Blair sat bouncing her leg anxiously, the heel of her shoe never touching the ground for fear of an irritating echo that would draw unwanted attention towards her.
With her hands clasped around the leather strap of a white handbag, her posture was strong and tall, her blonde hair curled and pulled around her shoulders, framing her heart-shaped face like petals frame a flower.
She wore a blush pink satin dress with a white cardigan covering her arms, white heels and silver jewellery hung from her fingers and ears, a single silver chain wrapped around her wrist with a platinum heart encrusted with brilliant diamonds sat just above her watch.
She glanced down at the watch, swallowing as the hand ticked towards two o'clock in the afternoon. Blair had been sat waiting in the large home on the outskirts of Birmingham for half an hour. She'd driven there early, getting herself ready for the day many hours before she needed to. She wanted to look perfect, make a good first impression as a woman who was kind and gentle, a warm, friendly smile on her face that just screamed innocence.
"Mrs Kennedy?"
Blair looked up with a smile at the woman who called her name from the large wooden doorframe to her left. The woman was in her late forties, perhaps early fifties, with a weathered face and pulled back dark hair. Her smile, however, was juvenile and refreshing.
Rising to her feet, Blair smoothed out her dress and followed the woman into a large drawing room. A long table with twenty seats around the edge was the first thing that caught her attention before her eyes began to notice the expensive silverware and Greek stone artwork placed on sideboards and windowsills.
"Take a seat. My name is Frances, I'm the housekeeper here."
Blair shook hands with Frances before taking a seat adjacent to her at the head of the table. She placed her bag on the floor by the foot of her chair, brushing a piece of hair away from her face.
"It's a pleasure to meet you." Blair said with a charming smile, her fingers twisting around one of the rings on her finger beneath the table.
"You have a very impressive resume, a lot of experience working with children."
"Yes," Blair agreed, "I have three younger siblings who I helped my mother raise. I was a teacher at a school in Coventry before and during the war, too."
Frances skimmed through the resume that sat on the table before them, nodding as she did so.
Blair had no doubts about being more than capable of doing the job she'd applied for. The advertisement in the paper perked her interest one afternoon, a live-in nanny to a young boy in the countryside just past Birmingham city centre.
She had been living in Coventry with her husband for two years, marrying him very quickly before he left for war, though she came out the other side of the war a widow.
It had been a tough year adjusting to life alone and most days, she still suffered. Blair found herself unable to focus in a classroom full of children, having visions of her husband in the corner of the room as she tried to read them stories or teach them to count. She spent her lunchtimes crying alone, the pain never seeming to subside.
Once it got too much, and when she had saved up enough money, Blair left her teaching job and spent a handful of months alone at home. She used up the hours in the day by reading and growing flowers in her garden, finally clearing out her husband's old clothes and giving some of his belongings to his parents.
It had been exactly what she needed in order to move on, as excruciating as it was to sift through his shirts in the drawers and fold away his suits. Blair felt as though a piece of her had died with him in France, and although his friends who did return did their best to comfort her and reassure her that he had felt no pain, she couldn't escape the haunting image of him laying amongst the dirt, unrecognisable.
"Why the change from teaching, if you don't mind me asking?"
Blair cleared her throat, "I feel like it would be rewarding in a different kind of way to give all my attention to one child instead of divide it amongst twenty. I still have the love for educating and helping children discover the world, and I'd love to do that on a more personal, one-on-one level."
Frances smiled warmly before continuing to read some more of the documents Blair had sent across with her application. She looked outside the window, gazing through the glass at the miles of sprawling green fields lined with oak trees, stables in the not too far distance.
The open space reminded Blair of her childhood. She'd grown up in the countryside just north of Birmingham, living in a small cottage on the grounds of a large estate where her mother worked as a cook. She had vivid memories of spending her days with her siblings playing in the endless green, having clean, fresh air to breathe and long, tall grass to play in. That was more than enough for them, even if the toys they had were broken and falling apart and they had to share their clothes, the view from their bedroom window was more beautiful than most other children's.
"Well, Mrs Kennedy, I have to say you are by far the most qualified for this job out of all the applicants. Is the live-in part of the role still something you're able to adapt to?"
Blair felt the same rush of grief drown her for a moment when Frances looked down at the ring on her left hand with an inquisitive raised eyebrow.
"Yes," Blair blushed, "I'm- I'm widowed, as it goes."
Frances gave her a empathetic smile, her shoulders falling slightly as she softly exhaled with painful sympathy.
"The master of the house is a widower, too. You probably won't see him too much, though, he tends to keep himself to himself, he's a very busy man. If he's available I think it'd be wonderful for him to meet you before we take this any further, would you excuse me for a moment?"
Blair nodded with a smile as Frances left the room, closing the door behind her.
The job advertisement hadn't said who the employer was, just that the location was north of Coventry and south of Birmingham. The change of location was one of the things that peaked Blair's interest initially, feeling like a fresh start might be the best thing for her, as painful as closing that last chapter of her life might be.
She sat and waited, the large manor house seeming eerily silent, the sound of birds singing outside the window and the occasional creaking of floorboards somewhere above her was all she heard.
It was perhaps the grandest house she had ever stepped foot inside, never being allowed inside the one her mother worked at as she was growing up. It was breathtakingly beautiful and Blair was more than happy to imagine herself living there, fulfilling the life she watched others live from her bedroom window as a child.
Footsteps approaching the door made Blair adjust her posture again, fixing her hair and smoothing out the glossy balm on her lips, taking a deep breath as she heard the handle twist.
"Mrs Kennedy," Frances spoke, walking down to the end of the table, "Please, allow me to introduce you to your employer, he won't be a moment."
Blair rose to her feet at the impending arrival, her hands joined at her middle as she stood beside Frances.
A second set of footsteps echoed outside the open door. It was the shadow that Blair saw first, long and dark across the doorframe, before he finally stepped into the room.
He stood the same way he always had done, feet apart with his shoulders pushed back, though his suit was worth three times what the ones he used to wear were, his shoes freshly polished and his hair shorter. His eyes, however, were the eyes of a man who had seen an ungodly truth over in France, something that Blair was darkly thankful she never had to see in her husband.
"Mrs Kennedy, this is Mr Shelby. Mr Shelby, sir, this is Mrs Blair Kennedy. She's here about the nanny job for Charles."
Blair swallowed hard, her lips unable to move into even a falsely polite smile as he held her gaze from across the room, her chest rising and falling slowly.
"Oh my God."
an;;
DISCLAIMER- this story, like all my others, doesn't follow the timeline from the show, it's totally different so please keep that in mind while reading!
ahhh new story!!! sorry it's another Tommy book but I love that man more than myself and this idea came to me late last night and I just HAD to write it!! Please let me know what you think of this first chapter, updates coming soon!!
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Another Paradise | T Shelby
Fanfiction"There wasn't a single second that passed that I wasn't thinking about you." [mature themes throughout]
