#no grave can hold my body down ill crawl home to you etc

[zemnarihah]

WARM BODIES ONLY ROMCOM EVERRRR BTW!!!!!

[camlovesjace]

No grave can hold my body down, I'll crawl home to her.

Jacaerys Velaryon x oc!fem Targtower. Part two, -part one, here:

https://www.tumblr.com/camlovesjace/747473041907449856/no-grave-can-hold-my-body-down-ill-crawl-home-to?source=share

WARNING: war stuff, violence, grief, etc. SINOPSIS: Cellys thinks Jacaerys is dead, the whole kingdom mourns the crowned prince while the war pushes everyone and everything apart. All must choose.

The days were a torture, the nights even more. His face seemed to haunt her anywhere she could look at, his honey eyes, those who capture her whole heart and tempted her to worship him until her last breathe. The lords were ashamed, like if the biggest burden were resting on theirs shoulders, and how could they not feel like that? Even the white haired girl felt ashamed, ashamed of being alive while Jace wasn´t. It felt totally wrong...to be in a world without his presence, to know that her name will never come out of his mouth, that his hands will never touch her again, that his gaze will never find her own in this lifetime once again.

Aegon and her mother moved from forced to stay into her bechambers to force her to get out of them, but Cellys wasn't really interested in keep pretending that a piece of her had not die with Jace. The sheets of her bed were glued to her skin, in a mix of tears and pain, her cries in the moonlight kept the whole castle awake. Her sobbing were a constant reminder of the life this was was stealing from them. Not only the lives of those who fight for the greens, but also to their enemies. The lost of Jacaerys Velaryon, prince of Dragonstone and heir to the iron throne, was a stab in the guts of everyone.

Maester Eustace stayed loyal to the young boy, claiming him as legitimate and denying the comments of those who dare to call him bastard, even if those rumors were true or not. Aegon knew Cellys would be destroyed and devastated, and it was happening in front of his eyes. She barely ate, her pale skin turned into a gray almost lifeless, her white hair was silver and her eyes seemed empty. All the rage in her stopped suddenly, it was like if she were a shelf of the old fearless princess who always had something to say.

Seeing her like this wasn´t usual at all.

Now it was all silence, empty and breaking silence. No words, no fight, just a deep whole of darkness. And she was not fighting against it, Cellys was just letting it ate her.

"No, mother..." she spoke, refusing the petition of the old green queen about walking in the gardens. Her voice was slow, hoarse from all the crying of the last night. Half a moon had passed since the death of the eldest son of Rhaenya and Cellys Targaryen was already rotting from inside.

"Do you want to keep living like this?" Alicent asked, yet her question didn't get any answer from her younger daughter "He...he was..." she spoke but when the young woman gaze her she closed her mouth, unsure if her words would help or make her feel worse.

"Do no insult him in front of me" Cellys said, thinking about the worst.

"I was not about to insult him" the old queen said, sighing "I know how much you cared about him, i know it...but he wouldn't want you to consume yourself with the pain of his death"

Cellys knew Jace would not want that, if he would be here he would literally pick her up from bed and take her to take sunlight, he would try to distract her with anything to not let her felt alone. He would want to her to live, and move on...to find happiness again.

But he wasn't there, and that was the most unbearable feeling.

Cellys doesn´t know if Rhaenyra found his body, or if the sea sank him. The thought of his body alone, cold and forlorn made her want to die as well.

"I..." she whispers, but the knot on her throat cut off any words, she wanted to cry but the sore on her eyes was painful. She wanted to ask her mother to let her go to Dragonstone, to talk with Rhaenyra and...at least, confess that her heart the one of his son were one. Even if a marriage didn´t tied them officially, their souls were one.

But now she was only a half of that soul, cursed to try to find a glimpse of him her whole life.

He never made her his own, her womb never carried and never will carry a child of his, his blood and flesh. And she will have nothing to remember him but her own memories, that will deteriorate every moon, every second.

She missed him, and she wouldn't doubt to die instead of him in any chance she could get.

