𝙿𝙴𝙽𝙼𝙰𝙽𝚂𝙷𝙸𝙿 - 𝚃. 𝚂𝙷𝙴𝙻𝙱𝚈

8

"Scotch or Irish?" Juliet asks the man who was sitting at the bar, his piercing blue eyes watching her every move.

"Irish,"

"I've decided not to go to the races," Juliet says and Tommy looks up. "Not unless you give me another two-pound ten-shilling towards the dress"

"I've already given you three. And surely you don't need the funding?"

"You want me to go, you pay for the dress," Juliet says with a small shrug. "Besides, how much did you pay for the suit you'll be wearing?"

"Oh, I don't pay for suits. My suits are on the house. Or the house burns down,"

"Charming," Juliet says, but her tone insinuated she thought it was anything but. "So, you want me to go looking like a flower girl? Like a child?"

"What I want makes no difference. It's not me you're dressing up for,"

"I figured as much," Juliet says. "Nothing with Tommy Shelby comes without a price does it?"

Tommy deflates slightly at her words and he didn't understand why they stung as they did.

Tommy then welcomes two men into the Snug with him and the sounds of an IRA song floods out of the private room.

"I thought you only allowed singing on Saturday," Juliet comments, her eyes moving to Grace who was clearly listening to every word they said.

"Whisky's good proofing water," Tommy says. "Tells you who's real and who isn't"

"And what did my countrymen want?" Juliet asks.

"Oh, they're nobodies." Tommy waves a dismissive hand. "They drink in The Black Swan in Sparkbrook. They're only rebels because they like the songs"

"You have sympathies with them?" Grace chips in and both Tommy and Juliet shoot her unimpressed looks at her eavesdropping and interruption.

Tommy's glare was not pleasant to be on the receiving end of and the blonde woman had irked him as she had interrupted his conversation with a woman whose company and witty repartee he had found himself beginning to enjoy.

"I have no sympathies of any description,"

"Their accents are so thick, it's a wonder you could understand them," Grace says. "Next time, I could translate"

"I'll translate," Juliet says, her eyes narrowing in suspicion at Grace who looks away from the woman's eyes that she felt could see her very soul.

"You would work for me?" Tommy asks.

"I thought I already was," Juliet says.

"So you are coming to the races?" Tommy asks and Juliet looks at him with a raised brow and he sighs before reaching into his pocket. "Two pounds, ten shillings. Buy something red. To match his handkerchief"

"Whose handkerchief?" Juliet asks but the man just gets up. "Thomas!"

The man's presence practically oozed danger and secrets and yet that makes him all the more appealing. The fact that a man so cold and indifferent to death and destruction has a heart. Not for fellow humans but rather magnificent four-legged beasts that have eyes that can stare into your soul in a second. This man has magic with horses. Magic that can't be explained. Where his compassion for humans had clearly died in France, his compassion for horses had increased tenfold. If the stories are true, horses died the worst during the fighting. The only innocent beings on the field suffered the worst deaths. If that doesn't speak volumes about the wrongness of war, nothing else will. Innocence died on that field, horses and men alike. Men barely out of boyhood handed a gun and given a sense of patriotism, only to die for nothing.

The indifference to death should be terrifying but in a twisted way, it is exhilarating. To have no fear, even when facing death is a task not many can master. This man starts wars to create rungs on a ladder of his own creation. It is admirable that it is all for his family. That he no longer wants them to know what it means to not have the basic necessities. But then thinking of the families he's putting into the position he was once in to boost himself. At what point does that desire to help his family become greed for more? There's a fine line that the man dances on and he's very close to crossing the line to the point where there's no return. The point where power is the only concern for the man.

Juliet stares at the words that were on the page. She hadn't been able to stop herself from writing about Thomas Shelby, he was an enigma she was dying to solve and she would, no matter how long it took.