CHAPTER 13
ALL THINGS TROUBLE
❝ And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane
by those who could not hear the music. ❞
"So... how do I look?" When Andrea pulled the curtain and stepped out of the fitting room at Sienna's boutique, Rose looked up from the papers she had been skimming through and smiled.
"Absolutely dazzling, darlin'!" The freckles on Arwen's face stood out as she grinned, and every Kisser inside the store nodded approvingly at the dark blue dress.
"And you'll look even better with these," Élodie added, picking a handful of headbands with feathers and pearls for Andrea to choose from.
"And don't forget the shoes!" Audrey went over to Andrea, fixing her bob cut before handing her a pair of black t-strap heels her mother would have never let her use in France. "There. Like a true flapper girl."
"I don't know how you do it, Sienna." Renée shook her head. "Every dress you make is more beautiful than the previous one, I wouldn't be surprised if soon enough you're in Paris showcasing all of your wonderful designs."
"Those are just dreams," Sienna said, shoulders describing a humble curve while her chin tilted up with timid pride.
"We all had them." There was a tinge of nostalgia hidden away in Élodie's tone as she spoke. "I wanted to be an actress, to star in Broadway. But my parents thought the acting job was no fit for a lady, so they sent me to Britain instead. And then the war broke, breaking the dreams inside people too."
"What about you, Rose?" Andrea asked, a curious glint in her eyes towards the woman who rarely spoke of herself. They said women talked, but Rose didn't. She listened, and she thought, and she suffered, and she did all those in silence. Because she didn't think her pain was worth paining others. "What did you want to be, before the war?"
"I don't know," Rose mused. For her, the past was just a door the present kept opening no matter how many times she tried to close it. Like she had told Thomas, they needed to move. Up in life, if possible. So the past wouldn't catch them, so the future would. "I've always wanted to help people, but I wanted to do it through music. It was only when the war became imminent that I considered doing it through nursing."
"And you wanted to be a veterinary, at one point," Renée recalled. "When you were a child you used to spend more time with horses than with people. Mom said they calmed you down while people pissed you off."
"Now that's something that didn't change." Angeline had one of her rare smiles on, something that could only have to do with the song Jules had composed and performed for her the night before.
"I had all of these dreams," Rose nodded, mind lost some point outside the window, as if she could look right into her childhood and touch the dreams in it. "I used to stay awake at night, imagining how life would be, if one day I'd play in an international orchestra and travel through the greatest cities in the world. But when we're kids we think we're so big. We're not. When we grow up, the world swallow us, and we just go along with it."
"It's the world that's too small for you, Rose, not the other way around." Kaya shook her head, in that tenacity Alfie Solomons seemed to have taken such a big liking to. "In fact, the world is too small for all of us."
"Preach!" Reaching underneath the counter, Arwen took out a bucket of ice with a bottle of champagne in it as if it were the most natural thing to do at ten in the morning.
"Wait, when did you put that in there?" Sienna asked, but Arwen simply winked before opening the bottle with a satisfying pop; the cork flew across the room, and Kaya dodge it by mere inches. Then the doors of Le Petit Paris burst open, and the cork fell at the feet of a dapper blue-eyed man, standing on the throne of the silence that reigned right away.
Kaya was the first to roll her eyes. "Does he always have to be so dramatic?"
Thomas looked down at the cork, then at Sienna, who had gotten behind the counter after murdering an improperly amused Arwen with her eyes.
"Am I interruptin' something?"
"No, please, come in." Sienna's voice was polite when Thomas sauntered into the room. His stare flickered between the ladies like the fastest of dragonflies, and then stopped on Rose like the slowest bee on a flower. She looked away first. There was too much of him in his eyes. "How may I help you, sir?"
"I need new suits for me and me men," he said, looking around the boutique as if evaluating if it was a good enough place for his feet to step on. "For a party I'm having at me house."
Before any of the ladies could stop her, Arwen had moved to the counter, leaning against it with the bottle of champagne opened in her hands.
"A party? What's the occasion?"
