Heartless

  Leaning over, Cath gathered up her skirt, pressed her face into the fabric, and screamed as loud as she could.

  “Catherine?”

  She startled at the meek voice and peeled the skirt away. Mary Ann stood before her—her black-and-white uniform blurred in Cath’s vision.

  “I’m sorry,” she stammered, before Cath could gather herself.

  Cath swiped her palms over her eyes. “You told them everything! How could you?”

  “I had to. You don’t know him, Cath. Nobody knows him, and I was so scared—”

  “I do know him! I trust him! But you’ve ruined it. He’s a wanted man now, a criminal. It’s all over, and it’s all because of you!”

  “I thought you were in trouble. That sorcery he used to take you away from the theater—it was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. We were all so frightened, but still, I wanted to believe he was taking you to the beach, and when it turned out you hadn’t gone there at all … I thought you were in danger. You’ve been gone for hours and the Jabberwock is still out there somewhere and I didn’t know…”

  Cath pushed herself away from the door and yanked it open. “I don’t want to hear it. You had no right to tell them what you did.”

  “Cath—”

  “Get out!”

  “Wait, please. Listen to me, Catherine. I think I saw … when we were at the theater, I could have sworn—”

  “I don’t care!” Catherine shrieked. “I don’t care what you think or what you saw. We had a plan, Mary Ann. We had a future, and now you’ve ruined it!” Tears began to streak fast down her cheeks. “I never want to see you again. You can go be a scullery maid for all I care!”

  Without waiting for Mary Ann to leave, she turned and stomped into the washroom and locked the door behind her. With a sob, she slid down onto the tile floor and hugged her knees close, pushing her face into the folds of her skirt. She tried to recapture the feeling of the meadow and the wildflowers and Jest’s arms and lips and how everything had felt so very, very right.

  She couldn’t fathom how, so quickly, it had all become so very, very wrong.

  * * *

  WHEN CATHERINE AWOKE the next morning, a new shrub had sprouted from the posters of her bed. The room was scented with dirt and metal and sadness and she could see a blur of red blooms beyond her swollen eyelids.

  The vines drooped along the canopy, the flowers dripped toward her quilts.

  Hundreds and hundreds of small, delicate hearts surrounded her—all of them bleeding.

  She reached up and touched a finger to the soft flesh of the nearest bud, gathering a single drop of warm blood on her fingertip. Each bleeding heart bloom was a delicate thing, beautiful and haunting.

  She crushed the flower in her fist, relishing the wet smear in her palm.

  Mary Ann never came to start a fire. Abigail never brought her breakfast. Catherine stayed in bed, undisturbed, well into the afternoon. She felt like a Jack-O’-Lantern hollowed out. She wondered if Jest had been found and taken to prison, but she knew he hadn’t. He was too clever for them, too quick, too impossible.

  Her eyes repeatedly drifted to the window, hoping to see a white rose sitting outside, beckoning to her. But there never was. Jest had not come back for her.

  Never in her life had she felt so abandoned.

  She imagined that Mary Ann had not betrayed her, and that her parents and the King had discovered nothing. She pretended that Jest would be there at the masquerade and she would walk straight up to him in his black motley and bell-twinkling hat and kiss him in front of everyone. Then she would announce the opening of her bakery, and she would leave the castle with her head held high and begin her new life with Jest at her side.

  The dream was fickle, though. If it had ever been possible, it certainly wasn’t now. Jest was considered a criminal, and—as Cheshire had warned her—no one would ever be a patron at a bakery run by a fallen woman, no matter how delicious the treats. Even if they could clear Jest’s name, they would forever be destitute and disgraced. They would have nothing.

  It was past tea time when Cheshire appeared among the stems of the bleeding heart plant, his plump body curled in the corner of the bed’s canopy.

  Catherine stared up at him, unsurprised. She’d been expecting him all day. Surely the kingdom’s greatest gossipmonger could not stay away.

  “I thought you might like to know,” Cheshire said, by way of greeting, “that everyone is talking about you and your escape from the dastardly joker. What a lucky, heroic thing you are.”

