Reckless Rules (Brambridge Novel 4) (16 page)

“I would like that tea after Miss Fanthorpe has left please, Carruthers.”

“Of course, my lady.”

Miss Fanthorpe stood and swung her head between the butler and Victoria. Without uttering another word, she gathered up her bag and scuttled to the door. Carruthers followed her into the hall, and from the bang of the door, obviously ushered her out at high speed.

CHAPTER 14

The travelling forge had enough items in it to shoe a horse, create nails for timbers and fix a cart wheel. Bill stood stripped to the waist in the middle of it, paying close attention to the chatter going on around him as he forged another horseshoe for spares.

“You know, Greta, if you tried a little bit of oil on your third leg, you might find that you can deal with the dried skin a bit better. I’ve had marvelous success on my backward knees.”      

“I generally use Harper’s clippers on my hair. When one has so much, especially on the back, the long handles are very useful for dealing with the mane.”

Bill didn’t know what it was, but whenever he set up his little forge, the members of the troupe, men and women would often gravitate towards his fire as if towards a camp hearth. He only had to put in a word here or there, and the conversation would flow. It was a great panacea on the long days when he was constantly working. On the other hand, the troupe conducted their work at set times only, when the paying public was let in at a penny an entrance to see the Unusual Oddities in all their glory.

There was Greta, the lady with three legs and four arms, Mary who had been born with backwards knees, Wolfman’s cousin, Dogman whose hair grew all over his body and many others of different shapes and sizes. The list was endless, and each had invented their own tent to show off their unique attribute in. Greta had drawn on the Goddess Vishnu for her inspiration, she of the many arms. She wore a gold hat and a sari, and wiggled her head from side to side as the paying audience gasped at her limbs. Mary would crawl across the floor and allow people to touch her legs for an extra fee. Dogman had built a cage of wooden logs in front of his stage, and bounded around barking, and picking up objects that the public would throw.

None of them found it demeaning. Bill had broached that subject on his first night of joining them. And none had taken offence to his question. Mary had laughed and disclosed that she had a very happy husband and three children living down the road from Beaconsfield. Her work in the travelling fair gave them a very nice life, thank you very much, and in fact they were quite rich. Dogman disclosed with a wink that the ladies quite liked his hirsute touch. That was enough for Bill; he didn’t pry any more.

Bill had been with the troupe for three days and no one had mentioned the acrobat. Bill had been accepted immediately, a good smith that was ready to travel, and with a travelling fair show at that, was very hard to find. He had shoed all of the horses, helped the entertainers put together new stage sets and even forged a set of gate posts for a member of the public passing by on their way to see the show.

He had begun to despair until he was asked to repair a cart that held a jumble of spares in it. The wheel of the cart needed to come off, and so he emptied its contents out onto the muddy field in which they were encamped. First out was a jumble of ropes attached to a piece of board. Then came a long pole, and finally a placard. ‘Acrobat’ was the only word emblazoned on the wood. It was short, and sweet, but it showed that some part of Wolfman’s story had been true.

But it meant that Bill had wasted three days and he had missed his opportunity. Just thinking about it made him angry. Ignoring the conversation around him and picking up one of his crowbars, he turned into the heat of the forge and
heaved
. He grunted satisfyingly as his muscles popped, and his shoulders strained. What he would do when he found Pedro… His knuckles turned white, and the crowbar began to give, unbending from its hook shape. He was going to give Pedro what for and then he would, he would get Victoria.

Yes, that is what he would do. The metal screamed in his hands as it straightened. He would convince her she was the only woman in the world for him, and then she would elevate him from being who he was into… what?

Greta and Mary screamed as the crowbar broke apart with a loud bang in his hands. He turned to reassure them, to see not just Greta, Mary and Dogman looking at him, but many of the other troupe performers too.

Amongst the hair on his face, it was hard to see that Dogman’s mouth hung open, but the drape of his mane gave an obvious shape to his slack jaw.

“Um. Bill. Um. Did I really just see you break a crowbar with your bare hands?” Dogman enquired, finally managing to get the words out.