Thomas barely spared her a glance. "A fundraising event. For the Grace Shelby institute."
"May God rest her soul," Arwen said, raising the bottle before taking a long sip from it. There was nothing grievous about her tone. Just like there was nothing dangerous about Thomas' face, and yet everyone in the room could feel the danger. Rose cleared her throat and walked over to Thomas to hand him the check she had just filled.
"A donation. For the institute."
He took the paper from her hand, not blinking at the large sum. Not blinking when their eyes slid over each other. Not blinking even when he had a gun to his head. It shouldn't be possible. How a man like him could walk the face of the earth when all that made him human was buried six feet under it.
"I understand you don't pay for suits, Mr. Shelby." Thomas averted his eyes from Rose to Sienna. "You'll pay for these."
Her stare was unwavering, even against the turbulent waves in his. Sienna had worked too hard on her business to let him walk all over it. Besides, Rose was there. The king of Birmingham had little authority under her rule.
"Aye." One of his hands sneaked inside his tweed jacket, taking the wallet out in slow, deliberate moves. He started taking the notes out, one by one, placing them down on the counter.
"Finn says you never pay for suits," Andrea stated. "Something about the suits being on the house or the house burns down."
"Finn says a lot. And if we burned this house down, our Peaky arrogance would be among the ashes." He took one last note, adding it to the pile. "For the lady over there."
He gestured towards Rose and her head moved to him in an instinct, like a sunflower towards the sun. Their eyes met abruptly, too abruptly, to the point where Rose felt like she was staring directly at an eclipse, an eclipse she knew she should look away from before she went blind. But she didn't. There was something beautiful about the things that could kill.
"Make her a pretty dress, eh?"
"I will," Sienna smiled, and Rose quirked an eyebrow at him.
"I don't recall being invited."
"You're invited," Thomas said, looking around. "All of you ladies are. Saturday, 8 o'clock. Don't bring your husbands."
He left just as quickly as he had arrived, shoulders curved and confident hands in his pockets, and Sienna hugged Rose in excitement.
"Don't worry, Rose. I'll make you a dress he can't look away from."
***
"This is the house you've been teaching in?" Andrea let out a low whistle of appreciation at the entrance of the Arrow house. The sudden arrival of the three Bentleys had grabbed the attention of some people, but the outflow of several exuberant women with glossy lips and sequin dresses grabbed the attention of all. "I thought it would look more like a haunted mansion, but it looks like a small castle!"
"Castles can be haunted too." Rose tightened the coat around her red dress when she felt the fresh breeze drop the first chills of the night on her skin. Tatters of moonlight bathed the manor, outshining the lights scattered throughout the lush gardens. Cheerful laughter and chatter hung in the air; the swirl of guests and waiters coming in and out made the house seem more alive than ever before. Suddenly it didn't look like a museum frozen in time where only history and ghosts walked in; suddenly it resembled a home where the present and the future had a place too.
"I can't believe you convinced me to come to this," Kaya complained, eyeing the rich dishes on the food tables with a disdain her stomach didn't agree with.
"Just try not to hate on Thomas too much," Arwen chuckled, grabbing the first glass she could get ahold of. There was a band playing somewhere, making Angeline fly towards it. Andrea disappeared in the shadows as soon as she spotted the familiar tuft of ginger hair between the guests, and Rose looked up, to the windows on the upper floor. Her heart hammered against her ribs when she caught a glimpse of his moonlike eyes staring into the night. Then she blinked, and he was gone. That's why he never blinked. "We don't want to be kicked out before we even have the chance to step inside."
"Speak for yourself. Just try not to hit on him too much, or I will have no other option but to vomit all over his walls." The bitterness in Kaya's tongue turned to honey when Charles stormed out of the house and ran to Rose, clinging to her legs as if she were a mast in the middle of the storm.
"Rosie! When are we going to have lessons again? I miss you!" He pouted, small fists clenching, and Rose picked him up, biting her lip when her recovering arm objected against it.
