Damien slammed his fist against the door so hard he heard the windows rattle in their scarlet panes, heard the wood leap against the doorjamb. The teashop was never closed, but today there was a handwritten sign stuck to the window, the ‘c’ curling in the wrong direction – and it flapped wildly as Damien rattled the door over and again.
‘Mr Jane? Mr Jane!’
Finally, a voice thundered back: ‘We’reclosed. Can’t you bloody read?’
‘Please, it’s me.’
Mr Jane snapped the lace curtain on the door back long enough to meet Damien’s eye, and frowned. Then Damien heard thesnicker-clickof the door being unlocked, the bolt sliding back.
‘One day a year,’ said Mr Jane. ‘One day. And this is the one you choose to get in trouble.’
‘Who says I’m in trouble?’ Damien said, his chest still heaving as he tried to regain his breath. ‘Perhaps I just—’ He was about to saymissed your company, but as he looked around the little teashop, the words died on his tongue. Everything was dark, the curtains drawn. The fire was stilllit in the kitchen, a distant orange glow, but in the teashop the only light came from the centre table, which was stuffed with candles. Hundreds of them, the small, flickering ones that Damien would see at church – and in the centre of them, a picture.
‘Oh,’ said Damien, his voice hitching slightly. ‘I didn’t mean to—’
‘I know you didn’t,’ said Mr Jane, his gaze following Damien’s. ‘Now get inside, and tell me what happened.’
‘You know those mistakes I told you of?’ said Damien as he stepped inside, moving into the shadow and turning back towards the door. It didn’tlooklike anyone had followed him – but then he hadn’t thought anyone had followed him to Liverpool, either. Another way in which he’d gone wrong:always assume the worst.
Mr Jane bolted the door, pulling the curtain closed once more. ‘They’ve been called in for payment, have they?’
‘I think so,’ said Damien.
‘Did they follow you?’
Damien shook his head. ‘Not here, I don’t think. But someone was waiting for me outside Miss Adams’ house.’
‘Then I’ll fix you a drink, and you can tell me what sort of trouble you’re in. And then we’ll make a plan.’
Damien’s gaze slid back to the table, to the flickering light there. ‘I’ve got a plan,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a plan since I got here, I just got—’Distracted. Ensnared by a fantasy – something I cannot have. ‘I’m leaving Liverpool. Just as I’d planned to, when I arrived.’
Mr Jane frowned, and walked behind the counter. He pulled out two teacups, and then, from beneath the table with all the candles, he revealed a half-full bottle of whisky. After he’d poured them each a cup, he sat back, one finger hooked around the delicate porcelain handle.
‘So you’re running?’ he said, eyebrows slanting.
‘Not running,’ Damien corrected. ‘It’s going to be a fresh start. Truly a fresh one. It’s just … happening a bit sooner than I thought.’
‘And what does the lovely Miss Adams think about that?’ asked Mr Jane, his dark gaze not leaving Damien’s face. ‘She got any opinions on the matter?’
Damien looked away, focusing instead on the table with the candles, on the picture that nestled in the centre of them all. The glare was too bright upon the glass for him to see much detail, but it looked like a picture of a woman.
‘She doesn’t know I’m leaving.’
Mr Jane’s eyebrow twitched. ‘So, what? You’ll just disappear? Not tell her?’
He felt the words twist in his stomach. ‘No, of course not – I’ll tell her. I’d have to. I couldn’t—’leave without seeing her.
Mr Jane leaned forwards slightly. ‘You remember when I first met you? And I asked you a question?’
‘You askeda lotof questions,’ Damien said.
‘I asked you what’d happen,’ he said. ‘If you turned and faced whatever was chasing you.’
Damien reached for his own drink. The whisky smelled of smoke, and oak, and honey, and it warmed him the full way from his throat to his stomach. The truth was he didn’t knowwhatwould happen if he stopped running, but he knew his father hadn’t hunted him halfway across the country for a cosy family reunion. This was the man who’d left him to rot at a boarding school. This was a man who believed only in punishment – and considering what he already thought Damien guilty of, and all that Damien had done since – it wasn’t too great a leap to assume he’d be just as happy to let him rot again.
Somewhere he could be forgotten.
‘Worst case? My father has enough to put me behind bars, and by the time I’m out Miss Adams has a happy life with someone else.’