His lungs were sore, every breath felt like the slowest torture. His eyes were still closed, soft gasps rolled out of his tongue when the unknown hands on his back moved to heal his wounds. The pain on his chest was overwhelming, and yet his mind was consumed by her face.

"Cel..." he says, but a gasp of pain cut his words, his whole body aching while the soft cries ran out of his mouth "Cellys"

He called her, hopeful to hear her voice against his ear, to see her face, but the touch of those hands weren´t hers. The warmth was not the same as the one she has.

"Eis baos han daar" an old woman said and he couldn´t understand her, the language was something he'd never heard before.

-the boy had woke up-

"Han esse jeiclis?" someone asked -is he still hurted?-. Jace felt a wave of cold sweat ran over his back, he stayed there, trying to not be seen like a threat. But that voice, the voice of a man, was very familiar.

"Naor, we essese kao jeiciness" again, the woman who was taking care of his wound spoke those new words. -yes, but he will heal-

He opened his eyes, breathing heavily and biting his lower lip to hold on a cry of pain. He felt embarrassed for being crying like this like a child but the pain was too much to handle. Then a man kneel beside him and the face of Lord Stark blind him for a second, until the feeling of relieved hit him. A soft smile showed up on his face and Jacaerys tried to do the same yet he was sure that it must have looked like a grimace.

"Prince" The man said, almost proud to see that he survived. The arrows on his back looked bad but he was awake and that was a good sight.

"Cregan" Jace says back, he tried to get up from the small mattress but his friend stopped him, shaking softly his head. The background sound were a mix of man's speaking and horses noises, it was an army...

"No, stay there, you need to heal" he spoke and then his dark eyes found his own, and everything that needed to be said spoke for itself in between their gaze. Both knew what will happen next, and Jace was ready to face it, to get back his mother and his own birthright...and to take his woman back to his arms, where she belonged "We have came to fight for our dragon queen"

[kai-n-ali]

In the Fields of Asphodel (My Regrets Follow You to the Grave) | Chapter One

Eleanor Blum didn’t know what to think of this man, this Peaky Blinder devil that made all of Small Heath cower before him, this almost-stranger with his dead wife and dead stare, but she wished he’d stop showing up at the flower shop she worked in. And that he’d stop looking at her with those blue eyes of his. 

Follows aftermath of Season 03 throughout Season 04. Tommy x OFC.

Warnings: Depictions of child abuse, antisemitism towards OFC (slurs), canon-typical violence, canonical deaths, sexual themes, etc.

Word Count: 5K

Chapter Two ❀ Chapter Three

                               Chapter 1: Citron (Ill-natured Beauty)

   The bell let out a series of chimes as the door creaked on its hinges, and in a small florist shop tucked between a gelateria and an abandoned butchery, Eleanor Blum officially met the devil of Small Heath.

   She wasn’t impressed.

   Flora’s, the little florist and botanical shop, had become a haven for the twenty-three-year-old in the time that she’d lived above Cora Evans’ storefront: only a few short weeks. Flora’s, partially named after Cora’s granddaughter, Florence, was a bright spot of color among the grit and grimness of Birmingham, with flower boxes brimming with asters and foxgloves, strawflowers and marigolds. Along the south-facing wall, honeysuckle crawled up the scratched brick, and the thick, sweet scent of the flowers almost washed out the stench of shit wafting up from the nearby horse stables or the sour-milk scent from gone-off gelato dumped in the dumpster, left to fester in the summer heat.

    Inside, the shop was cluttered, bouquets dotting the window display and trailing back in colorful bunches all throughout the front of the store, some put in ornate vases, others in ribbon-adorned mason jars, and a few placed into half-rusted buckets. Petals and leaves dotted the floor, and the room reeked of lavender and fresh-cut stems, grassy and clean. In the back of the store where the rare plants were, packets of seeds labelled in Cora’s handwriting, and now in Eleanor’s own scrawl, lined their worktable in rows.

