Heartless

  She remembered the shadow stretching across the castle lawn—the hooded, ax-wielding figure towering over her. She shuddered. “No, it wasn’t Raven. It was … I thought I saw … nothing.”

  “I see nothing all the time.”

  “As I said before, it was very warm inside, that’s all. And I’ve barely eaten all day.”

  “No doubt the corset of tortures didn’t help.”

  Her scowl deepened. “A lady’s undergarments are not a suitable topic of conversation.”

  He raised his hands in surrender. “Only a theory, my lady. I’m sure your lack of sustenance is much more the culprit. Here.” He reached for a pouch at his belt and retrieved a chocolate. “I was saving this for later, and so I must have been saving it for you.”

  “Oh no, I couldn’t. I’m still a little faint. It will probably make me sick.”

  “Some say it is better to have eaten and lost than never to have eaten at all.”

  She furrowed her brows, confused, but his sincerity never faltered.

  “In case you do get sick and the sweet makes its way up again.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “I know. I should apologize.” Rather than apologizing, he held the sweet toward her. “I must insist that you eat, regardless of the risks. Should you happen to faint again while under my care, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop Raven from using that bucket.”

  Catherine shook her head and placed a palm against her abdomen. She could feel the bone stays beneath the bodice.

  Although, the corset didn’t seem as confining as it had before. Now that the evening air was reviving her, there was even room to breathe. Not a lot of room, but perhaps enough to fit in one little chocolate …

  “Please, take it,” he pressed.

  “Is it from the feasting table?” she asked, knowing better than to sample untested foods. Once, when she was a child, she’d sampled some wild berries and spent two whole days the size of a thimble. It was an experience she didn’t care to have again.

  “The King’s own.”

  Catherine took it hesitantly, murmuring her thanks, and bit down. The truffle exploded with silky caramel and brittle chocolate on her tongue.

  She stifled a pleased moan.

  But if one added just a touch of sea salt—oh, euphoria.

  She devoured the rest, her tongue searching for any missed chocolate on her teeth.

  “Better?” Jest asked.

  “Much.” She tucked a strand of misplaced hair behind her ear. “Well enough to stand, I think. Could you help me?”

  He was on his feet before she had finished asking, his movements graceful as an antelope. “Shall I escort you back into the ball?” he asked, lifting her to her feet.

  “No, thank you.” She brushed off her gown. “I’m very tired. I think I’ll call for a carriage to take me home.”

  “This way, then.”

  He grabbed his hat off the ground and settled it on his head. The hat looked wrong on him now and she realized it was his fool’s motley that had disguised his handsomeness before. Now that she knew otherwise, it was impossible not to see it.

  Turning his head up, Jest whistled into the tree branches. “Raven, would you mind…?”

  The Raven cocked his head and peered down through the branches, watching them with a single shining black eye. “I thought perhaps you had forgotten your companion in the dark, downtrodden.”

  Jest squinted up at him. “Is that a yes?”

  The bird sighed. “Fine, I’m going.” He swooped off his perch and disappeared in the black sky.

  Jest offered Catherine his arm and she slipped her fingers into the crook of his elbow. She was baffled at how much easier it was to breathe now. Maybe she’d been overreacting. Well, not to the King’s near proposal, but to the way her dress seemed to be strangling her.

  They passed through the garden’s arches. The rosebushes fell behind, replaced with towering green hedges that thundered with the fiery bolts of lightning bugs.

  “I hope you’ll understand if I ask for your discretion,” she said, wishing her heart would stop pattering. “This has been a most unusual encounter for me.”

  “Far be it for me to intrude upon a lady’s untarnished reputation. But to be clear, which part of our encounter should remain undisclosed?” Jest watched her from the corner of his eye. “The part when you fainted in the grass and I heroically revived you? The part where we took an unchaperoned stroll through the gardens?” He clucked his tongue in mock disapproval. “Or perhaps the part where you confessed to having had a dream about me, and that I must be quite the rake to hope it wasn’t as boring as you’ve suggested?”

