The Ringmaster's Wife (2 page)

Was she just an afterthought now? Someone forgotten. Perhaps never really known. Would they notice the pair of them, she riding in on her magnificent black madam horse, performing tricks from memory to enchant the crowd?

“Rosamund—here you are.”

Colin Keary's Irish brogue was light, familiar, his tone of voice soft and laced with feeling.

She tilted her chin to the sound but kept her body squared to
the direction of the audience. “We've had word then?” She held her breath.

“Yes. I'd read the telegram aloud, but I think you already know what it says.”

Rosamund squeezed her eyelids tight and waited.

“She passed away early this morning.”

It must have been tearing Colin apart on the inside. But how like him to want to tell her himself, despite the pain it would cause them both.

The Big Top rustled in the wind like tissue paper in front of a fan, as if it, too, chose to recoil from the painful news. The crowd erupted in applause just then, marveling at some grand feat of daring from the flyers, oblivious to the fact that anyone's life had changed outside the tent. The summer breeze continued stirring tiny bits of sawdust about the field, brushing the side of her face like grains of sand on the wind.

Rosamund drew in a deep breath, readying her nerve to perform. “Ingénue and I have a show to give,” she said, and ran a hand down the silk of her horse's mane.

“Even if it kills you.”

She shook her head, countering, “Never. The ring is home to us. We'll not fear it.”

“Even now?”

“Especially now.”

Rosamund felt the light touch of his fingertips against the rows of sequins at her shoulder and drew in a deep breath as she notched her chin a touch higher.

“We can't let them down now, can we?” she whispered, closing her eyes and pressing her forehead against the side of Ingénue's head.

“Rose . . .”

Only Colin called her that—a soft Irish lilt of an endearment
that he'd whispered so sweetly once upon a time. She brushed the thought away, like a cobweb caught in the wind. It would do no good to live in yesterdays. Not when everything had changed.

“Listen to me.” He breezed around the front of her, tilted her face to him with a butterfly's touch of his fingertips to her cheek. “You know if she were still here, she'd tell us that this life is a gift, Rose. It's given and it's taken away in a blink. It's madness to go out and perform now.”

“You can't protect me,” she whispered, easing his hand back. “Or fix me.”

“It's not your call this time. I'm your boss, Rose, and I won't let you go in.”

“The show is in my blood, Colin. Please don't ask me to be less than who I am.”

He paused, as if absorbing her words and choosing his own that much more carefully. Or boldly. She couldn't be sure.

“It won't bring her back.”

Rosamund felt her chin quiver. “I know that. But are you saying it for me or for you?”

They stood in agonizing silence. Her heart beating wild. Wondering if his was doing the same unrestrained somersaulting in his chest.

Their circus world toiled beyond, the tent bursting to life with the vibrancy of the band playing “Roses of Picardy
,
” a jaunty version of the song that had always signaled her entrance.

“It's time to go,” she thought aloud. “Colin, I . . .” She swallowed hard, fighting against the mental image of him standing just outside, looking on from the shadows while she performed under the bright lights.

She flipped up on Ingénue's back as she'd done countless times before.

“I can't be a caged bird with a broken wing.” She wiped at tears that had gathered in secret but now threatened to tumble down her cheeks. “I know now I'd never survive that kind of love,” she whispered. “And neither would you.”

The band played their cue, and Rosamund nudged Ingénue forward with a gentle squeeze of her ankles to both sides of the horse's body. And forward they trotted, leaving the breath of wind toiling behind as they went in to give their last performance.

“Just like Mable said . . .” She straightened her shoulders and raised her head to the elation of the crowd. “They'll only see what we want them to.”

T
HREE YEARS EARLIER

N
ORTH
Y
ORKSHIRE
, E
NGLAND

Air turned to water.

It rushed over Rosamund's head in a torrent, curling and mocking as it dragged her with the current. She flailed her legs in a bevy of kicks as it rolled, fighting to keep her head above water.

