“That’s the point,” Henry said, growling.
“But won’t it bother you, my cunning recluse, to know that everyone’s tongue will be wagging with the wrong man’s name in conjunction with our lovely Madam Morpho?”
“Rumors are the food of fools,” Imogen said smartly, giving Henry’s arm a squeeze. “No one here even knows me, much less should they care on whose arm I walk.”
“The caravan is a very small family, my dear lady,” Criminy said. “You’ll find that nothing goes unnoticed.” He bowed to her and doffed his hat. With a snap of his fingers, a small gray moth appeared to flutter in the air before her face. She reached out, enchanted but confused. The second her fingers touched it, the moth dissolved in a puff of glittery dust.
“It wasn’t real?” she said, disappointment plain on her face.
“Illusions can be deceiving,” Criminy said with a shrug and a bow. “Better to enjoy it while it lasts, rather than look behind the curtain too early.”
Flipping his topper back onto his head, Criminy grinned and disappeared into a crowd rustling around a spotlight. Imogen was curious about which act the people waited to see, if perhaps it was the ringmaster and magician himself, but Henry pulled her around the outskirts of the throng. They walked the line of lanterns delineating the caravan’s perimeter, not stopping until they stood before her wagon. She had lost track of time and space and finally realized that it was quite late—and that Henry was farther away than he had ever been. The tender affection and clever repartee of the tent had fled, and she felt as if he might bolt away from her if she let him.
“What does trouble you so?” she asked.
“If I could say, it wouldn’t trouble me.”
“Will you kiss me good night, then?”
“Of course not. Not here. Your reputation is at stake.”
“And it is mine to decide what those stakes will be,” she said peevishly. She stood on the bottom step of the wagon so that they would be evenly matched in height and so she could see as much of his face as possible. In the shadow, her eyes couldn’t penetrate the smoke of his goggles, although she stood looking straight into where his eyes should have been.
“I don’t want you to regret me,” he said.
She snorted. “Then don’t make me, you fool!”
She flicked a gloved finger at the glass of his goggle lens before disappearing into her wagon and slamming the door.
13
Imogen slept deeply, waking at the nudge of a body denting the thin mattress of her bed.
“What about my reputation?” she all but purred, flinging a bare arm over her eyes.
“What about it, then?” said a bright and all-too-feminine voice.
With a squawk, Imogen lurched to sitting, holding the tatty blanket up to her chin. The lights were on, and Emerlie perched on the edge of the bed, grinning. She wore yet another of her horridly bright get-ups, a short, doll-like dress and leggings of spring green, all covered with buttons.
“What on earth are you doing here?” Imogen said, and Abilene appeared in the doorway in her dressing gown, tugging nervously on her beard.
“Had to let her in.” She shrugged in half-apology.
“Into the wagon, yes. But into my room?”
“If you jiggle the door just right, it opens.” Emerlie buffed her glove on the ruffles at her neck. “Me an’ the horse-faced girl who used to bunk in here had a deal.”
Imogen’s eyes darted around the small room, checking that what few things she owned had escaped the tightrope walker’s snooping. She had cause yet again to thank Master Stain for sending her to Henry, considering that his wagon was one of the only places in Sang where her butterflies and other secrets would be safe from prying eyes and greedy fingers.
“Considering we have no such agreement, would you care to explain why you’ve let yourself in?”
Emerlie leaned close, and Abilene checked the door to the outside before rushing close to huddle at the foot of the bed.
“We have to know.” Emerlie’s kohl-ringed blue eyes darted back and forth. “What is it you do in Mr. Murdoch’s wagon?”
“And why were you out on Vil’s arm last night?” Abilene shuddered in disgust.
With a snort, Imogen stood and slipped into her faded black dressing robe, sorry for its shabby shape and mannish cut and noting how strange it was to be self-conscious for the first time.
“Gossip. Honestly. Could this little interrogation not have waited for breakfast? Or at least after I was awake and dressed? Do you think me so silly and easily spooked that I would spill my secrets just because you caught me unawares? Does this stratagem generally yield results?” She stopped in front of Emerlie, staring down at the short strawberry-pink curls with her most dire and furious librarian’s glare. A staring contest ensued, Imogen’s eyes narrow and unblinking. When Emerlie looked away and hunched her shoulders, Imogen knew that she had won.
“Folk like to talk,” Emerlie said with fake brightness. “A word here, a word there. You can’t blame us for being curious.”
“And you’re so very mysterious,” Abilene added.
