Catherine met Mary Ann’s gaze, and was rewarded with a confidante’s smile, secretive but supportive. She smiled back, but covered it by sipping her wine.
‘I don’t know, Mother,’ she said, setting down the glass. ‘He didn’t propose. I can’t guess his reasons. Have you tried the pumpkin? It’s fantastic. Abigail, please tell the chef that this pumpkin is fantastic.’
‘I will, my lady,’ said Abigail with a small curtsy. ‘I believe it came from Sir Peter’s patch.’
Cath stabbed another bite. ‘It’s astonishing that such a horrid man can grow something so scrumptious.’
‘What are you on about?’ screeched her mother. ‘Pumpkins! Sir Peter! We are talking about the King.’ She thumped her hand on the table. ‘And you may not be able to guess his reasons for not proposing today, but I certainly can. He has lost confidence in his choice of a bride, that is his reason. He heard you’d got ill at the ball and now he thinks you may be a sickly girl, and no man wants that. How can you have rushed off so soon?’
‘To be fair, I did not know the King would be proposing, and you did insist on that very tight—’
‘That is hardly an excuse. You know now. You knew today. I am marvellously disappointed, Catherine. I know you can do better than this.’
Cath looked at her father, hoping for defence. ‘Is this how you feel too?’
He turned his head up, the slices of roast beef and pumpkin on his plate already three-quarters eaten. His expression, though bewildered at first, quickly softened, and he reached for Cath, settling his hand on her wrist.
‘Of course, dear,’ he said. ‘You can do anything you put your mind to.’
Cath sighed. ‘Thanks, Papa.’
He gave her a loving pat before returning his attention to his plate. Shifting in her seat, Cath resigned herself to her mother’s disappointment and focused on cutting her meat into very tiny pieces.
‘I was so hopeful for those macarons too,’ the Marchioness continued. ‘I realize it isn’t ladylike to slave away in the kitchen all day, but he does fancy your desserts and I thought, once he tastes them, he’ll remember why he meant to propose in the first place. How could you have failed at such a simple task?’ She scowled at Catherine’s plate. ‘You’ve eaten enough now, Catherine.’
Catherine looked up. At her mother’s twisted mouth, at the top of her father’s lowered head, at Mary Ann and Abigail pretending to not be listening. She set down her knife and fork. ‘Yes, Mother.’
With a snap of her mother’s fingers, the plates were taken away, even her father’s, though he was still clutching his fork. He soon slumped with resignation.
Before the awkwardness could stretch on, the Marquess perked up. ‘I heard the most delightful tale at the party today,’ he said, dabbing his napkin at the corners of his moustache, ‘about a little girl who discovered an upward-falling rabbit hole just off the Crossroads, and when she started to climb, her body fell up and up and—’
‘Not now, dear,’ said his wife. ‘Can’t you see we’re discussing our daughter’s prospects?’ Then she grumbled, ‘If she has any left at all, that is.’
The Marquess deflated, and set his napkin on the table. ‘Of course, my dear. You always know just the right thing to talk about.’
Catherine frowned. She would have liked to have heard the story.
Clucking her tongue, the Marchioness said, ‘No one ever warns you how exhausting it will be to have an eligible daughter. And now I have the festival to concern myself over. If this marriage ordeal was resolved I could better devote myself to it, as I have every other year, but as it is, my attention is being pulled into two separate directions. I shall never be able to focus on the festival now.’
Mary Ann, Catherine saw, failed to refrain from an eye roll. Though the Marquess and Marchioness hosted the Turtle Days Festival, it was the servants who did all the work.
‘I’m sorry, Mama,’ Catherine said.
‘It’s even worse now that the whole kingdom is in a frenzy over this . . . this Jabberwock.’ She shuddered.
‘It’s terrifying,’ said Catherine, though her attention was wandering as a steaming bread pudding was set before her. It smelled of rich vanilla bean and custard. Mouth watering, she lifted her dessert spoon.
‘Oh, good heavens, no,’ said her mother. ‘Don’t be absurd, Catherine. You’ll be mistaken for a walrus at the festival. Abigail, have this taken away.’
Cath whimpered, gazing after the dessert as it was hastened off the table. She pressed her palm against her middle, feeling her stomach beneath the corset and wondering if her mother was right. Was she becoming a walrus? She did have an almost-constant yearning for sweets, but she only gave in to it, well, maybe once or twice a day. That wasn’t strange, was it? And she didn’t feel any bigger, even if her corsets suggested differently.
She caught a sympathetic smile from Mary Ann as she filled the wine glasses around the table.
‘Don’t you have any thoughts on this at all, Mr Pinkerton?’
The Marquess was watching the dish of bread pudding disappear with the same sorrow Catherine felt. ‘About you sending away the dessert?’ he said. ‘I do have a thought or two about it.’
‘Not that, you old man. Though you’re where she gets it from, you know.’
Cath bristled. ‘I am sitting right here.’
Her mother batted the fact of her presence away. ‘I’m asking if you have any thoughts on the marriageability of your own daughter. The marriageability that is fading away as we sit here, sulking.’