you agree to my requirements,’ Mathew said in a goaded voice. ‘We’re foreclosing; you’ll accede quietly without a fuss.’
‘Fine,’ Allie said, just as goaded. ‘Anything you like, as long as this afternoon’s show goes on.’
How had that happened?
He couldn’t think of any circumstances—any circumstances—that’d turn him into a ringmaster.
He was about to be a ringmaster.
But in truth the sight of the old man crumpling onto the dirt had shocked him to the core. For a couple of appalling moments he’d thought he was dead.
He shouldn’t be here. Calling in debts at such a ground roots level wasn’t something he’d done in the past and he wasn’t likely to do again.
What had his grandfather been thinking to lend money to these people? Bond’s Bank was an illustrious private bank, arranging finance for huge corporations here and abroad. If things got messy, yes, Matt stepped in, but he was accustomed to dealing with corporate high-flyers. Almost always the financial mess had been caused by administrative mismanagement. Occasionally fraud took a hand, but the men and women he dealt with almost always had their private assets protected.
He was therefore not accustomed to old men collapsing into the mud as their world shattered.
Nevertheless, his news had definitely caused the old man to collapse. He watched the ambulance depart with a still protesting Henry and his white-faced wife, and he turned to find he was facing a ball of pink and silver fury.
Seemingly Allie’s shock was coalescing into anger.
‘He’ll be okay,’ Allie said through gritted teeth, and he thought her words were as much to reassure herself as they were to reassure him. ‘He’s had angina before, but he’s had a rotten cold and it’ll be the two combined. But you … I don’t care what bank you come from or what the rights and wrongs are of this absurd story you’re telling me, but you tell him two minutes before a performance that you’re about to foreclose? Of all the stupid, cruel timing … This has to be a farce. I know Grandpa’s finances inside out. We’re fine. But meanwhile I have two hundred kids and mums and dads sitting in the big top. I’d like to kick you, but instead I need to get you into costume. Let’s go.’
‘This is indeed a farce.’
‘One you’re involved in up to your neck,’ she snapped. ‘Grandpa’s obsessive about his role—he’s written it all down ever since he introduced the camels instead of the ponies last year. You’ll have a script and gold-embossed clipboard. We have two minutes to get you dressed and made up and into the ring. We have two hundred kids and parents waiting. Let’s get them satisfied and I’ll do my kicking later.’
‘It’ll be me who does the kicking,’ he said grimly. ‘I’m not used to being pushed around, especially by those who owe my bank money.’
‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘All out war. But war starts after the show. For now we have a circus to run.’
Which explained why, five minutes later, Mathew Bond, corporate banker, was standing in the middle of the big tent of Sparkles Circus, wearing tails, top hat and gold brocade waistcoat, and intoning in his best—worst?—ringmaster voice …
‘ Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the one, the only, the stupendous, marvellous, exciting, magical once-in-a-lifetime experience that is Sparkles Circus. One hundred and forty years of history, ladies and gentlemen, unfolding before your very eyes. Sit back, but don’t relax for a moment. Prepare to be mesmerised. ’
To his astonishment, once he got over shock and anger, he even found he was enjoying himself.
He did have some grounding. After his parents’ death, Matt had spent every summer holiday in Fort Neptune with his beloved Great-Aunt Margot. Margot was the great-aunt of every child’s dreams. Her sweetheart had died in the war and she’d refused to think of replacing him, but it didn’t stop her enjoying life. She owned a cute cottage on the waterfront and a tiny dinghy she kept moored in the harbour, and she always had a dog at her heels. She’d been a schoolteacher, but in summer school had been out for both of them. Child and great-aunt and dog had fished, explored the bay, swum and soaked up the beach.
He’d loved it. In this tiny seaside town where no one knew him, he was free of the high standards expected of the heir to the Bond Banking dynasty. He could be a kid—and at the end of every summer holiday Margot had taken him to Sparkles Circus as a goodbye treat.
Margot always managed to get front row seats. He remembered eating popcorn and hot dogs, getting his clothes messy and no one cared, watching in awe as spangly ladies flew overhead, as men ate fire, as tightrope walkers performed the impossible, as clowns tumbled and as elephants made their stately way around the ring.
There were no elephants now—or lions or any other wild animals, for that matter. That was at the heart of the circus’s problems, he thought—but now wasn’t the time to think about finance.
Now was the time to concentrate on the clipboard Allie had handed him.
‘Here it is, word for word, and if you could ham it up for us, we’d be grateful.’
The look she’d cast him was anything but grateful, but two hundred mums and dads and kids were looking at him as if he was the ringmaster—and a man had to do what a man had to do.
He was standing to the side of the ring now, still on show as the ringmaster was expected to be, as he watched Bernardo the Breathtaking walk on stilts along a rather high tightrope.
It had seemed higher when he was a kid, he thought, and there hadn’t been a safety net underneath—or maybe there had, he just hadn’t noticed.
Bernardo was good. Very good. He was juggling as he was balancing. Once he faltered and dropped one of his juggling sticks. A ringmaster would fetch it, Matt thought, so he strode out and retrieved it, then stood underneath Bernardo, waited for his imperceptible nod, then tossed it up to him. When Bernardo caught it and went on seamlessly juggling he felt inordinately pleased with himself.
He glanced into the wings and saw a lady in pink sequins relax imperceptibly. She gave him a faint smile and a thumbs-up, but he could tell the smile was forced.
She was doing what was needed to get through this show, he thought, but that faint smile signalled more confrontation to come.
Did she really not know her grandparents’ financial position? Was she living in a dream world?
Bernardo the Breathtaking was finished, tossing his juggling sticks down to one of the clowns who Matt realised were the fill-in acts, the links between one act and another. Fluffy and Fizz. They were good, he thought, but not great. A bit long in the tooth? They fell and tumbled and did mock acrobatics, but at a guess they were in their sixties or even older and it showed.
Even Bernardo the Breathtaking was looking a little bit faded.
But then …
‘Ladies and gentlemen …’ He couldn’t believe he was doing this, intoning the words with all the theatrical flourish the child Mathew had obviously noted and memorised. ‘Here she is, all the way from deepest, darkest Venezuela, the woman who now will amaze us with her uncanny, incredible, awesome
