Joanne Bischof

by The Lady

  Across the street, a few people looked his way, gazes lingering. Charlie peered down to make sure he had shed all the pieces of his costume. He’d taken off his velvet coat and vest but kept the white shirt as it was the best he had. And he was certain he’d scrubbed all the paint from his face. Using his thumb, Charlie checked that his shirt was neatly tucked after all his banging about in the wagon.

  After a few more steps, he checked his collar for good measure.

  He’d been distracted today and didn’t trust his judgment just now.

  Even during the show it had posed a problem. When he’d forgotten to give the signal during the finale, La’Rue—bless the man—had stepped in and saved it. A mistake Charlie had never made before and one that had him garnering worried looks from more than just Ruth.

  All the acts had to keep performing to get by, so he needed to pull himself together one way or another. Thanks to Mr. Graven arranging railway excursion discounts within a forty mile radius to the circus lot, the stands were fuller than ever with new droves of people willing to pay twenty-five cents and upwards for a seat in the matinee.

  Because the growing crowds inspired new twists, La’Rue had suggested the stunt they’d been working on. While Charlie feared Axel wasn’t ready, the lion had proved him wrong, leaping across a gap in stands two feet farther than what Han and Kristov could reach. Charlie owed the rascal a fat steak. The elephants nailed their own signals and the audience had been on its feet.

  A victory, yes. But with every flower or bouquet that the roustabouts picked up, and with every lacy handkerchief, Charlie knew looking up into the stands, hearing the cries and cheers, that it wasn’t real. It didn’t last. Not the fans, the flowers, and certainly not the smiles from women who were curious about his interludes.

  He’d allowed himself to indulge in that one summer. To kiss young ladies in the shade of the Big Top as the sun’s heat clouded their thinking that he would be any kind of lasting presence. Them walking away with nothing other than a good story to tell and him standing there empty, wondering if the next conquest might fill the void. He would never remember a name for each girl he’d kissed. Each heart that had momentarily beat against his, so while Axel was but a cub, and with Angelina’s help, Charlie had vowed to save any kind of wooing for the woman he meant to marry. It had been a long and lonely few years, but worth it. And now he was thinking of Ella.

  She was doing something to him that he’d never experienced before. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.

  But who was he fooling? Who was he to Ella? A Gypsy in a mud show.

  And that wasn’t even the worst of it.

  Reaching her apartment, he took his first deep breath of the day. Regina was seeing to Holland’s nap, and he couldn’t thank the woman enough. His heart beat faster with every step he climbed until he was walking down that hallway again. Charlie cleared his throat, which did nothing for his nerves, and knocked on Ella’s door with the back of his hand.

  Soft voices filtered through, then it opened.

  Margaret peered around the door. “Hello.” Such an everyday word, but her eyes took him in as though he were Goliath.

  “Is Ella here?”

  “Oh, yes, come on in.”

  She led him to the sofa and he sat, feeling like an oaf on the dainty piece of furniture. With Ella nowhere in sight, he glanced at the closed bedroom door.

  Margaret stood there watching him, wringing her hands. Finally she motioned toward the room. “I’ll go fetch her.”

  Charlie nodded. Feeling like his palms were sweating, he ran them along his pants. Margaret vanished and he tried not to count the minutes but was pretty sure that one turned into two then into three before the door opened again.

  He glanced up, certain he looked as desperate as he felt.

  As Ella stepped out, light from the window hit the white ribbon that held the end of her braid. She gave him a little smile that was so weak he thought he was going to be sick. God help him, he needed the words.

  She walked over to a settee and tucked her pale blue skirt beneath her as she sat, eyes on the floor. They were glassy and growing wetter the longer the silence lived on.

  Finally, she peered straight at him. “Hello, Charlie.”

  Words failing, he dipped his head. Remembering his billfold, he thought about tugging it out, but it didn’t seem like the right time.

  “I’m glad you came.”