Hers was a foe of muddy brown, a once peaceful brook that flowed under the old cobblestone bridge on the road to Linton. But it had swollen to a near raging river with the last heavy rain, engulfing her the instant her motor had veered off the country road and tumbled down the embankment with a great splash.

How fortunate it was that she still wore men's riding trousers. At least it afforded her some movement of her legs in the water, though not enough that she believed she could reach safety.

The current surged, plunging Rosamund into its depths again. It continued surging. Tugging at her legs first and then pulling her along like a rag doll tossed in the open sea. Her back went deeper. Then her shoulders. Her head. She felt her hair billowing around her neck like thick twines of seaweed.

The rush of water, then fear.

Her thoughts were urgent, her mind signaling the deepest
sense of danger. Was this it, she wondered, the blackness of one's thoughts at death?

Exhaustion in body, mind, even her soul, threatening to be called away.

The brown murkiness deadened the burning pain in her legs, fighting to muddle her mind and body into submission.

“Hello—
you there
!”

The shout rocked her senses.

Though still bobbing about like a cork in a bucket, Rosamund felt renewed strength to nudge her chin up out of the water. She scanned the banks on either side, frantically looking for anything that stood out beyond roiling water and dense thickets of autumn-painted trees.

“Over here!”

Another shout. This one was closer. Bold. Echoing from up ahead.

Thank You, God . . .

She'd heard the voice clearly this time and met a man's fixed stare from the bank on her right.

He'd braced himself against a felled tree, one arm hooked around the trunk and the other reaching toward her, tense and ready to grasp her as she was swept by.

He shouted again. “Take hold of my hand, all right?”

Rosamund tried to nod as a rush of the current splashed in her face. She shook her head out of it, coughing as her hair splayed across the bridge of her nose. She brushed it back with the swipe of a hand.

He seemed to pause for a second when his eyes fell upon her face up close. Yet he responded with determination, willing her hand to connect with his. Though her energy stores were all but tapped clean, Rosamund reached out and locked hands with his at the wrist. His grip was iron.

“Good. Now swim to me,” he shouted, willing her to accept his word. “I'll not let go of you.”

Rosamund lunged forward, falling into his grip.

The felled tree extended from a mossy bank, with water that grew shallower as it edged to shore. The man carefully maneuvered the pair of them back, trekking his free hand along the trunk.

When Rosamund felt the familiar sensation of stones beneath the soles of her boots, she lurched forward, drifting with the softening current until they were out of the water. She fell upon the bank on all fours, coughing against the ground as if mud and scrubby brush were her long-lost friends.

She untangled the long ropes of hair from one of her suspenders and swept them over her shoulder, then collapsed on the ground, relishing the glorious feel of earth beneath her.

“Miss? Are you all right?”

Rosamund felt a hand just graze her shoulder. Even over the sound of the rushing water behind them, she heard a notable Irish brogue in the man's voice. She turned to meet it, finally able to take a look at her rescuer.

The man knelt in a patch of fallen leaves at her side, his blue eyes fixed upon her. He remained calm. Quiet. Soaked to the skin himself but concerned, it seemed, only with her welfare.

“I'm fine,” she answered, though fighting the ever-present burn of water in her throat. “Or I will be—” She coughed, then shook her head. “In a moment.”

“Think you're keen to stand?” he asked. He offered his arm and Rosamund accepted it gratefully so he could help her rise up on shaky legs.

“Stars above . . . You got him!”

Rosamund glanced up as a second man appeared on the ridge.

This man was young—perhaps not yet twenty, with round
wire-rimmed glasses and sandy hair that flopped down over his forehead. He held a bundle of clothing under his elbow, but dropped it straightaway and bounded down the hill. His work boots scuffled over protruding roots and fallen leaves, sending stray trails of dirt to roll down the hill with him.