  She leaned against his arm. “All of the above?”

  He brought his free hand to her fingers, patting. “It will be my greatest pleasure to be secretive together, my lady.”

  They hopped over the guard gryphon’s tail—he was sleeping, as always, against the garden gate. His quiet snores followed them halfway across the lawn.

  “So long as we’re sharing secrets,” she said, “may I ask how you did it? The trick with Mr. Rabbit?”

  “What trick?”

  “You know. When you pulled him out of Jack’s hat.”

  Jest frowned, his expression mildly concerned. “Sweetest Lady Pinkerton, I fear you’ve gone mad in this short time we’ve known each other.”

  She peered up at him. “Have I?”

  “To imagine that I pulled a rabbit out of a hat?” He stooped closer, his forehead conspiratorially close to hers, and whispered, “That would be impossible.”

  She smothered a grin, trying to morph her expression into something equally devious. “As it so happens, Mr. Jest, I’ve sometimes come to believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

  His feet stalled all at once, his face turning to her, bewildered.

  Her grin fell. “What is it?”

  Jest’s eyes narrowed, studying her.

  Catherine cowed beneath the inspection. “What?”

  “Are you sure you aren’t the one the King is in love with?”

  It took a moment, but when the laugh came, it was honest and unforced. The idea that the King might wish to marry her was one thing, but the thought of him being in love with her was an entirely different realm of absurdity.

  “I assure you, he’s not,” she said, still smiling, though Jest looked unconvinced. “What does that have to do with believing impossible things?”

  “It just seems like a queenly sort of thing to say,” he said, offering his arm again. Cath took it, though with more hesitation. “And, well, impossible is my specialty.”

  She peered up at his profile, his angled features, the mask of kohl. “That,” she said, “seems entirely believable.”

  He looked pleased. “I’m flattered you think so, Lady Pinkerton.”

  They reached the cobblestone drive at the main entrance to the castle, where dozens of carriages were waiting for their lords and ladies. A cluster of liveried coachmen were smoking pipes beneath the torches on the other side of the courtyard. One of them yelled out when they saw Cath and Jest approaching—“Hoy there, what’s been all the commotion about?”

  “Commotion?” Jest asked.

  “Nothing but gasps and squeals coming from the castle for the last half hour,” said the coachman. “Been thinking one of them candles might’ve lit the place on fire, what with their short fuses and all.”

  Jest glance at Cath, but she just shrugged. “It must be all the hullabaloo over your performance.” A carriage pulled up to them, the enormous black raven perched beside the driver. He must have gone ahead to fetch the ride for her.

  One of the footmen, a tree frog dressed in a powdered wig and a royal red coat, double-breasted in gold buttons, came hopping across the courtyard to hold the door for her.

  Jest offered his hand to help her into the carriage and she was surprised, as her foot hit the second step into the carriage, to feel the press of lips against her
knuckle.

  She glanced back.

  “Ah—I almost forgot!” Releasing her hand, Jest removed his hat, bells clinking, and reached inside. He produced a bundle of long white cording. “These belong to you.”

  Cath uncertainly took the ropes. “What are—” She gasped. Her hand flew to her back, feeling around the fabric of her dress, detecting the boning of the corset, yes, but … not its laces. The back of the corset was split open the full width of her hand.

  Heat rushed into her cheeks. “How?”

  Jest danced back from the carriage as if he feared she would hit him, and she was suddenly considering it. The nerve!

  He bowed again, as if he’d completed his final encore.

  “Fair evening, Lady Pinkerton. I hope you enjoy satisfyingly deep breaths during your ride home.”

  Part mortified, part despicably impressed, Catherine marched up the last step and slammed the carriage door shut.

  CHAPTER 8

  CATHERINE AWOKE TO THE SOUND of her parents’ carriage returning home, the clomp of the horses’ hooves on the drive loud and distinct against the muffled backdrop of ocean waves. She didn’t know how many hours had passed, but it was still dark outside, and she dug herself deeper beneath her covers, yanking the quilt up past her nose. Her head was drowsy with fog and sleep. She had the sensation of sleepy tendrils clinging to her from some far-off dream. Arms lowering her onto a bed of rose petals. Fingers tracing the contours of her face. Kisses trailing down her throat.

