The Ringmaster's Wife (39 page)

The younger woman closed her fingers around it. “What's this?” she asked, chin quivering ever so slightly.

“It's a gift for Colin. A new watch. One that isn't broken.”

Mable watched as emotion flooded the graceful lines of Rosamund's face.

She didn't hold back.

In fact, Mable watched in wonder as the young lady before her embraced the depth of feeling that leaked out in soft tears, melting in trails down the porcelain skin of her cheeks. It was graceful to watch empathy weep straight from another's heart—not in wracking sobs, but in a gentle embrace.

“He told me about Avery,” Rosamund said, brushing a fingertip to a rogue tear that had caught on the edge of her lips. “About the accident and how he came to meet you. Everything.”

“I thought he would. It's his way. He feels regret very deeply. And though he's made mistakes, he's not unlike any other person in having a past.”

“Mrs. Ringling—”

“I've asked you before, dear—please call me Mable. You don't know this, but we're not so formal when I'm sitting in front of you in a dressing gown and robe. It is from Paris,” she said, trying to make light, running her hand down the soft silk fabric. “But that doesn't make it any less a dressing gown. When you're looking out from a sickbed, you only find friends there to speak to.”

“Mable . . .,” Rosamund began, apparently searching for the right words to say. “If you're asking me to give this to him, I'm not sure I can do that.”

“Yes, I am. And you can, my dear. You can go back. Because this watch is a promise I need to give to Colin. I'm not able to take it to him myself, and I couldn't trust it to anyone else.” She eased her hand over Rosamund's. “I don't know when I'll get out of here,
so I need you to take it to him. John will ensure you know where to go. And your aunt can accompany you. You'll travel in our private train car all the way to the circus lot. And after that, you are free from any request or further obligation. I'll just consider this a favor between good friends.”

Mable watched as Rosamund paused, rubbing her fingers together over the watch, moving through an internal deliberation over whether to accept.

She took a deep breath and asked, “What do I tell him?”

“I need him to know it's a gift. That I want him to have his time back. He's spent far too much of it grieving. He needs to know he is what he wouldn't allow himself to be long ago—forgiven.”

Rosamund sniffed over her tears. She clasped the watch in her hands, hiding it away like a treasure in her palms.

“And is there anything else?”

In that moment, Mable thought her heart could sing.

It had been so long since she'd thought of her old cigar box—the place where she'd hidden away the tender dreams of her youth. But it bled into her thoughts now, prompting her to recall the memory of that Cincinnati tearoom from childhood. She'd wanted to hear the sound of the piano lilting through a brilliant melody. And she'd wanted adventure. To really live. But now, many years and many experiences away from that old cigar box, she saw something that was infinitely more dear. From the inside of a hospital sickroom, it became clear: the great adventure was love. There was freedom in it like nothing else. And that's what mattered in that moment. Not wealth. Not prominence or prestige.

“Love is patient, Rosamund. It has to be. It is kind. And never self-serving. And because of that, we can't expect everything to be in our timing. What would be the adventure in that? Instead, it is in the knitting of lives and hearts together. It's why you're
sitting here with me today.” Mable drew in a deep breath. “You love Colin.”

Rosamund had been staring straight ahead. But on Mable's last syllable, she squeezed her eyes shut, as if confronting the truth beyond the confines of her heart for the very first time.

She nodded. “Yes. I do.”

“And that's why this is so difficult.”

“He wouldn't want me now,” Rosamund cried, clutching the watch to her chest. “Colin would think he does. But I'm changed by what's happened. He's changed. And he'll feel responsible for everything. That's why I left Sarasota after the accident. I couldn't let him love me out of pity. And what if we married? I'd tie him down to a life of his same penance. He'd see Avery and Bella every time he looked at me, and he'd carry a broken watch for the remainder of his days. I won't do that to him.”

The air between them fell silent.

Maybe it had to. Matters of the heart required patience, just as she'd said. They demanded pauses at times, allowing the right words to come.

Mable folded her hands in her lap, composing what she hoped would be comforting thoughts wrapped in the truth this girl needed to hear. It had to be an infusion of courage that would carry her to board a circus train and go back to Colin's side.

“Do you remember what I told you once? We only see what we want to see. In people. In love. And in life.” Mable repeated the words she'd shared with Rosamund after her first performance at Madison Square Garden. She added a hint of a wink in her voice, whispering, “Tell him that, and I think he'll figure out the rest on his own.”

1929

L
OUISVILLE
, K
ENTUCKY

The band played their cue and Rosamund nudged Ingénue forward, leaving the breath of wind toiling behind her as she went in to give her 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.”

The crowd was not indifferent to Rosamund's blindness; they didn't know about it.

She'd left Sarasota as soon as the doctors confirmed her sight had been irreparably damaged, before the 1929 season even took shape. The circus posters depicting the bareback riding star had faded into the background, and to the reveling circus-goers, new stars had simply been slipped in to take her place.

She knew she might not have been missed in their eyes, but Rosamund rode out with her head held high, decrying any disability whatsoever.

“I'm trusting you tonight, lady,” she whispered, feeling her way through each step of Ingénue's trotting to the center ring. “Your sight will be mine. Let my eyes see what yours do.”

They high-stepped around the canvas arena, heads cocked high before the crowd, their every sound echoing with chords of cheers and applause.

The band continued to play as they trotted to position.

Rosamund could sense the lights gleaming down over them, shining in the eyes of children in their straw seats. Sawdust would cover the ground like a blanket. And the firmament overhead would be filled with ropes and trapeze riggings, the kind the Rossi family would have used to pierce the sky overhead.

