Reckless Rules (Brambridge Novel 4) (23 page)

In another tent, a giant of a man stood wearing only a small cloth around his loins. As he bent and twisted, the light caught the tattoos that were inked on every spare part of flesh of his body. As he pushed out his shoulder blade, an eagle looked like it would soar out from his body. When he started to bend over, his loincloth shifted to show that the tattoos did not just stop on the uncovered flesh, Victoria hastily picked up a pamphlet and read about his history as a man from somewhere called Borneo who covered himself in tattoos for every animal that he killed so that their souls could be captured in his flesh and make him stronger. “Gosh,” was the most that she could manage.

The third tent held a group of dwarves that mimed, danced and did impersonations of the higher members of the ton. Agatha nearly fell of her chair laughing when a female dwarf entered the tent on a small white cart pulled by a pig. Victoria could not draw her gaze away this time. There were no pamphlets to read, the piece of theatre was very self-explanatory.

“Prithee tell me,” exclaimed the dwarf dressed in a fine dress of gold, “if you do not find me the epitome of virtue. With a stick up my bottom and no brain cells I really am the darling of the ton.”

Victoria could feel Agatha’s horrified gaze on her. She ran her tongue nervously over her teeth. Is that how everyone saw her? As a laughing stock, despite adhering to the ton’s rules? She had worked so hard not to put a step wrong but it seemed there were still yet other ways to gain people’s attention. She didn’t like it. Victoria shook her head. She didn’t like it one bit.

“It’s a good thing they don’t know you are here,” Agatha said, poking Victoria in the side with an elbow.       

“Or what I’m really like,” Victoria muttered from the depths of her hood. Luckily it was but a small part in a larger play on the better known members of the ton. Her ‘other half’ was quickly retired again to outside the tent.

“It’s time for the last act.” Agatha pulled Victoria to her feet. “We should hurry if we want to get some good seats. I’ve been told it is worth watching from as close as possible.”

It was true. Although there was fifteen minutes before the act started, the large tent had begun to fill up with spectators. And it wasn’t just gentlemen who abounded, standing at the back of the tent. Most of the seats were filled with females from every walk of life. Without pause, Agatha walked down to the front and slid her bottom onto the end of a bench. Pulling her skirts tight around her knees, she made room for Victoria. Victoria twisted round, her hood falling back slightly, and quickly turned back to face forward, tugging at her coat back into place as she did so.

“Aggie, there are people we know here.” She tapped on her friend’s knee. “This is not cheering me up.”

“Oh, don’t be such a wet flounce. They won’t believe that the famous paragon of virtue, Lady Colchester, is here. Besides everyone has heard of this act.”

“Everyone but me.”

“Ssh.”

Victoria stopped muttering as the lights in the tent dimmed. Unlike the other acts, there was no music, no man with a fiddle or a pipe. The crowd quietened and seemed to wait with bated breath. Outside a single torch blazed, throwing light onto the tent. Suddenly a form appeared as a shadow thrown onto the tent. It was like a monster, with the head of a horse, and the back of an elephant. It grew bigger as it approached the tent. Several women in the audience screamed, and the men muttered.

The flaps to the tent were held back as the form passed into the tent and gradually candles lit. The figure stood in the center of the stage; the horse’s head lifted and whinnied, revealing a man underneath with a bowed head, the horse resting on his shoulders. He threw his head up and smiled slowly at the audience.

Pulling the horses’ hooves apart revealed the man’s naked torso which gleamed against the fur of the horse in the flickering candlelight. With a massive heave, the man pushed the horse over his head and set it down on the ground. To gasps of amazement, he stepped round the animal and bowed his head again.

The tent erupted into cheers. Agatha clapped as hard as the rest of them. “Did you see that, Vic? Did you? That was amazing. Just look at his muscles.”

Victoria had indeed seen. She narrowed her eyes and glanced at the rest of the audience. The women were riveted on the man at the front that was now petting the horse and leading it to the side where she and Agatha sat.

“Look after my horse won’t you, ladies?” the man said with a charming smile.

