Their trip to Alençon took them along the main north-south road in Normandy. The sun was shining brightly and the plowed fields stretched, rich and brown, on either side of the road. Traffic consisted mainly of farm wagons, with an occasional trap taking a husband and wife into a local town to shop. There was no sign of the French army.
The circus stopped for lunch at Bernay, at a café set next to a pond. The sun had warmed the day up considerably, and they took their lunch outside, where they could watch the ducks swimming around the pond.
Franz threw some bread to one of the ducks and they all rushed to cluster around the diners.
“Not a good idea, Franz,” Henri said. “We are being attacked.”
“They’re cute,” Jeanne said. She threw a piece of bread to the duck that was nearest to her.
“It looks like they’re used to being fed by diners here,” Gabrielle said.
Colette had been investigating another corner of the patio and now she came cantering up to the table. The ducks scattered when they saw the big dog.
“Good girl, Colette,” Leo said.
“Surely you’re not scared of a few ducks, Leo?” Carlotta said with amusement.
“I just want to eat my meal in peace,” Leo returned. “Those ducks looked ready to pick the food right out of my mouth.”
“I wonder if we’ll be stopped by the army again?” Luc said.
Gabrielle stared at him. He was looking at Leo.
“I certainly hope we’re not,” she said. “Being searched is very time-consuming.”
Luc seemed to ignore her. “They’re searching for English gold. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Leo?”
Gabrielle’s heart began to thump. Mon Dieu, she thought. Luc suspects Leo!
Leo met Luc’s gaze steadily. “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t.”
Luc looked skeptical.
“I hope Vincent gets us a different hotel from the one we had last year,” Antonio said. “I didn’t like that one at all. It was dirty.”
Gratefully, Gabrielle turned to Antonio. “I told him to get us something different even if he had to book us into more than one place. I agree with you about last year’s hotel.”
“You played Alençon last year also?” Leo asked.
Henri nodded. “But we’ll be taking a new route after Le Mans. Last year we went to Angers. This year we’re going to Tours.”
“We haven’t been to Tours in a couple of years,” Carlotta said.
Luc said, “Tours is directly on the route south, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Gabrielle said briefly. “We decided to do the southern route this year.”
Luc didn’t reply but once more he looked at Leo with a knowing look in his eyes.
Gabrielle felt her heart sink.
They were ten miles outside Alençon when two soldiers pulled in front of the wagons on the road and raised their hands to stop them. Leo obediently pulled up. The wagons behind them rolled to a stop as well.
The two soldiers were young and Gabrielle gave them her best smile. “Is there something wrong?” she asked.
“We have orders to search all suspicious wagons on this road, madame,” the soldier closest to the wagon said.
“Suspicious? Mon Dieu, what is suspicious about us? We are a circus!” Gabrielle said.
Leo looked on and said nothing.
“You have a great many wagons, madame,” the soldier said. “It would be easy for you to conceal something.”
“Don’t tell me this is about that gold?” Gabrielle said. “Let me tell you, we have already been stopped and thoroughly searched, Sergeant. It happened before we got to Rouen. They made a mess of our wagons. I hope that is not going to happen again.”
“I am sorry, madame. My orders are to search—”
Gabrielle cut in, “Yes, yes, I hear you. But we have already been searched, Sergeant. By a lieutenant with a great hook of a nose.”
Both soldiers faces lit with recognition. “That must have been Avelard,” one of them said.
They nodded at each other in agreement.
“All right,” the sergeant said. “If Avelard searched you, then you must be all right. You may proceed.”
Gabrielle had her hands folded in her lap to keep them from shaking. Once more she bestowed upon the two soldiers the glory of her smile. “Thank you,” she said. “We are running a little late and another search would have been a great inconvenience.”
“Perhaps we will come to your show,” the sergeant said.
“Just tell the ticket taker that you are my guests,” Gabrielle said generously. “I am Gabrielle Robichon, the owner.”
“Thank you, madame.” Both young soldiers smiled happily.
“Bonjour,” Gabrielle said, and Leo put the horses into motion.
When they were out of earshot, Leo said, “Thank God for your smile.”
“It wasn’t my smile, it was the mention of Avelard that did it,” she returned.
“Your smile didn’t hurt, believe me.”
Her hands were still shaking. “How many more times do you think we’ll be stopped?”
“We’re on the main road,” he said. “I think we’ll be stopped again. At least this time they didn’t tumble to the fact that I’m English.”
“Yes, this time you had the sense to keep your mouth closed.”
