‘Summon me?’

He clasped his hands behind his back in imitation of one of the royal squires. ‘His Majesty the King has requested a word with you.’

CHAPTER 12

CATHERINE FOLLOWED JEST with mounting trepidation. Her stomach was in knots over meeting the King, but she did her best to steel herself against what she assumed was his imminent proposal.

It was difficult to steel herself against it when she wasn’t sure what her answer would be. Every time she imagined how miserable she would be upon accepting his proposal, it was followed by a vision of how delighted her parents would be. How very proud. Oh, how her mother would brag . . .

Her seesaw emotions were not helped by the casual whistling of the Joker who walked a pace ahead of her, or the narrow cut of his shoulders, or his elegantly long strides that made her blood rush for reasons she couldn’t fathom.

Her head spun. Maybe she would faint again. She almost embraced the idea.

Jest led her into a courtyard that was surrounded by boxwoods and chiming bluebells. A fountain sat in its centre and the King was walking around its edge like a tightrope walker, his arms outstretched for balance.

Jest cleared his throat. ‘Your Majesty, may I present Lady Catherine Pinkerton.’

The King squealed with delight and hopped off the fountain.

Catherine curtsied, and cursed herself for not having fainted during the walk.

‘Thank you, Jest, thank you. That will be all!’ The King clapped his hands as Jest bowed once to him and once to Catherine. He seemed to hesitate as he met her eyes, as if he saw the pleading in her face. The chant of please, please don’t leave that was running loops in her head.

His brow creased.

Bracing herself, Catherine looked away.

‘I won’t be far,’ said Jest, ‘should my presence be wanted.’

Though it was said to the King, Catherine suspected he meant it for her. She did not look up again until she’d heard the faint thumping of his boots passing out of the courtyard.

She and the King were left alone in the romantic gardens. He was smiling at her like he’d just opened an unbirthday present and found it was precisely what he’d asked for.

‘You wished to see me, Your Majesty?’

‘I did, Lady Pinkerton.’

A heavy, clouded silence followed before the King cleared his throat. ‘Don’t the gardens look marvellous today? Listen to those bluebells, so in tune.’

She listened. The bluebells’ chime was beautiful, hitting all the right notes. The music did nothing to calm her.

The King offered her his arm, and she had no choice but to take it and allow him to lead her along the pathways, between geraniums and creeping ivy and heavy-headed dahlias. The King was so jovial, practically skipping beside her. She wanted to put her hands on his shoulders and order him to calm down, but she did her best to be amused by his enthusiasm instead. She listened while he gabbled on about which flowers the gardeners had chosen for the upcoming season and how his vintner was going to make elderberry wine this year and how very excited he was to attend the annual Turtle Days Festival that the Marquess and Marchioness were hosting, and would she be there – but of course she would, being their daughter – and would she dance the quadrille and was she eager to try her luck at the oyster hunt?

She listened with utmost politeness, but hardly heard any of it. The weight of the paper-wrapped macarons inside her pocket became an anchor dragging her down. She had baked them to ensure she was still in the King’s good graces. She had baked them with the intention of compelling him into a marriage proposal.

Catherine had tried to leave them at home that morning, feigning forgetfulness, but her mother had had none of it.

She did not want to give them to the King. She did not want to encourage him.

Perhaps it wouldn’t matter. He was going to ask for her hand anyway. Why else would he have had her escorted into the gardens?

She tried to breathe. This was better than the ballroom, at least. Better than being surrounded by every person she’d known in her life. Out here, she felt like she had a slim chance of saying no without dying of guilt as she said it.

They passed through an archway, around a cutting garden, beneath a trellis, while the King talked of everything and nothing. Catherine yawned. She wished she was still playing yard games with Margaret. She wished she was drinking tea and gossiping with her mother and her friends. She wished she would have thought to eat something when she first arrived – her stomach was going to begin gurgling any minute.

As they meandered into another courtyard, her eyes caught on Jest’s dark motley again. As promised, he hadn’t gone far, and he now crouched in the next garden before the Two of Spades, a young gardener who was watching the Joker with awe.

Jest was showing him a card trick.

Catherine’s feet pulled her off the path without her noticing. She drifted towards the pair, watching as Jest took a pack of cards into his hands and fanned them up one arm, then flipped them with a gesture too quick to follow. The cards dominoed down to his elbow. He made them dance and skip, form a living chain between his fingers, spread out into the shapes of stars and hearts, before collapsing back into a deck of cards once again. Then he shot them all up into the air in a stream high as a water fountain and allowed them to rain down over their heads like red and black confetti.

The young gardener froze mid-laugh at the sound of a startling caw. The Raven swooped down from a nearby rose tree and caught a single card in his beak before landing on Jest’s forearm. The bird cocked his head to one side, revealing the card he had caught.