‘Another,’ he said gruffly. When he met the bartender’s unamused expression, he reluctantly added: ‘Please.’
‘You were in here last night,’ said the bartender, taking a new glass from the shelf above him. ‘I heard you cheated Old Man Harris out of almost a pound.’
Damien raised an eyebrow. ‘We played a fair game,’ he said firmly. ‘And that’s that.’
‘You a tourist?’ asked the bartender, tilting a new glass beneath the tap, filling it with the dark, clouding liquid. ‘Don’t sound like you’re from around here.’
Damien shook his head. ‘Just passing through,’ he said casually. ‘I’m bound for New York.’
‘New York?’ said the man, setting the glass to one side so that the clouds of brown foam could settle and separate. ‘I’d get there before one of the Harris sons finds you, then. They don’t like no one cheating their father.’
‘We played a fair game,’ Damien repeated firmly.
‘S’not me you’ll need to convince,’ the bartender said. ‘Why New York then? You got family there?’
‘No,’ said Damien, placing two pennies upon the bar, and sliding them over.Which was exactly the point. It would be a fresh start. A new beginning.
The bartender looked up, reaching to tweak at the edge of his blond moustache. ‘S’meant to be nice, New York. Bit dangerous, though, if the papers are to be believed.’
‘The same as everywhere, then,’ said Damien, his gaze flicking back to the woman’s face, the water droplets sinking through the ink.
Dangerous.
Yes, that was what agreeing to this woman’s help would be.
Dangerous.
Chapter Six
There were nine women waiting outside the Adams’ house on Park Lane. Nine women, all standing about a foot apart from one another, all trying very hard to look as though they were waiting for any reasonotherthan to interview with a mesmerist.
‘Do you think we need a codeword?’ Oliver asked, coming to stand beside Ava at the sitting room window, his chin resting upon her shoulder. ‘You know, if it’s going poorly and you want a way of saying “Get this person out of my house” without offending their sensibilities? What about “crumpets”?’
‘I thought you said you’d made eggs?’
Ava let the cardboard snap back into place, turning to find her father standing in the doorway. He was thinner than when she’d left Liverpool, the robe that had once strained against his stomach now folded almost the full way to his hips. Wrinkles bunched the skin beneath his neck, and – Ava realized with a kind of quiet dismay – he was beginning to look old. His eyes were the same, though. A clouded blue, and now they settled upon her, his expression twitching. ‘You look pale,’ he said by way of greeting. ‘You not see sunlight in Edinburgh?’
‘And you look like you’ve not been eating,’ she countered, moving to give her father a hug. Or half a hug, at least – for he merely stood there, hands loose at his sides.
‘He eats,’ said Oliver indignantly. ‘Your eggs are in the kitchen. Eat them in your room, and by the time you’re done I’m sure they’ll all be gone.’
‘Who will be gone?’ her father asked, padding towards them to peer beneath the corner of cardboard himself before huffing a breath through his teeth. ‘ThatdamnedMrs Moss. Was this her idea?’
‘Actually, you have Oliver to blame for this.’
‘Tothank, for this,’ her brother corrected. ‘They’re for Ava to interview.’
Her father’s brows furrowed as he turned back to them. ‘As much as I’d like to see Oliver out of the kitchen, we don’t have the coin for a cook.’
‘I shall try not to take that personally,’ muttered Oliver. ‘Besides, they’re here for Ava’s memory work.’
Her father’s expression changed, encompassing the full spectrum from bewilderment to disbelief before settling, quite firmly, upon distaste. ‘Ah,’ he said, straightening. ‘That nonsense.’
‘Pa.’ Ava had to work very hard not to let the sizzle of anger that streaked through her ribcage show on her face. ‘You never thought it nonsense when Ma was doing it.’
‘That was before,’ huffed her father. ‘Now I see that memories are nothing but a pox, and anyone who pays money for them is a fool.’
Ava opened her mouth to say something sharp, and it took everything within her to push it down and say instead: ‘You know that’s not true, Pa.’
