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" Bad News Arriving "
"SO NOW WE ARE EVEN," Thomas Shelby sighed through a mumble solely dictated by the cigarette entrapped between his lips with no drive whatsoever to smoke it, nor remove it. Looking ahead, into the tall mirror morning light had revealed as belonging to a corner of Jackie's bedroom, the sight painting itself into perfection behind him was almost completely outshadowed by his hands' inability to button up his new shirt properly.
Who could concentrate on the light show of morning light filtered through thin and pale curtains, when their own presence amidst it stained the canvas of perfection with barbarity? Thomas could only be motivated by the myriad of details unfolding themselves to him there, besides her powder table and the very mirror he occupied, because to be distracted meant to give up and only stare dreamily in soft breaths grateful for the mix of brisk morning air with their perfumes.
The true primadona of this spectacle was however Jacqueline Alloways herself. Her tender skin was surrounded and embraced by the loose material of her nightgown, untied in all the right places, such that her shoulders would often slip bare. Her hair, unlike most of the time, was unbraided and let loose, an ocean of auburn waves which, much like the sky, would get darker as the day goes; but now, just for him, it was the shade of oranges around Christmas. What added perfection on top of an already ethereal sight was her closeness to him. Unlike every other effigy of the room, Jackie was right behind him, waiting to pass him over his clothes, watching him get dressed with sleep still clinging to her eyes, which she brushed often.
And it was there that his hands' failure stood out like a sore thumb.
After desire had blinded her last night to carelessly rip some of the buttons on his shirt, Jackie insisted that he borrowed a white one from her brother, reassuring him that Gene did not lack clothes, so he will certainly not miss it. Unfortunately, the shirt proved to be much tighter in all the wrong places than either of them appreciated at first, but between being a little uncomfortable and going out exposed, Tommy would never choose the latter, especially on such an important day.
"I told you about the cops, you told me about Kimber," he explained himself much clearer once Jackie abandoned his jacket on the back of her powder table's chair and walked in front of him to pluck the cigarette from between his lips. She placed the cigarette between hers instead, holding it still while she moved his hands away and took over the job of buttoning him up.
He became the first witness to how worry built up on her face gradually, a sight that though mesmerizing in its own ways, prompted him to reach out and retrieve his cigaretted — a slow movement devoid of the shame of brushing her bottom lip in the process.
As soon as she could talk without an abundance of slurring sounds and the risk of dropping that cigarette on the carpeted floors, Jackie hurried to an admission rising as the consequence of the information she shared with Tommy mere minutes ago, when they have woken up embraced in her bed. "I don't like knowing you're walking into this fight without a clearer advantage. Nor do I see any other way around this, but to take it as it comes, which makes the situation so much harder to accept."
Instead of continuing smoking, Tommy reached to the side and crushed the cigarette in the ashtray, aiming thus to free his hands. During this action that compelled Jackie to fasten the last button a little quicker, Tommy voiced his thoughts with a pseudo-calm, "It's not ideal, but knowing about Kimber's informant having slipped the details of my plan to him gives me time, albeit short, to prepare to fight back."
"They outgun you," Jackie grimaced at that fact, clinging still to Tommy's shirt. "Sure, his men aren't exactly loyal to him, but you don't have enough time to buy them off, so you and your boys will be outnumbered regardless of his weaknesses."
Having his hands free suddenly because useful, because Tommy cupped her face in his palms, the second best way he now knew could brush off some of Jackie's concerns. "Rid your mind of such darkness, ay," he tampered with a soft smile, voice lowered to the privacy of their closeness alone. "I cannot marry you if I'm cold in the ground now, can I?"
Her face lit up red across the bridge of her nose and over the plumper side of her cheeks. So she hadn't imagined it then... what he told her last night between kisses without end, between ways of gaining pleasure that they were learning off of each other. Not only had she not imagined those words, but he actually meant them too — drunk as he was in love, he was sober on his intentions to speak to her only the truth.
"I will ask you properly," he promised, given his notice of her shock to hear this again, without the cover of night mystifying a truth. "When I get back, I'll get on my knees and I'll ask you properly, as you deserve."
"You already know my answer," Jackie murmured, her smile returning to her lips. There was no inhibition or formal affaird stopping either of them now, so Thomas lingered his right hand on the side of her face, his big thumb causing a delve in her porcelain skin, while his left returned home, to the curve of her waist, bringing her closer for a kiss he stole off her smiling lips as if seeking to have that beautiful joy, even just a splinter of it, with him through the whole day.
He recalled everything about last night in blissful detail and Thomas was no liar, not when it came to her. From the more elusive vows of making her the happies woman in the whole world to the clearer ones requiring him to win against Kimber and his men in order to become the rich man she deserved to be around, he was planning on keeping every single promise he uttered to her between their moans.