    When he first came in, she didn’t bother looking up from her spot bent over one of the tables, hands streaked in dirt from potting snapdragon cuttings—they were very fashionable right now for front gardens, apparently—and the charcoal from her pencils. She’d plucked a honeysuckle bloom off its stem earlier in the morning and was practicing the loose lines of it on paper with strokes of a pencil. 

    The bell chimed, and Eleanor heard none of it, not until a voice cleared its throat a few paces in front of her. Eleanor jolted up, pushed a few curls out of her eyes.

    The man in front of her was beautiful in the way most wild things were when trapped behind glass. The way vines were beautiful when they were confined to the cracks of cobblestone, peeking out in glimpses of brilliant green. With cheekbones that looked like they’d split the pads of her fingers if she reached out to touch, that looked like they were meant for dinner parties as much as they were for being flecked in blood, Eleanor felt herself stiffen. She knew this man. Sort of.

    That newsboy cap was just ridiculous.

    Thomas Shelby, the husband of Grace Shelby, stood in her new place of employment. The last time she’d seen him, Eleanor had been at a gala in a new dress, gems dripping from her throat and beading trickling off her hem while she grilled his wife on her new orphanage and its living conditions for the second time.

    He was a ghost. Some half-wilted thing.

    Eleanor tilted her head, taking in the stiff lines of him, the strained civility held in the pale blue of eyes, and thought: how disappointing.

    She hadn’t taken Shelby for the kind of man to wilt.

    Meanwhile, it seemed Mr. Shelby was studying her as well. The startling blue of his eyes trained on her, cut across by the thicket of his lashes. He swept up and down her form, and she avoided fidgeting just barely. It seemed he recognized her, perhaps from the charity gala for the Shelby Foundation that went so wrong. Eleanor herself had only seen glimpses of him at said event, dressed in a black tux, the cut of his jaw severe and the stretch of his coat across his shoulders making her mouth go dry. She’d seen him as a dark shadow lingering behind his wife, his hand curling around her pale shoulder or tucking a loose, golden curl behind her ear before he was up and off again.

    Though, she realized she’d lied before. The last time she’d seen Thomas Shelby, it’d been a black-and-white photo shot from quite a distance, his back ramrod straight as he stood over the coffin of his dead wife. Surrounded by chrysanthemums and hydrangeas. His family stone-faced beside hordes of men in full military garb.

    The thought of Mrs. Shelby made her wince, and if anything, that made him stare harder. Something in his eyes questioned, how do I know you? Eleanor wasn’t obliged to answer.

    She locked her jaw and crossed her arms over the dirt-streaked cotton of her blouse. “Can I help you?” she asked, “or did you come just to ogle?”

    Somewhere from close behind, Eleanor heard a small squeak. She turned to face the noise. Florence, or Flora, sat on one of their many wooden benches, nearly toppling over a vase of petunias with every swing of her feet. Her eyes were very wide. “Ella,” she said, high-pitched, in a more-than-loud whisper. “Ella, that’s Mr. Shelby.”

    Flora was a girl of thirteen, with straight, dark hair cut right below her ears, and a smile that grew more lopsided the harder she grinned. When the chores were through and if the shop wasn’t busy, Eleanor would sit down and entertain her with little doodles, half-formed sketches.

    Right now, however, she was white as a freshly bleached sheet, her gangly legs jiggling with nerves. She hadn’t grown into them yet, but Eleanor found them endearing—almost coltish. Her eyes darted for her grandmother, but Cora was long gone on an errand.

    Mr. Shelby seemed unaffected, clearing his throat again with a cough. One hand rested on his pocket-watch, as though already eager to check the time. “Ella, eh?” She’d never heard him speak before, and the coarseness of his voice made her stomach flip-flop alongside the annoyance burning away at her. “Well, Ella—”

    “Eleanor.”

    There was a slight furrow to his brow now. It really was painfully fucking charming. He just sort of looked at her, head cocked, considering. Eleanor let out a gust of a sigh.

    “It’s Eleanor. My name. Not Ella.” Not to you, she thought. There was a pause, and she heard more than saw Flora place her head into the palms of her hands.