  “I thought you might like to know,” she replied, “that it’s all a bunch of hogswaddle. The Joker did not kidnap me.”

  She said it mildly, knowing it didn’t matter what she said to Cheshire or anyone else. Most of them would go on believing whatever was most convenient, and right now, it was convenient to think that the King’s bride, their future queen, had been taken against her will.

  Cheshire scratched a gob of earwax from an ear with one claw. “I was worried you might say that. It isn’t as good a story, you know, though I shall continue to be amused as all the King’s horses and all the King’s men scramble to find him again.”

  “They never will,” she said, believing it a little less every time she said it.

  After all, Hearts was not a large kingdom. Where could he go? Back to Chess?

  Maybe so, but it was little consolation. It meant she would never see him again.

  “His Majesty is beside himself with anxiety,” Cheshire continued. “I don’t think he has the faintest idea what to do with all this madness, between the Jabberwock and the Joker and a plot to steal the heart of his future queen … He is not accustomed to real treachery, is he?”

  “All the more reason he should not be wasting his efforts on an innocent man, and what for? Because his pride has been wounded?”

  “What pride?” Cheshire folded his paws. “Our King is an ignoble idiot.”

  A weak smile flittered over her lips. “So he is.”

  “Of course, ignoble idiocy seems to be an epidemic around these parts.” Cheshire began to fade away. “So he shall not be alone.”

  He vanished at the same moment a tap came at her bedroom door. Abigail poked her head inside. “I’m sorry, Lady Catherine, but it’s time to dress for the masquerade.” She crept into the room like a timid mouse.

  Catherine sighed and slid from her bed without argument.

  The night was inevitable.

  She made no fuss as her cheeks were pinched to bring back some of their color, and Abigail made no comment on how her complexion was drawn tight from all her crying.

  “Oh, Lady Catherine,” Abigail murmured. “It’ll be all right. The King’s a good man. You’ll see.”

  Cath scowled and said nothing.

  She was stuffed into a white crêpe dress striped with wide bands of burgundy, and a fine ivory mask covered in rhinestones. As Abigail went about tidying the discarded underpinnings, Catherine caught her own reflection in the mirror. She looked like a doll ready to be put on a shelf.

  Then Abigail handed her the final touch.

  A tiara, all diamonds and rubies. As it was settled onto her head, Catherine no longer thought she looked like a doll.

  She looked like a queen.

  Her lips parted, her breath escaping her.

  She had promised Jest that she would reject the King. She had promised.

  But that promise had been made by a girl who was still going to open a bakery with her best friend. That promise had been made by a girl who didn’t care if she was a part of the gentry, so long as she could live out her days with the man she loved.

  That promise had been made by a girl with a different fate altogether.

  Her eyes narrowed and she reached up to adjust the tiara on her head.

  Mary Ann had betrayed her secret. Jest had condemned himself forever.

  But maybe it wasn’t all for naught.

  Cath lifted her chin and, for the first time, dared
to imagine herself a queen.

  CHAPTER 39

  “PRESENTING THE MOST HONORABLE Whealagig T. Pinkerton, Marquess of Rock Turtle Cove,” announced the White Rabbit, “accompanied by his wife, Lady Idonia Pinkerton, Marchioness of Rock Turtle Cove, and daughter, Lady Cath—”

  Cath stuffed a rosebud-embroidered handkerchief into the Rabbit’s mouth. He startled and peered up at her with wide eyes.

  Already on the third step into the ballroom, her parents paused and glanced back. Cath flashed them a tight smile. “Go on,” she said. “I think it will be more fitting for me to be announced separately.” She turned her cool gaze back to the master of ceremonies. “As is befitting for the future Queen of Hearts, don’t you think?”

  The Marquess and Marchioness exchanged surprised but pleased looks before descending down the rest of the steps.

  The Rabbit pulled out the handkerchief. His expression flashed between irritation and complacency as he cleared his throat. “Of course, Lady Pinkerton, rightly so, indeed.” He puffed up his chest in an attempt to reclaim his dignity and blew into his trumpet again. “Presenting Lady Catherine Pinkerton of Rock Turtle Cove!”

