“But what if I don’t…” She trailed off, curling her knees up to her chest.
“What if you don’t what? Spit it out, child.”
She gulped. Hesitated. Sagged. “What if I don’t see His Majesty for a while? We can’t very well call on the King, and we have no invitations, do we?”
Her mother smugly tilted her nose up. “In fact, we do have an invitation. We have been asked to afternoon tea in the castle gardens in three days’ time.” She snapped her fingers. “I know! You shall bring His Majesty a gift! That will be the perfect excuse to approach him. He is fond of your sweets.” She stood and took to pacing the room, the light from the lamp casting a restless shadow over the walls. “What do you think he’d like?”
“Anything, I suppose.”
“Why are you being difficult?”
Cath shrugged. “I don’t mean to be, Mama. What about those rose macarons I mentioned?”
“Yes, yes, perfect! What are rose macarons?”
Cath prepared an explanation, but her mother was already waving off the question. “Never mind, I’m sure they’ll be fine. Now, try to get some sleep. You know you plump up when you’re not sleeping well.” Fluttering her arms, she bustled out of the bedroom, nearly crashing into Mary Ann’s tea tray on the way out.
After the Marchioness had gone, Mary Ann slipped inside and shut the door with her foot. She turned her wide eyes on Catherine and abandoned the tray on the nightstand. “Can it be true, Catherine?”
Catherine collapsed back onto her pillows. “I don’t wish to believe it, either. A Jabberwock! In Hearts! The attack must have been awful.”
Mary Ann froze, her thoughts tripping over the topic. “Oh yes. It was awful. It happened so fast—I barely caught sight of the beast as it was flying away with one courtier in each of its big, gangly claws…” She grimaced. “No one knew what to do. The ballroom was in chaos, everyone wanting to flee but too afraid to go outside. Then the Joker showed up out of nowhere—he’s rather uncanny, don’t you think?—and insisted that the King have everyone gather together in the great hall until it was deemed safe to leave. That’s when we realized you were missing, and the Joker tried to calm Mama. He told her that he’d seen a girl in a red gown get into a carriage and he was sure you were safe, but we couldn’t send a messenger, and we were stuck inside for hours…” Her face pinched with worry. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”
“Well, mostly right.” Cath rose up onto one elbow. “The Joker gathered everyone in the great hall?”
Mary Ann nodded. “He was very calm about it, while the King was … well, you know how he is.” Her lips stretched into a smile. “Or shall we say, your sweetheart?”
“We certainly shall not.” She collapsed backward again. “I’m exhausted thinking about it.”
Mary Ann laughed. “Oh yes. It must be tiresome, being a favorite of the King himself.”
“Are we speaking of the same man? The short one with the funny curled beard? The one who never stops wiggling?”
Mary Ann settled onto the bed beside Catherine. “Don’t be mean. To think, if you had been trapped in the castle with the rest of us, the King would have had to protect you from that beast. Or, at the least, he would have ordered the Clubs to protect you, as is much more practical, given the circumstances. It’s very nearly romantic. Why, we would be discussing your engagement right now.” She lay down beside Catherine, fluffing a pillow beneath her head.
Catherine pried open one eye. “You can’t mean it.”
“Mean what?”
Shoving away the blankets, Catherine flopped off the mattress. “Have you met the King?” she asked, adjusting her nightgown. “Practical? Romantic? Rubbish! I can’t marry him!”
Mary Ann sat up, eyes wide. “Why not? You would be the Queen.”
“I don’t want to be the Queen! I want … I don’t know. If ever I get married, I want there to be romance, and passion. I want to fall in love.” Cath poured some tea into a cup, annoyed at how her hands shook. She was flushed—from talk of the King, from news of the Jabberwock … but mostly, she knew, from the dream.
Romance. Passion. Love.
She had never experienced them before, but she imagined they would leave her feeling like that dream had. Like the Joker did, with his quick smiles and witty remarks. She felt like she could talk to him for hours, for days and months and years, and never tire of it.
But …
He was a court joker. He was an impossibility.
