‘And what about best case?’
Damien shrugged. As far as he was concerned, therewasno best case. Not for the things he’d done. Whether or not he was the exact breed of monster his father believed him to be, a man couldn’t steal, lie and gamble for nigh on a decade andnotbe forced to pay the piper when the time came. The only option he had now was to run, to America – New York, if he could, or Boston. To start a new life.
Without Ava.
The thought brought his cup back to his lips, made him take another stinging sip.
‘Best case is I disappear,’ Damien said quietly. ‘I disappear. And Miss Adams forgets me. Forgets my name. Forgets—’ He hesitated, his eyebrows touching. ‘Forgets all of it.’
Mr Jane sat back a little in his chair. ‘Aha,’ he said.
‘What do you mean “Aha”?’ Damien took in his face, the smoothness of his brow, the smug twitch to his smile. ‘There is no “Aha.”’
‘You love her,’ said Mr Jane simply.
‘What?’ Damien’s eyebrows furrowed. ‘How did you come to that conclusion from “I’m going to prison”?’
‘Because she was featured in both scenarios,’ said Mr Jane. ‘Both the best and the worst.’
‘And in both of them, she has to forget I ever existed.’
‘According to you,’ said Mr Jane from over the top of his cup.
‘No,’ said Damien. ‘According to reason. According to the fact that I have lived a life that isn’t compatible with the future in store for her.’
‘And what future is that?’
‘A normal one!’ said Damien. ‘A peaceful one.’
‘Aha,’ said Mr Jane again, one enormous finger tapping rhythmically against the porcelain cup. ‘Whereas you will, what? Join a marching band?’
‘I’ll be chased for the rest of my life,’ said Damien. ‘I won’t be able to come back to England – to where her family lives. And I wouldn’t do that to her. Icouldn’tdo that to her.’
‘You don’t have to,’ said Mr Jane. ‘Not if you face up to whatever is chasing you.’
‘And go to prison?’
‘You said your father was the one chasing you,’ said Mr Jane. ‘What makes you think he wants you in prison?’
‘Because that’s what that boarding school was,’ said Damien, taking another stinging sip. ‘A place where I could be forgotten. He believes I’m responsible for … for something awful. He believes it was my fault, and now I think he wants to put me somewhere I can disappear entirely, a place I can’t run from him again.’
Mr Jane frowned a little and drained the rest of his cup. ‘If that were true, surely you wouldn’t have got this far,’ he said. ‘Surely he’d have gotten the police involved. What if you’re running from a ghost?’
Damien gritted his teeth. ‘He wouldn’t want the shame it’d bring to the family name. Believe me, I know what I’m doing, Mr Jane. The question now is whether you are going to help me?’
Mr Jane’s frown deepened a little, but he nodded. ‘What do you need from me?’
‘I need you to take this,’ said Damien, reaching for his pocketbook – all the money he had. ‘And book me onto a ship. I don’t care where in America it’ll take me, so long as I cross the Atlantic.’
Mr Jane looked down at the money and then back up at Damien. ‘There is a flaw in your plan,’ he said.
‘What?’ Damien looked down at the money too, as though that held the answer. ‘What flaw?’
‘You cannot make a fresh start in the shadow of your old life. You think that running across the Atlantic will help? It won’t. I think you’ll find that shadow stretches, and it’ll reach you wherever you go.’
Damien shook his head. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said.
‘Actually, I understand exactly,’ said Mr Jane, reaching to slosh another thumb’s width of whisky into both of their glasses. ‘Come on. It’s time I introduced the pair of you.’
