Belinda laughed, meaning he’d achieved his goal. She wasn’t nervous, and she would amaze her customers. “Get out of here, you fool. Go watch the crowd for guild members.”
“Or the association.” He paused in the entrance. “We can’t completely rule them out either, you know.”
“I know. I’ll be careful, I promise. You do the same.”
Connor nodded and made his way to the gate to keep an eye on the crowd as they purchased tickets and streamed inside.
* * *
“I’d like my cards read, please.”
Belinda looked up at Nell Hadrian, who had just entered the tent. Since Nell didn’t sing until later, she was still dressed in a simple skirt and shirtwaist rather than her sequined show costume. Her straight black hair hung in a long thick braid down her back.
Nell grinned at Belinda’s confused expression. “I noticed there wasn’t a line, and thought if it looked like you were busy, others might follow. Besides, I’ve been meaning to ask you for a reading. You said the tarot was your real gift.”
“Then by all means, have a seat.” Belinda picked up the cards and began to shuffle. “Have you a question in mind?”
“I do.” Something bittersweet passed behind Nell’s dark gaze, but she maintained her smile.
“Cut the deck and lay three cards out in front of you.” Of all the people she’d met in the last week, Nell, with her quiet wit and gentle heart, was one of Belinda’s favorites. “We’ll do a longer reading another time.” The three-card spread was a quick and easy reading, what Belinda planned to do with customers, unless they paid extra for a longer session.
“Of course.” Nell did as she’d been instructed, her small hands nimble and quick. “Now what?”
“This first one represents the past as related to your question.” Belinda turned it over to find the Queen of Swords. “Oh my. That’s somewhat unusual for a young, unmarried woman. This suggests a great deal of sorrow and loss. Whatever your question, it relates to something that has made you grieve deeply.”
“Accurate.” Nell’s neutral expression didn’t change. “As you can imagine, I’d rather you not say anything to any of the others about this.”
“Of course not. I can keep a confidence,” Belinda said.
A hint of a smile flitted across Nell’s lips. “I know you can. Go on, please.”
“Very well. Turn over the second card.”
Nell did, revealing the Lovers, reversed. She bit her lower lip. “Well, then. I suspect I can guess what that means.”
Belinda winced. “You’re in love with someone who doesn’t love you? Or someone who for one reason or another cannot be with you.”
“So it would seem,” Nell said. “I can’t deny it. Now shall we see what my future holds?” At Belinda’s nod, Nell flipped the last card.
“Oh dear.” Belinda looked over at her young friend. “The Fool. This is a warning, Nell. The fool can go either way, to heaven or hell. He doesn’t take the time to be certain of his path. Whatever you do, dear one, please be careful. No hasty decisions, all right?”
“I promise not to be rash.” The sadness that haunted her expression had deepened. “I’ll heed your warning, Belinda. Thank you.” She leaned over the table to kiss Belinda’s cheek before she left. “You have a line, now. Have a wonderful day.”
From there on, Belinda had a crowd. She barely drew another breath until the end of the day, when she closed her booth and went looking for Connor.
* * *
After several hours of watching visitors, Connor sighed in frustration. He hadn’t detected a single problem customer in the lot. Almost all the crowd had gone in to the tilt, or big-top tent, for the show. Nell sang and Connor couldn’t help but pause in one of the entries and watch. She was magnificent, as always, but he’d never seen her like this, in a short skirt with spangles and a plunging bodice. Given her retiring and modest nature, the poor thing was probably miserable. Tom had to be going crazy seeing his adopted sister like this.
“She’s amazing, isn’t she?” Wink said from just over her shoulder. “You’d never know she hates having an audience, even though she holds them in the palm of her hand when she sings.”
“I feel badly about forcing her to do this, but God, your sister has a voice that borders on magickal.” Connor sometimes thought Nell’s voice was magickal—or at least had the potential to be so if she wished.
“No one forced her to do anything. She’s happy to help, really.” Wink settled her hand on George’s metal head. “She doesn’t like the clothes, but she loves being able to contribute to the investigation.”
