Page 41

T HE AUDIENCE WAS FIERCE with applause as Catherine set her hand on top of the King’s and they walked together up the beach.

The King was soaking wet and a strand of seaweed was caught on the heel of his shoes and he could not have sounded any more delighted than if the entire festival had been a surprise unbirthday party thrown in his honor.

Catherine, her thoughts in turmoil, did her best to keep her eyes locked on the white overhanging cliffs so she wouldn’t be tempted to seek out Jest in the crowd. She was sure that with one look at her, he would know the depth of her thoughts.

The orchestra leaped into a waltz and Catherine could feel the King gathering his courage to ask for another dance, and so she thanked him exuberantly for the quadrille and escaped into the crowd before he could find the words.

All around her, the festival’s guests began to divide into couples and line up for the next dance.

Cath avoided meeting anyone’s eye, unwilling to be drawn into a conversation or another dance, to be captured in the endless turns and figures and trivial chatter until the festival ended and they all dispersed, afraid to be caught in the dark now that a monster was on the prowl.

She snapped from her thoughts to the sound of her own name roaring in her ears.

The crowd had pushed in toward her. A dozen women were chattering about the rumors of her courtship, a dozen men were inquiring after her dance card and then backing away jokingly, pretending that they didn’t want the King to take offense.

Hands brushed her sleeves and smiles hovered Cheshire-like before her face.

“Lady Catherine, how lovely you looked during the quadrille.” “Quite the favorite with the King these days, aren’t you, Lady Pinkerton?

” “You looked beautiful out there—positively regal!” “Catherine—” “Catherine—” “ Catherine— ”

Lowering her head, she tried to shove her way through, begging to be allowed to pass.

Her mind was spinning, tumbling, as the crowd thickened with congratulations and compliments and twittering praise.

The grins of strangers who were too blind to see the frustration behind her pretty face and pretty clothes and pretty life—

A cloud of white smoke burst at her feet, filling the air around her with startled gasps. Catherine froze. Within moments the smoke was so thick she couldn’t see her own hands outstretched before her.

Then there was a gloved hand in hers, fingers entwined, tugging her forward. Jest.

She followed without question, disconcerted at the press of confused bodies.

The smoke thinned as she was pulled up an embankment of craggly white stones, a narrow path tucked into an alcove beneath the cliffs. Jest glanced back to check that she was all right, before guiding them behind a wall of fallen boulders. Their surfaces sparkled with bits of quartz.

It was not as private as a sea cave, but it was serene and they were alone, at least for a time. Catherine, panting, was warm from her brow to her toes, but the shaded spot was comfortable and already her breaths were coming easier.

“Are you all right?” Jest said, cupping her hand and looking at her with the same concern he’d had when she’d awoken in the gardens.

She nodded. “Better already, thank you. ”

“I thought you were going to faint again. Have you eaten anything today?”

She gulped. “Y-yes. A meat pie, when I arrived this morning.”

His mouth quirked. “Excellent choice.”

The past few minutes faded away and once again Cath was standing on the surf, staring out into the sea, and realizing with sudden certainty that she was losing her heart to this fool.

She pulled her hand away and turned to peer through a crack in the rocks. On the beach, the smoke was clearing fast, leaving a fine mist over the baffled onlookers. The orchestra was still playing, though, and the confusion was giving way to another dance.

Jest brushed a lock of hair off her shoulder. “You don’t enjoy dancing?”

She shut her eyes. His fingertips lingered on the bare skin of her neck and she couldn’t resist leaning into them. “We can’t all be great performers.”

“Yet you are a lovely dancer.” He was so close she could feel the heat coming from him, cutting through the chill of the wind. “Beside you, even the King looked half respectable. It’s easy to see why he wants you for his queen.”

Her stomach dropped. There was no bitterness in his tone. She wondered why. Surely, if their roles were reversed and Jest was in the midst of courting another girl, it would have been shredding her to bits. Her emotions would have been lemon peel dragged across a grater.

She stepped away and opened her eyes, keeping her hands anchored to the glittering white stone. “You shouldn’t touch me,” she said, her voice strained around the rapid beating of her heart.

Jest leaned against the stone. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” She couldn’t tell if he meant it.

