White Horses. Joan Wolf

“Then thank you, Carlotta,” he said.

      Her smile bloomed again. “Gabrielle is a very lucky girl.”

      “It is I who am the lucky one,” Leo replied gallantly.

      “Come along,” Gabrielle said. “I want to introduce you to the others.”

      The rest of the introductions went much the same as the first. Leo met the four Maroni brothers, who were tumblers; the four band members Adolphe and Antonio Laurent, and Pierre Maheu and his wife, Jeanne. Paul Gronow, the juggler; and Sully, the clown. The only introduction that sounded a note of trouble to come was Leo’s introduction to Luc Balzac, the equestrian.

      “Married? When the hell did you get married?” he said angrily to Gabrielle when she introduced Leo.

      Leo looked at him measuringly. He was a tall—though not nearly as tall as Leo—slender young man with black hair and blazing blue eyes.

      “Quite recently,” Gabrielle said. There were spots of color in her cheeks.

      “I thought you were still mourning your precious André.” There could be no doubt that the young man was furious. And hurt.

      “I was, but then I met Leo and things changed. André wouldn’t mind. He would want me to be happy.”

      Luc snorted and turned hostile eyes toward Leo. “So what do you do, pretty boy?”

      Leo opened his mouth to give the antagonistic young man a scalding dressing down, but then he stopped himself. If he played the aristocrat he would betray his disguise. So he forced himself to reply dispassionately that he would be happy to help around the circus as best he could.

      The angry blue eyes turned back to Gabrielle. “Christ, Gabrielle, you didn’t even marry a rider!”

      “Leo can ride very well,” she said defensively. “He just does not perform.”

      “Then what good is he?” Luc demanded.

      Leo said firmly, “I am good for Gabrielle and she is good for me. We love each other and the circus has nothing to do with it.”

      Good God, he thought. Where did that come from?

      Gabrielle moved closer to him, so that he could feel her body actually touching his. “That is so, Luc, and you are just going to have to get used to it,” she said firmly.

      “You said that someday you would marry me!”

      “I never said any such thing,” she replied hotly. “I said I was not ready to marry again when you asked me. I never said anything about the future.”

      “Merde!” Luc said.

      Leo had had enough. “Watch your tongue. There is a lady present.”

      Luc flicked him an angry blue glance. “Believe me, Gabrielle has heard much worse than that.”

      “Not in my company,” Leo said grimly.

      “What’s done is done, Luc,” Gabrielle said. “Now, we are ready to get moving so I suggest you get into your wagon.” She touched Leo’s arm with her hand. “Come along, Leo,” she said.

      Just like a dog, he thought again as he trailed after her across the field to their wagon.

      “Just who is this Luc Balzac?” he asked when they had reached their destination. “He obviously feels he had strings tied to you.”

      She looked worried. “He wanted to marry me last year, but I put him off. I didn’t want to say no outright because I was afraid he would leave the show.”

      “He loves you?”

      “So he says. I wonder if he loves Papa’s circus even more.”

      “You think he wants to marry you to get in on the circus?”

      “The thought has crossed my mind,” she admitted.

      “And how do you feel about him?”

      “I feel that he is a very good act that I would like to keep in my circus,” she replied carefully. “So many of the truly great ones attach themselves to a stationary circus, like Astleys. I don’t want to lose Luc.”

      “But not enough to marry him?”

      “No, not enough to marry him. He has a dangerous temper. Not like my André, who was kind through and through.”

      They reached the first wagon where Leo had inspected the gold earlier and Gabrielle turned to survey the field. Everybody was in their wagons. She put her foot on the step and Leo automatically moved to help her. She cast him a scornful glance. “I am not helpless.” She swung up to the seat, moved over and began to unwrap the reins. She glanced down at Leo. “Come up.”

      He followed her into the seat and looked at her small gloved hands competently holding the reins. “Do you drive this thing? Where are your brothers?”

      “Driving the other wagons,” she replied. She lifted the reins and made a kissing noise to the two horses in front of her. Obediently, they started forward. Gabrielle turned to Leo with a brilliant smile. “The start of another season. It is exciting, no?”

      Leo didn’t smile back. He said, “I hope the season isn’t exciting at all. I just want to get this money to Biarritz.”

      “We will,” Gabrielle said confidently. “I know we will.”

      Six

      The other wagons fell in behind Gabrielle and drove out of the field and onto the road. They would pass through Lille and then take the road south to Amiens.

      “I wish you would let me drive,” Leo said. “I’m supposed to be helping out as best I can, remember?”

      “You can drive when we get to the main road on the other side of Lille,” she said.

      It sounded to him as if she didn’t trust him to get them through the city and Leo’s mouth set. He refrained from comment, however, and instead tried to make his legs as comfortable as he could.

      “So, Leo, tell me about yourself,” Gabrielle said as they drove through the early-ploughed land on either side of them.

      He looked at her. Her own eyes were on the road and her profile was so delicate and pretty that he was momentarily distracted. She turned her head to catch his eye and gave him an encouraging nod.

      He had no intention of talking about himself to this girl. “There’s nothing much to tell,” he said stiffly. “I grew up, went to school, and when I got out I joined the army. End of story.”

      After a moment she said wryly, “It’s a good thing you didn’t want to become a novelist. You’d have trouble filling up the pages.”

      “What about you?” He tried turning the tables. “You must have led a far more exciting life than I.”

      She shook her head. “Oh, no, don’t think you’re going to get off that easy! Where did you grow up, the country or the city? What school did you go to? Why did you join the army?”

      Those things are none of your business. He thought the words but restrained himself from speaking them. He would have to stay on good terms with this girl; it would look suspicious if they were at odds with each other. He said grudgingly, “I grew up in the country, in the part of England that is called Sussex. It’s very pretty there, with rolling hills we call the Downs. My father had an estate and we had a lot of horses. I lived there until I was eight, then I went away to school.”

      She turned to him and her brown eyes were full of pity. “You English! It is terrible how you push your children off to school when they are so young. You must not like children very much.”

      He had never thought about such a thing. “I am sure English parents love their children quite as much as French parents,” he