The Ringmaster's Wife

by Kristy Cambron

  “But I’ve been here, Colin.” She exhaled the breath she hadn’t known she held, incredulous. She held her arms out at her sides, the wet sequins pricking at her skin. “Look at me. I’m . . . I’m fine. See? Nothing’s happened.”

  Colin shook his head. “I pulled you out of a raging river once before,” he told her, hands clenched at his sides, emotion barely restrained. “Remember? And I won’t do that again. Do you hear me? I can’t do my job if there’s any chance you’re in danger. Love does that to people, Rose. It takes over every part of you so that you can’t think straight. Everyone out there is demanding answers from me about what to do, and all I can think about is finding you! So yes—I think I am entitled to be a little angry right now.”

  Rosamund froze.

  She blinked. Hearing only the sounds of her own breath and the intermittent neighing of the horses behind them. Replaying what she thought he’d just said in her mind.

  “What did you just say to me?”

  Colin ran a hand through his hair—his telltale sign of acute frustration.

  He exhaled. “I’m trying to tell you that I love you. That your safety means more to me than anything or anyone.”

  The same instinct that had frozen her feet in place only moments before now prompted her to take a step toward him.

  He did the same. Looking at her. Searching her face for a reply.

  “It’s why I stand by to watch every performance. Why I played for you in the ring that night last season,” he said softly. His brow was furrowed. Almost pain-wracked. His stare ardent. “It’s why I’m standing here right now.”

  “And I told you I’m here,” she whispered. “See? I’m fine, Colin.”

  “Yes. I see you, Rose. I’ve always seen you.”

  He lowered his voice to a rough whisper, just low enough that he’d have to step closer so she could hear each word over the pattering of rain on the roof.

  Colin looked up. “It seems like we’re always surrounded by storms, doesn’t it?”

  “But we don’t have to be.”

  He stepped toward her, then edged the hair back from her forehead with his palm. Looking over her face, wiping at a smudge on her cheek. Looking down on her the way no man ever had, and she was sure no one would again.

  “When I saw you riding in the field at Easling Park that day, I thought my heart was going to burst right out of my chest.”

  Rosamund fell into his embrace, forgetting about the storm or her fear or the crumbling show around them, and accepted a kiss that was long overdue. She wanted nothing more than to hear him say those words again, and to return them with her own.

  With a stomping and splashing of puddles, Ward suddenly burst into the tent, soaked to the skin and covered in mud up to his knees.

  Colin and Rosamund broke apart and she turned away, shoulders shaking.

  “Thank God I found you, Colin,” Ward exclaimed. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  She looked up to find Colin’s gaze still lingering on her. He kept the connection with Rosamund’s eyes. “Please, Ward. I just need a moment,” he snapped.

  “No—you need to come quick, Boss,” Ward ordered, urgency weighing his voice. “It’s Bella.”

  CHAPTER 30

  The thought of popping by Bella’s tent after what had just happened between them wrenched Rosamund’s breath away. She had no idea what she and Colin would encounter, or whether the flyer would be in top form to offer her usual helping of condescension. But when they reached the private tent, Rosamund’s concerns were silenced.

  Bella was on the ground by her dressing table, curled over and coughing in mad fits. She lay on her side, an oriental robe of red silk over her flyer’s costume, her hair laced with straw and patches of dirt. Frankie knelt behind her, trying to pull her up to a sitting position.

  Colin tore in, rushing to kneel at her side. “Bella?” he whispered. He patted her face, trying to get her eyes to focus on him.

  The beautiful flyer’s complexion had dimmed to a pale gray. She continued coughing, deep rumbles that rattled low in her chest, shaking her entire body. She fought to cover her mouth with a kerchief clutched in her hands.

  Its edges were tinged with the bright, shocking color of blood.

  Colin took the kerchief and dabbed at the spot where more drops had gathered. He pressed his hand to her brow.

  “She’s burning up,” he muttered. “How long has she been sick?”

  Frankie stood back, wringing her hands. “It wasn’t quite this bad yesterday.” She held up a near-empty bottle of tonic. “I thought it would pass if she drank more cough syrup.”

  “That stuff? It’s pure alcohol, Frankie! How did she even get it? You forget that she’s not supposed to have any?”

  “A doctor prescribed it for her cough a couple stops back.”

  “You mean she’s been performing like this?” Colin demanded, glaring. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  “You’re not exactly a confidant at present, Colin. She swore me to secrecy. I didn’t want her to go out and perform either, but she insisted. I would have come to you after the show. But then all this happened with the storm and no one could find you. We looked everywhere.”

  He stole a quick glance at Rosamund.

  “Well, your promise may well have killed her. Back up,” he ordered, slipping his arms under Bella’s legs to scoop her up from the ground. He moved past Frankie and gently laid Bella down on the cot in the corner of the tent.

  Rosamund and Ward stood planted in the doorway, watching.

  Ward shifted nervous glances from Bella back to Rosamund, perhaps processing what he’d just witnessed—or almost witnessed—when he’d found them together.

