THE FRENCH KISSERS ― Thomas Shelby

05. poor wayfaring stranger

"Ask her to sing 'Poor Wayfaring Stranger'. I have a feeling we might have special guests tonight."

"Rose..." Jules let out a sigh, his face a delicate balance between soft eyes and hardened lines. "Which poor former soldier are you trying to break? You know what that song does to men, especially soldiers. And especially with Angeline's voice..."

His eyes darted to the oblivious woman smiling to her sisters some meters away from them and suddenly Rose felt like all those people in her café were no longer there, not even she. It was just Jules and Angeline and the feelings he had been hiding from her for years.

"I swear even silence in her voice sounds beautiful," he completed in a mere murmur. Rose couldn't remember a time where Jules hadn't loved Angeline, and she also couldn't remember one where he had acted upon it.

"Jules... feelings get worse inside of us. They're meant to be let out, otherwise they're not feelings, just spectrums of what they could be. I see it in your eyes. Why would you be afraid of sharing such a beautiful thing?"

His eyes snapped back to his sheet music, like a turtle retreating to its shell. "I don't know what you're..." he sighed again and gave up, his fingers outlining the keys of the piano like they could unlock the safe inside his chest. "Words fail me. Only music doesn't. So I'm waiting for her to listen."

At the same time, she's waiting for you to speak, Rose thought, but didn't voice it. She couldn't assume to know other people's feelings, even those of a sister; it was hard enough discerning her own.

"Tell her about the song change," Rose ended up saying, "but don't tell her..."

"It was you asking, yeah, I know. Are you expecting trouble tonight, with these... special guests?"

"Well, if trouble has a name, it's theirs, so...," Rose smiled, and it was an enigmatic smile, the kind people gave when they weren't sure they'd rather have a yes or a no to their question. "We'll see. For now I—"

Rose never got to finish her sentence; her mouth closed abruptly as the doors of the café swung open and a sea of men swarmed in like castaways to an island, her eyes stumbling upon the leader like the moonlight pouring down the curtains and refusing to go any further. It was as if her mind was incapable of registering any of the others as her eyes took in the tweed suit his body was hidden by, the flat cap on his head, the lazy cigarette between his lips. Even his waistcoat chain seemed to shine more brightly than the others, and yet it was his eyes that rendered her speechless, something Jules had never had the pleasure of witnessing.

"I see," he murmured, "you want us to change the song to make the Peaky Blinders let their guard down. Surely a tactic no one's used before."

But Rose wasn't listening, instead swallowing as she saw his liquid stare scanning the crowd of people, looking for someone and only stopping on her, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly as if in a secret challenge only she would comprehend.

He sure can leave an impression, Rose thought all too bitterly.

Everyone inside the café was staring at the newcomers since their abrupt, cinematic entrance, and yet no one had moved, as if they had all instinctively perceived the shift in the atmosphere, the sudden tension. Thomas Shelby didn't just have the presence to fill an entire room; he had the presence to make everyone in that room turn into his sheep.

If only there weren't already another wolf there, ready to prevent its flock from falling prey to the enemy. Rose started moving even before her feet did, her mind already miles ahead as she walked towards them, and instantly the crowd parted like Moses in the Red Sea to let her pass, and her women, who were scattered around the café, lined up behind her silently but surely until they were one and the same.