1929
BEACON, NEW YORK
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.”
Rosamund shook her head, allowing the reins to drop from her fingertips. She raised an arm, feeling the soft touch of linen beneath her hand. She slid her hand up until it hooked around his neck. “I meant you. You’re here.”
He laughed softly, encircling her with strong arms.
“You left the show for me?”
“In the thick of the season,” he confirmed.
She could hear the smile in his voice.
“We rolled into Decatur, Illinois, mid-June. I told Mr. Ringling then that I had no choice—I would be forced to trail after a bareback rider who’d left his employ. But I couldn’t desert him then. Not after we’d just lost Mable. It took some time, but we brought Owen and Jerry in to take over shared management. And when the train went west from Missoula, Ingénue and I caught our own train back east. And it brought us all the way here. To you.”
Rosamund let a breath escape she hadn’t realized she held. “Then you left for good?”
He chuckled, and she could picture him smiling. Just as he always had. She hoped his blue eyes were dancing, staring back at her.
“Yes, Rose. If you wanted me to, I’d walk away from the life. In a heartbeat.”
“But you’re circus, Colin. It’s in your blood.”
He paused. She listened, turning her face into the breeze, wishing she could see his face to know why he’d stopped.
“And you told me once that it’s in yours too.”
“But this might never change. I could be blind the rest of my life,” Rosamund cried, raising her hands to his face, seeing only shades and shadow where his smile used to be. “I’ll never see you.”
“You’ve always seen me, Rose. That’s the difference. I couldn’t accept a new watch for a new life unless you’re in it. And Mable knew that. Seeing isn’t always with the eyes, love. But we can do that together too. I’ll play for you like Hendrick once did. You can ride Ingénue and I’ll be at your side, performing with you in the ring. And I’ll describe everything, like it’s the Cà d’Zan we’re seeing all over again. We can even fish on every dock and dance in every tower in Florida if you want to.”
“Mable would have expected nothing less. Somehow she knew I’d go out and perform too, didn’t she?”
“I think she did,” Colin said, chuckling ever so slightly. “Mable Ringling was a remarkable woman. Our friend. A blessing, I think, to see that both of us came back to one another.”
“If you ever came back, I assumed it would be to say good-bye. I thought you’d only be able to see me as broken now.”
“We’re all broken, Rose. You told me that once, remember? That’s the point,” he whispered, his lips grazing hers. “Everyone has scars. Some you can see, like the one on your wrist. Others, like a watch, remain hidden in the pockets of our past. But to heal? We can’t possibly do it on our own.”
“I was never on my own. Not from that day I stepped onto the train at King’s Cross Station. And I was wrong. My home was never the circus. It wasn’t under the Big Top sky or turning circles in front of the crowds. I was on a circus train traveling from place to place, but my home has always been with you.”
“Then why don’t you marry me?” He leaned in, whispering in her ear. “Because my home is wherever you are too.”
Rosamund stood on tiptoe, trusting her heart to connect her lips to his. She pressed in, feeling the strength of familiar arms come around her. Reveling in the presence of him once again in her life.
“Is that a yes then?” he asked, the smile of a happy Irishman alive in his voice.
“Aye. It’s a yes,” she teased, smiling back because he hadn’t needed to ask. “Mable said we only see what we want to see, and I want to spend the rest of my life looking at you.”