  “Somebody get her some water,” Colin ordered over his shoulder.

  “Got it, Boss.”

  Ward disappeared in a blink, sailing out into the deluge without stopping to inquire about any details.

  Colin patted Bella’s cheek. Her eyelids fluttered, then opened. A smile eased over her lips when her eyes focused on him. He seemed to pull his emotions into check then and softened his features considerably.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Like I’ve just been hit by a tornado.”

  “Very funny,” he whispered, the hint of a laugh escaping at her attempt to find humor in the moment. “But this is more than a tornado, Bell. You should have told me.”

  “I used to make you laugh like that. Remember?” she asked, then fell into a coughing fit. “Before you became so serious. No time . . . for laughing . . . these days.”

  She rose up on the cot to a near sitting position. Colin braced a hand at her back, helping her through the worst of it.

  “What can I do?” Rosamund asked. “Shall I fetch the doctor?”

  Frankie blistered her with an icy stare. “The doctor can’t help her, you fool.”

  “Frankie.” Colin cut her off. “You’re not helping.”

  “But this is all her fault! Bella was so worried about losing her place in the show that she wouldn’t tell you how sick she really is. She’s been drinking again to cover it.”

  Colin shook his head. “To cover what?”

  Frankie gritted her teeth. “She has consumption.”

  Rosamund’s mouth fell open.

  Tuberculosis? It could spell a death sentence.

  “And don’t act like that means something to you,” Frankie said, turning on Rosamund. “You swooped in on that horse of yours, with your sweet little smile and your pink roses plastered on every poster from here to the coast. You came into this show like a princess, and there you stand, a sprite with a knife, ready to stab people’s backs. You should have blood on your hands.”

  Frankie sco
wled, hands planted on her hips.

  Her words penetrated deep. Cutting places Rosamund never knew existed.

  “You walked over Bella on your way to the top, little girl. How pious of you to come here now, wide-eyed as can be, asking if you can help. When you were brought into this show as her replacement.”

  Rosamund looked from Colin back to Frankie. “But I didn’t—”

  “You didn’t know?” Frankie shot an accusatory glare over at Colin, burning his back with a piercing stare. “And you didn’t tell her? You romanced this little girl, and she had no idea that she’s just another in a long line of unfortunate stars who have crossed your path?”

  “Frankie, you don’t know what you’re saying,” Colin said.

  “I do. I know exactly what I’m saying,” she spat. She turned back to Rosamund. “Bella doesn’t need your help. All the while you’re trying to steal the show and her fiancé out from under her feet. Haven’t you taken enough from her already?”

  Colin lowered his head. And Rosamund knew it was true.

  It made sense now.

  Bella’s immediate dislike of her in London. The way she’d abhorred Rose’s presence from the very first show at Madison Square Garden. The threatening notes. Even the attack when she’d been struck down from behind.

  She shuddered now, thinking how right Mable had been.

  Bella’s mask had been fragile, but she’d covered her true colors well.

  Whatever had been there between Colin and Bella, she couldn’t see it. Didn’t want to see it. But it was there now, clear as day. Colin’s shoulders were slumped with it. Bella’s eyes locked with hers now, the fever amplifying the color of bitterness in them.

  Rosamund stood stone-still, her heart shattering under the double onslaught of Bella’s hatred and Colin’s silence.

  “Get her out of here,” Bella mumbled.

  When Rosamund made no move to go, she called out louder. “I said leave! Get out!” She fought to come up off the cot.

  Colin tried to push her down at the shoulders. “Bella, you’re sick. You don’t mean it.” He brushed a hand over her face, trying to soothe her.

  “I do. If she’d had any decency, she’d have stayed away. She’d never have climbed on that train in London . . .”

  Bella fell back in his arms then, her limbs slack and powerless.

  “Rosamund,” Colin whispered, even as his arms braced the broken flyer.

  It was the first time he hadn’t called her Rose. The meaning behind it was painfully clear.

  “Maybe you should go.”

  “Colin . . .”

  “Please,” he said, entreating her with sympathy in his eyes. The emotion she saw in them penetrated deep. “Just go for now. We’ll talk later.”

  There was nothing left to say.

  Her chin quivered through the single nod she could muster, and she turned, stepping back out into the rain. She passed a confused Ward, who’d returned, running down the backyard alley with a bucket of water balanced in his outstretched hands.

  “Are you going for the doctor?” He did a double take when she ignored him, then called after her even as he rushed into the tent. “Rosamund?”

  She kept her feet moving, one in front of the other, until Ward’s voice faded in the patter of rain to earth. She heard a lion’s roar off in the distance. And the yard moved around her with the sounds of workmen bustling to the train cars, pushing wagons of tent poles and bailing rings through the mud along the tracks.

  She didn’t stop until she’d reached the safety of the ring stock tent.

  Owen wasn’t back yet, but she hardly noticed.

  The English roses that had been laced up in her hair were wilted and sad now, falling from the chignon of rain-dampened hair at her nape. Their fragrance was still sweet, but now the scent filled the air with an angry sting, like alcohol poured on an open wound. She thought of the first time she’d worn them in the ring for Colin.