  He stared at the ground and feared what emotions might live in his face. He needed to say something. Come on, man. “About last night…”

  But she was holding up a hand, silencing him. “Please. Let me explain.”

  The bedroom door closed and Charlie realized Margaret was giving them privacy.

  “I’ve gone around and around as to whether or not I should tell you this, and once I decided to, I’ve been searching for the right way, but I fear I don’t know what that is.”

  He straightened slowly.

  Eyes closed, she twisted her fingers in her lap so tightly her hands were turning white. “So I’ll just say it.”

  He stared at those hands as she spoke.

  “Charlie…I had a son.” Blue eyes lifted to his, the lashes dark and wet.

  He tried to keep his face as stone. Oh, God, please don’t let him do the wrong thing. His heart jerking, he slowly nodded. Retraced her words. Tried to get them to make sense. For a hundred different reasons.

  “Five years ago.”

  A slow breath in. A slow breath out.

  “That’s one of the reasons I’m here. I left home because I couldn’t bear the way people treated me. Their whispers. Their looks. Suggesting clear enough what they thought of me.” Her voice turned thick. “And I was just too sad.”

  Her pain lit a flame in his chest. “I’m so sorry,” he said softly, not knowing what else to say. Forming a fist, he ran his thumb over his knuckles, worrying a path he didn’t know how to fill with words.

  “Charlie?”

  He shifted his boots. Stared down at them. She said had a son. He wished he knew how to ask in a way that wouldn’t hurt her. “Are…is he…did he not survive?”

  Her mouth trembled small around the single word. “No.”

  Words failing him, Charlie searched her face. His throat was hoarse so he coughed once into his fist. “What—what was his name? Your son.” It was all he could think to say, for she’d given life to a child. A person. A soul…and he was gone from her.

  She looked at him as though no one had ever asked that. “I didn’t give him one.”

  Her regret seemed to fill the room, so Charlie blinked away rising questions.

  “Charlie.” Ella moistened her lips again and drew in a shaky breath. “I don’t know how to say this.”

  Leaning forward, he rested forearms to knees and clasped his hands. Bowed his head.

  Her voice quavered. “Being…with a man…”

  He swallowed hard and after another breath, made himself lift his head.

  “It wasn’t…it wasn’t something I wanted to do.” She looked away and that bit of hair fell across the side of her face again. She tugged at a pinch of skirt. Over and over and over… “I was forced.”

  The blood slowed in his veins. He blinked. Tried to breathe.

  And failed.

  Tears pooled, spilling down her cheeks.

  He forced an inhale. His mind and heart racing, he rose, moved to her in a few steps, and knelt. “Ella.” Her name bled from him.

  She ran a sleeve over her eyes. “I was so ashamed.” Her chin trembled harder.

  He spoke her name again and it felt so insufficient. In him was a burning, rolling anger toward a man he could kill with his hands this very moment—all beat back by a pain he didn’t know existed. Not while looking at her face, those eyes. Heard in her voice. Witnessed the way she’d cowered against the wheel and pleaded for him not to hurt her.

  His stomach churned.

  “He was a few years older than me and I had trust
ed him to walk me home one night from a choir practice. We were all to sing for Christmas.” Her voice was wooden but soft. “I thought he was a friend and I thought that everything was all right.”

  The anger rolled again, rising.

  “He…” Her throat worked and she blinked back more tears. “What you need to know about last night, Charlie—” She shook her head. “It wasn’t because of you. It wasn’t you.”

  He hung his head; his skin on fire when she placed her warm hand to the back of his neck, pulling him closer. He rested his fist on her knee and pressed his forehead there.

  “He was the preacher’s son,” Ella whispered.

  Charlie’s eyes closed. Fist so tight his palm burned. Oh, God. There wasn’t a word in the space of his mind to express what he was feeling, for mixed with the desire to tear that man limb from limb was the burning ache to comfort her. Then he felt her shaking and looking up, saw that she had covered her face with her other hand. Sobbing.

