Passion Bearers

The Unexpected

Tess didn't even know how she ended up in this whole mess with Tommy Shelby.

She'd known him since they were both just little kids, running ‘round the caravans with scraped knees and scrawny limbs. She would’ve never even suspected that she caught his eye. He never treated her better or worse than anyone. She was just that Boswell girl. He paid her no mind.

But, around the time that she turned nineteen, Tommy had started looking at her longer with lingering, long glances. She'd caught him looking at her from across the field, his eye following her as she sat with the girls during the horse fairs by Appleby.

Tess was foolish then, much more foolish than she was now, and she found herself fancying over him. He was the kind of guy that girls fawned over. Brooding, dark and mysterious. He screamed the kind of danger that girls sought out like a flame, not realising that they'd get their wings burnt off so easily.

It was even more foolish to give him those flirtatious, cheeky little smiles considering that she would be marrying someone else. Her grandmother, the matriarch of Tess’ clan, the gypsy Boswell clan, got Tess arranged with Randy Young. Tess assumed it was for some kind of profit or territory but Gran wouldn't tell her. She never told her anything.

Tess met this Randy Young of hers. He was of the Young clan, those that travelled more through the North and were close kin to the Lees. She didn't mind him. He was a nice enough lad, not much to complain about. But, she didn't like him all that much.

Maybe it would have been better if she had married him. Maybe she would have avoided a lot of pain from life. But, she was a terrific fool. Such a fool, in fact, that she came running into the hands of the one that had ruined her so terribly.

It happened on final night of the horse fair. Tess had been sitting by her vardo, drinking more than she probably should've. She had an argument with her mother about Randy that day. For the hundredth time, she had been trying to convince her mother that she was too young to marry. That Randy was not the one for her. But, yet again, it all ended with a whole lot of screaming and a broken lamp.

So, she grabbed the first bottle of liquor that she sneaked from her brothers and drank it. It tasted bitter on her tongue but soon enough, she started becoming numb to it. In fact, she started becoming numb to everything.

It was in that state that Tommy approached her.

He sat down next to her wordlessly and lit a cigarette, holding it between his teeth. Because Tommy was three years older than her, Tess thought of it as cool of him to smoke. She admired it. But, it was only later in life, after France, when he started reaching for cigarettes as if they were a lifeline, did she see it as an ugly habit.

They didn't say anything for a while, her with her bottle of liquor, him with his cigarette.

“ You're getting married to Randy Young”, he said matter-of-factly, his eyes trained on the distant fire.

Tess nodded, not really knowing what to say.

“ He doesn't deserve you”, he said quietly, looking down on the ground.

Strangely enough, coming from anyone else, it would've sounded like a compliment. But, coming from Tommy, it sounded presumptuous. It sounded as if he was writing out what she was, who she would become.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“ Who deserves me, then?”, she asked him, cocking her head in a way that made her brown curls catch the light of the fire, painting them in an orange light.

Tommy looked at her for a moment, his eyes calm, his shoulder relaxed.

“ No one”, he said softly, “ No one can come even close”.

For Tess, the good, old, plain Tess, who was never hailed the beauty that her mother was, those words moved mountains. It was so sad that those words were enough for her to lose it all, to give so much.

Because when Tommy tipped his head lower and slowly kissed her, she let him do so, opening her mouth for him to enter. He raised her onto his lap and surrounded her with him everywhere, not a second of consideration of what this would lead to.

Tess didn't stop him. She kissed him back just as passionately, her tongue mingling with his. Tess had kissed boys before, for the curiosity of it. She kissed them in the stables and behind walls and hays stacks. But, Tommy didn't kiss like none of those boys. He kissed as if he was desperate. He kissed as if he was stealing her breath away, as if he wanted her more than anything else.

He only stopped when they ran out of breath, both panting a little when they leaned their foreheads against each other.

“ Do you want me to stop?”, he asked Tess.

And she knew, she knew she should've said yes. She could've blamed it on the liquor all she wanted, but at the end of the day, it was all her. It was all her foolishness and attraction to Tommy, the mysterious, brooding guy who she's known since she was a baby but never understood.

She should've said yes.

“ No”, she replied with instead, “ Don't stop”.

And he didn't.

He took her into the vardo and took what Randy would've considered to be his at the time. Thinking back to it, she should've been wary of him when he was not afraid to fuck her with her brothers within visible sight. That was a death wish and Tommy knew it better than anyone.

But, Tess didn't care because Tommy was soft with her, he caressed her and kissed her and she felt loved for just a minute. It was all a quick affair but it was one imprinted in Tess’ mind as if it was burned into her.

She wished it wasn't.

Afterwards, when it was done, Tommy lay with her in the vardo and smoked another cigarette. He brought her close to him and held her, tracing patterns into her skin. Then, he lowered his lips to her hair and whispered ever so softly.

“ I hope you know that this won't mean anything”, he whispered, “ You're still going to marry Randy”.

Tess lowered her head and looked away, a cold feeling washing over her.

“ I know”, she said, even though she didn't know, at least, she didn't want to know, “ I know. It's alright, really. It's fine”.

With those words, she quickly got dressed and left the vardo, her feet carrying her off closer to the forest. She didn't know where she was going, what time it was. She just she needed to get away because of the growing lump inside her throat.

Then, when she reached an old tree stump, she collapsed onto it, crying her eyes out, screaming and tearing at her hair.

Because she should've known better than to go for guys like Tommy Shelby. Because it was her sister, Laura, that was more the type to do these things but not Tess. She should've known better.

But she didn't. She didn't know better.

And now she'd have to pay for it.