  Rosamund tore the roses from her hair and threw them to the soft earth at her feet.

  It wasn’t until she’d crumpled to the ground on top of them that she let the tears fly.

  CHAPTER 31

  1928

  VENICE, ITALY

  Mable sat at the window of their room at the Palazzo Contarini Fasan, gazing out at the sunlight caught up in the water of the Grand Canal.

  She and John both loved the Gothic architecture of the hotel, and when in Venice stayed there often. It shared Old World romance with the weary traveler, so much so that Mable had fashioned the Cà d’Zan’s Venetian guest room and balcony after the water view that was lavished upon them now.

  They’d opened the window, welcoming the softness of the breeze to drift in. It played with the pink chiffon neckline on her dress and the side-swept waves across her brow. Gondolas and other boats passed by with travelers in tow.

  “Do you suppose it’s any coincidence that Venetian legend says this building was the home of Desdemona?”

  “Hmm?” John grunted, only half listening. “Do we know a Desdemona?”

  Mable drew her attention away from the streaked sky painted by the setting sun, redirecting her gaze to John. Her lips curved into a smile.

  John sat at the desk, mulling over contracts or ledgers of some sort. He fluttered paper back and forth, turning from page to page. It was so like him to take her literally, especially when he was focused on something entirely different from what occupied her mind.

  “No, we don’t know her personally. She’s a character in Shakespeare’s Othello.”

  “Ah, yes. The Venetian beauty who gave up everything to follow her heart. She married the much older Othello, and I believe some epic drama ensued?”

  “As only Shakespeare can tell it,” Mable answered, playing with the end of the sash around the dropped waist of her dress. She ran the light fabric over her fingertips. “She was killed by her estranged husband in the final act of the play.”

  John looked up, raising an eyebrow. “Is that something you’ve been concerning yourself with, alone at that window over there?”

  “No,” she said, smiling easily. “Not today. I’m just tired.”

  They were to attend an auction the next morning. One in which they hoped to acquire more art for the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art—the massive museum and art school they were presently breaking ground for at the Cà d’Zan complex.

  There were eighteenth-century “courting” fans listed, one of which was strikingly similar to the souvenir token John had first bought for her all those years ago in Chicago. He had already promised to buy her the “Bird Catcher” fan so she could hang it on the wall in the guest room, to remind her of their trips to the Grand Canal.

  She should have been happy with the next morning’s promises. Instead, her heart was heavy, and she was feeling the full weight of travel. Severe fatigue. Blurry vision. Weight loss and fainting spells that could buckle her knees without warning.

  John must have detected the sadness lingering in her voice. He lowered the paper in his hands to the tabletop and leaned back in the desk chair, meeting her gaze. “What’s wrong, Mable?”

  “I’m unwell, John. We both know it.”

  It wasn’t customary for her to show cracks in strength. But emotion lay raw under the surface now. It was the unspoken companion in every room in which they stayed. Her chin threatened her composure by quivering on its own.

  “We know you’ve been tired. Overly tired lately. That’s all. Travel will do that to anyone. And you are a most traveled woman.”

  “I am tired,” she said aloud, thinking of how she felt too weary to pull her body off the mound of pillows she’d braced behind her on the room’s gold-gilded chaise lounge. “Bone-tired, though, and there’s a differen
ce. Especially when it comes with the weight loss. And the dizziness. I could hardly climb the stairs this evening.”

  “The doctors said they can’t be sure just yet. Let them do what they do best. Hmm?”

  “You said that once before, remember?”

  He tilted his chin, questioning. “When was that?”

  “Our first walk together. There was a fire at the Exposition, and you stayed calm. You said to let the firemen do their jobs. That they’d handle it. And they did. The fire was eventually put out.”

  “It’s a lot like the circus, then. Every man and woman and animal knows their job. And they do it well. So we must let the doctors have their say.”

  Mable nodded.

  But the outcome they wished for now wasn’t the wide-eyed wonder of children eating cotton candy and popcorn. This wasn’t clowns or animals. It was real life. It was the freedom they enjoyed possibly being stolen away by a serious illness.

  “But they said diabetes.”

  “They said maybe diabetes,” he corrected. “There’s a big difference.”

  “And Addison’s disease, with diabetes? What of that?”

  “That we will not worry about until the time has come to do so. If everyone knows his or her job, then yours is to not worry.”

  Mable thought on it a moment. Then, after clearing the emotion in her throat, she whispered, “I don’t want them to know. Not my family or yours. Not Colin or any of the performers. Especially not the public. This is our secret, as long as we can make it such. I think there’s a fight ahead for me.”

  John’s reticence was a mannerism that Mable had grown quite used to over the years. She was the talker, he the listener. It was just their way. But sometimes he could surprise her, complimenting with few words or silent action. It was the little things, the ways his heart understood hers so thoroughly, that spoke volumes.

  And it spoke loudly now.

  He stood and dragged the desk chair across the center of the room. It scraped the floor, echoing against the lofts in the ceiling.