"Soon, Charlie, I promise." Rose tickled his belly gently and he giggled. If there was a grenade inside her chest about to explode, this kid would pull the pin, she knew it. "Now how about I introduce you to my friends?"
"Only if they're as nice as you!" Charlie said, snuggling against Rose's shoulder as if he never wanted to let her go. He smelled of baby powder and silk and all things pure.
"I apologize for the intrusion, miss, I was about to put Charles to bed but he ran away when he saw you." Rose turned her head at the sound of Frances' voice, who hesitated for a moment before speaking again. "Like father, like son. They both smile more when they're around you."
"Our Rose has that effect on people." Renée smiled down at her sister, wrapping a proud arm around her shoulders; her scent was sugary and French and immediately took Rose home. If only she could stay there. If only the war hadn't made her such an exile.
Ignoring the sleepy protests of a grumpy Charles, the housekeeper took her with him. When her friends marched towards the tantalizing aroma of fruity cocktails and savory appetizers, Rose stayed behind, making her way to the mansion instead.
"You'd think the host would at least have the decency to greet his guests, right?" A voice beside her, bitter and gravelly, stopped her by the door. It was a tall woman, leaning against the wall with pale arms crossed over her chest. Her hair was as dark as the night above it, greenish eyes sparkling as much as the stars. "He's probably fuckin' around with a maid as we speak."
Rose narrowed her eyes. It left a sour taste in her mouth, how Thomas seemed to collect women the same way he collected pounds, horses, and cars. "I hope he's giving her a good time, then, to make up for the little he must pay her every other day."
The woman raised her eyebrows, not expecting such reaction.
"You're one of his new girls, aren't you?" She stirred her glass, watching the champagne bubbles rise, like golden dust or ichor of the Gods. "A French one? I'm surprised. Ever since the war he has never wanted a French one again. Guess he's falling back to his old habits."
"I'm not one of his girls." Rose winked, and the animosity on the woman's face wavered; it was hard considering Rose a threat when she didn't behave like one. "He would have to go bankrupt to have me."
The woman chuckled, taking a slow sip before looking at Rose. "I can see why he likes you. But you should know he's going to discard you as soon as the next one comes around. That's what he does. Women are just tissues for him to clean up his mess."
She stormed away, leaving Rose to stand still against the trail of her words.
"You'll have to excuse Lizzie." The voice behind her sounded tactful; the voice of someone who was used to bridging opposite forces for she had one foot on both sides of the war. "She gets a little jealous every time there's a new woman in Tommy's life."
Rose turned around, freezing when she came across the angelic version of Thomas. Her sharp blue eyes were set against graceful angles and locks of chocolate hair, and her thin lips held a smile that drove the chills away from Rose. There was an apologetic look in her delicate face, something she had never seen in any Shelby.
"I'm Ada." She took out one of her gloves, extending her hand to Rose, who took it. The difference between her and her brother became striking when her lips stretched even further; Thomas didn't smile like that anymore.
"Rose."
"I know." Her smile turned enigmatic, like a lock for which Rose had no key. "Audrey wouldn't stop talking about her sisters back when we worked together. Imagine my surprise when I come back from America and find her at my brother's house."
"Came back for a family visit?"
"Yes, though thanks to my brother, that includes going to prisons now. If you see him, give him two smacks on the head for me, will you?"
"Gladly." Rose smiled, wondering how a lifetime of putting up with the Shelby's hadn't made her lose her cool. "And as for Lizzie, tell her she has nothing to worry about. I'm not interested in Thomas' heart, or any other part of his body, for that matter."
"Noted, though knowing my brother and the effect he has on women, that might not last long. Speaking of which, I heard Kaya Yende is here too? I'd love to see her."
"She's here," Rose said, a lump settling in her throat at the idea of her friend having a past in which she had no future. "Where do you know her from?"
"From Greta Jurossi, of course. Those two were inseparable, well, until Tommy came along, at least. He has a tendency to ruin things. If you stick around long enough, you'll see."
Rose was about to speak when a group nearby called Ada and she excused herself. With her forehead wrinkled in thought, Rose searched for Kaya, frowning when she noticed her arguing with Thomas under a tree.
