The Ringmaster's Wife

by Kristy Cambron

  “What are you doing?”

  He crossed in front of the fireplace and didn’t stop until he’d pulled the desk chair right up next to her chaise. He then eased into it, content to sit at her side.

  They gazed out at the Grand Canal for long moments, letting the soft spring breeze usher in evening around them. Finding that words weren’t necessary. The sun dipped, fetching night from below the horizon, painting the sky in darker shades of orange and deep blue.

  “Nice view. Is this what we pay for?” he asked. He extended his hand.

  Mable nodded, accepting it. She laced her fingers with his. “Yes. This is what we pay for.”

  “Hmm,” was his reply. “Well, it’s beautiful. Not Sarasota-beautiful, but it tries.”

  He squeezed her hand, pulling her tear-glazed eyes over to meet the depth in his.

  “Do you remember what I told you once? That it made no difference to me whether we had children?”

  “I believe your exact words were, ‘I didn’t marry you for the children you might bear me.’ And you, Mr. Ringling, were angry when you said it.”

  He nodded. Even let a hint of laughter escape his lips.

  “I was a little angry. Because I love you, Mable Burton Ringling. And I told you we already have a million children. God gave us quite a gift in them. And we have our show. Our family of performers. Colin will keep all that in working order.”

  “He has been a gift, hasn’t he? And we haven’t asked him to be perfect.”

  He nodded. “Certainly not. It’s too unpredictable a life. I told you I received a telegram about the storm damage. Colin confirmed the media reports. Guest injuries, though none killed, thank God. But we lost an elephant.”

  Mable sat up straighter. “Which one?”

  “Nora,” he said with a rough sigh.

  Because loss troubled him, she knew. That’s what it was—a great loss of something beautiful.

  “I hate to shorten our trip, but would you like to go with me?”

  “So you think it best to join them. Where is the show?”

  “Michigan now. Indiana soon. Not far from Chicago, if you’d like to stop in there. Either way, this is serious enough that I need to be on hand.”

  Mable gazed out over the Grand Canal, watching the flicker of tiny diamonds across the surface of the water. It glinted with a warm rose-gold that reflected off the porticos of the warehouse-and-merchant-combined fondaco houses across the way.

  “I don’t think you do need to go, John. Not this time. Colin must learn to handle being a leader. The only way he can do that is if we allow him the opportunity.”

  “It’s like your rose garden then, isn’t it? You insisted on tending it with your own hands. You gave it love and care all these years. What if a storm blew in? Would you ignore the roses now? Would you leave them to fend for themselves?”

  “No,” she breathed out, pleased that he could see her side of it without a moment’s hesitation. “I’d never leave a rose without helping if I could. But I don’t think we need to go this time. It helps Colin—and the show—more if we allow him to make his own decisions. We won’t be here forever, John. Someone has to take up the sword.”

  “And that is why we—and not you alone—will share our view from this and every window. Do you understand me, Mable? There are times when making decisions alone is to a person’s advantage. But not in a marriage. Not for us. We carry the same sword, you and I.”

  Mable’s thoughts drifted to Sally, the friend who’d passed more than twenty years before. She’d been alone for much of her fight. And Colin, too, battling out his past in every relationship he had. And what of Rosamund, the young bareback rider whose taste for freedom so mimicked Mable’s own?

  They all had one thing in common: faith that when one has no control, there is One who does. It was comforting that God had sent John Ringling at a time in her life when Mable had really needed him. And after the fulfillment of many dreams that had been hidden away in her treasure box, she still possessed that most precious gift.

  She looked from the earnestness in John’s eyes back to the canal, scanning the rows of gondolas lining the Gothic buildings across the way. The boats bobbed there, attracting lovers for the nightly tours that would flow past all the bridges of Venice.

  “It is very beautiful here, John. And I do love the view,” she said, turning to face him.

  She gave him a genuine smile, meant to show her gratitude that he understood enough to come and sit by her side.

  “But I want to go home. To our home. I want to see my garden. And if we have to tell Colin, I want him to hear it from us. Take me to our Cà d’Zan?”

  CHAPTER 32

  1928

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

  Flames licked up from the campfire, chasing the night sky overhead.

  Someone had made coffee, and Colin’s stomach tightened with the sweet smell.

  He hadn’t eaten. Had barely slept. His razor had been forgotten days ago, as had any basic comfort like coffee by a campfire. The need for anything normal had simply been chased out of his mind with the duties of the cleanup and dealing with the revelation of Bella’s deteriorating health. They’d lost both the Fort Wayne and South Bend shows due to the storm and the media coverage of Nora, and he’d had to jump in and pick up the wrecked pieces in the aftermath.

  Colin could see that Rosamund had accepted a mug but had set it in the grass at her feet, uninterested. She’d opted instead to watch the fire flicker, getting lost in its inviting orange-and-yellow dance.

  “Rose.”

  Colin eased down next to her on the pinwheel quilt spread over the ground and braced his arms on his knees.

  He reached toward her, freezing an outstretched hand on air.

