sir,” she said, dancing through the door and out onto the riverbank. The bridge above them was sullen and quiet, the air still but for the chirping of crickets and the crackle of lightning bugs.
Jest shut the door beneath the bridge and followed her up to the path. She felt the tender brush of his fingertips against her lower back and the caress warmed her to her bones.
She smiled back at him and saw her contentment reflected in his face. It only took the gentlest of tugs before she was in his arms again.
No sooner had their lips touched than a warning caw darted down Catherine’s spine. She gasped and swiveled her head, spotting Raven in the trees.
Jest grabbed her elbow. “Cath—”
The night’s tranquility erupted with the sound of clanging armor and shouted commands.
Catherine cried out as Jest’s hand was ripped away from her, leaving her skin burning. She turned in time to see the Two and Seven of Clubs forcing Jest onto his knees. A suit of palace guards spread out behind them, their clubs and javelins raised.
“What are you doing?” she screamed, wrapping her hands around Jest’s upper arm. The guards held firm. “Let him go!”
“Catherine! Oh, thanks to goodness!”
She spun around. Her mother and father barreled out from behind a border of shrubs. The King, too, was there, and the sight of him made Cath’s veins run cold moments before her mother wrapped her in a suffocating embrace. “Oh, my sweet girl! My darling child! You’re home! You’re safe!”
“Of course I’m safe. What is the meaning of this?”
“You needn’t be frightened anymore.” The Marchioness stroked her hair. “We heard all about the Jabberwock attack—much as I adore His Majesty I may never forgive his putting you in harm’s way like that!” She said this with an element of cheekiness, knowing His Majesty was standing not far away and, of course, he was already forgiven. “They said you were injured and … and this wicked joker had taken you to the Sturgeons! We went there, your father and Mary Ann and I, but you were nowhere to be seen and no one had heard from you and the Sturgeons said you hadn’t been to see them and all I could think was that you were helpless and afraid and hurt and this awful man had secreted you away and was doing something vile and awful and—”
She was sobbing, great big blubbering sobs that turned Cath’s stomach with guilt.
A loud honk drew her attention over her mother’s shoulder. Her father was blowing his nose into a handkerchief, his eyes red and sleepless.
She spotted Mary Ann and Abigail, too, loitering near the tree line. Both were pale and wide-eyed. Mary Ann looked relieved, her hands pressed against her stomach.
“Did he…” Her mother swallowed, hard. “Did he hurt you?”
“What? No!” Cath shook her head as her mother’s words pieced together. She disentangled herself from her mother’s embrace. “He didn’t … it was nothing like that. This is all a misunderstanding.” She spun back to the guards. “Let him go. He hasn’t done anything!”
“It’s all right now,” said her father, stepping forward to brush back a strand of Cath’s hair. “He’s captured. You don’t have to be afraid. His Majesty has ensured us this will never happen again.”
Aghast, Catherine peered down at Jest. His lips were pressed thin, the only sign of emotion on his face. All signs of their previous euphoria were gone. His gaze, now cunning and sly, was darting from the King to the guards to Raven, perched somewhere overhead. He wasn’t looking at her.
Nor was he looking particularly innocent.
Cath frowned and planted her hands on her hips. “You’re all overreacting. Jest was helping me. He took me—” She hesitated, but only for a moment. “He took me to the treacle well. He knew where it was, and look! My leg is healed!” She lifted the hem of her dress.
“Catherine!” Her mother slapped her hand down and the hem fell, but not before Mary Ann’s hand had flown to her mouth. She had seen the damage at the theater. She knew the miracle of it.
Cath dared to turn her focus on the King. Her suitor. She gulped, but guilt over her mussed hair and swollen lips was barely a gnat pestering at the back of her thoughts. “Your Majesty, please. You can’t arrest him. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
The King ducked his chin between the folds of his cloak. The crown started to slip on his head.
“Nothing wrong!” her mother barked, fluttering her arms. “He kidnapped you! Twice!”
Catherine’s breath snagged.
“I can’t imagine what spell this man has on you,” her mother continued, “but to steal you away … once, directly from beneath the nose of your betrothed—”
He’s not my betrothed.
“And even from our own house, your own chambers!” She wailed. She was crying again. Catherine’s father scooped her into his arms, but she pushed him away, turning her wrath on Jest, who was still on his knees, held firm by the guards. “You wretch! You villain! How dare you!”
Jest held her gaze, his jaw twitching, his expression unreadable.
“Mama, stop it!” Catherine clung to her arm. “It isn’t like that. He’s … He…”
Her thoughts skidded to a stop.
Her parents knew. They knew he’d come to her chambers. They knew they’d sneaked away in the middle of the night.
Her eyes drifted back to Mary Ann, chest aching with betrayal.
Mary Ann stared back, her eyes watering and hands clasped. I’m sorry, she mouthed.
“We were expecting a demand for ransom,” her father said, his voice gruff. “We didn’t know if we would ever see you again.”