"Have you ever even visited her grave?" Thomas was asking, and the typical neutrality of his voice shattered under an accusing strain.
"Every month." Kaya's reply was immediate and clear, like water from a mountain spring that wasn't yet polluted by its journey to the sea. "You stay away from Rose, Thomas, she's suffered enough. She deserves better."
Rose stopped dead in her tracks, the gears in her brain not turning fast enough as the hair on the back of her neck bristled. Thomas left without an answer. Rose had been searching for him all night, but she didn't even hesitate when she went to Kaya instead. Because business and stratagems meant nothing against the feelings of her friends.
"Kaya... who's Greta?"
Kaya looked up; instead of the incensed creases Thomas usually left on her skin, there was a harrowing sadness in the curve of her eyes that ached in Rose's soul.
"My best friend from school. I met Thomas and the Shelbys through her. She and Thomas... they were in love, the kind of love everyone in Small Heath knew about. The kind you want to hate and have at the same time."
"Did you..." Her tone was light despite the heaviness in her heart. "Have feelings for him as well, and your friendship with Greta was caught in the middle?"
Kaya snorted. If Rose had asked her if she could go skinny dipping in the lake, she would not have been more offended. "I'd more easily carry an elephant on my back than have feelings for him, believe me. You think I hate Thomas because I was in love with him and he rejected me?"
She reached for the inside of her coat, taking out an old picture of a brunette girl outside of an Italian restaurant. "She was Tommy's first love, Rose. But she was also mine. And she chose him. And then she died. Because that's what happens to everyone and everything that he touches – they wither and they die. And I can't let that happen to you."
Rose's brows knitted together, and her hands did the same with Kaya's. Wondering how much of that love she still held in those hands.
"I'm not Greta. And I'm not Grace. For starters, my name doesn't start with Gr."
"Rose, this is serious," Kaya said, though there was a shine in her eyes that didn't come from the sky. She had never shown that part of her to anyone; the judgements people glued to her skin were too much to bear already. But now that Rose knew, now that she didn't push her away but brought her closer, it was as if she could finally give her first breath again. As if she was being born for the second time. "It's been so long, and I still can't let her go. Every time I look at him, I see her face. Lying on her deathbed, pale as a ghost. She died of consumption. In his defense, Thomas stood at her bedside for months until she passed. Then he went off to the war, and I left Birmingham. Ever since then it has been my shattered pieces against his."
Rose pulled her into a hug, wiping a tear from her cheek. "Thank you for telling me."
"There's something about first loves... you know, Rose, don't you?" Kaya stared at her, and Rose hated that she knew. The tattoo on her shoulder burned as if a claw had ripped through it. "They never die, not within you. And it's so clear that you have a type, Rose."
"I... how so?"
"You like them troubled, and British. With those cold blue eyes, dark hair, and that strong jawline that cuts sharper than their words. Even the elegant clothes and the rakish, devilish charm are the same. Just don't let Thomas take from us, from you, what the other one took."
"He can't." Rose shook her head, her voice reduced to static noise. There was a void within her now that she saw the mistake happening again. "There's nothing Thomas can take from me that hasn't already been taken."
"There's always something, Rose. Men like him always make sure there is."
***
The space in front of the band was under new management as the French Kissers turned it into an improvised dancefloor, spirited, vibrant shoes barely touching the grass as buoyant tunes guided their bodies. The stares they were assembling quickly turned into admirers fighting for their attention, and standing on the sidelines, Rose waited for the dance to switch from foxtrot to Charleston to grab her sister's elbow and drag her away.
"Audrey, can you distract Thomas for a bit? Make sure he doesn't go inside the house."
"Why me?"
"It's clear you do a better job at it than Arwen. He can't stand her."
Audrey chuckled but nodded, no questions asked. "Just be careful. If he catches you—"
"He won't." Rose tucked a curl of soft gold behind her sister's ear. "That's where you come in."