“Whereas you’re probably enjoying yourself in that outfit.” Connor smiled at Wink’s short, sparkly dress. He was a man, not a eunuch, so of course he enjoyed the view, but it was just that—a view, not something he considered his. A few months ago, he’d have been furious to see her expose herself to other men. Now—now she was merely a partner in crime, much like Tom or Liam. He took a moment to study her face. “You are having fun, aren’t you? Working with the Order, with Liam, it makes you shine. It’s good to know you’re happy.” It was. And for the first time, the notion didn’t hurt down in his gut.
“I am.” She grinned. “Both with the investigation and my marriage. Thank you for asking. And now that you have Belinda, I don’t even have to feel guilty about it.”
Connor rolled his eyes. “Don’t feel guilty for marrying the man you love. I’m happy for you. Really.”
“I like Belinda, by the way.” Wink punched his shoulder. “She’s good for you. Don’t mess this up.”
“I’ll do my best. I like her too.” He meant it. Wink and his unrequited love for her was his past. His future was with Belle. “I understand now that you and Liam were meant to be, in a way that you and I never could have been. Friends?”
She shook the hand he held out. “Always.” Then she kissed him on the cheek and shoved past him into the tent.
* * *
Belinda slunk back to the caravan, relieved as hell that neither Connor nor Wink had seen her listening to the last part of their conversation.
Connor was in love with Wink. She’s suspected as much, but now she knew for certain. No wonder he’d hesitated when speaking her name the night before. No wonder he hadn’t cared whom he married. He liked Belinda, and that had been enough.
Her chest hurt and her eyes watered. She groped her way into the caravan and sank into a bench next to the tiny table that jutted out from a wall of the sleeping compartment. Connor and Wink. Now she understood his promise not to take a mistress. Since the woman he loved was married to, and head over heels for, another man, of course it didn’t matter who he was with. Belinda was as good a substitute as anyone else, she supposed.
Willow sat down next to Belinda and whined, licking Belinda’s face when she turned to hug the giant dog. Lucifer jumped down from his perch atop the clothes cupboard to the back of Belinda’s seat and rubbed against her shoulder. Belinda welcomed the comfort of her two friends and sent a thought winging to Micah. This would be an excellent time for him to appear with his words of wisdom. But there was no voice in her head except her own. She let the tears fall into Willow’s wiry fur for a few minutes, then gathered herself together and set about making a cup of tea. Connor kept their small cook stove hot all day, so it was just a matter of putting water on to boil.
While she waited for the water to heat, she emptied her pockets. Her pistol went into a drawer while she set her cards on the table. It had been weeks, maybe even months since she’d done a reading for herself. A few minutes later she set the teapot on the table, sat down again and shuffled her cards. She kept her question open-ended, asking merely what the universe thought she ought to know. Rather than an elaborate spread, she dealt out only three cards.
“Past,” she murmured, turning the first card, which showed a man and a woman, bodies entwined. “The Lovers. Of course.” That made sense given that Connor was the first man she’d slept with
in years. “Now for the present.” She turned the second card to reveal the Empress—a card Belinda had never in her life drawn in a reading for herself.
She swallowed hard, blinking at the worn image on the card, that of a lovely woman, a gold crown on her long, flowing hair. More importantly, she was shown heavily pregnant. “Oh. Oh my goodness.” She dropped her hand to her abdomen. Was it possible? Well, of course it was possible, but was it true? The cards often had meanings that went far deeper than their images suggested. The card could simply reflect Belinda starting a new phase of her life, which was indubitably the case.
Belinda held her breath as she turned over the final card.
Death.
Fear swamped her as she stared into the face of the grim reaper. She could swear his faded ink eyes looked into hers and he laughed. The room swayed ominously, so she roughly pushed the cards into a heap and put her head down on the wooden table, fighting to drag in a breath. Oh, heavens, she didn’t know which card frightened her more.