    “Tommy Shelby,” he said, as if she didn’t know that, and offered her his hand. Eleanor looked at that hand, the deceptive slimness of his fingers and the narrow taper of his wrist. His callouses were faded, softened with time.

    There was dirt under her nails and specks of dried mud up to her wrists, but she shook Mr. Thomas Shelby’s hand like she was wearing silk gloves. All lowered lashes and a coquettish flick of her wrist bone. The high-society ladies back home would surely applaud her if they saw.

    Then she ruined it.

    “What kind of grown-ass man still goes by the name Tommy?” she blurted before she could stop herself, her hand still in his. His hand had looked almost delicate before, but it engulfed her own. The shocked jerk of it against hers sent a vibration up her arm, and she suppressed a smirk. His eyes narrowed in on her face, a sudden intensity there he hadn’t possessed before. Like he wanted to peel back her skin and look beneath. Off-to-the-side, Flora let out a distressed little sound, akin to a mourner at a funeral. Viewing the body one last time before it lowered into the earth with the worms.

    The next sound past his lips was a huff that could’ve been taken for a laugh. If he were any other man. “One without a stick up the ass, I bet.” He tossed a glance Flora’s way, quirked up his mouth. He really had a lovely mouth. “Miss Eleanor.”

    And Eleanor couldn’t hold back a grin. “Hm. Agree to disagree, Mr. Shelby.” She crossed her arms over her chest, leaned over the countertop until her curls swung into her face. They were close enough now she could almost feel his breath ghosting the top of her head. “So, what’re you here for, then? Haven’t got all day.” Now, she sweetened her smile so the next bit wouldn’t bite, only sting. “Not even for the likes of you.”

    “Y’ know,” and his voice was a slow drawl that made her spine tingle and her hair stand on end, the way his lips formed around the words with the barest hint of threat, of teeth, “people rarely speak to me this way, Miss Eleanor.”

    “Not to your face, I’m sure.” She paused. “Mr. Shelby.”

    Was it just her, or was he almost smiling? “Fair enough. Just a bouquet for me.” His eyes hadn’t left her face. “Of your choosing.”

    “Right away,” she said, but something nagged at her. Taking a glance at his clothing—well-pressed and well-tailored, with a dark coat that had to be far too hot for the late July humidity and slacks with a crease down each leg—and thought he looked like a man heading to a funeral. Or a gravestone. Eleanor swallowed. Thought back to that black-and-white photo from near a year ago. Chrysanthemums and hydrangeas.

    Despite herself, she wondered if those had been Mrs. Shelby’s favorite flowers. They weren’t the flowers of funerals. Of mourning.

    Eleanor cast her gaze around the shop, but there was no arrangement that caught her interest, that fit the bill. She worried at her bottom lip. “Gimme a moment,” she muttered, almost to herself, and stepped out from behind the table. She felt his eyes on the back of her neck.

    Off-to-the side, pressed against the wall, were paint buckets filled with loose flowers, rows upon rows of color and texture, bunched together and stems kept in nutrient-enriched water. Among them, she found what she was looking for: chrysanthemums, white and ruffled with their pale green centers; hydrangeas, their purple petals in clusters. She also went for baby’s breath, as sparse and dainty as it was. A good filler for a bouquet, with the bonus of a powerful meaning. Everlasting love. Not that Thomas would know that.

    From a pail on one of the many counter spaces, she hunted for a ribbon. All knotted up in a ball, it took her a moment before she found the perfect one and managed to untangle it from the rest. Silky, sage green embroidered with indistinguishable little white buds. Perhaps a touch too long. Plucking and tweaking until it formed into a proper flower arrangement, if not a bit of a rustic one, she made a simple bow around the bundle before turning back to her customer. Taking quick steps to get back behind the main counter. “All done,” Eleanor said. She couldn’t look at him. With the heft of one shoulder, an almost-shrug, she offered the bouquet forward, level with his chest. She traced the pattern of his vest with her eyes, the stitching.