She lingered in the garden for a while, until she was sure the path was clear. Audrey had a way to tell stories that made people want to stay until the end, and she hoped that would work with Thomas. The sepulchral silence inside the house contrasted with the upbeat jazz jingles and the rapid hustle of the guests outside. Rose didn't have much time; luckily, the war had taught her to economize every second.
Her feet stepped on the stairs, light as feathers; she took a deep breath and went straight to Grace's room, where she was sure Thomas was keeping the compromising letters from King George. The most unthinkable place for enemies, the most sacred place for him.
Feeling like someone who had just sinned in church, she started searching for all the places in which he could have hidden the letters: beneath the floor, inside a book or the wall, behind the mirror, the clock or the closet. She sighed in frustration when she didn't find anything, not even behind the portraits or under the bed. She went back to the stairs to see if any of the steps could be holding a safe inside, and when she came back to the room her eyes stopped on the ventilation grille next to the door.
Her heart thundered in her ears like a howitzer expelling shells under fire, but her hands were firm when she fished the knife out of her pocket. Sweat dripped from her face when she finally managed to open the grid and grab the safe lock. She had a list of possible combinations memorized; at her third attempt, she heard noise in the corridor and froze. She risked a peek outside, sighing when a heavily drunk couple entered another room.
She moved to the lock again, growing more and more frustrated with each failed attempt. Then it clicked open, and Rose opened the safe, fingers shaking slightly when she grasped the letters.
The thuds in her heart battled against her mind; for a second her hand didn't move. She thought about how Thomas had saved her, at the Ritz, and then when she was shot. About how the splinters in his soul everyone talked about didn't hurt when they brushed against hers. Maybe, just maybe, she could tell him the truth, end the lies between them.
But then she thought of her family. And how they were more important than anything else – Thomas Shelby, or her morals. Other people had God. Rose had her family; that was her religion.
She took the letters, closed the vault, and put the grid back in its place. She exited the room and turned around. Thomas was at the top of the stairs. Apparently, he didn't like to stay until the story's end.
His eyes soared above hers, fast, sharp, like frost in the Arctic. He gestured with his chin towards the window; outside her friends were holding hands and whirling.
"Do you dance, Rose?"
She gulped. The letters inside her black coat burned like coal in a forge.
"No. Not anymore."
He took a step towards her; Rose didn't register doing the same, but they met in the middle of the hall, the moonlight descending upon them like a frail veil.
"But will you dance with me?"
"I..." Rose bit her lip. One step closer and the beating of her heart would soar above any other sound. One step closer and the mistake she hadn't yet made would make her repent. "Yes."
She thought he was going to lead her downstairs into the refreshing air, but instead he brought her closer to the window and slowly took off her coat. When neither the letters nor the knife fell, Rose silently thanked Sienna and her ingenious skill. She had made an exceptional job; the grey suit looked good, too good, on him.
The band was playing a slow song now, and Rose urged her heart to do the same, but then one of his hands grasped hers and the other went to her back and she felt all the chills of the night coming back to her at once. When he looked at her, there wasn't a single part of him she couldn't see in his eyes.
She wondered how many parts of her he could now see in hers.
She let him lead the dance, surprised at how quickly her body fell into sync with his; she hadn't danced in so long, she barely remembered the steps. Her hand slid across his arm, clasped at his shoulder. He smiled, and it was like watching the sun come apart under her fingers. A hot, plum wonder she felt the sudden need to drink from. The only thing that night she wanted to taste.
He twirled her around in his arms, a river of shivers falling from his hand to her spine. The silence between them was so deep she could hear the earth moving beneath their feet, thousands of kilometers away.
Then he spoke.
"Y'know, I've struck deals with gang leaders, I've fought gang leaders, and I have killed them, but I've never danced with one before."
She would have frozen in her place if he wasn't leading the dance. If he wasn't pulling her life along with her feet. She kept quiet. His fingers pressed her lower back, then travelled up. The shivers followed along.
"I know who you are, Rose."
She'd thought the world would crash at her feet in that moment. It didn't. It just kept going up. Like a top about to fall.