  He rose to his knees, and when she didn’t seem afraid, touched her arm. She bent forward, pressing her face to his shoulder. His hand slid to the back of her hair, holding her. Ella’s small frame shook, mouth muffled against his shirt. He held tighter, wishing there was some way he could take the pain and bear it for her.

  She sat that way for a long while and he dared not ask what had happened to the man. If somehow justice had been served. It would only be for his own benefit—some way to make his hands stop shaking with the desire of doing it himself.

  “You have to know,” she tipped her head, “that you are one of the most kind and considerate men I’ve ever known.”

  Something snapped in his heart; the fear that he had lost her.

  “And I don’t know what came over me. I’ve always kept away from the church since then. I’ve felt guilty about that, but it’s always paralyzed me.” She sniffed and fumbled the folds of her skirt for a handkerchief, finding a small square of cloth. “The thought of going into one. Or even being around people who are…what you might think of as holy.”

  A preacher’s son. He wanted to cup her face and tell her that there was a world of difference between the light of Christ and the black of which she’d been shown, but this was not the time. Ever the preacher, he curbed his tongue.

  Regina’s words rushed to his mind. That’s why folk call him Preacher. Just like his father before him.

  The title—the way she saw it—pierced him. “That’s why you ran,” he whispered.

  “I’m so sorry.” Regret laced her eyes.

  “Please don’t be afraid. Please don’t leave us…” He tried to bite back the last words, but they slipped out. He hoped maybe she would think he was referring to her nursing Holland.

  She probably didn’t, which was why she was gaping at him. “Leave you? Charlie, you’re leaving. Any day.” Her face flooded with something that had his heart nearly still in his chest.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not fair to you—”

  “Charlie, do you ever stay in one spot? Do you always move on?”

  His mind whirred so he rose slowly and took a step back. Women had asked him that question before. But it had never fallen from the lips of someone he had already begun envisioning a life with.

  Charlie grasped for reason. Clawing at it and failing to gather but mere scraps. Those he pieced together and formed into words. “I have to leave with the others. I’m in a contract.”

  She nodded and her cheeks went rosy. The shift in conversation stumbled him. Why were they talking about this all of a sudden? Clueless as to what to say next, he waited until she rose.

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  The bedroom door opened and Margaret stepped out. Already dressed in her nurse’s uniform, she gave an apologetic smile. She moved to the kitchen area, took up her coat from the chair, and draped it over her arm, clearly leaving.

  Which meant he should be the first to go. Charlie looked to Ella. “We are leaving in a few days.” Never had those words lashed into him before. “And I…I know Holland would love to see you again. And I would too.” A sting in his left wrist, Charlie rubbed at it.

  Ella blinked up at him.

  “You’re welcome to come by if you’d like. Sometime tomorrow.”

  Mouth lifting in a soft smile, she nodded. “Thank you.”

  He needed to leave because suddenly he was thinking about pulling her close again. Right here where he was standing. And that he couldn’t do. For a million reasons. All of which pushed him toward the door, the words to his lips, “I’ll leave you now.” He stepped into the hall and turned just as she pressed her cheek to the jamb. “And oh…” Would this sound forward? “Everything’s taken care of at the entrance for as long as we’re here.”

  Ella’s brows lifted. Would she understand what he was saying? What he meant. That he wanted her with him. For as long as he could.

  “So just find Lorelai. It’s all squared away for you to come as you please.”

  Margaret glanced to the clock, then stepped closer toward the door.

  “Thank you,” Ella said. “I’ll come. I promise.”

  He sealed her face in his mind. Her words.

  And later, with the stars out and the night crowd seeking their thrills, the dark didn’t feel as black. The torchlight not as sinister.

  For as he sat there, bare back against the bars, failing in giving the crush of onlookers any kind of the show they paid to see, save himself, he simply held onto the sight of Ella’s face in his mind. Of Holland’s and Mimi’s. Thought of all that God had blessed him with.