“Of course we shall,” Agatha said. Victoria peeped up at the man. His chest was a glistening nut-brown. She could not get beyond the rippling muscles. It was as if she was fixated.

She swallowed as he went back to the middle of the stage. The audience quietened as in a husky voice the performer asked for a pack of cards. Several gentlemen produced packs from the back of the stalls. As the man took a pack, the owner said rather worriedly that they were his favorite pack. With a laugh, the strong man handed the pack back, and asked for a pack that someone didn’t want. Jovially a man stepped forward.

“’ere you go,” he said, pushing a grease stained pack into the performer’s hands. “Can’t see as how you are going to ruin them however. Pretty indestructible these are.”

His only answer was a husky laugh as the strong man leapt to the front of the stage again. He fanned the cards out, and showed that there were at least fifty two in the pack. Then, closing them up with a snap, he placed his legs squarely on the floor. He covered the pack with his two hands and began to pull up with one hand and down with the other. He started to rotate on his feet to show the audience his back. Victoria’s mouth dropped open as the muscles on his back spasmed and rippled.

The audience became deathly silent. As the strongman turned back to the front, he grinned and in one throw, showered the audience with torn in half cards.

There were screams as the women caught the individually torn cards. They brandished them like prizes in the air. Even some of the men pulled the cards from the ladies. It was unlike any behavior Victoria had seen before.

The strongman waited at the front with his head bowed as the audience quietened again. When they were quiet, he pulled a metal rod off the stage and handed it to the largest man in the audience.

“Show me what you can do,” he said quietly, but yet everyone heard.

“Don’t be silly. It’s metal—I won’t be able to bend that!” the man said nervously. Still, looking to see that the audience were all watching him, he gritted his teeth and, with a violent yell, pushed with all his might at the two ends of the rod. The metal did not bend one bit. With an embarrassed laugh, the man handed back the metal bar. “Seems normal to me,” he said with one last pat of the cool metal.

The strongman nodded and took the metal bar back down to the front. He showed the audience the metal bar again, placing it high in the air, and turning so that they could see it from every side. As he turned back to face the front again, he bent his left arm so that his fist punched the air, and his bicep bulged. Holding one end of the bar in his left hand, still with his fist in the air, he pulled the bar around the back of his arm and with his right hand
pulled
at the bar against his bicep.

Victoria glanced at the audience. Several of the women began to frown and the men shuffled their feet. That were obviously wondering what the strong man was trying to do, given that he had already demonstrated that it was impossible to bend the metal. A gasp drew her eyes back to the front.

Against all the odds, the metal in the man’s hands was beginning to bend. Inexorably it curved more and more forward until it formed a right angle against the man’s arm.

The audience clapped and cheered, wolf whistling and hollering.

But the strong man put out his hands. “Wait,” was all he said. Still with the metal curved around his arms, he pushed the metal that now bent like what seemed like jelly in his hands into a U shape and then back on itself. He pulled the ring of metal off his arm. The audience clapped again. “Wait,” he said again.

Once again resuming the same position, the strong man bent another circle on the iron bar, and then another, and then another until finally, as the audience held their breath, he stopped and grinned. He held the metal shape up to the crowd that sat in silence, before rising with a roar.

Victoria stared and stared and stared. Her mouth dropped open. Not because the strongman had created the most exquisite flower with a metal bar that could not be bent and his bicep. But because she had finally drawn her eyes away from his body to look at his face.

It was a face for sin. Dark hair, deep brown eyes and a jawline that could have cut diamonds. And it was a face she had examined at close quarters but two weeks ago.

“He didn’t come and see me for this?” she muttered, outraged. She put her hands on the bench to lever herself up.

“Ssh Vic, he’s coming over, oh my goodness I think he’s going to give it to you.” Agatha pulled on her sleeve urgently.

“My lady,” said the strong man. “Might I present you this for looking after my…”

The man stopped and hesitated. He pushed the delicately wrought flower in front of him and bent his head to look more closely under her hood.

Victoria turned her head back from looking at his horse and glared at him with all her might.

“Victoria?” the strong man whispered in horror, a fleeting look of terror flying across his face.