When he leant back, however, he read in her eyes a question he didn't have to hear be spoken again to know with certainty it existed, plaguing her mind as well as it was plaguing his and aunt Polly's. "We'll find a way," he answered therefore without being prompted to.
Thomas let go of her and stepped only momentarily back to shrug on the last items of clothing collected on her powder table chair and the surface of the table itself. "We'll figure out a way, together," he continued whilst dressing himself. "When I'm back," he returned to her front to leave a gentle kiss on her forehead.
"You left your hat," Jackie warned him quietly about the clothing item he abandoned on her table, but once Thomas drew back from the kiss, she found in his eyes a reason to abandon his hat there with her. The reason echoed onto his lips into a smile that warmed her to know he would grant her sight of, given how pure it truly looked.
Of course, Tommy couldn't find it in himself to tell Jackie that morning just how frightened he was of the odds he faced against Kimber and his men. It was improper to burden her any further with such things either way, so he hid them in an attempt at a perfect goodbye, lingering in the many kisses they've shared before he was out of the door and the door was closed behind him. While walking away from Jackie's hotel room, the man he had to be returned, driven down the corridors and past the reception by all the promises he made her, interlaced with the memories of last night; a once singular glimmer turned into a torch lighting his path into a cold morning.
Gene Alloways did not expect to return to the hotel only to see Thomas Shelby leave it, but for the sake of sparing himself the lies for once, he wasn't exactly surprised either. Fact was, despite knowing exactly what would have brought Mr. Shelby there to begin with, Gene knew a matter of much greater importance than who his sister opens her legs for was at stake that morning.
His right hand's thumbs held a little tighter to a letter already previously ripped open by his more brutal self awakened after one too many glasses of bourbon. Lacking as he might be in so many of his sister's supposed business requirements, there was one thing both of them could see eye to eye for: the importance of that letter he had red at least a dozen times to sobriety before barging in their hotel room.
"Look what the cat dragged," Jackie appeared from her room at the ruckus caused by her brother's grand return. She met him with her arms crossed over her chest and a frown drawn across her features.
There were signs of what had happened between her and Thomas right on her body, so if Gene had time to look, he would find plenty to confirm his suspicions, however... time was the one thing they didn't have much of anymore. So he ignored with a heavy heart all the bruises left by kisses on her skin and even the absolute disaster into which their dinner table from last night was turned, only to step forward and shove the letter in her face. "You'll need to sit down for this," he spared her a warning.
Jackie studied the envelope shortly and took notice instantly only of the stamp, "Is this from Lester?"
Hearing a certain degree of excitement in her voice tore a pained grimace out of Gene. "Just sit down, Jackie."
"What?" She chuckled. Her brother smelt too much of bourbon and heavy cigars for her to take his warning seriously. "Did he die or something? Let me guess, he payed international post in advance to send us a bill for his funeral, only to have the audacity to complain when we meet in Hell that I always spend too much on foreign affairs." Regardless of rolling her eyes and taking very little of it seriously at that time, Jackie made her way to the mess no maid had reached to clean up just yet. From there, she lifted one of the chairs up and took a seat, fashionably crossing her left leg up over her right.
Unfolded in her lap, Jackie discovered the contents of the envelope to be a letter and a ripped piece of newspaper. For the sake of being right, Jackie ignored the much smalled piece of newspaper to skim over the first line of the letter. From the calligraphy alone, she concluded, "It is Lester."
"Just read it already," Gene urged her, losing his thinned patience by the second. Fortunately for his sanity, Jackie sighed and committed to actually reading the letter, something that murdered her good morning right before his eyes, choking out in real time the smile off of her lips and scattering her mind's sunshine into clouds that gathered for a storm. By the time she moved on to the piece of newspaper that came in the same envelope with the letter, Jackie had already uncrossed her legs, leaning forward so that her elbows rested on her knees. She paled when the newspaper confirmed everything the letter contained, but at least then she could finally understand Gene's urgency — she had no time to take notice of how her heartbeats tried to rupture out of her ribcage.
"Our luck had to eventually run out," Jackie found herself mumbling with a mourning tone too quiet for even her brother to hear. She took a single moment to think, for as long as it took her to inhale sharply and look to the side, gathering her strength to stand up. When she stood up, with the contents of the envelope in her hands, she nodded towards her brother, "I can fix this."
"How—?"
"You don't have to worry about it," Jackie interrupted him, returning the letter adn the newspaper piece to him. Before distancing herself again, she patted his shoulder, though her features had fallen so deep into thoughtful numbness that a smile was impossible to achieve, "We'll be alright. All that matters now is that we get to Lester before those Russians do."
"Russians?" Gene inquired, shocked. He had read the same letter as her and there were no mentions of the Russians there.
