‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said quietly.
‘Rest assured,’ Lillian pressed on, her tone sickly sweet. ‘Come back to work for me and all shall be forgotten. It will be like I never knew.’
‘I don’t believe you know anything,’ said Ava. ‘I think this is another of your tricks. Another of your manipulations.’
Lillian shunted a half-laugh through her teeth. ‘Oh really?’
‘Really.’
‘Then test me, Ava – and find out. People call it so many different things, but I believe the most important terms are “illegal”. “Punishable”.’
She sat back in her chair, dark eyes fastened on Ava, and Ava felt her face grow warm. Perhaps shedidknow.
‘It’s simple, Ava,’ Lillian said, her tone languid. ‘Help Miss Fairchild shine, and I shall keep your brother’s secret safe.’
‘So you are blackmailing me.’
‘I prefer to think of it as rekindling a partnership that you prematurely ended,’ Lillian said, her voice low. ‘You left me in quite the … now what’s the phrase you English like? “The pickle”?’
Ava didn’t answer, her gaze fixed firmly upon the table. ‘And say I do this,’ she said. ‘Then you will keep Oliver’s secret safe?’
‘I cross my heart,’ Lillian said, raking a red fingernail across her ribcage. ‘Your brother’s secret will die on my lips.’
‘And once I’ve got Miss Fairchild to where you wish her to be, I will be free to leave.’
Now Lillian paused, her head tilting slightly. ‘I suppose that is fair.’
‘I want to hear you say it,’ countered Ava, her gaze unwavering. ‘That once I have done this – I will be free, and so will Oliver.’
‘Very well,’ said Lillian, huffing a breath through her teeth. ‘Train Miss Fairchild – make her believable – and your brother will be safe. That is all I am asking of you.’
‘Good,’ said Ava. When she looked up, she saw Lillian’s hungry gaze upon her for half a breath, before her expression slackened. ‘I’ll let you know once I’ve prepared the others for your return. Though be warned, Ava – a lot has changed since you left.’
Ava stood, her heart thudding in her throat, the heavy feeling that’d long sat in her stomach twisting into something else.
Something sharp.
Chapter Thirteen
When Ava got home, she stood in the hallway for a moment, waiting for the darkness before her to take shape. She’d told the man who’d come to her door that remembering was peaceful. Painless. But standing here – watching the slow edges of the side table, the hooks upon the hat stand come into focus – she wondered if she was wrong in that, too. For who had the past given peace to? Not her father. Not her brother, either – who she had left to try and mop up the mess she’d made. And certainly not herself.
She scrunched her hands into fists, squeezing and squeezing until her muscles shook with the effort, until she could try and focus her attention there – on the press of her own fingernails against her palms, the sting of it.
‘Ava? That you?’ Oliver called out. The kitchen door swung open then, and a thread of light spilled into the hallway. ‘I made pie.’
‘Coming,’ she said, shucking off her coat.
Oliver’s apron was dusted in flour when she stepped into the kitchen, and a sticky blackberry pie sat cooling atop the high ledge by the window.
‘I saw Lillian today,’ Ava said, slumping into one of the chairs.
‘Oh?’
He turned back to the counter, sweeping the last remnants of flour up with a damp cloth.
‘She knows, Oliver.’
She watched him straighten. Watched him turn to her – placing the cloth down slowly, each movement measured.
