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The townhouse was a tiny, nondescript brick building teetering on the edge of disrepair. As Ava was dragged towards it, her hands pinned behind her back and a foul rag stuffed in her mouth to muffle her equally foul curses, her only hope was that the entire miserable heap of bricks would come crashing down on Collinsworth and all of his bloody henchmen. It would mean her death as well, but it was a sacrifice she was willing to make.
After all, she was already a dead woman.
“Never though’ we’d find ye, did ye?” Her captor - a hideously ugly man with bulging brown eyes and foul smelling breath - gave her wrists a painful squeeze. “No one outruns the likes of me.”
Had Ava been capable of speech she would have no doubt pointed out that she very well had outrun him. At least in the beginning.
When she left 127 Dower Street at the break of dawn yesterday morning, she’d had no notion of where she would go or what she would do. The only thing she did know was that she had to get away, and quickly. The longer she lingered in Heath’s arms the greater the temptation grew to remain, something she could not allow herself to do, no matter how desperately she wanted to.
It is better this way, she’d told herself consolingly as she slipped out of the house and into the predawn shadows. Better for her. Better for Heath. He would be hurt, but the wound would be small. It would heal quickly. And wasn’t that kinder?
After aimlessly wandering the streets for what felt like hours, Ava had eventually found herself back amidst the familiar. St. Giles welcomed her with open arms, and as she stepped deeper and deeper into the twisted, tortured labyrinth of the sinful and the starving she knew she’d made the right decision. This was where she belonged. It had been nice to pretend otherwise, but the truth of it was she would rather live a life of misery than one of uncertainty.
Heath would have kept her - for a time. But he was only a man, and if she’d learned nothing else in her twenty-one years it was that men, even the best of them, changed their minds.
Consoling herself with the constant reminder that it was far better to be the one leaving than the one being left, Ava navigated the alleys with familiar ease, careful to keep her injured foot from splashing into any number of scum riddled puddles.
Dawn was slow to break inside St. Giles and barely a soul stirred, allowing her to move quickly and without hindrance. Knowing she couldn’t return to the tiny one room flat she’d previously called home (surely Collinsworth and his thugs had learned her identity by now and would be watching it), she had gone to the next best place instead: her friend Lucy’s.
Looking rather disheveled and bleary-eyed, Lucy had opened her door on the fifth knock. “Who the bloody ‘ell – Ava?” she said incredulously, mouth dropping open and eyes widening in shock.
It was the first time Ava had ever seen her friend speechless. Laughing, she embraced the tiny redhead in a tight hug before slipping past her into the dingy flat Lucy shared with her two older sisters, neither of whom appeared to be home. Since they were both whores - a sad but unfortunate truth - Ava could only assume they were still with their clients from the night before.
“Do ye have anything to eat?” she asked before sitting in a rickety wooden rocking chair that groaned ominously beneath her weight, slight as it was. “I am half starved.”
“Ye don’t look half starved.” Quickly regaining her composure, Lucy pinned her hands to her narrow hips and glowered. The expression looked less than fierce on her sweetheart face, but Ava was wise enough not to smile. With her vibrant red hair, porcelain skin, cornflower blue eyes, and Cupid ’s bow mouth Lucy could have easily passed as a living doll and was just about as intimidating as one, even in the midst of a full temper. “Where the ‘ell have ye been? I thought ye were a floater for sure! Did ye know men have been tearing the rookery apart lookin’ for ye? Well?” she demanded, eyes flashing even as her lower lip began to tremble. “Did ye?”
“I can explain everything,” Ava said soothingly. And, taking a deep breath, she proceeded to do just that. By the time she finished Lucy had two metal cups half filled with gin. Thrusting one into Ava’s lap she took a sip from her own, made a face, and set the cup aside.
“Horrible stuff, that is. I don’t know ‘ow people drink it.”
Because she knew very well what gin tasted liked - horse piss and dirt - Ava put her cup beside Lucy’s without taking a drink and bit back a smile. “Then why did ye pour it?”