  “Better,” she said, and swooped down toward the floor, her shoulders peeled back. Though she could imagine how collected she must appear on the outside, her mouth tasted of stale fruitcake.

  She did not make eye contact with any of the guests, glad that the bejeweled masks made it easy to pretend she didn’t recognize the costumed guests surrounding her. A pair of skunks tried to approach her, and she suspected they were hoping to get into the good graces of their soon-to-be queen, toadeaters that they were, but she glided away before a greeting could be uttered. She would not pretend that she wanted or needed the approval of the noble sycophants.

  “Catherine!” A damp hand grasped her elbow, spinning her around.

  Margaret Mearle dipped into a curtsy. Her mouth was pinched in a smile, her nose hidden behind a pale pink snout. “Have you heard the wonderful news?”

  Cath found it impossible to smile back, despite Margaret’s overjoyed expression. “I don’t believe I have,” she said, without much enthusiasm.

  Margaret let out a dreamy sigh. “The Duke has asked for my father’s permission to begin a courtship. With me!”

  “I can hardly believe it to be so.”

  “And yet it is. We’re to have our first chaperoned visit tomorrow afternoon. Oh, Lady Catherine, I’m full plumped up with satisfaction.” Linking her arm with Cath’s, she waved a fan over her flushed face. “The moral of that, of course, is that ‘the caged canary does not eat from the hands of vipers.’”

  Catherine tore her arm away and rounded on her. “Stuff and nonsense, Margaret.”

  Margaret blinked. “Pardon?”

  “What does that even mean? ‘The caged canary does not eat from the hands of vipers’? Vipers don’t have hands. And would a canary truly prefer to be caged than take a risk on someone who might seem dangerous, but—but maybe they aren’t dangerous at all. Maybe the viper only wants to share some birdseed! Did you think of that when you were concocting your ridiculous moral?”

  Margaret stepped back. “Why—I don’t think you comprehend—”

  “I comprehend well enough. Your so-called morals are nothing but an excuse to act better than the rest of us. To treat us as though we are not as clever or as righteous as you, when really, all you’re doing is trying to hide your own insecurities! It’s childish and contemptible and I’ve put up with it long enough.”

  Margaret’s cheeks turned the same color as the strapped-on nose. “Why, I … that isn’t fair. I’ve never…” She huffed. “This is unacceptable, Lady Pinkerton. I hoped that you, more than anyone, would be happy for me, but I see now that you’ve been harboring too much envy to be mollified. I suppose it’s true that I’ve always held myself to a higher standard than you, but I’ve done my best to keep you in my good graces nevertheless. To try and raise you to my level, so you could see the error of your ways.”

  “Please. Spare me.”

  Margaret’s eyes darted past her and widened. “Ah! Fair evening, my lord.”

  “To you as well, my lady.”

  Catherine turned to Lord Warthog, who had joined them, his small ears trembling with joy. He was wearing a snout to match Margaret’s, though it hardly changed the look of his face at all.

  She rolled her eyes in disgust.

  “How do you do, Lady Pinkerton?” he asked.

  “Not as well as some, it would seem.”

  “Lady Pinkerton,” Margaret said through her teeth, “is out of sorts tonight.”

  “I am most sorry to hear that. I actually wondered if I might have a word with you, although”—he cleared his throat, and his voice softened—“only after Lady Mearle tells me whether she might have any openings left on her dance card?”

  “Something tells me you’ll have your pick of them,” Catherine grumbled, but her low insult went ignored as Margaret and the Duke flirted and flustered until Margaret made some comment about powdering her nose and bustled away. The draped fabric of her gown swayed behind her as she marched into the flurry of coattails and petticoats, and the Duke watched as dopey eyed as a flamingo.

  “Good riddance,” Catherine cursed after her.

  “Beg pardon, Lady Pinkerton?” said the Duke.

  She sneered. “For shame, Your Grace! You should know better than to eavesdrop on a girl when she’s grumbling to herself.”

  “Ah yes, I do apologize.” The Duke rubbed at his jowl. “Please, finish your thoughts.”

