With me, sang the voice in her mind.
‘Nowhere,’ he finished.
‘That’s not true,’ she said, knowing even as she said it that it was hopeless, for he was already stepping away – the air around her suddenly too cold, too empty. ‘It’s a choice, Damien. And you’re choosing to leave. To run. All because you believe you did something awful—’
‘Ididdo something awful.’ Damien turned away from her. ‘I must have. Why else would he be so relentless? Why else would he have followed me all the way here?’
She hesitated. ‘Your father is …here?’
Damien looked down at his feet. ‘His man is here,’ he said. ‘I saw him. That’s why I missed our session.’
She let the words sink in. Let them settle. ‘Have you ever considered that he is trying to find you because he regretted his actions, Damien? Regretted how he treated you?’
‘That is not the kind of man my father is,’ he said roughly. ‘He does not forgive. And hecertainlydoes not forget.’
‘But so much time has passed since you last saw one another. He might have changed—’
‘People don’t change, Ava,’ said Damien – his gaze skittering away. ‘Bad things beget bad things. That is the way of the world.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘But you are wrong in one, crucial thing.Youare not a bad thing, Damien Carter. No matter what your father has told you.’
‘Yes. I am.’ He looked at her then, his green eyes soft, and sad. ‘I hurtyou, Ava. I’m hurting you still.’
‘Thenstay.’
For a moment, they stood frozen. His eyes searched hers, and she knew he saw everything, then. Her fear, her grief, her love. She knew because she saw it in him, too.
‘Ava …’
She watched the way his forehead creased, the way his lips trembled. ‘I want us to have one last session,’ she said. ‘Before you go. I want you to know thetruth, Damien.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘Please, Damien.’
He swallowed, his throat tight – and then, slowly, he nodded.
Chapter Fifty-Two
She wished Damien would follow her. That he would run after her, and tell her that she was right. That hecouldstay, that hewouldstay, and as she turned the corner of Park Lane, she wondered whether she had conjured him to her doorstep – for there was someone there. Her pace quickened, for there was something familiar about his posture, the way his shoulders hunched, though when she drew closer, she saw it wasn’t Damien at all.
‘You were here before,’ Ava said quietly. ‘You asked whether this was a boarding house.’
The man nodded, holding his hand out between them. ‘Indeed. Though that is not why I have returned. My name is Mr Briggs.’
‘Mr … Briggs.’ Ava wiped the wetness from her cheeks, frowning, for she remembered that name. Remembered when Damien had sat before her and told her the story of his father’s letters.
‘I believe we have a mutual acquaintance. One in dire need of help.’
His hand still hovered between them, but she didn’t reach for it. Instead, her eyes raked over his fluffy brown hair, barely contained beneath his hat, his carefully oiledmoustache, the elegant way his collar snapped around his neck. ‘You’re after Damien,’ she said – her voice low, and ragged.
‘Mr Carter,’ corrected Mr Briggs, hand lowering. ‘Yes. I’ve seen him return to this address on a number of occasions, but I couldn’t quite work out why.’ His tone hooked around the words as though it were a question, but Ava kept her face blank, her gaze stony. ‘Tell me: what sort of work is it that you do?’
‘Mesmerism,’ she said. ‘Memory work,’ and watched as the man flipped to a new page in his notebook, and those three words translated into a whole minute of silent scratching.
‘And what does that mean for Mr Carter?’
‘That means I don’t tell strangers upon my doorstep his secrets,’ she said firmly. ‘Though rest assured that would be true foranyone, not merely Mr Carter.’