“Is he all right?” he asked, winded as he stopped in front of them.

“He is a
she
—” The man who'd rescued her corrected the assumption with a controlled whisper. “But yes. She's going to be fine.”

“Miss.” The young man addressed her with a quick nod in her direction, but wasted no time in continuing. “You're as crackers as they say, Colin. Jumping into the water like that!”

“You saw the motor go down the bank. What other option did we have?” He paused, softening his tone. “And please mind your choice of words in front of the woman who mightn't have been saved otherwise.”

The man named Colin still stood anchored at her side, though his gaze was fixed upon the twists and turns of the water before them. With a gentle warning squeeze that he was releasing her elbow, he drew back and took several steps toward the water's edge.

“Ward, you'll have to stay with her.”

“Where are you going?” The young man shook his head. “The auto's a lost cause. We'll have to hire men from the village to get it out.”

Her rescuer continued scanning the surface of the water. “Not the auto.” He dropped his voice. “I'm going back for the driver. Even though he hasn't surfaced, we can't leave the poor soul behind.”

Rosamund had been wringing water from the tips of her hair, but snapped her head up at his words. “My driver?”

“This must all be very distressing for you,” the younger of the two added, looking like he might have been able to summon just enough gumption to frown at the other gentleman for mentioning
the ill-fated driver with such indelicacy. He turned to Rosamund. “Don't fret, miss. We'll see you to the safety of the village first.”

Rosamund swallowed hard over the growing lump in her throat as an all-new rush of anxiety enveloped her. “Sir, I . . .”

How could she possibly explain the circumstances without giving herself away? If her parents learned what she'd been up to, she'd be locked up in the manor for the rest of her days.

She cleared her throat. “There's no one else there,” she said, tipping her chin a fraction higher. “I'm the driver.”

“You? Well, this English plot of ours just thickened,” the younger man said, looking on with eyes wide and a charm-filled grin that washed down over his face as the truth sank in.

The man named Colin, however, gave little away.

His dark hair lay just tipping over his eyes, with which he now studied her in a most open manner. Rosamund detected the tiniest shred of hesitation as he watched her, doubt that was confirmed when he braced his arms across his chest, as if working things out in his mind.

“Miss.” Colin inclined his head. “You're shivering.”

Was she?

The rush of an autumn wind flooded around them then.

It carried the reminder that winter wasn't far off from their October sky. The distant rumble of thunder sent another shiver to tend the length of her spine, and Rosamund remembered all at once that she was wet, cold, and quite in need of a way out of her present mess before a storm muddled the situation still further.

“I hadn't realized . . .” She wrapped her arms round her middle, trying to calm the thoughts bouncing off every corner in her mind.

“Ward. Can you fetch my coat? I dropped it along the bank somewhere back there.”

The young man nodded, then trekked up the rise to retrieve it.
He tossed the garment down to Colin, who caught it, then took a step forward.

“It'll be too big, but at least it's dry.”

She accepted the coat with trembling fingers. From the events that had taken place. Or the cold. Likely both.

“Thank you.” Rosamund pulled the coat up round her shoulders, trying her best to hide her hands beneath the lapels, lest her rescuer see the evidence of how shaken she truly was. “It's kind of you.”

“We should see you back to the village,” Colin began, his tone even. In control.

She tried not to notice his ongoing inspection of her, even with the coat having swallowed her down to the knees.

“Of course,” Ward chimed in. “We can drop you off on the way to our business meeting.”

“What he means to say is that after the accident you've just been through, it wouldn't be gentlemanly of us to go on without introduction and the offer of assistance home. I'm Colin Keary.” He inclined his head in the other gentleman's direction. “And this is my associate, Mr. Ward Butler. And now that we know there's no one else lost in the wreckage of the motor, we'd like to offer what help we can.”

“No thank you,” Rosamund said. “I'm fine.”

The men exchanged glances, the coy declaration serving only to pique their interest further.