An hour earlier she would have run out to find Connor and tell him about the cards, but after overhearing him with Wink, she wasn’t sure that was such a good idea. Belinda still had to come to grips with the idea of him loving another woman. Not that she’d expected him to be in love with her or anything. It just stung, and she couldn’t even explain why. Now to find out there might soon be another person caught in their mess—well, that was a complication that just boggled the mind.
But a baby. Belinda wanted children with all her heart—so much, she couldn’t quite believe that was what the card meant. She would wait to tell Connor until she was sure—until she had more concrete evidence than a random piece of cardboard. That way, if her courses came, he wouldn’t have to share her disappointment. If they didn’t, Belinda would be able to tell Connor with greater certainty and she’d have more time to come to terms with him marrying her while loving someone else. Time was all she needed for that, Belinda decided. Connor still deserved a good wife and she could be that—be his friend and lover. There was no lack of physical chemistry between them, or camaraderie. They would grow fond of each other. Those would be enough. They’d have to be.
She dried her tears and drank her tea, her mind still a whirl. When she fell asleep that night, tucked in Connor’s arms and replete with spent passion, it was the Death card that lingered in her mind.
* * *
“We have a list of the Builders’ Guild members.” Three days after the circus opened, Merrick, making his daily visit, spoke to Connor, Tom and Fernando in the ringmaster’s small parlor. One of two rooms in his private train car, this also served as the circus’s office. “Our Mr. Engle is on it but his name is marked inactive.”
“What about the other group?” Connor said. He gave the list a brief look, recognizing no names other than Engle’s.
“We’re working on that,” Merrick said. “They’re a little cagier about giving out names without a signed contract to do business. I will say this—there’s some genuine magick in their headquarters, and the gents at the Guild were very happy to wax on about how magick is evil and destroys everything it touches. I honestly think that’s the group causing our problems. Have you seen any trouble here?”
Connor shrugged. “A few bullies outside the gate yesterday with rotten fruit. The day before that, we had some church women with signs. Nothing sinister.”
“How about Tom’s magick act—is that drawing attention?” Merrick asked.
Fernando nodded. “Packed tilt every night since that first one. And Belinda’s tent has a queue every day. She’s as gifted as Zara. The people believe in her readings.”
“I’m not being subtle with the magick show, and there are rumors filtering in about it. Hell, Wink’s shows with her automata and ‘trained wolf’ have even had people claiming something supernatural is at work.” Tom took the list from Connor and scanned it.
“But none of them have mentioned a werewolf, I’ll bet.” Merrick smiled briefly and sighed. “Well, we knew this wouldn’t be a quick way to draw out the witch-finders but it seems to be working. Keep your eyes open and don’t get complacent. I’ll keep digging in Newcastle.”
“We can give it the full two weeks we’d agreed on,” Fernando said. The circus—the real one—was scheduled to move to Glasgow after a fortnight. “After that we’ll have to come up with a different plan.”
“And hope no other innocents die in the meanwhile.” Connor’s gut still told him that the so-called witch-finders would come to them, and Glasgow might be too far north for their reach.
Merrick caught Connor’s gaze and nodded. “Exactly. By the way, I spoke to your father yesterday. The alderman is being tried for attempted murder of Belinda, but no one expects a conviction—not when the man is clearly overwhelmed with grief. It’s more likely he’ll be remanded to the care of a physician. The squire has given his word that he bears no grudge against your wife. Fergus believed him.”
Connor weighed the information. His father was a damn good judge of character. Belinda was likely safe from that quarter. “Thank you. I’ll let Belle know at supper.”
The one time other than in bed when he could be sure to find Belinda was when the performers and carnies gathered in groups for the evening meal in an old dining car. It was a raucous affair—not too different from dinner at the Tower when everyone was home, although the jokes were a little cruder, with so few women left in the troupe. Other than Belinda, Melody, Wink and Nell, there was only the middle-aged cook who wouldn’t leave her husband, and a couple younger members of the original troupe. Belinda and the woman who did trick-riding stunts turned out to be distant cousins and spent a fair bit of time together. Belinda also seemed to have grown fond of Nell, which almost everybody did, but she seemed to shy away from Wink, particularly in the past few days. Connor hoped no one had said anything to her about his past infatuation, but mostly he hoped he hadn’t somehow given himself away.