“Did you see his muscles?” Mary cried, and clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m married,” she muttered. “I was only looking out of interest.”

Greta nodded. “I’m not married, but that was an amazing feat.”

“I’m sorry,” Bill said sheepishly. He shrugged his shirt on that lay in the corner of his tent, and pushed the crowbar into the flames. He would have to beat it back together again now. He had lost the same crowbar many times to the same thing over the years.

“Don’t be,” Dogman said. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything so unusual before.”

Bill could only stare at the hair-covered man, who shrugged his shoulders. But it was no time to waste. He had to capitalize on their sudden interest.

“Not even the Acrobat?” he said, nonchalantly picking up his hammer, and giving the crowbar a few experimental taps. He turned his back to the performers and pumped his bellows a few times as if not really interested in what they had to say.

“How did you know about the Acrobat?” Greta said in a small voice. “No one is meant to know about what he did.”

Bill was bewildered. “I thought acrobats swung around and did hand stands. I didn’t think it was a secret.”

Mary gave a snort and a small cry which sounded borderline hysterical. “It’s not what he did, it’s what he
did.
”

Bill still did not understand. It was obvious to his audience. A few of the performers drifted away, muttering. Dogman laid a hand on Mary’s shoulder. “It’s alright, Mary,” he said kindly. “You see Bill, that
freak
joined us. He gave us a sob story about how he had worked for a bad man, and he just needed a little time away, to hide from the bad man. He called himself just the Acrobat and we were fine with that.”

Bill nodded. Pedro had mixed up the facts to suit himself. The bad man that he had worked for, the Viper, was dead. The only bad man that he was hiding from now was Bill.

“Did the bad man find him?”

“Oh no. The bad man found
us
. Only this wasn’t the bad man the acrobat had been talking about. This bad man is the most feared man in travelling fairs and troupes. His name is Pablo Moreno.”

“Pablo Moreno?” Bill had to stop the rising excitement from filling his voice. He tapped at his crowbar some more as the ends of the metal started to glow hot.

Dogman nodded. “It turns out that Pablo Moreno is the acrobat’s father. They seemed quite pleased to see each other. They disappeared one evening with all of our takings for that month.”

“And not to forget Dana,” Mary mumbled.

“We don’t know that she went with them,” Dogman said reprovingly.

“She gave no sign of wanting to go.” Greta rubbed one of her legs. “She was very happy with us.”

“She didn’t really fit in.” Dogman shrugged. “She said she came from a place called Mexico… her eyes were a soft brown and her skin was the color of coffee. I think in reality her talent was that she was very beautiful. I don’t think that was really in keeping with our troupe.”

“No matter what you thought, Benjamin, she was still one of us and the public paid to see her. She was very popular.” Mary frowned. “At least with the young men.”

“That’s what I mean. That Acrobat took an unhealthy interest in her. I’m sure I saw him hanging round her tent before her act had finished. He was speaking to her in that language that she sometimes sang on stage in. Spanish I think it was. I never saw her again after that.”

“Where did Moreno’s troupe go after you crossed over with them?” Bill pulled a small hammer from his travelling tool chest and gave the glowing crowbar several small taps.

“We don’t know.” Mary raised her voice above the tapping of the hammer. “We didn’t want to know. Pablo Moreno is bad news. A month’s takings is a good sum, but we’ll survive. Going after Pablo Moreno is a death wish. He
hurts
people.”

The others nodded with Mary.

“There’s a story about a girl in one of the towns that his fair visited…” Dogman began.

Greta held up her hand. “It doesn’t bear repeating.” She looked Bill in the eye. “I have heard tell that Moreno takes a pitch in Cloth Fair late summer every year as part of the Bartholomew Fair.” Greta turned away from the heat of the forge. “It’s getting to that time now. We’re not far from London now. He must have been on his way there.”

“What does Moreno specialize in?”

“You’re asking an awful lot of questions about Pablo Moreno,” Dogman said suddenly.