    The bouquet was smaller than a lot of the ones on display, less elaborate.

    But it felt right.

    Reaching into the pocket of her skirts, she rifled for the few spare coins she kept there for emergencies with her spare hand. He’d yet to take the bouquet. She slapped them onto the space in front of him with a clink. Just enough. Flora was strangely silent. “And already paid for.”

    Thomas’ eyes felt hot on her face. Almost a brand.

    He didn’t say a thank you, just gave a hum under his breath, and when he reached out to grab the flowers, his fingers grazed her own. She wondered what he thought of the scar tissue stretched across her knuckles, her fingers, if he could feel it against his skin, bumpy and rigid. This touch felt different than when he’d shook her hand, and it sent pinpricks of sensation up her forearm. When he let go, she shook out her hand away from view, trying to force the odd tingling away. It lingered.

    “Good day, Mr. Shelby.”

    “Eleanor.” And when he left, it was with a chime of the shop’s bell.

    For a moment, the whole shop was suspended in a hush, as if the world itself had paused, reverberating with that single chime. But then Florence was up in a flurry of movement, flinging herself into Eleanor’s space with a string of expletives that didn’t belong in the mouth of a grown man, not to mention a fourteen-year-old girl. Eleanor laughed despite herself. Threw back her head with the force of it.

    “Language,” she chided.

    “D’ you ‘ave a death wish?”

    Florence’s round eyes were roving over Eleanor’s face, her hands on her hips. She looked very serious—or would’ve, if not for the spot of dirt on the side of her nose.

    Eleanor smiled. “Not recently, no.”

    The younger girl didn’t seem to find that very funny, and a scowl twisted her features. “That’s Tommy Shelby you just ran your mouth off to, Ella,” she stated, jabbed a finger at her chest. Adorable, Eleanor thought. “Tommy. Shelby.” The stress on these two words was punctuated with another two jabs.

    “I know his name.” I’ve met his wife.

    “You don’t get it,” she said, and there was a franticness to her voice, her posture. Her hands twitched and fidgeted. “’E’s the leader of the Peaky fuckin’ Blinders. People say ‘e’s worse than the devil ‘imself."

    “Language.” But Eleanor’s head was already tilted in curiosity. Worse than the devil? “Peaky Blinders, huh?" She snorted. “Cute.”

    “Not cute, Ella, not cute. Dangerous. Deadly. They’re the biggest gang in Birmingham. Turned businessmen. They own us.” She puffed a stray hair out of her eyes. “You get a glance at his cap?” At Eleanor’s nod, she continued. “They sew razors into the brim. You fuck with ‘em, they cut out your eyes.”

    Huh. “Is that very effective?” she asked, eyebrows raised high on her forehead. “I mean, that’s a bit of an awkward angle, isn’t it?” Flora groaned, flopping onto a stool besides her, propping her elbows on the counter and resting her forehead in her hands. Eleanor rubbed her back. She seemed to do this quite a lot when Eleanor was around.

   Her next words came out muffled by her palms. “The Blinders ain’t no joke, Ella. They set fire to The Marquis for messin’ with one of theirs. Their enemies get found in The Cut without their faces.” Her voice became very quiet, near trembling. Almost tearful. “You shoulda never spoken to Mr. Shelby like that.”

   Despite her best efforts, Eleanor felt a shiver run through her. Only she could be stupid enough to meet a devil and reach out to shake his hand. With a smile, no less. Well, it was too late now. She leaned until her shoulder pressed into Flora’s own. “Hey,” she soothed. “Look at me, huh?” Eleanor tapped at the girl’s cheek with a nail until she peered up at her, eyes a bit puffy. “Relax, sweetheart. I doubt he’ll be back anytime soon. Not with the warm welcome I gave him.” And she smiled until Florence couldn’t help but smile back.

    The second time Eleanor saw the devil of Small Heath, it was a week later. At Flora’s. And it would be the same as the first.

    That damn bell chimed.