The redhead’s shoulders jerked in a tiny shrug. “After all that ye have been through, it seemed the least I could do. Don’t know how Mum drank the stuff. Drunk as a wheelbarrow, that one. Morning, noon, and night.” Lounging back on a sofa that had seen far better days, Lucy blew her bangs out of her eyes and said frankly, “If all that ye said is true—”
“It is.”
“—then why the bloody ‘ell did ye come back here?”
“Well, because I... That is to say, I...”
“Yes?” Lucy asked, auburn eyebrows shooting up expectantly.
But for once, Ava didn’t have a ready answer. “It doesn’t matter,” she said evasively. “I want to forget it. All of it.” And by ‘it’, of course, she meant him. How long until she forgot the color of Heath’s eyes? The taste of his lips? The scent of his skin? A week? A month? A year? An eternity? “Can’t we speak of something else?”
“No we bloody well can’t. I want to hear more about the man who saved yer life.” Pulling her legs up on the edge of the sofa, Lucy rested her chin on her knees and grinned, completely unperturbed by the warning note in Ava’s voice. “Was he tall? Short? Hairy? Bald? Was ‘e handsome?” She fluttered a hand in front of her face and sighed dramatically. “He was handsome, wasn’t he? I knew it!” she declared triumphantly when Ava’s cheeks flushed. “Tell me more. Tell me!”
Ava narrowed her eyes at her so-called ‘friend’, already regretting her choice to come here. “You’re being nosy.”
“And ye are being secretive. It’s not as though you’ve gone and fallen in love with the – oh Ava,” she whispered, blue eyes widening with sympathy and dismay. “Why would ye do such a foolish thing as that?”
“I don’t know.” Feeling utterly miserable, Ava buried her face in her hands and spoke between her fingers. “Because he was handsome. And kind. And thoughtful. Because he treated me far better than I deserved, and saw me as more than a common guttersnipe.”
“Ye aren’t a guttersnipe!” Lucy said loyally.
Ava dropped her hands to her lap and sighed. “We are both guttersnipes, and men like Heath Mason are far too good for the likes of us. It wouldn’t have lasted.”
“How do ye know that?”
“I just do.”
“Well I don’t see how—”
“Can I stay here for a few days?” Ava interrupted, not wanting to dwell on the subject. “Just until I figure out where I can go.”
“O’ course ye can. And if Maggie or Olive say anything different jest punch ‘em in their faces,” Lucy said cheerfully, referring to her older sisters before she abruptly sobered. “How long do ye think that Collin fellow will look for ye?”
“Lord Collinsworth?” Just saying his name aloud caused an icy shiver to slip down Ava’s spine. “I have no idea. Not much longer, I hope.”
Lucy toyed with a loose thread on the hem of her plain brown skirt. “It’s only been a week,” she said. “Give it another two and he won’t even remember what ye look like.”
Had it truly only been one week since the night she first met Heath? Ava shook her head, feeling dazed. How could one person become so consumed by another in only a week? It seemed impossible. Improbable, at the very least. And yet that is exactly what she had done. She’d been consumed, body and soul, by Heath Mason.
“It will pass,” she muttered under her breath.
“Oi, what was that?” Lucy wanted to know, leaning forward until she threatened to tip right onto the floor.
“Nothing. I need to return to my apartment. There are things I need.” Namely, everything she owned. She had the clothes on her back and the clothes wrapped in the sheet she’d brought with her, but nothing else. With the exception of the eleven shillings she had painstakingly hidden away beneath the floorboards there was little of monetary value in the tiny one room flat, but there were several things of sentimental value that were irreplaceable.
A cheap brass bracelet, once painted silver, that had been a gift from her first lover. She’d kept it not for the memories it invoked, but for the silent warning it carried every time she happened to glance upon it. It reminded her that even the shiniest of things would tarnish in time and nothing lasted forever, especially not love.