  Rosamund remained quiet, not looking up to see what he offered, until a glint of gold flashed in the firelight. She watched him as a clink of metal fell upon the quilt at her feet.

  It was his old pocket watch and chain—the one he always carried. She’d probably noticed it before, as he had a habit of turning it over in his fingertips when he was deep in thought. What he needed her to understand now wasn’t why he had it, but rather why he was now offering it to her.

  “I told you about this watch once, remember? I tried to steal it from Mr. Ringling long ago. I dropped it on the sidewalk that night and the glass cracked. So Mable gave it to me. Seemed to think it could be a marker for the start of a new life.”

  “You wanted a new life?” she whispered. “Why?”

  “At Easling Park, I told you I knew what it felt like to wish more than anything that you could change your life. Well, this represents the difference between us. You deserved a new life. I didn’t.”

  He could feel Rosamund surveying his profile, staring back. Waiting for him to continue.

  “You asked me one time if I had a family. I did.”

  “Had . . . a family.”

  “Yes. It was broken. I was broken. Everyone has their secrets, Rose. Your family and mine both. We’re not so different. You’re an earl’s daughter. I’m a steel magnate’s son. Both born wealthy, from fine family histories. But I was illegitimate. I had no name. My father never claimed me, and my mother was forced to marry a man she didn’t love. A fisherman. A good father to a son they eventually had together, but a man who hated the very idea of me and everything I stood for.”

  “Why couldn’t you tell me that before? It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

  “Because I’ve never told anyone. Owen knows a bit of my past, but only Mable knows who and what I really am.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I’m a man who can never change the lives he’s ruined,” he began, pausing to blink back at her for several long seconds.

 
She said nothing. Just looked on, inviting him to continue.

  “In my youth, the streets became a haven for me. Avery, my stepbrother, used to trail after me when I’d run off. And though I told him to stay out of it, he’d follow me anyway. Idolizing an older brother, I suppose. It was an attempt at pickpocketing gone wrong that almost got me caught one night. Avery saw it, ran from the alley out into the street to free my collar from the grip of a policeman . . .”

  His voice trailed off and he dipped his head, staring at the ground between them. It seemed safer than being forced to read the pity he’d no doubt find in those green eyes.

  “Avery was struck and killed by an ice wagon. And it was because of me.”

  Rosamund turned to look at him, and he met her gaze, instantly sorry to find a mask of horror there.

  “He was six years old. My mother could never forgive me. I left home that night and lived on the streets. And by then, I was numb. Drifting from one misadventure to the next. Stealing to stay alive. Not caring about anyone or anything. Until I stole a watch from the Circus King, and his wife refused to give up on me. I sometimes wonder if that was my second chance, to make up for what happened.”

  Tears were trailing down Rosamund’s face. Her hands trembled softly, as if she yearned to reach out to him. To ease his pain somehow.

  “My past mistakes can never be undone. I can’t change them or the man I’ve become because of them. I went to war. I fought and never should have come back. I didn’t deserve to, when so many good men died in the mud, blasted to bits. But I came back to the only home I’d ever known, one that travels on a train, never putting down roots. And that’s why I refuse to give up on anyone else. I need you to know that. This watch is a daily reminder of where I’ve come from. It’s my penance to carry it.”

  The watch glowed on the ground between them.

  Rosamund reached out, fingertips grazing the metal first, then picked up the watch.

  She turned it over, winding the chain around her fingers. She opened the gold cover, ran her index finger over the cracked glass and the words engraved on the inside, as he’d done thousands of times before.

  “Colin, I’m sorry you’ve had to carry this with you every day. But you can’t fix what’s happened,” she whispered, shaking her head in the flicker of firelight. “We can’t do anything to make up for our transgressions. There must be grace to cover them—no matter what they are or how deep they run within us. Grace has to be stronger.”

  Colin turned to face her, feeling an extension of the reprieve she’d offered.

  He took up her hands in his. She kept them balled in a fist around the watch but still he held them, brushing his thumb over the back of her hand.

  “I need you to know that what I told you after the storm—I meant it. God help me, Rose, I meant every word.”

  “I know you did,” she said softly.

  “And what happened in Bella’s tent was meant for me, not you.”

  “I know that too. Owen may not have understood all of the reasons why, but he told me about Bella. About me being her replacement, and how you didn’t know what was happening to her.”

  “Then you know we’re no longer engaged—or never really were. It wasn’t love, what we had. I was trying to fix something that had been broken in her. Maybe broken for me too.”

  “And now? What will happen to her?”

  “There’s a sanitarium in Kentucky—Waverly Hills. The Ringlings will pay for her treatment. They have doctors who will . . .” He cleared his throat over emotion that gathered there. “They’ll know what to do to help her. She’ll bounce back. Bella always does. But it will spell the end for the Rossi Family Flyers as we know them.”

  Rosamund nodded, watching the dance of the firelight.