  And he said a prayer for Ella. No, a plea. For her to have the comfort she needed.

  Deep beneath that was the sorrow that in a few days, he’d be gone from her. But it was for the best, because sitting this way, bared from the waist up and lit by the light of a dozen flames, he was jarred afresh by how horrifying he would be to her. If she knew…

  Charlie looked at the crowd with coal-blackened eyes and a pair of ladies shrieked in terrified delight.

  Night air crept through a gap in the tent, prickling his skin. The skin that was covered in ink drawings so permanent, so rare and gruesome, people paid good coin to gawk at The Beast. Someone poked a bony finger into his waist. Another pried at his forearm for a closer look at the novelty of his flesh. Anger usually consumed him here. Spurring him to fight back. But as clammy hands probed his skin, Charlie simply lowered his head. With his cuffed hands hanging limp at his sides, the sensation of his wrists being chained and bound not beating him tonight, he repeated the hymn in his mind over and over.

  Rock of Ages. Cleft for me…

  These nights of calm—rare as they were—were the nights that kept him sane. Made him realize that although his face was painted, eyes darkened to look as eerie as possible, he would get through this. For just four more months, he could do this.

  For Holland—for her freedom—he would pay the debt.

  Though his tainted body might be caged, his mind and heart didn’t have to be. He had Ella to thank for that tonight. And God.

  Closing his eyes, Charlie let the sound of the crowd fade, and for the first time in days and no doubt to Madame Broussard’s dismay, he simply sat there. And he sat in peace.

  C H A P T E R 1 3

  __________

  With an early evening sun warm on her shoulders, Ella approached the tent. The flap was open and tied back, no doubt inviting in the sweet, spring air.

  “Hello,” she called out, and clutching a fresh loaf of bread, ducked through. She froze at the sight of Charlie sitting on the edge of his wagon-bed, a needle in the air, thread tethering him to his task.

  She smiled and his mouth pursed a bit sheepishly. Regina was near, cutting a length of braid trim. Ella stepped that way first and held out the bread along with a whispered apology.

  Regina’s small, pudgy hand slid to Ella’s back with a little hug. “Thank you, mia cara. And you’ve nothing to feel sorry about.”

&
nbsp; Charlie was watching Ella and she thought about all that had passed between them yesterday. All she had shared. Spotting Holland asleep on her wooden bed, Ella tucked hands behind her back and stepped toward Charlie. He touched the collar of his shirt, then the buttons at each of his sleeves.

  Even sitting he was still higher up on the wagon. She peered at what he was doing and saw Holland’s tiny sweater.

  “Loose button.” He dipped the needle again. “Some nurse popped it loose the other day.”

  Now it was Ella’s turn to smile sheepishly.

  He pulled a pocket watch from his vest and glimpsed it before glancing back at Ella.

  “Was this a bad time to come?” she asked.

  “No.” He said it too quick and she feared it might have been. He seemed to regret that as he said, “Holland will be awake soon and you two can visit.”

  “How was your show?”

  The side of his mouth tipped up. “It was good.”

  When his gaze moved around the tent, she let hers wander again and it was then that she noticed jars of flowers scattered about. “Oh, my.”

  With fingers that looked practiced, he loosed the needle and slid the flash of silver into a small sewing box that was carved with Regina’s name. The hinged box sat beside a basket that held rich-looking fabrics, one cut in the raw shape of another center ring coat and tails. This fabric, a deep burgundy, was finer than any cloth Ella had ever seen.

  Using his teeth, he snapped the unused thread then tucked everything away.

  “You do that just like my mother,” she said.

  Smirking, he set Holland’s sweater beside him. “Tell me about your family. Where do they live?”

  “Um…about sixty miles north of here. Just past Clifton Forge.” Though maybe he wouldn’t know where that was.

  “And are you an only child?”