She gulped, hard, and tried to tether her emotions back to the ground.
“None of that matters anyway,” she said, half to herself. “Marry the King—bah! What I want is to open our bakery. That’s what I’ve always wanted.”
Mary Ann scooted to the edge of the bed. “I want that too, of course,” she said. “But … Cath. The bakery, much as we’ve talked of it, has always been, well … something of a silly dream, don’t you think?”
Cath spun to face her, surprised at the jolt of betrayal the words caused. “Silly?”
Mary Ann held up her hands in defense. “Not like that. It’s a good dream. A lovely thought, truly. But we’ve been discussing it for years, and yet we’re no closer to having any money, not without selling off your dowry. We don’t have any support. No one will think we’re capable of it.”
“I refuse to accept that. I am the best baker in all of Hearts and everyone who has tasted my pastries knows it.”
“I don’t think you understand.”
Cath set down the cup without taking a drink. “What don’t I understand?”
“You’re the daughter of a marquess. Look around. Look at the things you have, the life you’re accustomed to. You don’t know what it’s like to work every day so you can feed yourself and keep a roof over your head. You don’t know what it’s like to be poor. To be a servant.”
“We’ll be businesswomen, not servants.”
“Or,” said Mary Ann, “you could be a queen.”
Cath inhaled a sharp breath.
“I can run any amount of calculations, consider every angle of profits and losses, but our little, insignificant bakery will never come close to providing what the King could offer you. The clothes, the food, the security…” Mary Ann’s eyes glazed over and though her words struck Cath as boringly practical, she could see this was not the first time Mary Ann had considered what life must be like for someone who was more than a maid.
“Yes,” said Cath, “but I would be married to the King, and I can hardly stand to be near him for a five-minute waltz. How could I stand an entire lifetime?”
Mary Ann looked like she meant to defend His Majesty, but she hesitated. “He is ridiculous, isn’t he?”
“The worst.”
“You don’t think there’s any hope of you coming to love him?”
Cath thought of the King—squat and impish and flighty as a butterfly. She tried to imagine being wed to him. Stooping down to kiss him, her mouth tickled by his curled mustache. Listening to his giggles as they bounced through the castle corridors. Watching his childish, gleeful expressions every time he won a round of croquet.
She shuddered. “I’m sure that I couldn’t.”
Slipping off the bed, Mary Ann poured a cup of tea for herself. “Well, you have three days to think on it. Perhaps your heart will soften in that time.”
Cath shut her eyes, glad that Mary Ann was ending the conversation. She never wanted to think about it again, but she knew she would have to. In three days her mother expected her to bring a gift of rose macarons to afternoon tea at the castle. In three days she would have to face His Majesty.
“You came home by yourself last night?” Mary Ann asked, heaping each cup with sugar.
“Yes.”
“How did you manage to get the corset off?”
Catherine looked away. “The ties had come loose during the ball. All that dancing…” She trailed off, accepting the improved cup of tea, and deigned to change the subject. “I think we shou
ld go look at the cobbler’s shop this morning. I want to see the home of our future bakery.”
Mary Ann smiled, but there was restraint behind it. “That sounds like a nice outing, Lady Catherine.”
For the first time Cath could see that she, alone, believed wholeheartedly their plan could work. Would work. She had never thought she might have to persuade Mary Ann of it too.
But then she pictured the King of Hearts standing before her, holding her hand. She grimaced to think of that small, clammy hand in hers. And then, his request. To be his bride. To be his wife. There would be no passion, no romance, no love. But she could picture precisely how he would smile at her, so hapless. So hopeful.
Her stomach roiled.
Could she ever say yes to that?
As she took a sip of tea, a more important question struck her.
Could she ever say no?
CHAPTER 9
CLOSING SALE, read the wooden sign posted in the cobbler’s window. WALK IN BEFORE THE SHOES WALK OUT.
Catherine and Mary Ann stood beneath Cath’s lace parasol, admiring the storefront across the street and building their courage to go inside.