Her heart tugged toward him. She wished that she hadn’t pulled back. She wished that he had pulled her closer .

“Tell me, Sir Rook, did you behave this way with all the ladies in Chess too?”

“Which behavior are you referring to? My good manners, my charming witticisms, my beguiling charisma—”

“I was referring to your determination to make me blush, for no other purpose than to laugh at me later.”

He blanched, then took a step closer. Cath could hear the creak of his leather boots. “I assure you that when I replay this conversation in my head later, it will not be in laughter.”

Cath lowered her lashes, her insides fluttering. “I should get back. My parents will worry.” She turned away.

“Wait?”

It was a question, not a demand, and so she waited. Stupid hope coursed through her veins.

“It isn’t my place, of course…”

Gulping, she turned back. Jest had removed his gloves and was busy choking them in his fists. Though his expression was calm, his hands said otherwise.

“The King…,” he started, and Cath flinched, glad that Jest was too busy inspecting the gloves to notice. “He truly cares for you. I think he honestly means to make you happy.”

She expected him to go on, but silence fell, and that seemed to be all he meant to say.

“Are you telling me to accept him?”

“No,” he stammered. “I’m saying that if you did accept him, I would understand. I would be happy for you.”

She clenched her fists. “How comforting that at least one of us would be.”

Jest looked up at her again, his brow tight. “Something happened, down on the beach,” he said, dropping the gloves onto a rock. “You came back from the quadrille looking like you’d seen a ghost. ”

“I don’t know what you mean.” She folded her arms protectively over her chest. “I entered a cake into the baking contest. I suppose I’m nervous about it.”

A weak smile slipped over his features. “I can’t believe that.”

“What would you know about it? I can be nervous if I want to be.”

He shrugged. “We both know you’re going to win the contest.”

“I do not either know it.” She stood straighter. “I assume that I will win, yes, but that isn’t the same thing. And I’ll have you know that wasn’t much of a compliment.”

“It wasn’t meant to be, but if it’s a compliment you want…

” His gaze softened. “You are stunning in that absurd hat. Absolutely, undeniably stunning. I trust that was Hatta’s goal, but he can’t know how well he accomplished it, else he would have deemed it improper to let you leave his hat shop so adorned.

” He hesitated and cleared his throat, looking almost shy. “That’s what I wanted to say before.”

She scoffed, but it was coupled with a quickened heartbeat. “You’re infuriating.”

“You’re not the first to mention it.” His momentary bashfulness turned to another maddening smile.

She squeezed her arms in tighter, still shielding herself, or perhaps in an effort to keep from reaching out to him. “You act as though you know me, but you don’t, not really. You don’t know what I like, or what I want, or what I dream about…”

“You dream about me, if I’m not mistaken.”

“I never should have told you that.”

His eyes glinted.

“And all I know about you is that you sneak into girls’ bedrooms in the middle of the night and you take their corset laces when they’re unconscious and you seem to want me to accept the King but then you call me stunning or touch me when you shouldn’t.

And you’re always laughing at me and you’re on some secret mission from the White Queen but I haven’t the faintest idea what that means and I can’t tell what’s real or what’s an illusion and I—I have to get back.

” She pivoted away from him. “Thank you for rescuing me from that crowd, but I do have to get back.”

“I can’t stop thinking about you, either, Lady Pinkerton.”

Without having gone a single step, she felt her feet digging into the sand. This time, she didn’t dare turn around. She didn’t have to. A moment later he slipped in front of her, not touching her this time, but close enough that he could have.

The look he gave her was already peeling back her layers of fortitude. How dare he look as though he were nervous or afraid, when she was the one with a gavel thumping inside her chest?

“That’s not what I said at all,” she breathed.

“I know, but I’m hoping it’s what you meant.

” He licked his lips—a small, cruel movement that made her own lips tingle.

“I can’t stop thinking about you, Lady Catherine Pinkerton of Rock Turtle Cove.

I’ve been trying, but it’s useless. You’ve had me mesmerized from the first moment I saw you in that red dress, and I don’t know what to do about it, other than to use every skill at my disposal to try and mesmerize you back. ”

The wind whistled through the rocks, the waves whispered on the beach, and Catherine had no response.