WRITTEN FOR ME ( thomas shelby )

002 ━ Dance with the Devil ..

━━━━━━ ༻ 002 ༺ ━━━━━━
" Dance with the Devil "

          HIS HANDS WERE A REFRESHING chill asserting their lead in a firm, but tender grip travelling from her waist's side to the small of her back. Closeness was dictated with ease and by no means was her smile as stiff as the one she had given Kimber — it was a closeness both of them preferred as an indulgence hidden behind a precursor to a conversation without any other parties involved, a conversation that they both otherwise desired to enage into perhaps as soon as names were shared at the table.

"I take you got the work deal you've been seeking," Jackie broke the ice as soon as her unblinking assessment of Mr. Shelby's eyes came to fruition. "Your eyes tell everything, Mr. Shelby," she admitted for the sake of explanation immediately. "But then again, that's a flaw of human nature, rather than one you hold in particular. I am sure someone versed in reading eyes would be able to exploit this flaw even in me."

"Why do you let your brother do business in your name, Miss Alloways?" Thomas did not shy from looking right into her eyes while asking the question he's been burning to ask since she left the table, despite perhaps knowing a little too well what her answer might be. Similarly, there was no fragment of shyness when his gaze dropped lower from her eyes.

Jackie considered her choices without altogether stiffening herself from their slow dance. She could deny and hold onto her card of innocence, of course. Lying was a second nature going hand in hand with survival, but something within her... it told her that if Mr. Shelby was sharp enough to tell this much from what was probably only the slightest slip on her side, he'd be able to distinguish her lies from the truths too. People in such businesses as she guessed he might be involved into as well do not take kindly to liars. "When did you know?" Jackie resorted to asking instead, tilting her head as her more discreet way of bringing his eyes back up.

There was much to be said in regards to the choice Thomas witnessed Jacqueline make there and then. It was perhaps less of a decision based on honor, and more of an inclination towards truth influenced by her status. His guesses fell like dominoes and, giving each of them time to sound, he took a moment of silence before answering, "The way you looked at the table."

"So you were watching me," Jackie didn't miss a heartbeat to note upon that conclusion with a new radiance in her smile. "Excuse my bewilderment, Mr. Shelby, I was fully convinced that the dame in red at the bar was here with you."

"Have men in America grown less shallow than the rest of us since the end of the war?"

"Loyal men are as rare as they come."

"And yet you thought me for one."

"A girl can only hope," she shrugged ever so slightly, "that rare birds are still out there to have eyes for only one woman at a time."

"You accepted to dance with me regardless," Thomas retorted with an observation of his own, in a game he found strangely entertaining.

"I already know Mr. Kimble will close the deal with my brother, so I might as well get to know his entourage," Jackie admitted to only half her reasoning. "Especially when they are a soldier I am most certain I had under my care during the war. It's the most delightful thing to see familiar faces from back then not only be alive, but live so marvellously too, despite what they've endured. And you have endured plenty, Mr. Shelby, perhaps too much for medals to compensate."

Her recallings of war left a bitter taste on the back of his tongue. How envious he was to see that anyone could ever take away such bright side from the horrors of the battles and be able to substract at the end of the day some joy in the aftermath of it all. "Unfortunately, my memory of those times fails me, Miss Alloways."