    It was with relief that Eleanor noted Florence was out of the shop when a Mr. Thomas Shelby arrived for the second time, having been sent off by Cora to the gelateria with just enough money for scoop of her favorite, strawberry swirl. This time around, it was just her and Cora in the near silence of the shop, the record player in the back a mere whisper of jazz. Instead of being up to her elbows in damp soil, she had a paintbrush in her mouth and another clutched between her fingers and thumb, making a new display sign with some thick paper and her tin of watercolors. A sketch of Flora, blowing petals out of the palm of her hand. It was as she was halfway through mixing a color for the shadows of her face that the front door opened. At her side, using twine to bind their loose flowers for the paint buckets, Cora gave a sharp intake of breath.

    “Mr. Shelby,” the older woman greeted, hurrying to stand. A strong-featured woman of near fifty, Cora Evans wasn’t one to show fear, or much emotion at all beyond a muted amusement at her surroundings. This sort of “why the hell not?” air of being that she'd clearly perfected over her years. Yet, while her own blue eyes were unwavering on Thomas’ own, Eleanor detected the tense line of her broad shoulders, hiked nearly up to her ears and tickling the grey-brown of her hair. Thomas inclined his head at her boss, and if he looked her way, Eleanor didn’t see it, because she had already turned back to her work, watering down a vermilion for the high spots of color on Flora’s youthful cheeks.

    If she didn’t look at him, maybe she wouldn’t be compelled by whatever urge had struck her before—a sudden desire to pick at and tease, to wrestle up a smile on that pretty mouth.

    Eleanor shook her head, a minuscule gesture, and huffed a curl out of her eyes. Get it together.

    “’Ow may I ‘elp you, sir?” And Cora’s voice was polite, restrained, the normal warmth in her Brummie accent stripped into something foreign to Eleanor. “On the ‘ouse, of course.” At that, she felt her lips pinch despite herself.

    While Cora hadn’t been upset when her granddaughter had finally told her the story of Eleanor back-talking to a Peaky Blinder, she had gone a bit pale, setting down the pot in her hands with a heavy clunk on their scraped-up work table. Staring at Eleanor with new eyes. “Pretty fuckin’ stupid of you, love,” she’d said. “They’ve set fire to businesses for less.” And she’d shaken her head. “Messin’ with that Blinder Devil—thought you had some wits about you.” In the end, though, Cora shooed her off when she hastened to spill out apologies, holding out a hand to pat her on her shoulder.

    “That Thomas Shelby is more sensible than most of ‘em put together. Not like his mad dog brother. It’ll work out for the best, I bet.”

    But now he was back yet again, in a suit lighter than the one before, a pale grey waistcoat with no jacket in sight. His tie was missing, she could tell even from where she hunched over her work, the top button of his dress-shirt undone at the throat. Still looking unbearably hot for the weather. Even the thin material of her house dress clung to her skin with the sweat of being trapped in the shop all day. She didn’t know how he bore it.

    “No need,” he said in that already familiar rasp, and she ducked her head further down instead of looking up and catching a glimpse of his face like she wanted. “Found myself in need of another bouquet.” And she could hear the amusement in his voice. “Eleanor. If you would.”

    The empty space to the upper right of her drawing distracted her. Should she fill it with roses? Lilies? There was a pause that could be felt hanging in the shop, like a physical touch against her skin, but she kept her gaze to that expanse of untouched white.

    “Eleanor,” Cora said, touching gentle fingers to the bared skin of her upper arm. She very rarely wore short sleeves, but with the heat, it felt unavoidable. The circular burns that peppered her arms like kisses—they weren’t even that noticeable, not anymore. Still.

    (On another August day, one from over a decade ago, she recalled the press and hiss of the cigarette when it hit her skin, and the way the mud never dried in that miserable backyard back in New York. Before her uncle came and packed her off to London. The backs of her knees were slippery with it as she squirmed and kicked. But the older girl kept a firm grip on her, and Eleanor stayed in place, sinking into the mud and dead, yellow grass. The cigarette was pulled back, still fizzling, and with the click of a lighter, was relit again. And again.)