“Yet here I am,” Cath said, still reeling. “Not kidnapped. Not ransomed. I can explain everything.”
“He stole you away from this very house!” her father bellowed. “Unchaperoned! Anything could have happened!”
“But nothing did happen—”
“You mean to tell me—” His voice had darkened. He was an ocean storm gathering on the horizon. “That my daughter, my angel, went with him willingly?”
Her cheeks flamed. “I … Father…”
“Did my daughter,” he continued, speaking as if every word were a strain, “sneak out of my house in the middle of the night, alone, with the court joker, and attend a gathering of strangers and ruffians and who knows what sorts of creatures?”
Her ribs collapsed inward, pushing the air from her lungs. How many of her secrets had Mary Ann told?
This was her last chance, she knew. To deny it all. To blame Jest for everything, to pass the consequences onto his shoulders. To maintain her parents’ perception of her forever.
She swallowed down the knowledge of how easy it would be.
And how impossible.
No, she could not betray him.
She squeezed her fists and opened her mouth, but it was a deeper voice that spoke.
“No.”
They all spun to Jest. His chin was high, but his eyes downcast. He didn’t look at Cath, or her parents, or the King. “She did not come with me willingly, though she might think it.”
Her pulse sputtered. “Jest!”
The chat
tering insects had silenced and for a moment there was only the burble of the creek behind them. Jest looked up and met her stunned expression with something dark and determined. “I used a charm to persuade her to come with me. It was a trick.”
“He’s lying. That isn’t—”
“Lady Pinkerton is innocent. She is not at fault for anything that’s happened.”
The Marchioness wilted with relief and gratitude, her faith in all the world restored.
“But, why?” stammered the King, his voice a squeak in the darkness. Cath could never recall seeing him so distraught, so unhappy, and the look of betrayal gave her a sharp sting of guilt. “Why would you do it, Jest?”
Jest fixed his eyes on the King, expressionless. “My loyalty belongs to the White King and Queen of Chess. I was sent to steal the heart of your queen and bring it back. I have been trying to woo her, so that her heart would be mine to take once you were married.”
The King stumbled back, a hand over his chest as if Jest had stabbed him. “How could you do such a thing to Lady Pinkerton?”
Cath tensed. “Jest. Don’t—”
“Hold your tongue, daughter of mine.” Her father’s firm hand landed on her shoulder. “It’s clear that he still has you under some enchantment.”
Jest’s gaze skipped to her. “It’s true. I have been using every skill at my disposal to mesmerize her.”
Goose bumps swept across her skin.
He had her heart, and she had his. Nothing could change that.
Nothing …
But he was making himself a villain. To her parents. To the King. To all of Hearts.
And what for? To save a reputation she cared less for by the minute?
Her mother nodded. “You see? He’s confessed his crimes, with us all here to witness it. What fortune that we discovered this now, before it could go any further. Thank heavens Mary Ann came to her senses and thought to ask for help.”
Catherine’s insides writhed. Her eyes began to well with tears, but she blinked them back and turned to look at Mary Ann again. Her lifelong friend stood beneath a copse of trees, looking stricken and so very, very sorry.
A hard knot of anger tightened in the base of Catherine’s stomach.
Following the look, her mother waved her hand at the maids. “Abigail, Mary Ann, go back to the house and draw a warm bath for Catherine. She’s been through quite an ordeal tonight.”
They dropped into fast curtsies.
“I’m so glad you’re all right, Ca—Lady Catherine,” Mary Ann said, her voice barely a breath before she followed Abigail toward the house.
Cath’s anger twitched and grew. She was not right at all.
“I trust this criminal will be taken to a prison cell?” said the Marquess.
“He had better!” said the Marchioness. Some of her spittle landed on Jest’s cheek, but he barely twitched. “For the safety of our daughter! I don’t want him to be able to ensorcell anyone but prison rats from this day forward!”
“O-o-of course!” stammered the King, forcing himself into their circle. He was wringing his hands and Cath could see he was desperate to have this whole situation behind him. “I cannot begin to convey my remorse for … for all that’s happened.” His eyebrows bunched in the middle of his brow as he gestured toward Jest. “He just seemed so trustworthy.”
Cath sneered. “You are all idiots.”
“Catherine!” her mother snapped.
The Marquess placed an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Now, now, dearest. She’s not herself, can’t you see?”
Catherine crossed her arms over her chest. “Then who do you think I am?”
“Er, well.” The King cleared his throat, changing the subject. “The Joker will be, er, dealt with.” He tugged his collar away from his throat. “And then we shall forget any of this unpleasantness ever happened!”
Cath turned to Jest. He held the look, and there was something insistent in his gaze. Maybe he was telling her this was all for the best, but she refused to believe it.
Suddenly, the King started clapping, an impulsive, anxious sound. “Ah yes—that’s what we’ll do! Let’s have a party!”
Catherine’s attention swiveled back to him. “A party!”
