ability to talk to his horses, the way he could understand almost any deva. That affinity with animals was part of what made Nick who he was.
As the other two horses galloped once more around the ring, he caught one of the trapeze bars hanging from the ceiling. In one smooth move, he lifted off the shoulders of the other two riders, then swung around the trapeze to balance above the crowd, his hands stretched out to show only his hips touched the bar. Evelina looked up, knowing how skilled he was but nervous all the same. There was no net, and he had been badly hurt the night before.
He whistled, and his mare trotted over with a toss of her head. Like something more liquid than human, he whirled around the bar, somersaulted in midair, landed in a crouch on the sawdust floor, and, with no pause, vaulted into the saddle. The horse took off, moving around and around the ring at a clip faster than the other riders.
Then Evelina realized the others had vanished, and she hadn’t even noticed. The walls of the auditorium could have fallen away unheeded. The Indomitable Niccolo, his face taut with concentration, completely commanded the stage.
Evelina had seen plenty of trick riders, but Nick’s style was his own. He rode standing, then using a handstand to rotate so he faced backward, then hung from the saddle to trail his fingers through the sawdust. The audience applauded and Imogen clutched her hand so tightly that Evelina had all but lost circulation, but he was just dispensing with the preliminaries.
A young juggler in motley came out tossing a cascade of four balls while two clowns carried out a brightly striped pole on a stand. As the clowns left, the juggler took his position before the pole. While the horse cantered around the circle, Nick brought out a fistful of knives and threw them between the balls. Each blade hit the red stripe of the pole, never once grazing a ball—or the juggler.
The audience was silent, not even the sound of a single breath escaping from the hundreds of gaping mouths. And then the sequence of the balls changed, one bouncing from the ground and fountaining into the air like a grouse flushed from cover.
A second ball made a bid to escape.
The juggler raised his empty hands, the balls pinioned in a neat vertical line above his head. Nick jumped to stand in the saddle, accepting the sudden roar of applause. Evelina and Imogen clapped as enthusiastically as the rest, Imogen giving a very unladylike whoop. One of the female members of the troupe ran out with an armful of roses, and the juggler immediately began to toss them into the air. The flowers weren’t particularly good candidates for the job, but they worked well enough for Nick to snatch one from the air as he rode by.
He finally slowed the horse to a halt beneath Evelina’s box. All eyes were on the lithe, hawk-faced young showman as he raised the rose in salute.
And then all those eyes were on her, the object of his tribute. For a moment, she quailed. Still, he was impossible to refuse. She rose, leaning over the edge of the box to accept the flower. He was breathing hard, the throat of his damp shirt open, the dark skin glistening beneath. His eyes held her, electric with the triumph of the performance.
Evelina was mesmerized. Her fingers closed over the rose petals—soft, sensual velvet. Nick said no words, his fingers grazing hers as she took the flower, and she felt the prickle of shared magic. Even if she could have heard him speak over the wild audience, nothing was necessary. Everything was clear.
She’d been blinded by memory, not seeing the present. In their years apart, he’d transformed into a magician of air and steel. She had risen to new heights, but now she understood that he had, too. This was his kingdom, and he ruled it.
She raised the rose her to face, breathing in its scent. Nick made a graceful bow of his head, finally breaking that dangerous gaze. He spun the gray mare, giving a final wave to the roaring beast of the crowd as the horse reared and snorted. And then he was gone.
Evelina fell as much as sat down. Her heart thudded as fast as the mare’s hooves.
“Good gracious!” Imogen exclaimed, fanning herself with her handkerchief. “So that is your Niccolo. My, my, my.”
Evelina gave a weak nod, and then touched Imogen’s arm. “Please wait for me here. There’s something I need to do.”
What she had just seen had broken her heart a little, or maybe it had just broken the fear around it. Now the past gripped her like a riptide. She had to see Gran.
Chapter Thirty
HILLIARD HOUSE
Lord Bancroft looked across his desk at his son. The tiger’s head mounted on the wall above somehow managed to mimic his expression, perhaps because it was frozen in its usual snarl.
“I received a note from Markham’s drapery this afternoon wanting to know whether or not Imogen wished to purchase a certain length of silk brocade, as there was another customer interested in the same bolt of cloth. I thought nothing of it at the time.” Bancroft’s fingers twitched.
“Imagine my consternation when, not a half hour later, Jasper Keating arrived in person and brought two items to my attention.” His father opened a drawer, pulling out the offending objects and setting them on the desk. One was a silver paper knife. The other was a calling card with Imogen’s name embossed on it.
“This,” his father pointed to the knife, “was pulled from the leg of the Gold King’s streetkeeper—some creature named Striker—just days ago. It came within an inch of severing the artery in his leg.”
“Unfortunate, but what is the significance?”
“Look, you dolt.” His father held it up so that Tobias could see the handle. “It bears the Bancroft coat of arms. According to the staff, it belongs in the guest room Miss Cooper is currently using. I would like to know what it was doing embedded in the flesh of a back-alley thug.”
“Oh.” Tobias shifted in his chair, deciding he had best pay attention.
“This,” Bancroft poked the calling card, “was found in a warehouse belonging to Keating. One his cousins, Mr. Harriman, runs it for him—and Mr. Harriman brought it forward to the Gold King’s attention.”
Bancroft’s mouth worked as if he wanted to spit. “Harriman was considerably upset by the fact that there was clear evidence that there had been intruders in the place. He has, consequently, hired toughs to guard his person.”
Tobias doubted his sister could inspire that kind of response. There had to be more to this Harriman’s paranoia than finding a young girl’s calling card on his warehouse floor. However, he knew better than to interrupt the pater when he was on a tear.
Bancroft slammed his palm on the desk. “What, I wonder, was my daughter doing there? The only clue I have is that Markham’s Drapery is nearby, where Imogen was shopping
His father put heavy emphasis on the last phrase. “Your function was to keep the girl distracted and out of our affairs, not to allow her to roam free and drag my daughter into God only knows what difficulties.”
Tobias opened his mouth to protest, but then closed it. He usually felt guilty about something—and probably was—but he couldn’t quite work up a feeling of responsibility for Imogen’s escapades. She was responsible for her own damned guilt, with or without Evelina helping her along.
His father gave him his special glare. “So? What are you going to do?”
Tobias wished he’d leave off about Evelina. He wanted her right enough, but not on his father’s terms. He
