‘Knows what?’ he asked, his tone light, though his voice snagged a little in his throat.
‘Youknowwhat.’
When his gaze lifted to hers she didn’t see the fear, the worry that’d made her own breath catch in her throat at the Roxy – instead she saw something else.
Resignation.
‘Bertie promised me she would keep it a secret,’ he said softly – wiping his good hand down his apron, streaking it with his flour-covered fingertips.
‘And you believed her?’ Ava’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Oliver, how could you be so foolish as to tell her?’
‘I didn’ttell her,’ Oliver said – his tone tightening. ‘She found out.’
‘How?’
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ he said, not looking at her but down at his hand, freeing sticky crumbs of dough from his palm with one finger. ‘What’s done is done.’
Ava felt something squeeze in her stomach. ‘Youknowwhatever Bertie hears, Lillian hears. You should’vewarnedme – should’vetoldme.’
‘You should’ve written more,’ Oliver parried.
Ava nodded, feeling each word like a stone, thudding into her stomach. ‘I know.’
But there was another sentence hanging in the flour-dusted air between them, one that neither of them reached for.
You shouldn’t have left, Ava.None of this might have happened if you hadn’t left.
‘Is there anything else?’ she asked. ‘Anything else Lillian can hold over you?’
He kept his gaze upon his hands. ‘No.’
Ava stood, crossing to her brother, placing a hand upon his good arm. ‘If I go back to the theatre, if I ready Miss Fairchild for the stage, then Lillian won’t say a word.’
Oliver’s brow creased. ‘This ismyproblem to solve, Ava—’
‘This isourproblem,’ she corrected. ‘And I shan’t let that woman do anything that could hurt you. Because that’s what family do for one another. We protect one another.’
He looked up at her, his gaze trembling. ‘Is it?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’ She pulled him into a hug, feeling how warm he was in this small, stuffy kitchen. ‘You’re my brother.’
He was rigid for a moment, and then he reached to pat her back with his good hand. ‘Just be careful, Ava,’ he said softly. ‘I’m not convinced I’m the one she’s truly after.’
Ava thought of the way Miss Lillian looked at her then, at the Roxy. And then she thought of what she had said, after.
A lot has changed since you left.
Chapter Fourteen
Ava wouldn’t wait to discover how the theatre had changed in her absence. She would go, and see for herself. And so she sneaked from the house before anyone else was awake – just as the morning light was beginning to dapple the cobblestones, the morning mist still hanging low over the river.
Her mother had always said being out this early felt like the city was sleeping – but Ava preferred to think it was dreaming. She could feel it in the hush that followed her towards the theatre, the way the shop signs hung quietly, waiting for the wind to awaken them so they could creak their messages to passersby. Streets that would be thunderous with the clatter of carriages by noon drowsed quietly as she walked – and saw that it wasn’t only the theatre that had changed.
There was a new greengrocer’s on Whitechapel Street – and the newspaper stand that used to crowd the corner of Richmond Street had been moved. But Williamson Square seemed entirely untouched by her absence.
The Royal Theatre still held court along the north side of the square – all quiet splendour and majesty compared to the Penny Farthing, and the usual parade of inns and taverns still crowded the west side. Ava’s favourite had always beenthe Shakespeare, which drew actors and actresses, writers and poets into its smoky, low-lit rooms. Even the Turkish rug shop was still here – despite having declared three months ago to be holding a ‘closure’ sale – the richly embroidered rugs in the windows a thousand shades of scarlet.
She crossed the square, grateful that the cab stand was almost empty this time of morning as she neared the black stage door on Houghton Street – for the lock was always stiff, and she didn’t want to attract any unwanted eyes.