“You were right what you said at the theater, my sweet,” said the King, and Catherine cringed. “I am the King, and I must do something to make the people of Hearts feel safer. None of this Jabberwock and kidnapping nonsense. We’ll have a great masquerade and then we’ll all dance and eat and be quite merry, and we’ll forget anything bad has ever happened, ever.”
“That is a terrible idea!” Cath screeched. “Don’t you remember? The Jabberwock attacked the last party you—”
Her anger was muffled by her mother’s hand, slapped over her mouth. “Brilliant, Your Majesty. Positively brilliant!”
The King bounced on his toes, pleased with her approval. “Tomorrow night, then! And—and—” He grew suddenly bashful, his cheeks reddening behind his curled mustache. “And perhaps I shall have a special announcement to make?” He waggled his eyebrows at Catherine, and if she hadn’t been caught in her mother’s firm grip, she would have screamed.
“Now then,” the King chirped, “back to the castle we go. Bring the prisoner. That’s all right, then, uppity-up.”
The guards had begun to move into formation when Jest cleared his throat. “Actually, Your Majesty, if I might say one more thing?”
The clearing quieted. All eyes drifted to Jest. Wary, except for Cath, who was panicked and hopeful.
Any spite he’d had before was missing from his expression. All signs of discontent gone. He smiled at the King with an abundance of charm, and said, “You have been good to me, Your Majesty.”
The King’s chest lifted and he tugged on the fur trim of his cloak. “Ah—why, thank you, Jest.”
“Which is why it pains me to have betrayed you so, and to now betray you again.”
His yellow gaze found Cath, brimming with unspoken words.
Jest’s body dissolved—a shadow, a flutter, a wisp of ink-dipped quills. Raven cawed and dropped down from the trees and two identical black birds stole away into the night.
CHAPTER 38
CATHERINE BARELY MANAGED TO SMOTHER her grin as she was coaxed back to the house—for her safety, they told her—while the King was ushered into a carriage and carted away and the guards set up a method for searching the perimeter and recapturing Jest.
“He will be found,” the Marquess said, again and again, as Cath was loaded into the foyer of their home. “You needn’t worry. I know he will be found.”
“No, he won’t,” she said, gliding up the steps. “And I’m glad for it. You’re all wrong about him.”
“Halt right there, young miss,” her mother barked, and Cath’s obedient feet halted on the first landing. She turned back to her parents. Their relief had settled into some sort of frazzled frustration. There was a shadow on her father’s brow, and a twitch at the corner of her mother’s mouth. “I don’t know what that boy has done to you,” she said, planting her hands on her hips, “but it’s over now and we are never to speak of him again. We shall go on as if none of this has happened, and you are to start showing some appreciation for all we’ve done for you, and some gratitude toward His Majesty!”
“Gratitude! What has he done to be grateful for?”
“He has preserved your honor, that’s what! Any other man would have called off the courtship immediately after hearing that you were carried off, twice, in the arms of another man. His Majesty is doing you a great kindness, Catherine. You will respect that, and when you see him tomorrow, I expect you to reward such generosity.”
“I do not want his generosity, or his kindness, or any other favors!”
Her mother sneered. “Then you are a fool.”
“Good. I’ve become rather fond of fools.”
“That is enough!” roared the Marquess.
Catherine clamped shut her lips, silenced by the rar
ity of her father’s temper. His face had gone flaming red, and though he was in the foyer looking up at Catherine, the look made her feel as inconsequential as a stomped bug.
He spoke slowly, each word carefully measured. “You will not disgrace this family any more than you already have.”
Tears stung at Catherine’s eyes, fierce with shame and guilt. Never had her father looked at her like that, spoken to her like that.
Never had she seen such disappointment.
“You will do as your mother says,” he continued. “You will do your duty as our only daughter. You will not embarrass us again. And should His Majesty ask for your hand, you will accept.”
She started to shake her head. “You can’t force me to.”
“Force you?” her mother cried. “What is wrong with you, child? This is a gift! Though you’ve done nothing to deserve it.”
“You don’t understand,” Cath cried. “If you’d only met Jest under different circumstances … if you talked to him, you would see that he isn’t—”
Her father threw up his hands. “I will not listen to this. That boy has done enough harm for one night, and until you are thinking clearly and can begin to behave like the lady we raised you to be, this conversation is ended.” The Marquess tore off his coat and draped it on the rack beside the door. “You will do as we say, Catherine, or you will consider yourself no longer a member of this household.”
Catherine clenched her jaw, tears pooling. Her thoughts were thrashing inside her head, clawing at the inside of her skull, but she kept her mouth shut tight.
Jest’s confession had destroyed any credibility she might have had. There was nothing she could say to them now, no argument she could make to persuade them she was not under some enchantment—that Jest was not a villain.
That she loved him. She chose him.
Turning, she fled from the foyer before she dissolved into a tantrum-stricken child.
Rushing into her bedroom, she slammed the door and slumped against it. In the hallway, a painting fell off its hook and crashed to the floor with a muffled Ouch!