━━━━━━ ༻ 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."
"Can't really blame you," Jackie shook her head. "Forgetting is much more desirable and anyone who claims otherwise surely has not known the curse of a perfect memory for its truest malice. But back to business—"
"Are we doing business now?" Tommy interrupted, startling Jackie to raise her eyebrows. He was quick to decide that she should meet his faintest smile of amusement at that time.
"You tell me," she prompted him with a huff. "You're the one who approached me for a dance, so tell me, Mr. Shelby... are you a spineless man who's looking to sport more than one woman at a time so he looks good in front of a market enemy, or are you dancing with me out of an entrepreneur's intuition when it comes to a good investment?"
"I heard you sell horses," Tommy decided that the best answer to her all too obvious teasing was the indirect kind. "Purebred."
"You've heard well," Jackie nodded, finally lowering her gaze, away from his, to instead appreciate what their surroundings, ruled by people who couldn't care less they existed, were trying to be. Lavish lights, clicks of crystal glasses, an overwhelming scent of flowers swirling in the air in a desperate attempt to dispell the miasma of horseshit that radiated from the stables.
"Can I see them?" Tommy watched the tightness of Jackie's jaw as it clenched.
"When they arrive," she agreed, rather distant from the question. "If you like horses as much as me, I'll introduce you to them."
"How about you sell me one?"
She laughed, "Oh, Mr. Shelby... you are delightful. But you can't afford my horses."
Though Jackie was first to slow down from their dance, Tommy sealed the discreet gesture by stopping the sway altogether. For the duration of a borderline indecent two seconds that followed, marked under the waning presence of a returning prolonged eye contact with a hint of challenge, their position did not change: his left hand held her right, albeit lighter, his right caressed its way back to her waist. It felt like a rupture had happened when he finally took a step back, be it short, for now there was no connection left between them. At least not for the following second of pause it took Tommy to offer Jackie his arm and walk her back to the bar.
"And Mr. Kimber is the sort of man who can afford your horses, Miss Alloways?"
"According to his accountant's register."
"How much for a horse?"
"It's not just the money, contrary to my brother's belief, but also the buyers ability to do right by the merchandise I sell, so my fame in the area is not spotted by a negligent client." Before Tommy could critique her assumption of him, Jackie hurried to continue onto a different matter, which required that she slipped out of his grip and stopped in front of him instead. They were not quite at the bar and that decent personal space between them has been officially violented on purpose, perhaps most of all by her right hand pressing on his chest. "I tell you what, Mr. Shelby. Since you are so eager to spend money, perhaps I could sell you something else."
"You sell more than just horses?"
"You don't get as rich as I am from farms alone," her smile was coy, for a woman who fronted herself as an open book to anyone foolish enough to believe someone dressed in such fine fabrics could be this dumb. Though Tommy was certain she wasn't lying, he could bet his whole fortune she wasn't saying the whole truth either — which was, he agreed, the smartest thing to do, regardless of whether or not her intentions were detrimental to him, something he was still deciding. "My ships are big and I am resourceful enough to bring you and your men anything you want from my sweet country across the ocean." To his suprise, promptly after her sentence ended, Jackie drew nearer, on her tip toes, and sniffed the air close to his neck shortly before stepping back down and away. "Cigarettes perhaps?"
Tommy smiled. He didn't know what has gotten into him to let out an instinctive reaction to Jackie's mannerism, but there he was, prioritising a smile over a proper answer or even a reaction to her peculiarity.
Jackie mirrored his smile twice as radiant. "I'm in town until my shipment arrives. Anywhere I can find you to give you a merchandise statement for what I'm bringing? Prices are negotiable for the cigarettes."
"The Garrison," Tommy reduced his smile back into concealment. "Ask for me at the bar, but do try not to get there at peak hour. Men are even less moral around that part of Small Heath."
"Your care is touching," her smile endured. If he didn't know better, he'd affirm that it has gotten realer still.
"I look forward to doing business with you, Miss Alloways." He ended their conversation with a cordial nod.
About three hours later, into the night, that very line was irking dispute in the hotel suite the Alloways have bought for their accommodations while selling the horses. "Absolutely not," Gene disapproved. "He's with the Peaky Blinders, Jackie. Probably their leader, I checked. We ain't got no need for that sort of trouble."
"Whatever happened to easy money?" Relaxed into her armchair, properly exhausted from the two excruciating hours of being into the touchy company of Mr. Kimber, Jackie cared little about her decency, wearing nothing more than her nightgown. She maneuvered her cigarette holder, dropping ash on the cushions she was surrounded by at every each groan her brother's comments managed to annoy out of her.
"They ain't easy with these guys."
"I got a good feeling about this...," she hummed along.
"Because of that guy? You have no idea who he is."
"I know he did brave things during the war-"
"We all did brave and crazy things during the war, because we had to," Gene interrupted, outraged. "Not every good soldier is a good man once duty's over and trust me, the war awakens ugly animals who like the shadow casted by the flag of honor." His white shirt had been unbuttoned to the middle of his chest and the collar was in disarray. "I don't think Kimber will like if you sell stuff to the Peaky Blinders too."
"What Kimber doesn't know...," Jackie pulled from her cigarette and continued her sentence breathing out some of the smoke, "can't hurt us."
"I am advising you as your business associate first and as your brother second right now, Jackie," Gene sighed, glad at the very least that his sister finally looked him in the eyes. "Horses sell higher than cigarettes and while this wouldn't be our first rodeo selling to mobs and gangs illegal exports, the tesions between Shelby and Kimber are bad for business."
"I understand your concern," Jackie sighed, putting out her cigarette and getting up. "However, I didn't close no deal with Mr. Shelby just yet. I am planning on giving him at least a chance to prove himself as a trustworthy buyer. There's hundreds of cigarette ballots on the shipment we have due in Liverpool, so why not? We sell them here, take our money, and cut the trip short. We get back home before we can get homesick." Stopped from her dragged walk besides her brother, Jackie patted his shoulder, "Fact is, I'm trying this, with or without. I'm not saying it won't be dangerous, but it's a gamble I'm willing to take. So...," she lowered her voice, "be a darling and call Balthasar and the others down from Dublin. I want them within the hour from Birmingham, discreetly. Tell him to rent out two and three at a time."
"They sold the guns, by the way."
"I know," Jackie smiled faintly. "I saw the letter in the morning."
"Things are gonna get heated...," Gene shook his head. "There's more to this Shelby and Kimber business, isn't it? You're not one to gamble on luck alone with our work. What do you see that I don't?"
"I'll tell you when I'm sure about it, dear brother," Jackie turned away, to carry her swayed walk towards her room. "Rest up. We'll talk plans in the morning."