He shot her an annoyed look. “The last time you left me alone with Mathieu. I had to talk. It would have looked strange if a boy had done all the talking.”
“I don’t care how strange it may have looked, you should have kept quiet.”
He didn’t reply, but a muscle jumped in his jaw.
She changed the subject. “I hope you have the role of ringmaster down. You’re going to have to play it tomorrow.”
He turned his head. “What are you talking about?”
“You said you would be the ringmaster if we were stopped again. And those men are coming to the circus.”
“I said you could introduce me as your ringmaster. But you didn’t even have to do that. Those soldiers know nothing about me. There is absolutely no reason for me to play the ringmaster in tomorrow’s shows.”
She glared at him. “It isn’t just the army that we have to fool, Leo. Did you hear Luc at lunchtime? He is suspicious of you.”
He set his jaw. “Yes, I heard him.”
“The last thing we need is Luc poking around in our wagons.”
“I keep telling you, there is nothing to find in the wagons. The gold is well hidden under the floorboards.”
“If you became our ringmaster it might help quell Luc’s suspicions. It would look as if you were really interested in becoming a part of the circus.”
He said between his teeth, “I am not going to be your ringmaster, Gabrielle. Will you please get that through your head?”
“You think you’re too good for us, don’t you?” she shot at him.
“I will not even deign to answer that remark.”
“Because it’s true!”
He didn’t reply.
“Very well,” Gabrielle said coldly. “If you want to ride in silence, then silence you shall have.”
They neither of them said a word until they met Vincent on the outskirts of Alençon.
Vincent had engaged two hotels to put up the circus members, and Gabrielle, Leo, Mathieu, Albert, Emma, Gerard, Sully and Paul went to one, while the others went to a second hotel down the street. The hotel Gabrielle was staying at was small, so the circus party went to eat at a restaurant the concierge recommended.
Gabrielle thawed toward Leo as the good food made its way into her stomach, and she coaxed Sully to talk and tell them about his life in a circus in Austria. Paul also had some good stories—before he had joined the Cirque Equestre this year he had been a juggler with a traveling circus that went through Germany. That circus had actually had a tame tiger, and the boys had many questions about such a fabulous beast.
Circus folk certainly saw a lot of the world, Leo thought as he listened to the men talk. It was a hard life, with the constant traveling, but he supposed there could be worse. Sully and Paul certainly sounded as if they had enjoyed their adventures.
After dinner, they went back to the hotel and Mathieu asked Leo if he would have time to show him some algebra. Leo agreed, and he and Mathieu set up in the small salon that the hotel provided for its guests. Gabrielle elected to stay with them and read while Albert took out his ubiquitous drawing pad. Sully, Paul, Emma and Gerard decided to join the group from the other hotel at a café.
After half an hour, Leo looked up while Mathieu was studying a problem he had written out. Albert was concentrated on his drawing, and his eyes moved to Gabrielle, where she sat reading by the light of the fire. Her long hair fell in a single thick braid down her back, and the firelight glinted off her smooth cheek and brow and illuminated the long lashes that were lowered as she looked at the book in her lap.
She’s just so damn beautiful, Leo thought.
As if she had felt his gaze, she looked up from her book. She smiled at him. “How is the lesson going?”
You could warm your hands at her smile, he thought.
“Very well,” he answered. “What are you reading?”
“De la Guérinière’s School of Horsemanship. It’s my favorite book. Listen to this and you’ll see how delicate the art of true horsemanship is.” She looked back at the page and read, “‘The aid of putting weight onto the stirrups is the subtlest of all the aids; the legs then serve as counterweight to straighten the haunches and to hold the horse straight in the balance created by the rider’s heel. This aid presupposes a high degree of obedience in the horse and much sensitivity, since by the mere act of putting more weight on one stirrup than the other, a horse is brought to respond to this movement.’”
Leo pursed his lips in a silent whistle. “Do you do that?”
“Yes.”
He gave her a rueful smile. “I can see why you didn’t think I was ready to ride your horses.”
“You can learn,” she said. “It just takes practice and the right instruction.”
He said, “The boys tell me that you have written a book about equitation.”
She looked surprised. Her great eyes shimmered in the firelight. “They told you that?”
“Yes. Are you ever going to publish it?”
She gave her customary shrug. “I am only a circus girl. Who is going to publish my book? When Papa was alive, perhaps he could have gotten it published, but he never got around to it.”
“Perhaps I can get it published for you,” he found himself saying.
Her eyes got even larger. “You?”