"What happened to the man I loved? Wasn't he the leader?"
"At first I thought so. But you're the only one that makes sense." His knuckles hovered over her cheek, brushing it ever so slightly. He smelled of whiskey, smoke and all things trouble and she still leaned closer, taking all of him in.
"How did you find out?"
"A number of things. There's equal pay between genders in all the French Kissers properties, and that only happens if a man is truly revolutionary, which I doubt, or if it's a woman who's in charge. I talked to the coppers, to coroners. They told me over the years there's been an unusual number of deaths from cyanide poisoning, most ruled out as suicides or strange accidents. Those deaths began not too long after your arrival in England. They didn't want to tell me anything else. You must pay them well."
"Not well enough, apparently."
One corner of his mouth rose up. "I tracked the cyanide pills all the way to their maker, and the biggest buyers in London apart from the Secret Service are companies the Kissers use under false names. And well, I don't think it's the men in the gang that go around killing other men through a kiss."
She tilted her head. "Are you not afraid I'll do the same to you right now?"
"No. Ya seem pretty bent on not kissing me, so I think I'm safe."
Despite everything, Rose smiled. They were alone, at night, in the dark, and if only she knew he had been in the dark for so long and that when she smiled, she was a beacon in that dark, one where he hoped he'd stay. Because her smile was the light that guided the wrecks of his ship back to a safe haven. No storm could last against that smile. Not even his.
"Then how does it feel like?" She asked in a murmur. They hadn't stopped dancing, just stopped listening to the music. "To dance with a gang leader?"
He let his lips answer for him when they went beyond their normal reach. He spun her again, grip returning to her body stronger than before.
"What are you going to do with those letters, Rose?"
This time she stopped, forcing him to do the same. This was the last ace up her sleeve.
"How..." Her mind scrambled for answers. Then it hit her. "Johnny Dogs at the brothel. That was your idea. So he'd spill your secrets, so you could lure me in. A bait to see if I'd take it. And you threw this party just so I would."
Thomas nodded. The chess game they had been playing, he had won it. But Rose didn't feel like she had lost.
"The letters wouldn't prove to me that you're the leader, but they'd prove you have something to hide. Something big enough to risk tryin' to get them."
Rose glanced at the coat hanging on the banister of the stairs. "Those letters are fake, aren't they?"
"They're real. I hid the fake ones in me office, thinking that's where you'd go. But you never do what I think you will."
"I can say the same thing." She stepped back from the chessboard and grabbed her coat to take the letters out. "I stole these because I needed something to bargain with in case you threatened to destroy what I built, like you did with Kimber and Sabini and countless others. The secrecy around my position is what keeps me there. I can't risk having you jeopardize that."
Inside the pocket, her fingers grasped the cold blade. But then his breath scraped her nape.
"Forget the knife, Rose. We both know we won't hurt each other."
She turned around, back colliding with the handrail. She was trapped between him and her fall. "Won't we? You know what I do, Thomas. Not who I am."
His fingers trailed down the obstinate curve of her jaw, slowly.
"You're not Kimber, and you're not Sabini, and you're not any of the fookin' gangsters I've dealt with in the past. We made a deal, remember?"
She remembered. When they had shaken hands in his office, the first day Rose had gone to that house. No war. She didn't think his promise meant anything to him back then.
"I'm a man of me word," he said. "We're not at war."
We're not at peace either. There was no peace for a devil that shook hands with another.
"If not war, I assume it's business you want to make?"
He accepted the letters she was extending him, and Rose could have sworn she saw the devil horns in his shadow. Or in hers.
"Yes. Unless there's something else you want to make tonight."
Her lips parted in a smile, the kind of smile whose edges cut sharper than the razor in his cap. She leaned into him, fingers sliding down his arm until they grazed his. She couldn't know, but she smelled of roses, stars and all things unachievable to him.
"For now, I want to dance."
author's note.
So he finally knows... this might be my favorite chapter yet so I'd love to know what you thought of it!
It's dedicated to wallowsinangst for these amazing posters! Tysm love <3