Rosamund slowed her horse to a stop, ready to roll into their act before the thousands of eyes watching. But the melody of the band began to fade, and the crowd grew quiet. She heard only her own breathing, mixed with Ingénue's, and she felt for the first time a sense of fear that she'd tried to undertake something so risky. Something that only the sight in her hands could possibly lead her through.

She prayed silently. Prayers that tumbled from her mind.

Rosamund needed the strength from them now. She knew that courage was possible—Mable had made her believe it. It wasn't in the initial faith leap to chase a dream; rather, the magic was in the day-to-day living and breathing and choosing to be courageous when common sense told one otherwise.

She gripped the reins tight, feeling her hands begin to shake.

Listening for the silent crowd to make a breath of sound in reply.

She heard nothing, until . . .

The soft cry of a violin sang out against the canvas vault overhead.

It echoed deep in a powerful cadence over the crowd, singing “Roses of Picardy.” And every memory flooded back. She and Ingénue had gone through their act too many times to fail. And so they fell into step with one another, dreaming and dancing in one accord before the crowd.

Rosamund closed her eyes. Not needing showmanship, but release.

She drew in a steadying breath, and they went to work.

It was her gift to Mable. And to herself maybe, showing Lady Rosamund Easling that she was more than the sum of her hurts. So much more than failures or limitations. That God had placed her in that very spot, to fly free for one glorious moment in her life.

She dedicated the moment to the remarkable woman who had changed both her life and Colin's.

They flew through the act, Colin directing their mastery of the ring with his bow.

Ingénue glided with hooves that danced on air, Rosamund feeling the memory of every turn and start and stop with her hands and heart in unison. She thought of Mable, how time had drawn too short too fast. And of Bella and the Rossi family, how everything had changed in the blink of an eye. And of the rest, her family, Owen, Annaliese, and the ever-smiling Ward. And the animals, led by the kind-eyed Nora and her little Mitra, who had followed along behind his mama with trunk clinging to her tail.

Theirs was a story she wanted to tell that night, of the resiliency in the people's menagerie she'd found at the circus. She prayed always to look through life with a lens of love and kindness, just as Mable had.

To shed the mask and the costumes, to offer her best to the world in return.

The act came to an end, she and Ingénue flowing through their final backbend lift with precision. And she trusted Ingénue to edge over to the side of the ring, as always. She slipped down, waiting for the roar of the applause.

But it didn't come.

No sound permeated the air until Rosamund heard steps
crunching on sawdust and straw. She turned her face to it. And she felt a hand slip into hers. Colin stood at her side, and she needed no invitation to know what to do—they bowed together, receiving the ovation of their lives. Even with a faceless crowd. And even with a Big Top that was pitch-black all around her.

“Thank you for the new watch,” he said, leaning close to her ear.

“You found it.”

“Yes. You're smarter than Mable gave you credit for, slipping it into my violin case. Did you know I'd play for you tonight, that I had to do it one last time?”

“No,” she answered truthfully. “But I hoped you would, for all of us. Mable wanted you to have your time back.”

“I went to see her, you know. Yesterday. She wasn't awake, but I was able to speak to her. I thanked her for my life, and I didn't even know she'd thought of me in her last days. Not until you brought me this watch.”

“She said you've given enough to your grief and it's time to live. So,” Rosamund whispered, easing her hand from his and replacing it with Ingénue's reins, “live. And please—you and Ingénue take care of each other for me while you do.”

1929

B
EACON
, N
EW
Y
ORK

The calendar was but a breath from turning the page to autumn.

Rosamund sat in a wicker deck chair in the expanse of fields beyond her aunt's estate, rolling Bella's golden thimble in her fingertips. She listened to the song of the birds in the trees and the wind that sifted through their branches, giving her just a bit of evidence to picture what their rustling must have looked like.

The early-morning hours were her favorite. She'd taken to sitting there each day, wondering what the New York fields looked like in comparison to the foggy mist painted in the fields at Easling Park.

The sounds around her were amplified with the limitations of sight. And though it often rained on the North Yorkshire mornings she'd spent outside, she could already feel the promise of the sun's late-summer warmth beginning to caress her face along with the wind. She could sense the memory of Ingénue's hooves, almost hearing the sound they made when connecting with the earth.

“Rose.”

Her name came out on a breath of wind.

Colin.

She turned her head, shock freezing her hands in her lap. The breeze caught up wisps of hair around her brow, dancing them against the skin of her cheeks.

“Colin?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice close to her ear. He was kneeling. She knew because she could feel his warmth at her side. “We didn't mean to startle you. Your aunt said we could find you here.”

“We?”

“Yes. I come bearing gifts again.”

She felt his fingertips slip over hers, opening her hand. If he was surprised to find a thimble there, he chose not to say. Instead, his fingertips connected with the skin of her palm, sweeping the golden trinket away and replacing it with a thick leather strap.

“Here,” he said, easing her fingertips over the worn leather reins.

“Ingénue!” Rosamund's heart leapt, turning somersaults in her chest. “My friend.” She heard the horse's soft neighs behind her.

“Yes. She's here. You brought me a gift, remember? Well, Mable wanted you to have one as well. Mr. Ringling said she was quite insistent that you two should be reunited. And that you know in this gift, Mable wanted
you
to have
your
time back. She said you've spent far too much of it grieving. That it was time to go home.”

A tear slid down Rosamund's cheek, and Colin caught it softly, in a butterfly's kiss of a fingertip to skin.

“You told Ingénue and me to take care of each other,” he whispered. “You couldn't have meant us to do that on our own. Without you, neither of us makes a lick of sense.”

“Are you really here right now?”

She gripped the reins, pushing up against the chair's armrests to stand. She felt Colin stand too, offering a hand to brace under her elbow.

“Yes,” Colin said, his voice soft and tipped with the Irish brogue
she so loved. “Ingénue is right behind you. You can reach out and touch her if you want.”