Chapter Seventy
London, England
‘So how do I address your father?’ Ava asked. The train was somewhere near Bletchley now, smoke trailing past the window as they rattled towards London.
‘As “Lord Carter”,’ said Damien, unfolding the paper across the narrow train table, forcing Ava to lift her sandwich clear of it.
‘Lord Carter,’ she murmured – though the words sounded oddly stilted from her lips. ‘And you are?’
‘Damien,’ said Damien, a low laugh rumbling from his chest. ‘Has something happened to your memory, Ava?’
She looked as though she were about to throw the scrap of wax paper from her sandwich at him. ‘Your title, I mean.’
‘Mister,’ said Damien. ‘Nothing more.’
She took another bite of her sandwich. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were titled.’
‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me how good your brother was at cooking,’ he replied, unwrapping his scotch egg.
Oliver had packed enough food for six people: ham and mustard sandwiches, scotch eggs with black pudding, sausage rolls, pork pies, a tin of home-made ginger biscuits, and enough lemonade to power the train if for whatever reason it ran out of coal.
‘I might’ve chosen that pie at the tombola, after all. ’
‘I can’t help but worry about Pa though,’ said Ava. ‘At least when I went to Edinburgh, I knew Oliver would be there. Now he’ll be all alone there.’
‘He shan’t be alone,’ said Damien, one eyebrow lifting slightly as he watched her. ‘Mrs Moss won’t let him out of her sight. She all but promised you that.’
She looked up at him quickly – one of her darting glances – and then back at her sandwich.
‘You know,’ Damien said cautiously, leaning forwards slightly. ‘I never did ask what you did in Edinburgh.’
‘You asked Jem though,’ Ava said, eyes bright when they met his. ‘Oh yes, he told me.’
‘Is it some great secret?’ Damien asked. ‘What you were up to?’
‘I went to find Ma’s mentor,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘The woman who’d trained her. I thought if anyone could help me become her, it would be Madame Morell.’
‘And? Did she?’
‘She told me there was nothing more she could do for me,’ Ava said, putting her sandwich down upon the newspaper.
‘Said I had everything I needed already – which of course I took to mean I wasn’t good enough, that I wasn’t worth her trying with me.
Now, of course, I realize that she wasn’t being cruel at all. And that really, she was right.’
‘What’s she like?’ Damien asked. ‘This “Madame Morell”?’
‘She’s peculiar. Like you.’
Damien swallowed hurriedly. ‘Like me?’
‘Yes.’ Ava’s pale eyes darted back to his, a smile creeping upon her lips now. ‘With all your rules.’
‘Rules you broke,’ Damien said.
Ava leaned forwards then, voice lowering conspiratorially. ‘I’m curious. What were your rules? You only told me the one.’
Damien wiped his hands upon the napkin, pushing his silver spectacles back up his nose. ‘I told you the most important one,’ he said. ‘There are seventeen in total.’
Ava’s eyes widened. ‘Seventeen?’
‘Sub-rules,’ explained Damien, as he poured a glass of lemonade for them both, careful not to slosh the clouded liquid on the table. ‘And ultimately less important.’
‘Tell me them.’
‘I’ll tell you one.’
‘Three,’ countered Ava quickly.
He considered this for a long moment, washing the taste of mustard from his mouth and replacing it with something equally sharp: lemon. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Three. At random. Pick a number between one and seventeen.’
Ava smiled. ‘Seventeen.’
Damien cleared his throat. ‘“Fishing is harder than you think”.’
Ava’s mouth opened a little, and then she burst into laughter, making the table between them shake. ‘That’s not a rule,’ she said. ‘That’s a … that’s an observation.’
‘Which, in my book, sometimes gets promoted to a sub-rule,’ said Damien. ‘Next?’
‘Eleven,’ said Ava.
‘Eleven’s a good one,’ said Damien, beckoning her forwards so that he could whisper into her ear. ‘“Don’t steal from the same place twice”.’
Ava nodded. ‘That seems rather commonsensical,’ she said. ‘What about two?’
‘You know that already,’ said Damien nonchalantly. ‘“No ripples”.’
‘I thought that was rule number one,’ said Ava.
‘No.’ He reached for her hand, removing his glove so he could feel the soft suede of her gloves against his palm. ‘Rule number one was “Never give away your real name”. But it turns out I broke that one quite soon after I met you.’
A smile flashed across her face like a sunbeam. ‘That you did, Damien Carter. That you did.’
He looked over his shoulder quickly. The seats were relatively high, and the carriage relatively quiet, though even if it wasn’t – even if it was packed perhaps he would do it, anyway.
Because there was something about the way she sat there, something about the way he could tell her these things without the thorns snaking in his belly, that made him want to – no, need to – lean over that very moment and kiss her.
‘Next stop London Euston,’ came a nasal voice from the other end of the carriage. ‘Next stop – London Euston.’
Damien pulled back as though to sit down, but Ava reached up, one hand cupping his face. ‘I’m with you,’ she said. ‘Every step of the way.’
‘I feel as though there is a hive of hornets in my stomach,’ he admitted, voice low between them. ‘Is it too late to turn back around?’
‘We’re just going for tea with your father.’
‘Who I haven’t seen in a decade,’ Damien corrected.
‘Who has been searching for you for a decade,’ she said firmly. ‘He wants to see you come home, Damien.’
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, closing his eyes, trying desperately to quell the roiling sensation in his stomach. ‘But I’m already home,’ he said softly, breathing in the scent of her as the train began to slow, and he saw the platform slide into view.