“Do you see that, William?” Grant called out to the boy. “Freddy knows how to give a show. It’s all about commitment to the act. It’s not pretend when you’re doing it. It’s real.”
William’s face hardened as he nodded and left the arena to start the performance again.
“He’s a determined lad.” Grant wrapped an arm around his wife. “He’ll feel more comfortable when he can return to the top of a horse.”
“He’s stiff, though, Papa,” Izzy said. She looked up at him where she and Bridget played with a set of toy soldiers on the stage. “You always say to be loose.”
“Quite right, poppet.” Grant knelt and ruffled her hair, then fell to his backside beside her to watch William’s next attempt. He growled. The boy was stiff.
He strode into the amphitheatre like a puppet, not a man, and he wouldn’t even look at the seats when they were empty. How would he manage when they were full?
Grant jumped off the stage. “Stop! All wrong. All wrong.” He strode over to William and put his hands on both the boy’s shoulders. “What’s wrong, lad?”
“I hate acting. I just want to do the tricks.”
“You hate stories, then?”
William’s eyes widened. “What? No.”
Grant slapped him on the back and returned to the stage. “It’s not just the tricks that mesmerize the crowd, man. It’s the story.”
William sat on the edge of the stage, next to Bridget and Izzy. He rolled his eyes.
“I can go out onto the streets of London and find a boy who can ride a horse, William Stigal. A boy with a storytelling mind who understands, even if he has less talent than you do, he’ll bring the crowds in more than you can if you don’t learn.”
“Anyone can tell a story,” William groused.
“With their bodies only? With a look and quirk of the brow? With the right apparatus and a certain way of moving the legs or arms? No.”
Izzy nodded enough to bounce her curls.
William still looked skeptical.
Freddy chuckled. She sat on the other end of the stage, knitting … something.
Grant sighed. “Watch me. And watch closely.
Izzy bounced upright, clapping her hands. “He’s the best, you know.”
Bridget sat up taller, too, and Freddy’s knitting stilled in her lap.
His family watched him, were proud of him, loved him, and the feeling over the last year had damn near turned him into a new man, one who loved teaching and loved running a business, almost as much as he had loved the gas lamps and applause. Who loved returning to his family every evening, safe and healthy, in time to tell his little girls bedtime stories. He loved that more than any performance he’d ever given in his life. A sacrifice to train less and perform less?
No. He’d gained more than he could ever have imagined.
Now, if he could only convince the boy to open his heart as well, to himself, to all of London who needed to believe the tale he’d weave night after night.
He sighed again, but this time, he put a dramatic flare into it, let his whole body slump and his face fall, and when he righted again, it was only to throw the back of his hand across his eyes and his head all the way back on his neck. He turned the sigh into a groan.
The girls laughed, and Freddy’s throaty chuckle threatened his composure. The boy needed to see the defeated-golden-prince pose for the end of the beast act, not the incredibly-hard-for-his-wife pose for every moment of Grant’s life.
He threw a fist to the sky and roared, “Cruel world! To deny me love.” He beat his chest with the fist, then slumped, hit his knees with a thump, and let his limp body and head hang so low, he was almost bent over double into the dirt.
And for a moment, he felt the old denial, the old pain, the absolute surety he’d felt that he’d never know love in his life, never be free to give it to another without causing so much pain. And it almost dragged him down into that dust, trampled him like a horse’s hoof.
Clapping hands snapped the mesmeric hold of memory.
“Bravo!” Izzy cried. “See, Mr. Stigal, that’s how it’s done.”