“It’s perfect,” Cath whispered, the first to break the silence. She pointed at the large picture window. “Imagine a collection of crystal cake plates there, with wedding cakes and birthday cakes and, oh, the best unbirthday cakes. Plus a centerpiece—a five-tiered showpiece done all in latticework and scalloping, with sugared berries and flowers piled on top.”
Mary Ann leaned into her. “I would have to measure the window dimensions to be sure, but I bet we could display upward of a dozen cakes right up front. That would attract plenty of foot traffic, and if we posted flyers throughout town … Oh, Cath. I’m sorry I called it silly. This really is our bakery, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is. We’ll paint a banner on the glass to read SWEETS AND TARTS: THE MOST WONDROUS BAKERY IN ALL OF HEARTS.”
They shared a unified sigh. A passing froggy footman gave them an odd look, before licking his eyeball and continuing on.
The shop was on a cozy street lined with flower boxes and thatched roofs, a cobbled road that clattered with passing carriages. The morning was fair and the town seemed more crowded than usual. Passing baskets overflowed with onions and turnips from the nearby market. A crew of carpenter ants were whistling along with the beat of their hammers as they erected a schoolhouse around the corner. Overheard bits of conversation bustled with news of the Jabberwock, though they talked of it more like a long-passed fairy tale than a recent horror, which was the way of the people of Hearts.
Cath had the overwhelming sense that she would be happy to come here every day. To live a simple life here on Main Street, away from the manor at Rock Turtle Cove, away from Heart Castle.
Her attention caught on a street performer on the corner—a trumpetfish, playing for the passersby with an open case gathering coins in front of his musical mouth. Normally the sound of his music would have brought to mind the White Rabbit, but now Cath’s first thought was of Jest and his silver flute.
A new dream weaseled its way into her thoughts, unbidden and unexpected.
Her and Mary Ann. Their bakery. And … him. Entertaining their customers, or returning home after a day of making merriment at the castle.
It was so absurd she immediately chastised herself for the thought. She barely knew the court joker and had no reason to think he would ever be anything to her beyond a couple of unusual dreams.
And yet, if she was only a simple baker, and not the daughter of a marquess, and not the King’s intended … then the thought of the court joker becoming something more to her no longer sounded so impossible.
Could this be her future? Could such be her fate?
She was surprised at how encouraged she was by the prospect.
“Cath?”
She jumped. Mary Ann was watching her with a furrowed brow, her face shaded by the parasol.
“Do you know him?” Mary Ann asked.
“Who?”
“The trumpetfish?”
“Oh no, I just … thought it was a pretty tune.” She dug a coin from her purse. “Let’s go inside and take a look around, shall we?”
She didn’t wait for Mary Ann to respond, dropping the coin into the trumpetfish’s case as she made her way toward the cobbler’s shop.
The moment they opened the door, a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke spilled over them and drifted into the street. Cath waved it away with her hand and stepped inside. There was a bell on the door handle, but it was fast asleep and only went on snoring even as they shut the door behind them.
Taking down the parasol, Cath let her gaze drift around the smoky, haze-filled shop. The floor was covered in shoes of all sizes and shapes, from ballet slippers and riding boots to iron horseshoes and flipper covers, piled like snowdrifts and spilling into the pathways. The plain beige walls were sparsely hung with painted advertisements that showed foot-dressings thirty years outdated. The lighting was dim and dusty; the air smelled of blacking and leather and dirty stockings.
Behind a counter, Mr. Caterpillar, the cobbler, was perched on a stool and smoking from a large hookah. He blinked sleepily at Cath and Mary Ann as they made their way through the mess. A pair of leather-soled boots sat on the counter in front of him, and though he seemed more interested in the pipe than the shoes, Cath busied herself by giving the space a closer inspection, not wanting to interrupt his work.