  Catherine crossed her arms over her chest. Margaret was egotistical and wearisome, and for all his faults, the Duke could have done better for himself. But what business was it of hers?

  None at all, perhaps, though it filled her with loathing. Margaret, of all people! Insidious, obnoxious Margaret was being courted by a man who adored her. There would be no hiding and no shame and everyone would bless them joyfully and wish upon them many snout-nosed children.

  “Shall I speak now?”

  She grunted. “Fine, go ahead.”

  “I am sorry to see you feeling so poorly, Lady Pinkerton,” said the Duke. “I wanted to thank you. I’m not sure what involvement you might have had in turning Lady Mearle’s affections toward me, but … well, a favor for a favor, I believe our deal was.” He grinned around his tusks. “The storefront is vacant, now, if you weren’t aware. I understand if you’ve no longer any interest, given the … the situation with the King…” His eyes twinkled and for a moment Catherine feared he might wink at her, but he didn’t. “But should you still want to lease the building from me, I could hardly deny you anything.”

  Her jaw began to ache from grinding her teeth.

  The storefront was hers.

  Now, when she had no hope of a blessing from her parents, nor a shilling from her dowry, nor an ounce of respect from her peers if she dared to reject the King’s proposal.

  Now, when her friendship with Mary Ann was over.

  “Is that all?”

  The Duke frowned. “Why—yes, I suppose. Aren’t you pleased?”

  She forced an annoyed breath through her nostrils. “I am not, I’m afraid, though it’s through no fault of your own.” Forcing her tight shoulders to loosen, she pressed her hands into her heavy skirt. “Thank you, Your Grace, but I don’t think you should reserve the storefront for me. There was never going to be any bakery, and there certainly isn’t going to be one now. Please forget we ever spoke of it, and … go dance with your lady. She’s already spent too many waltzes watching from the sidelines.”

  She left before she could feel the full sting of his happiness, but she had not gone far when a hand grabbed her forearm, squeezing so tight Catherine nearly choked. She tried to yank her hand away, but was tugged back against an iron-solid chest. A gruff voice growled into her ear, “What’d you do with it?”

  Warm breath rolled over her, smelling of pumpkin.

  Cath twisted
around. Peter Peter was clutching her arm, his fingers pressing indentations into her flesh. There were purple-gray circles beneath his eyes and a deep gouge across one cheek, like someone had attacked him with a knife. Though the wound was healing, the sight of it made her stomach flip.

  He was wearing muddied coveralls and no mask, as if he had no idea there were expectations around attending a royal masquerade.

  “What’d you do with it?” he growled again.

  “What are you—release me this instant!”

  His grip tightened. “Answer me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re—ow! You know, you and your wife could stand to learn some manners when it comes to—”

  He yanked her closer and Cath gasped, dwarfed by his hulking shoulders. Then, surprisingly, he did let go. She rubbed her arm, pulse racing.

  “I don’t know what that maid of yours saw or thought she saw,” he said, his menacing voice barely carrying in the crush of music and laughter, “but I won’t let you hurt her. I will see you made into worm food before I allow it. Now tell me what you’ve done with it.”

  “I don’t know—” She started to shake her head, but stopped. Was this about the pumpkin she’d stolen? The cake she’d made, that his wife had been so desperate to eat? “I-I’m sorry,” she sputtered. “I just used it to make a cake, just that one cake. I didn’t think it would do any harm and it was just one little pumpkin, and you seemed … so busy, and I only wanted—”

  His hand latched around her arm again and she yelped. “I already know about that,” he growled. “I was there at the festival. I saw what happened to that Turtle, and now my wife—” He inhaled sharply, his nostrils flaring. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I’m not an idiot. The whole kingdom saw you with that sword. Now tell me what you’ve done with it!”

  Her heart caught in her throat. “Sword? You mean—the Vorpal Sword?” Her thoughts roiled. “What does that have to do with pumpkin cake?”

  His eyes flamed and he shook her again. She hissed through her teeth, sure he was leaving bruises. “I will ruin you, Lady Pinkerton. Mark my words, if anything happens to her before I can fix this—”