“I have some influence, Gabrielle. If you can’t get it published in France, perhaps I can have it published in England.”
“Someone would have to translate it. Although I speak English fairly well—we once had an English juggler travel with us and he taught me—I’m not knowledgeable enough to translate a book.”
“Getting it translated shouldn’t be a difficulty.”
“But would the English be interested in it? Classical riding is not very popular in England anymore.”
He suddenly decided that he was going to make it his business to see her book get published. She was the best damn rider he had ever seen, and her thoughts on riding would be well worth reading.
He said decisively, “We’ll try to get it published in France first. Once Napoléon is defeated and the king restored, the atmosphere should be right for a book like yours.”
Her face glowed. She was beautiful at all times, but when she looked like this…
“That would be wonderful, Leo. It would make me so happy to know that Papa’s great knowledge will be shared with others.”
Albert suddenly said, “I’m glad that you came along with us on this trip, Leo. You have made us all very happy.”
Embarrassed, Leo glanced at Albert. The boy was looking very earnest. “I wish you really were married to Gabrielle,” he said.
Leo didn’t know what to say.
Gabrielle answered for him. “Don’t be foolish, Albert. Leo is being nice to us because he is a nice man. There is no chance of us getting married.”
“Leo would be a better husband than André,” Mathieu said. “André was just a boy. Leo is a man.”
“Don’t pay any attention to them, Leo,” Gabrielle said, clearly embarrassed.
Leo cleared his throat and said to Albert, “I don’t need to be married to Gabrielle to make certain her book is printed. Now, Mathieu, let’s see what you have done with this problem.”
He bent his head over Mathieu’s work and Gabrielle went back to her book.
The boys went to bed at ten, but Gabrielle and Leo stayed up, waiting for Sully and Paul to return. Gabrielle wanted to make certain that Sully hadn’t been drinking.
“What are you going to do if Sully ever becomes too inebriated to perform?” Leo asked her as they sat in front of the dying fire in the salon.
“That’s never happened,” she said.
“But if it does?”
“Even drunk, Sully could perform his part,” she said.
The room was starting to get cold and Gabrielle stretched her feet out to the fire. Leo looked at those small feet, clad in sensible boots, and felt something give inside of him.
She was the loveliest girl he had ever seen. And the bravest. He suddenly realized that if he never made love to Gabrielle Robichon he would regret it all his life.
So much for his resolution to keep her at a distance.
She looked at him. “You must give me your dirty clothes, Leo. During the break between shows tomorrow I will take them to the laundry.”
He almost laughed, so at odds were her thoughts to his. In an attempt to turn her thoughts, he asked, “Do you ever get lonely, Gabrielle?”
She turned to look at him. “What brought that question on?”
“I don’t know. I was just thinking that you must miss having someone to share your life with.”
She returned her gaze to the fire. “I missed André terribly at first, but it is not so bad now. I’m not alone, after all. I have my brothers.”
“Brothers can’t hold you in the middle of the night.”
Her eyes widened. “Now you sound like Luc. That is just the sort of thing he is always saying to try to get me to marry him.”
Well, that put me in my place, Leo thought wryly. The last thing he wanted was to sound like Luc. Nor was he thinking of marriage.
She leaned forward and poked the coals on the fire. “I think that being a little lonely is a fact of life. There’s only so much you can share with another person. There’s always a part of you that stays alone.”
He thought that this was an interesting comment on her marriage.
She turned her head to him. “Do you get lonely, Leo?”
“Sometimes.”
She nodded. “I can tell that about you. Even when you are in company, there is always a space around you. But perhaps that is because you know you don’t belong here.”
“Don’t get started on my being an aristocrat,” he said warningly. “I think I get along very well with your circus members. They all seem to like me.”
“They do,” she said. “But I don’t think any of them would be surprised to learn that you are really an English aristocrat. You have that air about you.” She gave him a brilliant smile. “It’s why you will be such a good ringmaster.”
He looked at her. Then he said slowly, “If I said I would be your ringmaster, would you kiss me?”
She stared at him, her eyes huge with astonishment. “Are you serious?”
He couldn’t believe that he had said that. He needed to take it back. He opened his mouth and said, “Very serious.”
She swallowed. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“It might be very nice,” he said.
“If I kissed you, you would really be our ringmaster?”
Say no, he thought. He heard his voice say “Yes.”
“Well…” A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I’ll do it,” she said.
He stood up. “Not here. Upstairs, in our bedroom.”
She looked a little uncertain.
“Come along,” he said as he led her out of the room. “…It won’t be so bad I promise.”