Maybe he ought to go talk to her now—or at least slip in between customers to make sure she was all right. Something had been off with her for the past day or two, and it was beginning to worry him. With that in mind, he strolled around the circus, watching the various groups of customers queue for the carousel or gather around the puppet stage and the small menagerie. Finally, he made his way to the long line outside the fortune-teller’s tent. Enough people waited that one of the clowns lingered in the area, juggling to entertain them while they waited.
In his red coat and white trousers with the black top hat of a ringmaster, Connor was able to step right up to the entrance to Belinda’s tent. Raised voices from inside made Connor’s hair stand on end. He stepped into the tent just in time to hear Willow growl. A man stood looming over the table where Belinda sat.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Belinda’s right hand was under the table where she kept her pistol, while her left held Willow’s collar. Her expression and voice remained calm. “You paid for a palm reading and that’s what I gave you. For the last time, I can’t cast any spells and wouldn’t if I could. I’m sorry your wife left you but there’s nothing I can do about it. There’s plenty of call for building trades farther south in England. I suggest you go look in London or Manchester if you want to find work as a carpenter.”
Building trades? Connor stepped farther in so the man could see him standing to his full height despite the low ceiling of the tent. “The lady has given you a good suggestion—one beyond the context of your reading. Good day, sir.”
The man blustered, but faced with an enormous dog and an oversized bruiser, he folded. “All right, all right. Isn’t right, them using magick to run us out of business. I was only trying to get my own back.”
“I know,” Belinda said with a kind smile. “You’re not a bad man, Mr. Harris. You need to get away, start over again. Once you have work, maybe your wife will come back from her mother’s.”
He nodded and hung his head as Connor took him by the arm and escorted him to the gate. “I’m sorry,” t
he man said to Connor. “I wouldn’t have really hurt that gypsy, you know. Leastways I don’t think I would have.”
“That gypsy is my wife,” Connor growled through clenched teeth. “If you had touched her, it would have been the last thing you ever did.”
“At least you still have yours.” The poor, broken blighter didn’t even resist as Connor shoved him out the gate with a little more force than absolutely necessary. “Lucky sod.”
Connor pondered that parting comment as he made his way back to Belinda’s tent. The man seemed utterly lost. Something was very wrong in Newcastle, indeed. Unfortunately, Connor couldn’t quite place this man as a conspirator to a serious plot.
Belinda, apparently unconcerned about the near attack, was already in the middle of another reading when he returned to her tent. Connor wasn’t so sanguine about it. The urge to pound on something or someone seethed like a burning ember in his gut.
“Hey, Con, I was looking for you. I had an interesting conversation at my afternoon show.” The familiar voice from over his shoulder made him turn and force his anger to settle. Tom, in his magician’s cloak, cocked an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”
At Connor’s gesture, the two walked away from the crowd, over to the siding where the train cars waited. “Some bastard just tried to attack Belle.”
“What? Is he in pieces? I’m assuming if she didn’t take him apart, then her dog did. You don’t have any blood on you.” Despite his flippant words, concern shone in Tom’s blue eyes, a darker shade than Connor’s own. “Is she all right?”
Connor nodded and dragged his hand through his hair. “Aye, she’s fine. She feels sorry for the bloke. He folded easily enough and I booted him off the grounds.” He held his hand out, noting that it still trembled. “I’m not taking it so well, it seems.”
“Well, of course not.” Tom pushed Connor down onto a bench and handed him a small silver flask from his pocket. Connor took a swig of the expensive brandy Tom favored. It wasn’t Scotch, but it helped calm his roiling stomach. Tom continued. “In our line of work, we’re used to risking ourselves. That’s not the same as watching someone you love face down danger.”
Cards & Caravans Page 14