  She sighed, curling her toes against the sheets.

  He appeared slowly from the mental haze. Messy black hair. Amber-gold eyes. A dimpled smile stretched across teasing lips …

  Her eyes snapped open, a blush climbing up her neck.

  She’d been dreaming about the Joker.

  Again!

  Downstairs, she heard the front door crash open, her mother’s voice splitting through the still night. She sounded upset, and Cath cringed. Was she angry that Cath had left the ball without telling them? Or that the King’s marriage proposal had been slighted?

  Maybe … maybe … he’d asked some other girl.

  Energized with hope, she pulled the quilt away and peered up at the shadowed canopy of her bed. She gasped.

  Not a lemon tree this time, but roses. They were white as swan feathers, their thorny stems strangling the bedposts. Cath inched one hand from beneath the covers and reached for the nearest blossom. A thorn dug into the pad of her thumb and she flinched, pulling back and popping the wound into her mouth before she got blood on her nightgown.

  Giving up on the rose, she whipped the blanket over her head again, letting her heartbeat slow.

  What did it mean? What were the dreams trying to tell her?

  She counted off the things she knew about Jest.

  He was the court joker, but no one knew where he had come from.

  He was friends with a Raven.

  Impossible was his specialty.

  The way he had touched her hand had awoken something inside her she had never felt before. Something giddy, but also nervous. Something curious, but also afraid.

  And if her dreams were to be believed, he was a very, very good kisser.

  The fluttering in her stomach returned and she squirmed farther into the covers, suddenly light-headed. Perhaps his presence in the castle gardens had been unexpected and disconcerting, but Cath was the master of her own whimsies. She began to wrap herself up in the dream of slow kisses and white roses, to find her way back to that small, harmless fantasy …

  Her bedroom door crashed open. “CATHERINE!”

  Startled, Catherine pushed back the bedcovers and sat up. A ring of lamplight shone on the walls. “What?”

  Her mother shrieked, but it was an overjoyed sound. “Oh, thanks to goodness. Whealagig, she’s here! She’s all right!” With a wail, she threw herself across the room, pausing to set the oil lamp on the bedside table before she collapsed onto Catherine’s bed and pulled her into a stifling embrace. Catherine realized with a start that her mother was crying. “We were so worried!”

  “What for?” Cath struggled to extricate herself. “I left the ball early and came right home. I didn’t think you’d be so upset. I wasn’t feeling well and…”

  “No, no, darling, it’s fine, it’s just—” She dissolved into sobs as Cath’s father appeared over them, pressing a hand to his heart. His face was slack with relief.

  “What’s going on?” said Cath, spotting Mary Ann, too, in the doorway. “What’s happened?”

  “We didn’t know where you were,” her mother cried, “and there was … there was…”

  “An attack,” her father answered, his voice somber.

  Cath stared at him, trying to read his expression in the unsteady lamplight. “An attack?”

  “Not just any attack!” Her mother pulled back and squeezed Cath’s shoulders. “A Jabberwock!”

  Her eyes widened.

  “It attacked the castle,” said her father, looking strained and exhausted. “Shattered one of the windows and took two of the courtiers right from the ballroom floor. Then it just flew off with them…”

  Cath pressed a hand to her chest. The Jabberwock was a creature of nightmares and myth, of tales told by firelight to frighten little children into good behavior. It was a monster said to live amid the twining and tangled Tulgey Wood, far away in the country of Chess.

  As far as Cath knew, no Jabberwock had been sighted in Hearts for countless generations. Stories told of them being hunted by great knights centuries ago, until the last of the Jabberwock was slain by a king who carried the mythical Vorpal Sword.

  “It was e-enormous,” her mother stammered, “and terrifying, and I didn’t know where you were!” Her sobs overtook her again.

