smoke storm. peaky blinders

𝗡𝗶𝗻𝗲

CHAPTER NINE

The rain came down hard, bouncing from the edges of the old umbrella in buckets. In the darkness of midnight, the drops looked nothing more than fast blurs of dulled light. Adelaide shivered against the cold. Despite the meagre shelter, the hem of her skirt was damp from the splashes of puddles and her hair was tangled from the playfulness of the wind. 

The dock in front of her was silent. There were few around- only enough people to ensure their shipment of stolen cigarettes would arrive home safely. A letter that'd arrived that morning had spurred their movement into swiftness. Up north, things weren't good. They hadn't been good for a while, but the siblings chose to ignore that fact readily.

Robert Murphy stood again at her side. His presence was one of the only things she'd gained in the time she spent in Birmingham and one of the few things she was thankful for. Yet despite this gratefulness, when it came to certain things the man said, she could not hold her tongue.

"You're getting soft, Adelaide," he said in her ear, the heat of his breath tickling her hair.

Had he said this three weeks ago, she might have laughed at the joke. But there, under the shadow of the umbrella, cast against the dim light of a single lamp, there was no laughter upon his lips or settling warmly in his eyes. Perhaps it was because she was truly getting soft, as he put it. Adelaide herself found the fact increasingly hard to deny.

She went to challenge him, to ask him what had put such thoughts within his head, but the gaze on his face made her close her mouth and stare forward still, watching as the boat carried on. His eyes said enough for her to not want to hear anymore.

Adelaide Davis would attend the races with Billy Kimber. She dreaded the thought of explaining her awful fall of luck to those who would ask, but until then she cast the thought from her mind, landing herself at the Garrison upon Grace's request, joining her to help with nerves for the very event Adelaide had avoided talking about.

And if Thomas Shelby happened to be there... Whatever her body's response to that made up question was, she didn't understand it. Their last conversation had not been in the direction Adelaide would have wished it to go in. She still remembered that haunting look in his eyes, the underlying nature of amusement at having caught her in a lie. Proud was not something Adelaide could be called after their conversation, but she was undoubtedly left with unwanted yet unwavering thoughts of the man.

It was wrong. They may as well have been strangers, and, most of all, she understood that it was Grace who he'd asked to the races. She knew well enough what that meant. 

The Garrison was the busiest she'd ever witnessed as she pushed open the doors, being hit with waves of loud voices. In the middle of the room, a large crowd was gathered, huddled around a table from which came a soft voice. Grace was singing again.

It wasn't her usual haunting tunes that could render a man to tears nor was it a song to sing along to. The words were shouted, like a football chant, laughs ringing around as someone messed it up or broke their voice. To her surprise, John Shelby was making his way around the room, glass sloshing from side to side as he waved it above his head. By the time he made it back to the bar, a grin on his face, it was empty of the drink that was inside it.

"What are we celebrating?" Adelaide asked as his eyes landed on her, the grin only pushing further into his cheeks.

"Finn's birthday." He had to shout to get the words across to her.

"And Finn is how old?"

"Eleven."

"All this for an eleven year old?"