    Eleanor blinked. Blinked again and rubbed a hand over her eyes, eyes that felt much more tired than before. She pulled the paintbrush from her mouth, set it on the countertop. “Of course, I can make you another bouquet, Mr. Shelby. Anything in mind?”

    She couldn’t see him, no, but she knew his eyes were smirking at her. Her fingers twitched on her remaining paintbrush. Smug bastard. “Oh, just something to brighten up me office, I think.” And Eleanor clenched her jaw, because that sounded like such shit to her. Why’re you here again, Thomas? She nodded nonetheless, kept her eyes down. You make it very hard to behave. She set down the brush with a clatter.

    “I can do that.”

    She searched for the most spiteful fucking flowers she could think of. Valerian, an herb frequently used for insomnia, green stems bloomed with clusters of white flowers. Readiness. I could take you, Mr. Shelby. Borage, or starflower, brilliant blue with hints of blush from the blooms with their white spines. Rudeness. Bluntness. And buttercups, their delicate yellow blossoms. A personal favorite and a good splash of color against all the blues and whites. Childishness. And, finally, Love-in-a-mist, or Nigella damascena, with their needle-point leaves and rich indigo petals ending in jagged points. A confession more than anything else, not that he’d know it. You puzzle me.

    In her youth, she’d gobbled up all the books on plants and herbs that she could find in her botanically obsessed uncle’s extensive library, and that included tomes on the language of flowers. The knowledge had stuck. And now more than ever, she found herself grateful.

    Eleanor plucked all the respective flowers out of their different buckets, organized by color, and set to work gathering the right amounts of each. She took a canary yellow ribbon from the ribbon pail with a flourish, flicking it in the air to get the kinks out. Grabbing a random empty vase that had once housed a beautiful but boring bouquet of a dozen roses—bought by a very frantic man in worker’s clothes and sturdy boots an hour prior, who looked like he was running quite late—she set the mass of flowers inside and set to arranging them.

    Flora, who hid a chuckle with a cough at the sight of her flowers of choice, left with a quick word to the backroom and a warning glance that burned into the back of Eleanor’s head. She tried not to fidget.

    She was wrapping the ribbon around the hunk of stems when a throat cleared from right by her side. Fuck. Eleanor started, spasming fingers losing the ability to form a bow. Fuck.

    “What’s a rich socialite like yourself doing in a flower shop in Birmingham, eh?”

    But, God, she couldn’t help but spin to face the man now. Thomas stood with his hip propped up against the table she was using, head tilted and pieces of the unshaved part of his hair near falling into his eyes. Seemed he recognized her now. He looked curious. Hungry. Up close as he was, their shoulders near brushing, she saw the hint of freckles beneath his eyes, on the bridge of his nose. It seemed even devils tanned in the sun.

    Everything about him was all graceful command, words spoken in a way that showed he expected to be answered, obeyed.

    It reminded her of his wife.

    The first time she’d ever seen Mrs. Grace Shelby, it had been at a luncheon held at The Midland Hotel, for the sake of convincing the richest of London society to donate to her cause—the Shelby Foundation, whose first action was building an orphanage in Birmingham. When her uncle, Samuel Connolly, had told her the news, alongside the fact that he’d been invited to attend a luncheon on the subject, she’d begged to be brought along.

    “If anyone would have a stake in this,” she’d said at their breakfast table, pointing at his chest with a grapefruit spoon, “it’s me, don’t you think? Let me see how genuine this is.” Sam had set his hazel eyes on hers, lips pursed, but he hadn’t disagreed.

    “You’ll have to dress up,” he’d warned, and she’d stuck out her tongue at him, taking a stab at a section of fruit.

    Eleanor remembered the way the beading of her dress weighted her down that afternoon, and how all she wanted was to be back home in a pair of trousers, lounging with a book in her lap and Fennel, Sam’s Spinone Italiano, laying on the tops of her bare feet. Keeping her warm. But the rich had an ability to do any good works as half-assed as possible, and with all of her blunt Brooklynite manners from childhood, she had sworn to dig out the truth from this Mrs. Grace Shelby even if it meant pulling out the plyers and using some old-fashioned elbow grease.