  “I know what Frankie said was in anger, because if Bella was forced out of the show, the Rossi family would lose the act altogether. She was speaking out of fear. I have no bitterness toward her or Bella.” She paused, then turned to him. “Or you.”

  “Then you forgive me?”

  Rosamund fell into the embrace he offered, wrapping her arms around him.

  Colin buried his face in the crook of her neck and threaded his hand through her hair, drawing her close. Unable to think straight. Thanking the Almighty that he’d been given the mercy of a second chance with her.

  “You don’t need my forgiveness,” she said. “But I hope you can forgive yourself one day, because you are a good man, Colin Keary. Do you hear me?” She eased away until his eyes met hers. “You gave me a chance at a life of my own, you and Mable both. You’ve changed everything for me, and I could never forget that kindness.”

  “It wasn’t kindness. It was more than that—”

  “Please, wait.” She shook her head, edging back away from him.

  He felt a chasm open up, creating a void of doubt between them.

  “Colin, I’ve had time to think . . . And no matter what my heart wants to feel right now, there’s always going to be this between us. Like the watch—there’s too much that’s been broken. I didn’t understand that before, but I do now. Even in my own life. I was running away when I left Easling Park. But healing was always there for me—I just had to take it in hand.”

  He searched her face, eyes narrowed and brow pinched with a deep, almost painful furrow. “What are you saying?”

  Rosamund reached out, opening his hand. She dropped the watch in it, then curled his fingers around it with a gentle squeeze.

  “I’m saying that everyone is broken in some way. And we can’t fix ourselves, Colin. We can’t keep running away,” she breathed out, whispering through tears. “That’s why I’ll finish out the season. I’ll work through my existing contract, but I’m leaving the show at the end of October. I’m finally going home.”

  CHAPTER 33

  1928

  SARASOTA, FLORIDA

  There would be two shows at the end of October at the winter lodgings, both on the final day of the season.

  Rosamund walked from the back entrance of the stables with Ingénue in tow, passing through the palm-lined streets to the ring practice area.

  With Bella gone, the Rossi family was without the biggest crowd draw in their act. Marvio, Enzo, and Frankie had continued, but their star power had faded without Bella. And without her, they’d not be signed to a new contract for the following year. Rosamund, meanwhile, had blossomed in the center ring as the top-marketed act for the remainder of the season.

  But the rest of the performers had no idea their final performance of the season would also be her last with the circus. She and Ingénue had performed at the matinee and now were taking their last walk from the stables to the performance ring.

  “Rosamund! Thank God you’re here.”

  Annaliese came running toward the stables. She stopped and bent over to rest her hands on her knees in between sucking in heaving breaths of air.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Look,” she said, pointing to the sky at the opposite end of the complex. “The menagerie house.”

  A thin line of smoke curled up in the sky, dancing like black thread woven through the Sarasota sunlight.

  “A fire? Here?”

  Annaliese nodded. “Hurry. I came back to get you, and we have to go right now. We’re being evacuated to the entrance, just as a precaution. Owen sent me for you. All of the guests are being escorted out too.”

  Rosamund knew Owen meant well, but her first instinct was to protect the animals. What if the fire were to spread?

  “But what about the horses? We can’t leave them behind.”

  “They’ll be fine.” Annaliese waved a hand for her to follow her ginger steps on the road. “The fire is nowhere near the stables. Owen wants to account for everyone first. He’ll
go back with a few once he knows everyone is safe outside.”

  Rosamund wanted to obey. Even eased Ingénue forward, thinking the last thing in the world she wanted to do was make Owen worry. But her steps were halted by the memory of a promise she’d once made.

  Colin.

  If anything happened, Rosamund promised she’d go back to the ring stock tent and wait for him there. She’d left him the night of the storm and couldn’t bear the thought of doing that to him a second time. Especially not if he would have to search all over the complex for her. He’d go to the stables. She was sure of it.

  “No, I’m going back. I’ll stay with the horses until we hear the all-clear. And if we need to evacuate the animals, Colin will come and make sure we do it together.”

  In one fluid motion, Rosamund swept up on Ingénue’s back and turned the horse in the direction of the stables.

  “Rosamund, you can’t! Owen sent me to come and get you. I cannot go back alone. He’ll have me for dinner!”

  “You can,” she said, shouting over her shoulder as she pulled Ingénue into a steady run. “Don’t worry about me. Tell Owen that Colin knows where I am.”

  It wasn’t but a moment of Ingénue’s galloping before they found themselves at the stable complex. Rosamund eased them around to the back, avoiding tourists as they hurried down the road in the direction of the train tracks and the safety of the front entrance.

  She slid down from Ingénue’s back and eased them in through the back door, walking past several rows of stalls. It was eerily quiet. The horses were stilled. There was no breeze to brush against the walls. Even the building seemed hushed, for Rosamund could hear the sound of water dripping into a trough in some stall nearby.

  “Hello?” she breathed out. “Owen?”

  Her words echoed through the empty stable. And then a strong odor began to float around them, blasting Rosamund in the face with each step deeper into the building.

  She slowed Ingénue to a halt.