Tommy Shelby ~ Between the Walls and the Whiskey

Untitled Part 5

Something had changed in the two weeks that past after their first night together.

Cecilia noticed a shift in the way people regarded her. Where everyone had once been friendly and accommodating, now, while still friendly, they had become fearful and from that fear sprang a constant need to see her treated like one of the Shelbys.

She seemed to always have first pick of the freshest produce at the market and was given extra cuts at the butcher.

People would quietly insist that she move ahead to the front of the line, be it the post office or the movie house. Cecilia was ushered past the unknowns and the ordinaries because she really was a "part of the machine now."  She, was in with the bloody royal family.

Still it would take some getting used to, especially having another woman avert her eyes as Cecilia crossed her path in the street. It made her feel removed and distant, but vaguely powerful. Though she never forgot where that power came from.

Without Tommy, none of this would be happening.

They weren't exactly walking down the street hand in hand. But people, while never clever enough for her in general, had been falling in and out of love for centuries. One needn't be a genius to figure it out. After a few of the old gossips saw him walk her home from her errands, and spotted her coming from his house in the early morning hours, it become clear enough that the relationship between Thomas Shelby and Cecilia Clark had indeed changed. Now because of it, she was being lumped in with the rest of them.

While she sincerely loved him and cared for his family, to be looked at like a gangster when she'd never done anything more than win a few fights back home, and deliver a few stolen goods for her uncle, was starting to wear her down.

Cecilia couldn't help but wonder what other sort of attention she might attract with this new status. Being with a man like him had placed a target on her head and she'd known it would from the beginning; but she kept on loving him all the same.

It was when she noticed a couple of well dressed men watching her walk to the bar a few times, that she began to fear for her safety,with any illusions of protection beginning to fade. It was painfully obvious that they were from some rival family or gang, but their intentions where still a mystery.

As she left the post office on a crisp morning, the sort with the promise of spring in the air but the chilling wind still blowing, numbing nose and fingers, she decided to have a little talk with the man responsible for it all.

*

It was a short walk to the Shelby homestead and she made it quickly, determined and annoyed that she hadn't found Tommy in his usual places.

"Hi Polly." She said inside the busy walls of the Shelby home.

The house was alive and buzzing with the energy of the now legal bookmaking. Men were placing bets, discussing the horses and jockeys, smoking and drinking in spite of the early hour.

The matriarch of the family looked up from her ledgers and gave Cecilia one of those tight lipped all knowing smiles. Her big brown eyes looked black in the dim light and deep as pools, full of knowledge and the ability to always be one step ahead.

It made Cecilia question everything she said before saying it, but she knew better than to let that stop her. Polly never suffered fools, and Cecilia would give her no reason to think her a foolish girl with an infatuation.

In fact over the course of time, she and Pol had come to a silent understanding.

Cecilia stayed in her place and Polly tolerated her with a sort of cold love that she surprisingly didn't mind. The woman respected her, having learned of her hardships in America, and her loyal nature from Tommy and from having her work for the family for almost a year now with no reason to think of her as a problem or liability.

"Hello Cecilia" she said and nodded towards the tea sitting across from them on a smaller table.

"Oh no thanks. I can't stay."

"Then what can I do for you, care to place a bet?' She asked in her own snarky fashion.