Imogen crossed her arms. “Do not think me the heroine of one of your penny dreadfuls, Abi. I’m none so colorful as all that. I will tell you the same thing I’m sure Master Stain has yielded under your prodding. I go to Mr. Murdoch’s wagon to manufacture the necessary equipment for my act.”
“Which is what, exactly?” Emerlie plucked at Imogen’s sleeve, as if she could pull information out by brute force, if necessary.
“You’ll have to wait until the equipment is complete, I’m afraid.” Imogen smiled sweetly. “Where’s the fun if I tell all my secrets?”
“But what about Vil?” Abi tugged her beard, pulling down her thick lower lip. “What’s he like, under all that leather? No one’s ever seen him without a full suit and goggles.” She took a deep breath and exhaled a sigh, ending on a hopeful note. “Is he handsome?”
“I couldn’t say,” Imogen said staunchly. “I have never seen Vil unmasked myself.”
“But does he hiccup so much around you? He hiccups around me something awful! And—”
Emerlie stopped her with a dismissive wave.
“It’s no good, Abi. She’s a steel trap, this one.”
“Anything else?” Imogen held an arm out to the door.
Emerlie took a long, leisurely look around the room before standing and stretching, her knuckles nearly grazing the ceiling. “We didn’t mean no harm. Just makin’ friends.”
“And calculating worth, I’m sure,” Imogen said under her breath.
Emerlie flounced out the door, but Abilene stopped.
“Oh, and Master Scabrous said to tell you to stop by for costume measurements,” she said. “I really did mean to tell you.”
Emerlie dragged the poor girl out the door by her beard, and Imogen ran to her armoire, flinging it open to check that the brooch was still pinned in place to her jacket. Emerlie knew she had secrets, but the poor girl wasn’t prepared for this level of danger.
Emerlie would jiggle a doorknob and toss a room for the social coin of gossip.
But for that brooch, Beauregard would kill.
* * *
After breakfast, Vil met her at the door of Henry’s trailer, his hiccuping forever distinguishing him from the man she truly wanted to see.
“He’s working with some dangerous chemicals and machinery this morning, m-m-my lady,” Vil said, blocking the door with his body.
“I was given to understand we worked in tandem.” She stepped rebelliously onto the bottom stair, sending Vil into another fit of hiccups.
“Not today, I’m afraid.” Even doubled over, he refused to budge his gloved hands from the doorjamb.
She tried to look beyond him, but the frustrating little man leaned this way and that, foiling her.
“Fine,” she said, louder than necessary. “Let him be a coward and avoid me, then.”
With nowhere better to go, she headed for the costuming trailer of Master Scabrous, which was painted the shiny canary yellow of a wet lemon drop. She knocked on his door and was admitted to a cheerful flurry of discussions, scribbled drawings, and ticklish measurements that made her blush. Although his dark skin and light hair were rather exotic, he was much like Criminy in his good humor and gentlemanly manner. As she returned his grin and his easy banter, she realized that her feelings about Bludmen were definitely changing. She felt safer within the confines of his trailer than she had felt in her own father’s house. His snapping blue eyes laughed as much as Criminy Stain’s gray ones, and she left with great confidence regarding a costume that would complement her butterflies and their act, not to mention her own coloring and figure.
At lunch, she bypassed Emerlie and her cronies to sit with the contortionists, Demi and Cherie, who were just as sweet but not nearly so young as they looked. By the time she had finished her stew, she had grown accustomed to their dimpled smiles and red-painted lips. The teacups of blood raised across the table from bowls of bludbunny stew were simply a part of carnival life. She was fascinated to learn that Demi was being a Stranger from much farther afield, saved from the brink of death and bludded by Criminy himself when a bludstag had found her on the moors. Aside from Lady Letitia, Demi was the only other Stranger Imogen had met, and it was all she could do not to badger the poor child with a scientist’s curiosity about a world she had only imagined before.
The rest of the day passed in annoyed fidgeting. Her wagon felt confining and dark, despite the lanterns. With nothing else to do, she explored the bathing car, played with makeup for the first time, and spent the bulk of the afternoon reading another of the racy novels Criminy had left for her, while munching a small apple she’d pinched from lunch. She didn’t look a single time toward Henry’s trailer.
When Abi left to play her part in the carnival, Imogen watched her go from the doorstep. The bus-tanks rumbled over the hills from London, disgorging masses of skittish city dwellers, and the countryside seemed to hold its breath, waiting for the magic of the caravan to twinkle in the air. She longed to dance again, to see the wagons and performers she had missed, to feel Henry’s arm solid and warm under her glove. Instead, she closed the door and curled up in her bed, feeling as cold and alone as she had in London. The only difference was that now she knew what she was missing.