HEARTLESS AESTHETIC: The Beginning.
“Well, 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 cowered 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 impossible things?”
“It just sounds 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.”