Agatha frowned. “You know each other?”

“No.”

“No.”

Victoria became aware of the crowd waiting with bated breath. Rule number three.
Keep up appearances
. She pushed herself slowly to her feet. She curtseyed, and took the flower graciously in her hand. “Thank you, kind sir,” she said in her best imitation of a mockery of a lady’s voice.

The strongman backed away. ‘Epitome of virtue’, ‘stick up her bottom’ and ‘lack of brain cells’ swirled in her head.

“But I request more than this flower.”

The crowd murmured and leant forward as one.

“Vic, what are you doing?” Agatha cried hoarsely, tugging at Victoria’s skirts.

“I demand a kiss,” Victoria said triumphantly, waving her friend away. The look of terror on the strongman’s face burgeoned. But as if he was caught on a fishing line, he walked jerkily back to where Victoria stood, holding the flower like a bouquet. His eyes dropped to where Victoria stroked the cool hard metal of the stem of the flower. He brought them back up to hers, and Victoria read the challenge in his eyes.
I accept,
she willed him.

She closed her eyes slightly and waited for the light touch of his lips. Instead she heard the gasps as her hood was drawn back and he fumbled lightly at her hair. She opened her eyes again, as with two hands the strong man pulled all the brass pins from her elaborate hair. Her golden curls cascaded down her back to fall to her waist.

“Much better, Victoria,” the strongman murmured. And with one arm, he bent her backwards and feasted upon her mouth.

A roaring powered through Victoria’s ears. Dimly she heard shouts from the audience.

“I think I’m going to faint.”

“Oh, if only it was me being kissed that way.”

“Did you see her hair, cor she’s a prime ‘un, lucky lad.”

Tentatively, slowly, the strongman drew his face an inch away from hers. She stared into his meltingly brown eyes.

“Oh Bill,” she whispered. “What have you been doing?”

CHAPTER 22

Bill sat with a thump onto the straw mattress in the cart where he had been sleeping. The last half an hour had been a blur. He didn’t know what devil had possessed him. He should have just given Victoria a kiss on a cheek and resumed his act.

But no.
He had turned it into a regular Guinevere and Lancelot charade by pulling out her hair pins and kissing her with a flourish.

His blood still ran hot at the feel of her supple body against his bare skin. He was a fool. By exposing her like that he risked drawing even more attention to his act than ever.

From the moment that Bill’s gaze had met Pablo Moreno’s eyes those few nights ago, he knew that the man had no idea who he was. It had been easy enough to demonstrate his act. Jimmy Carandel had given his seal of approval with a short nod, whilst Pablo Moreno had appeared more guarded.

“We’ll give you a trial run in one of the smaller tents,” was his only comment, before leaving via the tent flap again. “Jimmy, I want to see you outside.”

And that is what had happened. Even on the first night the small tent had been full to the brim. On the second night he had had to put on two shows. It was then that Jimmy had moved him to the large tent and billed him as the Last Act.

The problem was that he had seen Pedro Moreno only twice. And he was running low on the body oil that Dogman had given him. Pablo Moreno he had not seen again at all.

Bill gripped at his aching arms. Victoria had given him a saucy grin after asking him what he had been doing and had sat back down on her bench with an enquiring look on her face. He’d walked back to the center of the stage and only with half concentration continued the show, lifting up members of the audience and carrying his anchor. He could feel her eyes on him throughout the rest of the act. But when he went to retrieve Raven she was gone. It had been a relief. He didn’t want to answer any questions about what he had been doing.

Bill picked up the bottle of oil and held it to a candle. Only two doses left. He could complete the act for another two nights before either needing to find some more oil or giving up on the act altogether.

“So that is what you put on your hair.” Bill jumped as a distinctly female form in large boots hauled itself into the cart. He groaned. He should have known that Victoria wouldn’t have come to such a place without some kind of backup. And that backup was someone he had known for some time. Someone who had known him since his orphanage days.

“Lady Anglethorpe,” he said resignedly.

“Agatha will do, Bill.” Agatha poked him in the stomach. “If I hadn’t seen what you did to Victoria, I would never have recognized you,”