"Who else?" Jackie puffed, feeling the comment he had pushed onto her about thinking creep back up her tongue as venom. She bit her tongue and swallowed that acidity before it made it out into words. "They didn't let me go because they are kind of heart. For Christ's sake, Gene, they wanted a pound of flesh from all of us, but they let us go without a scratch. I sent them Ehmann's tooth, but let's face it... those Russians are too crazy to be satisfied with just that. Of course it's them."
She followed through with a sigh, "Go downstairs and make a call at the reception to let our men know we are going to Liverpool, today. I'll pack up everything we can't do without."
"We're leaving?" Gene couldn't help but be shocked: though this was exactly the course of actions he expected Jackie to take, he never expected her to conclude it as their only option without at least a vocal complaint about leaving her lover behind.
Truth was, fear had gripped Jackie so tightly that it wasn't until she was done packing the last suitcase in her room and she looked back at Tommy's hat on her powder table that she burst out crying. The chair accepted her collapse into it and her shivering hads ghosted the item holding his promise of coming back. She won't be there when he'll return.
Though Jackie stiffened her sobs to make as little noise as possible, Gene entered her room to retrieve her bags and thus was subjected to their whimper, stopping him still in the doorway. He has so rarely seen his sister cry that he thought for a long time while they were children that she was born unable to engage in such weaknesses; her strength had always motivated his and it was a different degree of pain to see her undoing.
Finding the reason to her sorrow was however no difficulty, which is why Gene felt a lash of shame punish his back with a wound that shall bleed for a while now. "You should write to him," he sighed.
Jackie was startled into a rapid sniff by the reveal she wasn't alone, but as soon as she got over the violation of a moment she had thought she had in privacy, she leant back: Gene had given her a good idea. Well, at least part of it. Because his advice alluded that she leave him the note at the hotel, perhaps at the reception, but Jackie thought differently, which was why the letter she wrote Thomas Shelby rode with her to Liverpool, nestling in her pocket until its place would be replaced by the last ticket she bought for the person transport ship leaving the docks for American soil in a few minutes.
As she was supposed to be giving each of her men a ticket, Balthasar watched perplexed how he was given instead a letter in a stampless envelope and her purse.
"M'lady?" He inquired, confused and hesitant.
"You've served my father well, Balthasar," she praised the man before her whose age was not as much spoken in his white hairs as it was written in his wrinkles. "You've served me well too."
"I owe you me life," Balthasar lifted his hand up and knocked on his sturdy eyepatch over his left eye.
Jackie sighed, "It is with a heavy heart that I must leave you behind, but trustworthy men are rare, you see, and I trust you to complete this mission for me with seriousness." She paused, watching for Balthasar's nod, then continued, relieved by his confirmation, "Deliver both the letter and the purse to Thomas Shelby, in Small Heath, Birmingham. After he's read the letter, he will employ you and until I am back, you do whatever you are ordered to do. He'll pay you fairly for your labor and you may live your life as you see fit outside of work while I am away."
The sound of the horn announced that boarding has begun, so Jackie hurried to give Balthasar a pat on the shoulder, a brief conduit for her whisper, "Good luck."
He could have sworn Jacqueline Alloways had tears pearling on the bottom line of her eyes when she ran to join hands with her brother. Itched as his own hands might with curiosity regarding what the note and the bag held to be delivered to that man, Balthasar defiled the privacy of neither and brought them to Small Heath's The Garrison intact, as they have been given to him. Everywhere he asked about Mr. Shelby, he was pointed towards the pub with a certain degree of contempt. By what he gathered, he understood there had been some sort of gunfight on the street that had just propelled the Peaky Blinders up some local hierarchy.
There, in his pub drenched in the silence of drunk men burping and snoring about on various benches and seats, Thomas Shelby wore the pain of a day that should have been for celebration, yet he spent moping with an empty glass. He won. He got everything he wanted. He killed Kimber and everthing that wretched man had was now his to do with as he pleased. But at what cost? He cared far less about the bullet his family had to pull out of him than about Danny, a friend he will have to now bury... And on top of that pile ruining the balance of his scales was the absence of Jacqueline Alloways. As soon as he was bleeding in a bandage and not through his clothes, he made a return to the hotel, only to discover that she had vanished like she never even existed.
Tommy's dwelt in despair alone for long enough that upon meeting Balthasar, he was hardly sober, a dreadful state to be in when the first thing he heard was Jackie's name. Though the option of beating the man before him to a pulp for mentioning her name was tempting him, he resisted and let Balthasar talk once he led him in the back of the bar, where he reckoned there was less of a chance some of those still conscious and not fully asleep could hear them.
"M'lady Alloways left me these for you, Mr. Shelby sir," Balthasar placed the bag and the letter down.
