‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ she’d said, her heart pounding sickeningly. ‘If you’re not going to take this seriously then I shan’t ask you again.’
‘I’m serious, Ava,’ said Jem, though now he was giggling, his words were coming out in a lilting, high-pitched voice. ‘Marry me!’
Ava blinked, the memory dissolving in the gloomy emptiness of the room – white sheets now covering stacks of empty crates. Between this and the theatre, perhaps her list was going to be harder to complete than she’d thought.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Time moved in odd, senseless ways now that Ava was back at rehearsals. Miss Fairchild had barely said two words to her since her disastrous reintroduction – and though Ava had made almost three pages of notes after watching her upon that stage, Miss Fairchild seemed quite adamant that she didn’t need Ava’s help. Ava supposed that was why she’d found those same pages, later. Scattered over Williamson Square, the rain soaking the ink into the cobblestones.
At least going back to the apothecary, to Jem, had felt like lancing a wound. And though she had still not slept soundly, she had not dreamed of him for the first time in a long time.
‘I wasn’t sure if you were serious when I got your note,’ Damien said, when she met him that Tuesday outside the shop. He was squinting up at the flaking sign, one hand raised to shield his eyes. ‘But this is an actual apothecary.’
‘We won’t be in the shop,’ Ava said, the wind chimes tinkling as she held the door open for the both of them. ‘There is a storage room at the back.’
‘And they’ll just … let you use it?’
‘I know the owner,’ she said, beckoning him to follow. ‘Come on.’
Inside, there was a man with strawberry-blond hair standing halfway up a tall ladder. He’d tucked a bag of dried lavender beneath one arm, and with the other – awkwardly hooked around the ladder’s edge – he packed a small wooden drawer with the stems, filling the room with a sweet, dry scent.
‘You’re early, Ava,’ the man said, closing the drawer and stepping down. ‘I haven’t had a chance to move all the boxes yet.’
‘I can do it,’ said Ava, shucking her coat off quickly – her cheeks suddenly flushed. She disappeared through a door tucked into the left wall, and Damien turned his gaze back to the shelves, to the neat, spindly writing upon each of the boxes. It looked as though it hadn’t been updated since the turn of the previous century, for all the medicine he could see was still in large containers, ready to be portioned at whim. ‘So … you must be Mr Foster,’ said Damien.
The man’s eyes widened. ‘Ava mentioned me?’
Damien smiled, and pointed to the flaking paint above the man’s head. ‘I took a guess,’ he admitted.
‘Ah.’ The man huffed a half-laugh through his teeth. ‘Mr Foster was my father. I prefer “Master Jeremy”, or “Master Jem”.’
‘Jem?’ asked Damien, for the name scratched at something in his mind. His nose was a little crooked, and his grin too, but there was a warmth there that Damien knew wasn’t being reflected in the smile he himself returned.
And then he had it: a door opening. Ava’s face appearing in the gloom, her pale blonde hair mussed as she’d pushed past him, onto the street.
Jem, wait.
That was what she had said. What she had called him.
This was the man she’d expected to see upon her doorstep.
‘How do you and Miss Adams know one another?’ Damien asked, pretending to take interest in a small vial of cough syrup.
‘Oh.’ Jem’s face fell a little. ‘Her father and mine were very close. Went to school together.’
‘I see,’ said Damien. ‘I thought perhaps you might’ve met in Edinburgh.’
Which was a lie, of course. He didn’t think a shop owner would have flitted to Edinburgh, but you couldn’t dig for information without breaking dirt.
Jem shook his head. ‘No, Ava was there alone.’
There was something in his voice that made Damien pause. ‘Does she have family in Scotland?’
‘Not that I’m aware of,’ said Jem. ‘But then perhaps she might, on her father’s side. They don’t have much contact with that side of the family. Something about him marrying an actress – it never sounded like they approved very much. Although come to think of it – I think they were in Crosby, that side of the family.’
‘Curious for Ava to up and leave – especially to a place where she knows no one.’ Damien lifted his gaze just enough to meet the man’s blue eyes.
‘I … uh …’ Jem’s throat bobbed a little. ‘Yes, I suppose it’s unusual.’
