Damien met Lillian’s glare with his own. ‘I won’t manipulate her.’
‘Then I will call Mr Briggs,’ said Lillian. ‘And tell him that the rat he has been chasing since London is locked in my office.’
Damien turned, and realized too late that both women were between him and the door. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what any of it is about.’
‘And I won’t know,’ said Lillian. ‘So long as you come every week with what I want to hear.’
Damien glanced behind her to the door. He could push his way out of here if he needed to – he’d been in tighter spots than this before – but what was the point if Mr Briggs was waiting for him at every station, every road leading out of the city? He hated to admit it but Lillian was right, if he fled now then he would play into Mr Briggs’ hands: fleeing the safety of the sprawling city for the sparsity of its exits.
But if he stayed … if he did what Lillian expected of him …
Damien could feel that tiny seed of an idea that’d taken root when he’d kissed Ava begin to blacken.
‘And you?’ Damien lifted his chin to meet her gaze head-on. ‘How will I know you will keep your word?’
‘Because you won’t find Mr Briggs knocking at your door,’ said Lillian, giving him a smile that was all teeth. ‘That’s how you’ll know.’
Damien looked at her, and she at him, and he felt something inside of him wilt. Felt the pressure upon his chest grow as he sighed, and said: ‘Then you have a deal.’
‘Good,’ said Lillian, leaning forwards a little. ‘Now tell me again what she said before? About her mother’s dressing room?’
Chapter Forty-Four
When Ava walked to the theatre that week, one thumb tracing a line absent-mindedly against the small pouches of lavender in her pocket, the air felt different. The roads still teemed with carriages and carts, the sky above her still thick and grey, and yet somehow it felt as though the world had shrugged off a little of the weight it’d held before.
With Jem, she’d always felt as though there was a constant tick in her chest, a coiling fear that just one wrong move, one careless word, would cause everything to shatter.
But with Damien … it felt different. There was still that restlessness within her, but it didn’t hold the same, sharp edge it had before. This was something softer, something sweeter, and though she didn’t know if it waslove –that felt too bold a word for something so delicate – it didn’t feel like falling, either.
And so, when she stepped through the black door on Houghton Street, she was in a sunny mood.
Until she saw that the door to her mother’s dressing room was wide open. Until she saw the way Bertie looked at her, her cap askew, her pipe clamped between her teeth.
‘Miss Adams!’ she said, hurrying to step in front of her. ‘Have you seen Miss Lillian yet?’
Ava pushed past her, into the room – and her breath caught in her throat.
The clothes racks that had cluttered the leftmost wall were gone, the velvet settee her mother had loved was gone, and – oh God – the pictures. Even the pictures were gone – the portrait from her parents’ wedding day, the drawing her mother had done – they were all gone.
‘Let me fetch Miss Lillian,’ said Bertie, her heavy boots echoing on the floorboards as she retreated swiftly.
The only thing that remained was the wardrobe – and Ava opened it with shaking hands – for surely Lillian would have left this untouched. Her mother’s dresses. Her mother’s coat.
The door creaked mournfully on its hinge, and Ava stared at emptiness that sat there now – feeling her throat constrict, feeling her vision blur.
‘Ava. You’re early.’
She turned – Lillian’s dark gaze lifting to meet hers. Lillian was still in her morning robe – her copper hair sticking out at every angle; for she kept the apartment above her office – all the way up in the theatre’s attic.
‘Lillian,’ said Ava – and in that one word was everything: the loss they’d both borne after her mother’s death. The grief they shared. The sleepless nights, the brittle words, the pain of it all knotted with the pressure to stand in her mother’s shadow.
‘Where are they?’ Ava demanded, her voice low and dangerously tremulous. ‘My mother’s things.’
‘They were old,’ Lillian said with a shrug. She was leaning heavily on her cane, her red hair braided messily about her shoulder. ‘Moth-eaten.’
‘They werehers.’
‘Theybelongedto me. Just as everything in this theatre does. Besides, I wanted to repay your kind favour.’