Bill increased the rate of hitting the crowbar with his hammer. Dogman put his hand over his ears. After five minutes Bill stopped. “Just interest that’s all. I’ve never come across such an evil sounding man.” He’d come across many evil men alright, it was just they managed to hide their rotten core from plain sight. It was as if Pablo Moreno didn’t care who knew his business.

“Sometimes what you see is what you get and at other times you don’t. You can’t always judge people on outward appearance.” Mary pointed to her backwards knees. “People always think that I’m a pity figure with my unfortunate appearance. My husband doesn’t see that. We have a happy life together.”

Bill wiped his sweating forehead tiredly with a rag. He envied Mary’s patent happiness.

“Moreno’s Grand Travelling Museum specializes in anything and everything,” Dogman said suddenly. “You know, I heard tell they exhibited an elephant last year at the Bartholomew fair. It died on the way to London. Someone else was exhibiting an elephant too, but Moreno said that anyone could see a live elephant, but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see a dead one. Moreno made a mint of money. The public could queue up and prod it, see?”

Bill nodded. He understood the rationale. It was really rather clever. It showed that Pablo would try and make money out of anything.

“He won’t employ anyone apart from performers though. Them and his second in command, Jimmy Carandel, another nasty piece of work.”

“What kind of problems does Moreno cause when his Travelling Museum stops in one place?”

“Houses get broken into. Doesn’t matter whether they are big or small. The local magistrates interviewed Moreno several times but he just blamed it on the number of people that came to see his show from far and wide. Said that they were the ones committing the crime opportunistically.”

“I heard that some people were even murdered,” Greta said quietly.

“Thank God he’s gone,” Mary added soberly.

CHAPTER 15

The previous week’s revelations quite unsettled Victoria. As she lay in her bed enjoying the late morning sunshine and sipping a large cup of hot cocoa, she still couldn’t concentrate on what was upsetting her more—her husband’s past resurfacing, or the recent theme of companionship. First there was Eustacia and her surprising regret that she had never had a husband, and secondly Miss Fanthorpe and her vehement declaration that if it hadn’t been expected of her she wouldn’t trouble to marry. The only discernible difference between the two of them was that Eustacia was looking back on her life, and Miss Fanthorpe seemed to be firmly planted looking forward, her life barely lived yet.

Where did Victoria fit in? Older just than Miss Fanthorpe, yet already widowed with a marriage behind her that did not seem by all accounts to have been normal. Many years younger than Eustacia who had never married and yet yearned to have had the companionship of someone special.

Perhaps that was the solution? To have the companionship but not the marriage. Could she have been wrong to have preserved her high and mighty status all these years? Surely one of Colchester’s rules could help her. Victoria gave a hiccup.

Certainly not rule number nine—
don’t allow anyone to get too close
. How was she going to have a relationship with someone without allowing them to get close to her? But then if they did get close to her, close enough to throw her off balance, then they would find out about the
darkness
and that would be the end of that relationship.

It was all too difficult. The only way she could adhere to any of it was through Bill’s treatment, as nerve wracking and spine tingling as that was. And yet he showed no signs of understanding her, taking her apparently empty life at face value but throwing off all indications that he wouldn’t mind a bit more than the occasional visit.

She sat up with a start, clutching at her cup of chocolate
. That’s it
. Of course! A plan that seemed to meet all of her criteria, a relationship without the
feeling
. Once she had visited Mr. Durnish and reported the results of their investigation to him she would call in on Freddie and demand to see Bill. She would put
another
proposition to him that he would not be able to refuse.

Finishing the last of her hot chocolate, Victoria pulled on the bell rope that hung down the side of the four poster bed. Chantelle appeared in the doorway bearing the day’s dress. She threw it over a Chinese screen that partitioned off one of the corners of the room, and stood waiting silently as Victoria pulled away her covers and jumped out of bed.

“Chantelle, I shall need one of the finest dresses in my wardrobe please.” Victoria said, examining the still sumptuous but demure day dress that Chantelle had selected. “The one with shells embroidered in real gold.”