In her mind, she cleared away the cobbler’s shop from this dingy little space. She imagined the walls painted in candy stripes of cream and turquoise, and the window hung with breezy peach-sorbet curtains. Three small cafe tables waited by the entrance, each with a sprig of yellow posies in a milk-glass vase. The stained and musty carpet was replaced with waxed marble tiles, and the cobbler’s old wooden counter would be exchanged for a glass case overflowing with cakes and gingerbreads, pies and strudels and chocolate-filled croissants. The back wall would be hung with baskets, each stuffed with fresh-baked bread. She saw herself behind the case, wearing a pink-checkered apron still dusted with that morning’s flour. She was filling a jar with biscotti while Mary Ann, in matching yellow checkers, wrapped up a dozen shortbread cookies in a lime-green box.
Cath took in a long breath, then promptly started choking on the hookah smoke that filled her lungs, when she had been expecting spices and the chocolate and the steaming, yeasty buns. She covered her mouth, trying to muffle the coughing fit as well as she could, and turned back to the cobbler.
He was staring at her and Mary Ann. He had not touched the boots on the counter, though coming closer she could see that he was wearing an assortment of shoes himself—all different styles of boots and slippers taking up his many small feet.
“Who,” he said lazily, “are you?”
Cath attempted her most charming smile—the persuasive one she’d learned from her mother—and picked her way past the piles of shoes. “My name is Catherine Pinkerton. My maid and I happened to be passing by when we noticed the sign outside. I was wondering what’s to become of this shop once you’ve vacated. It would be a sore shame if it were to stay empty for long.”
“It would not be a sore shame,” Mr. Caterpillar said, rather gruffly, before taking another puff off the hookah.
“Oh, indeed, I only meant for the neighborhood, you know. One always hates to lose an established business, but I’m sure you’re looking forward to, er … retirement, is it?”
He stared at her for so long she wondered that he would answer at all, or if she had offended him, when finally he said, “I have purchased a small plot of land in the forest, where I shall finally have quiet and solitude.”
Cath waited for him to go on, but that seemed to be the end of it. “I see,” she finally said. “That sounds lovely.” She cleared her throat, still tickling from the smoke. “Are you the owner of this building as well?”
“No,” said Mr. Caterpillar. “The Duke has long been my landlord.”
“The same, that bore.” He yawned, as if growing bored by their conversation. “I like him well enough, though. He’s aloof-like. Not so nosy like the rest of you.”
Cath tried to disguise her frown, not only at the unjustified insult, but also because she’d been hoping the building’s owner would be someone she had no association with. Someone who wouldn’t be apt to discuss her business with the rest of the gentry, or her parents, until things were settled. She still hadn’t had the brazenness to ask her father about a loan to start up her bakery—or permission to use her dowry for the funds.
At least Mr. Caterpillar was right about one thing. Lord Warthog didn’t seem the nosy sort, so perhaps she could trust him not to gossip about her plans.
Mary Ann stepped closer. “Do you know if there’s been much interest in someone leasing out the space once you’re gone?”
Mr. Caterpillar slowly shifted his gaze to her. “Who are you?”
Mary Ann folded her hands in front of her skirt. “I’m Mary Ann.”
The Caterpillar yawned again. “Whosoever leases this space will be the Duke’s concern, not mine.”
“I see,” said Mary Ann. “But … would you happen to think that a bakery would do well here? Say, the most wondrous bakery in all of Hearts?”
The Caterpillar scratched at his cheek with the end of the hookah, pushing the skin around like overstretched marzipan. “Only if this bakery should serve clootie dumplings, which I prefer to all other dumplings.”
“Oh, we would,” said Cath. “I’d hunt down the treacle well, even, to ensure it’s the best clootie dumpling this side of the Looking Glass.”
She beamed, but the Caterpillar only turned his solemn gaze back to her and said, without humor, “The treacle well is naught but a myth.”
Cath deflated. “Yes. Naturally. I meant it as a joke.”
It was an old myth—that drinking from the treacle well could heal a person’s wounds or age them in reverse. Only problem was, no one had the faintest idea where to find the treacle well. Some said the well was in the Looking Glass maze, but moved around so that you would only get more and more lost if you ever tried to find it. Some said that only the most desperate of souls could ever find the treacle well. But most, like the cobbler, said it didn’t exist at all.
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