  “It’s all right, Mama.” Cath squeezed her tight. “I’ve been home all night.”

  “And still dreaming, I see,” said her father.

  Her mother pulled back and gawked at the thorny rosebush. “Not another one. What is going on in that head of yours?”

  Cath gulped. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where they’re coming from.”

  Her mother slumped back and rubbed the tears still caught in her eyes. “Good heavens, Catherine. If you’re going to dream, try to dream up something useful.”

  Cath knotted her fingers in the blanket. “Well, we can have fresh rose water, at least, and maybe I’ll bake up some rose macarons—”

  “No, no, no. I don’t mean useful as in things you can bake with or cook with. I mean useful. Like a crown!”

  “A crown?”

  Her mother hid her face behind her thick fingers. “Oh, this night has shredded my poor old nerves. First that awful Cheshire Cat appears right when the King is getting ready to make his announcement, then you’re nowhere to be found, then the Jabberwock—” She shuddered. “And now a rose tree growing up in the middle of my house. Honestly, Catherine!”

  “I don’t mean to argue, Mama, but a crown doesn’t really do much of anything. Just sits on one’s head, quite useless. Oh, I suppose it sparkles.”

  “Focus, child. Don’t you see? The King intended to ask for your hand in marriage. Tonight!”

  Mary Ann gasped, and Cath felt like her own feigned surprise was a bit sluggish. “Why, what an absurd suggestion,” she said, chuckling. “The King? Certainly not.”

  The Marquess awkwardly cleared his throat, startling her mother, who spun to him with flapping arms. “Yes, yes, we’re done with you, darling,” she said. “Go on to bed. We need to have a mother-to-daughter chat.”

  Her father looked grateful to be sent away. Dark circles were beneath his eyes as he leaned over Cath and placed a kiss on the top of her head. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

  “Good night, Papa.”

  Mary Ann curtsied to him as he left, then cast an excited smile in Cath’s direction. “I’ll just … bring up some tea?” she suggested. “To calm everyone’s nerves.”

  “Thank you, Mary Ann,” s
aid the Marchioness. She waited until she and Cath were alone before taking Cath’s hands into both of hers. “My dear, sweet, stupid child,” she started, and Cath’s shoulders tensed in defiance. “It is not absurd at all. The King means to make you his bride. Now, I am overjoyed that you made it home safely, but that doesn’t excuse your absence, not on such an occasion as this. Where were you?”

  Memories of chocolate caramels and unlaced corsets flashed through Catherine’s mind.

  She blinked, all innocence. “As I said, I was feeling poorly and thought I should leave so as not to cause a scene. I didn’t want to interrupt the lovely time you and Papa seemed to be having, so I took one of the royal carriages. Besides, I think you’re mistaken about the King.”

  Her mother’s face turned red as a cabbage. “I am not mistaken, you doltish girl. You should be engaged by now.”

  “But His Majesty has never shown me any preference. Well, other than for my baking. But even if he had, we’ve had no courtship. No time to—”

  “He is the King! What need does he have of courtship? He asks and you say yes, that is all the courtship required.” She heaved an exhausted sigh. “Or, it would have been. Now that you disappeared at the most inopportune moment, who knows what’s to become of his affections? He could be jilted—his attachment may be permanently severed!”

  Catherine pursed her lips, trying to disguise the influx of hope beneath a veil of concern. “If the King wished to request my hand in marriage, I should hope his attachment wouldn’t be so flimsy as that. And I’m still not convinced of his intentions.”

  “Oh, he very much intended. And he had better still intend, or you will be confined to this room until you learn when it is and is not appropriate to leave a ball!” She hesitated. “Wild, murderous beasts notwithstanding. You must fix this, Catherine!”

  “What do you expect me to do?”

  “I expect you to apologize for leaving the gala prematurely. I expect you to be around the next time a man makes you an offer that will make you a queen. We must think of some way to ensure we haven’t lost his good graces. Something to keep him from changing his mind, not when we were so close!”