“Over the hill there. They were my mother’s favorite. Every year she would have the servants cut bushels of them and fill the house. She hated winter, and once the house filled with the bursting fragrance of lilac, I always knew her mood would be a little bit lighter.”
“What was she like?” she asked, shutting her eyes once more, allowing the sun to warm her face.
He sighed retrospectively. “My mother was like one of those paintings you see in a museum, beautiful but overlooked somehow because it was placed beside too many famous portraits.”
“Was she sad?” She asked only because whenever Lucian mentioned his mother his voice took on a lamenting quality that pulled at her heart.
“She wanted nothing more than to be happy, but for some reason she needed my father to be present for that.”
“Did they not have a good marriage?”
“My father saw everything in life as either a merger or acquisition. My mother was no exception.”
“You never got along with your father, did you?”
“No.”
There was no way she was touching that. “Tell me a happy memory from your childhood, Lucian.”
He eased back, his hand gliding to her hair and pulling gently in a way that made her sleepy. “When I was nine we went to the circus. Isadora made a big stink about the animals being mistreated. She has something of a bleeding heart for creatures that can’t defend themselves. I was unimpressed with the idea of watching a bunch of acrobats. Mostly because I was going through a bratty stage and I was irritated both my parents were absent.
“Louis, our old butler, had driven us. When the show began I was unprepared for the fanfare. There is something about the circus that’s simply . . . majestic. Real people climbing to heights that hurt to look at and performing feats that no ordinary man could do. I was entranced the moment it started.
“It wasn’t the lion tamer that impressed me. He had a whip and a chair. Had he gone at the beast on his own, perhaps then I would have found his performance more remarkable, but no. It was the young woman on the tightrope that fascinated me most.”
Evelyn smiled, trying to imagine a young Lucian at the circus. It didn’t compute. In her mind he was born middle-aged, a smaller version of his intimidating self, holding a swirled, pinwheel lollipop, and swimming in a too-large power suit.
“Why the tightrope?”
“Her feet were so small. She held a stick, but required nothing from anyone else. I remember glancing around. Clowns raced on tricycles, an elephant paraded over the sandy ground below, people shouted and clapped as an acrobat did cartwheels and flips. No one seemed to see her but me.
“To my left, Toni bounced on Louis’s knee, cotton candy chapping her cheeks in sticky pink. I watched the woman on the tightrope tune out everything and focus on getting from one end to the other. It must have been a hundred feet wide, the tent. I feared she’d fall. There was a net, but I wanted her to succeed, stay above the others. I wanted her to walk on the narrow line because no ordinary person could. I think I held my breath the entire time.
“When she reached the center point, she fell. I jumped to my feet only to realize it was part of the act. She caught herself with her legs and hung as someone tossed up a paper fan, a parasol, and a unicycle. She used her teeth, hands, and feet, whatever she had in order to hold the items and right herself. I was blown away. When she reached the end of the rope I felt such overwhelming pride and happiness for her accomplishment. Then she climbed down and I actually saw her up close. She was no more than twelve, a child.
“That evening, I returned home dreaming about running away with the circus and feeling more inspired than I ever had before. It was the first time I actually grasped the concept of inspiration. I went in believing the show would be for babies and I saw performances that mimicked dreams. The scent of roasted nuts, hay, and sugar, colliding with the smells of animals and people all crammed into an enormous tent. I loved it all, from the East Indian music to the glitzy costumes.”
She smiled at him, loving the way his voice took her there, to a place she had never seen. “It sounds magical.”
“That’s a word for it. Magic.”
“I’ve never been to the circus. I used to think of Patras Hotel as the big top.”
He glanced down at her, laugh lines creasing his eyes. He’d gotten some sun. “You did, did you?”
“Mm-hm. I loved watching the fancy performers put on a show for the ordinary people. I was in awe at the glamor of such life.”