Heartless(18)

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.”