She’d found her second most cherished memento as a child. A hand sewn horse with glass eyes and real mane, it had slipped unnoticed from the hand of a well-dressed young girl who had not been much older than Ava at the time. When the girl’s nursemaid noticed she bent to pick it up but the girl, nose wrinkling, had claimed in a shrill voice that it was “dirty” and “ruined”. They left it behind and Ava, eyes wide and heart thumping with excitement, had scurried across the street to fetch the horse, not caring in the least that it had been dropped on the ground.
The third and final object of sentimental value was a blue hair ribbon of her mother’s, so worn and faded it was barely recognizable.
Mabel had been a good woman, but one weak of heart. She’d consistently trusted all the wrong men and ended up penniless with a bastard daughter because of it. Her death five years ago had been the saddest day of Ava’s life, but also the most liberating for it had finally freed her from a drunken mother with broken dreams.
She couldn’t stand to lose her most prized possessions and Heath. Standing, she turned towards the door, but before she could open it Lucy had grabbed her hand and yanked it away from the knob.
“Are ye crazed in the nob?” her friend asked incredulously. “Ye shouldn’t go outside, let alone go prancing back to yer old stompin’ grounds! They’ll find ye for sure!”
Something the rational side of Ava’s mind knew all too well. Unfortunately, she was rather keen on listening to the other part at the moment. “I need my things,” she said stubbornly. When she had them - the bracelet, the horse, and the ribbon - perhaps she would finally feel more like herself and less like a love struck fool. She needed to do something to ease the dull ache inside of her chest, even if it meant risking her life for worthless objects. “I don’t expect ye to understand,” she continued. After all, how could Lucy know what she was about when she didn’t understand it herself?
Tossing her hair out of her eyes, the redhead sighed. “If this is what love does to ye then thank goodness I’ve never suffered it myself. I’d rather chew my own arm off.”
Despite her deepening sense of melancholy, Ava couldn’t help but smile. She’d forgotten how melodramatic her friend could be, and how much she adored her because of it. It was, she supposed, what had drawn them together in the first place even though they could not be more opposite. Ava was the stern, sarcastic one. Lucy the free spirited dreamer. Their friendship made the darkness in St. Giles possible to bear and Ava was loathe to think of what she would do if something ever happened to Lucy.
“And what would ye do with only one arm?”
Lucy gave the question due consideration. “Join one of those freak circuses most like,” she said after a thoughtful pause. “‘The One-Armed Wonder’.” Her Cupid ’s bow mouth curved in a grin. “I rather like the sound of that.”
Rolling her eyes, Ava pushed the door open. Instantly the scents of the rookery - human excrement, rotting food, and the ever-lingering hint of desperation - assaulted her nostrils and she closed the door with an ill-contained shudder.
“Look at ye,” Lucy cried after making a poor effort to control a snort of laughter. “Six days out and ye’ve forgotten what this bloody place is like, haven’t ye?”
Ava’s shoulders stiffened. “I haven’t forgotten anything.” Except she had. Within the safe, comfortable confines of Heath’s townhouse she’d allowed herself to forget the wretched sights and sounds of St. Giles. Even though a part of her always knew her return to London’s most dangerous rookery was inevitable, there had been another part that had fervently hoped she would never have to step foot on the soiled streets ever again.
Lucy tipped her head to the side, looking rather like a sparrow contemplating snatching up a worm. Finally seeming to make up her mind, she nudged Ava aside and reopened the door. “Come along then.”
“What are ye doing?”
“Ain’t it obvious? Going with ye, of course.”
A faint stirring of alarm fluttered inside Ava’s breast. “No,” she said immediately. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m a rookery gel same as you.” Lucy lifted her chin. “And four eyes are better’n two. Besides, if those nasty blokes are still lookin’ for ye they’ll be searchin’ for a woman traveling alone. They won’t even blink twice at us.”
It was, all things considered, a rather valid point.
Too bad it was so very wrong.