The Ringmaster's Wife Read Online Free Page B

Europe.”
    Armilda smiled, thinking of the articles she had collected from all over, catalog drawings and fashion photos she’d clipped and saved—not even knowing why.
    Venice, she thought, her heart leaping in her chest just a little bit. Venice is in there, along with Paris. London. New York . . .
    Everywhere is waiting for me.
    Dulcey wasn’t finished. “You’ve read every book our teacher has that mentions anything about art or travel in it. And your eyes are always fixed on a point past the fields. You’re special, Mim.”
    “But I couldn’t leave, could I?” Armilda whispered, chewing on her bottom lip as the idea began to sink in deeper. “What would that do to Momma and Papa? And where would that leave all of you?”
    “Where will we be?” Dulcey stood. “Right here, dear sister. Waiting for letters to hear about your grand adventures, I expect.” She shrugged. “I like my life here. I know I’ll be happy. But you?” She rested a hand on Armilda’s shoulder. “The world is calling you, Mim. And you should meet it head-on. You can be anyone you want to be.”
    Armilda took her sister’s hand in her own and pecked a kiss to her palm. Dulcey was right. If she was ever going to turn her cigar-box dream into reality, reinvent Armilda Burton the farm girl from Moons, Ohio, this was her opportunity.
    She leaned back in the rocker once more, the old chair showing its age with loud creaking again. Anyone you want to be . . .
    She thought of a name she’d once read in C. M. Yonge’s The Heir of Redclyffe —a novel in which an Irish character had the name that meant “lovable” and “dear.” It was a name with star power, in her mind. With so much more unbridled strength than the provincial “Armilda” could possess. A name that should be owned by one who played Steinway pianos. And visited tearooms. Who wasn’t afraid to be brave. Because that’s what she’d need—the courage to walk away from everything she’d always known and step out with hopes for a reimagined life.
    “I’ll be Mable Burton,” she whispered, the words floating out on the breeze.
    Birds chirped in the loft of trees overhead, mingling with her voice. Echoing their song with her words. Her dreams. The possibilities that extended far beyond the farmhouse, beyond the sunrise over the fields.
    She closed her eyes and rocked back, cradling the cigar box in her lap.
    “Mable—the girl who will never be afraid to really live .”

CHAPTER 3
    1926
    N ORTH Y ORKSHIRE , E NGLAND
    It was one heck of a first impression.
    Colin had to admit that.
    To arrive three hours late for a business meeting would have been insulting enough to the English. But judging by the butler’s scowl, Colin suspected it was slightly worse to arrive at a manor in a state of disrepair, bearing no dinner invitation, on the night of a grand house party. It seemed quite enough to have been deemed utterly disastrous by the standards of the English aristocracy.
    Fortunately the butler’s sense of propriety also meant he couldn’t leave anyone on the front step in the rain, no matter their breach of decorum. So he and Ward had been shown into the grand entry hall—for the moment at least—to await a proper announcement to the lord and lady of the manor. And with the gale building outside, it seemed a real possibility they might have to stay through the entirety of a white-tie, full five-course dinner.
    Colin pictured the butler’s abject horror with a suppressed smile.
    The stone and wood-paneled entry of Easling Park glowed in subtle lamplight from iron-scroll wall sconces illuminating a towering wood and stylized stucco ceiling. The varying orange-yellow light of a fire danced out from a marble-faced hearth on the back wall. A gust of autumn wind drove the rain against the leaded glass panes of floor-to-ceiling windows.
    Colin glanced up at the tinkling crystal chandelier above their heads, altogether relieved to be out of the storm. Putting on airs with