"Where is she?" Thomas asked dryly, looking at the letter especially with some sort of fear, though the presence of her purse on her table was far more of a bad omen, should he consider the man before him capable of the nerve of hurting her and bring him proof of it as if he would ever walk out of that bar alive.
"Honest to God, Mr. Shelby sir," Balthasar brought his right hand to his chest, "I know little of what has happened to have M'lady Alloways leave in such a hurry with everything and everyone. All I know is that whatever she left you is of importance, sir."
Thomas jaw held the height of his rising tension, before he gave in and ripped the envelope open. For the sake of the letter he unfolded, he rubbed some clarity in his eyes and then he read ... he read words that made his heart sink lower than ever before, then climb higher than anyone else but her was capable of lifting it.
DEAR HUSBAND ( TO BE ),
There's hope in my heart still that you will read this and not already loathe me as I deserve to be loathed for leaving the way I have. My faith beckons me to believe you will give me at the very least this chance of explaining my abandonment of reason and the anguish I am aware I must have caused.
The reason is a twist of two which you are probably much familiar with as well: family and enemies.
There's no easier way for me to say any of this and I have very little time to do what I must, so I will tell everything to you straight, like I have used you to my constant talking: my older brother, Lester, is in trouble. Big trouble. The sort where I fear I might arrive home and find him dead already, by the hands of those damn Russians. I should have known better than to believe a tooth will close my dealings with them. Now, all that matters is that I salvage my business and protect my own. I'll be damned before I lose everything again.
By the time you've read this letter though, I would already have been boarded on a transport taking me home. Five days. Six, if the weather is against us. I will write to you when I get there and if fates be good, I will return before that letter even reaches you.
I'm coming back and there's two good news for you to find in this unexpected turn of events in our lives: on the one hand, you will have time to actually get me a ring, and on the other hand... Well, there's my purse you should now open.
I'm coming back, but unfortunately not before my transport arrives in Liverpool, therefore, as a prelude to our marriage contract, that transport is now yours. I've left with you in my purse all the documents regarding what I am transporting, who shall require to be sent money following the selling of their merchandise and which buyers I had settled deals with in England. You will find, shall you look through them, an official document attesting your ownership of the purebred horses on the transport as well, awaiting only your signature on the bottom.
There's also the matter of Balthasar, the man who has delivered everything to you. He's an old friend of my father's who has served in France and ended up in my care. His eye was lost to shrapnel when they shelled the northern wing of the hospital. Please, give him something to work under your jurisdiction, no matter how small. He's a hardworking man and loyal.
Now, I fear my letter has reached an uncivilised length, my love, and I must conclude despite my pen aching to transcribe more of what my breath shakes for. My soul remains with you, you see. Though I will be far and away, escaping a war I have delayed for far too long, my heart remains yours and my mind will hold sacred a corner in which you will exist forever, to hold me warm during the night and accountable to my promise: I'm coming back. After all, someone has to give you back your hat, which I had, by mistake, taken with me.
With love,
Your Wife ( To Be )
Her teardrops have left their damp mark on the bottom of the page and though a single tear of his threatened its wish to join them for a desperate attempt to feel her one last time, Thomas sighed his head back. The letter healed with hope the part of his heart that tore when he found her gone. And sure, worry has taken the place of the anguish, a much slower torture to endure, but at the end of the day, that was love: grasping the knife that it plunged into his heart and twisting it himself. If he had to suffer for all that he had done and all more than he will do, Thomas Shelby would rather suffer by the hands of a woman he loved with all his being.
ONE MONTH LATER . . .
HE WAITED IN THE COMPANY of hope, adopting celibacy without hesitation and guarding his heart with a fence, then a wall, against everything else, even the idea that has taken over his nightmares. For the past three nights, Thomas Shelby's been dreaming of being lost in a fog that he tried to navigate regardless, driven to absolute madness by hearing Jacqueline's screams of pain somewhere too far away for him to reach.
It was torture. True hellish torture to know that should things have gone according to plan, Jackie would have been back already. Always a single second away from spiralling into everything bad that could have happened to her, Tommy had too much on his mind to anticipate his torture was just about to get worse when Balthasar stumbled into his office, paler than ever underneath the thin grime of coal on his face.
"Mr. Shelby sir," he greeted through their usual formality in a much more hasty fashion, thus waiting for no answer in return before he slammed an open and folded newspaper on his table. Balthasar lifted his heavy hand from the paper he wrinkled and below it remained the news that had brought him there so wide-eyed and breathless. It read: " American smugglers arrested from a transport sailed from Liverpool. "
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
&& this is Act 1 🥰 I've had time to think about it so I have decided that Act 2 will have a different format and more frequent updates. Basically, Act 2 will happen between Season 1 in Season 2, covering two years and holding all the letters between Tommy and Jackie. Season 3 will start from Season 2 most likely.