    That hadn’t been necessary.

    The waitress that escorted them both to the hotel’s largest dining room was a near-silent woman, who meekly commented on the pale jade color of Eleanor’s dress before showing them to a room with a table longer than she’d ever seen. A rich, dark-colored wood leaning near black. The napkins were a fashionable rose, the plates rimmed in gold and dotted in florals along the edges. All the candles smelled of faint vanilla and sandalwood.

    Even for Eleanor, who had spent her teen years and beyond in Sam’s by-no-means-minuscule manor and had attended many a party due to his notoriety, it was extravagant beyond measure.

    At the head of the table, not yet seated and chatting with a plastic but pretty smile on her painted lips, was a woman with honeyed hair and aristocratic, well-bred features. She radiated old wealth in a way Eleanor never could, brought into the fold far-too-late.

    (“Oh my, it’s the little orphan bastard.” One of the wives of some business mogul whispered to her friends behind a glove. They all tittered away at her remark, and Eleanor, all awkward limbs and pale pink scars at fifteen years old, sunk back into the shadows of the sitting room. Uncomfortable in her new dress. Uncomfortable in her new life. “How quaint. It seems he really did pick up a new stray, after all.”)

    Most of the night was a blur, filled with soft, exaggerated laughter and mutual back-patting. In the dining room, the lighting was dim, almost sensual despite it being only two in the afternoon. Flattering everything into a near dream-like state. At the front of the table, Mrs. Shelby had glowed. Almost an hour prior, her hand had been soft and unblemished in Eleanor’s own. Even her handshakes felt soft as silk. But when Eleanor had cornered her later in the evening over a round of drinks, her own whiskey-sour in a fine crystal glass that felt like a paperweight in her hand, she had revealed pure steel beneath the refined veneer. Eleanor could barely recall her barrage of questions now, from over a year ago.

    “What of the orphans with surviving family? Will they be entitled to visitation? And the staff—what of them? Would they be receiving proper background checks prior to their employment?” It had gone on-and-on, and Grace Shelby had answered with assurance blanketing her tone, and a blade tucked beneath her tongue, ready to wield. Her eyes steady. Demanding trust. Eleanor had, though begrudgingly, given it. And promised to have more questions the next time they met. Mrs. Shelby had seemed, almost, like she was looking forward to it.

    But, well, the second and last time she’d seen Grace Shelby. Well.

    In the present, Eleanor zeroed back in on Thomas. He was studying her.

    She knew the red of her lipstick must be smudged. That there was surely charcoal streaked on her face from using her pencils earlier in the day. That the nape of her neck was sticky with sweat, soaking the curls there.

    Still, Eleanor arched her brow at who, apparently, was the most fearsome man in Birmingham. “I used the wrong fork,” she drawled. “Perilous mistake.”

    “Yeah?”

    “Yeah.”

    They locked eyes, and Eleanor wasn’t going to be the one to blink first. Without looking, she knotted the bow and pulled tight. “All done,” she said. She rambled off a price, perhaps one a little higher than necessary. She couldn’t help herself.

    He blinked at her before reaching into his pocket for the money, and Eleanor let out a gust of air when his eyes left her. How were they so blue? Reaching under the table for some tissue paper to wrap the bouquet in, she offered it forward, gripping it by the bottom of the stems. His own fingers grasped it above her own and tugged it out of her hand. He was oddly gentle about it. “Have a nice day, Thomas,” she told him, a clear dismissal, and he quirked a brow at her in a barely-there question. Whether it was because of the curt tone or the usage of his first name—it had just slipped out, she didn’t know why—she wasn’t sure.

    Either way, he left. And Eleanor slumped, boneless, against the countertop. What the honest fuck.

    Now, she knew better than to believe this would be the last time they saw each other.

    And true enough, they met yet again. This time at no fault of their own.