Love and Lies • 𝑇𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑦 𝑆ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑏𝑦

Chapter Five

Billy Kimber's house was far less mediocre than the man himself. To the truth of his boasting, it was magnificent. 

Ann stood in the dining room watching maids prepare the table of sixteen seats in a haste brought on by last minute decisions. Her chauffeur had driven behind Kimber in her rented car and arrived more than twenty minutes ago with Thomas and Grace at her heel. The men quickly occupied themselves with the finality of their business dealings in a separate room.

Ann looked out of the dining room wall of windows.

Here it was all greenery and climbing vines. Trees grew full in quaint nooks, with leaves blowing in the wind. They reminded her of the trees she had at her country house grounds as a child. She used to climb them with her books and spend hours. It was always revitalising among the green leaves, the birds and the sky.

Driving through Kimber's gates, it was as if she had been fooled into believing she had entered another world - one far from the dirty streets of Birmingham, the impending entrance of a gangster, an operative or an inspector.

That fooled belief vanished when she felt the discomfort of her knife sheath strapped tight against her thigh right above the running slit of her dress to avoid detection. Perhaps she could have just kept with the one knife designed as a hairpin in her hair and saved herself a bit of comfort. But the more weapons she brought, the longer she could convince herself she could successfully act if circumstances turned disastrous. She always told herself, there hadn't been a disaster, her knives and sense hadn't fought off yet, today would just be another notch in her belt.

She ran that mantra in her mind when Thomas Shelby stood at her side looking out the windows too, a space of a man between them.

"Where's your date?" Ann asked as the wind blew heavily through the leaves of the trees. Thomas didn't answer for longer than was natural for a pause. Ann gathered Kimber's brilliant plan consisted of two separate rounds of celebration.

"The Leaky Tea Rooms." Thomas said. She saw him look at her through her peripheral vision. "I saw you there a couple weeks ago."

Ann hummed a short bout of agreement. When Thomas didn't continue, but kept looking at her for another unnatural pause, she turned to him and quirked an eyebrow. "Well, don't leave me in suspense, did you have a question?"

He continued his wordless looking. These past few weeks, she'd seen him always so in control, she wondered what it would take to break it.

"Thomas Shelby, Mr Kimber called you." Ann said. "The famous leader of the Peaky Blinders."

"You've heard of me?"

"Haven't many." Ann answered. "I thought you'd have horns, or at least a little bit of a bite."

Thomas huffed a humourless laugh and took out a cigarette from his pocket. "The horns are a story I tell to scare my enemies."

"And the bite?" Ann asked as Thomas struck a match and lit his cigarette. He drew in a puff of smoke, releasing it in a long stream.

"You haven't known me long enough," he said.

Ann chuckled. "I've never met a gangster before, indulge my curiosity. What is it you do exactly?"

"You know, besides the usual terror on innocent people, and now stopping a rich man from being robbed," she added, observing his demeanour. He had not a single change in his stoicism, not a twitch in his jaw, an uncomfortable swallow.

"How much exactly is Mr Kimber paying you for your services?" Thomas asked, inhaling another puff of smoke. "I suspect a lot, considering you welcome him laying with another woman mere moments before yourself."

Ann smiled and lifted a shoulder. "Probably more than you'll make in your little business deal when he finds out you plan to double cross him," she said. Thomas still gave no visible reaction.

"Because that's what gangsters do right, get people to trust them, rely on them, and then bleed them of everything they have." She continued, her words dripped with such sweetness that they sounded like praise. "But I can maybe put in a good word for you if you want to bend over for him and make that money fast."

Thomas broke their eye contact and looked out the windows. He paused. "What do you do Miss-."

"Wilson, Celia. My family breeds horses, charmed to win any race." Ann said. Celia Wilson's family did breed horses, and that was their business motto.

"Do you have a card?"

Ann took out a small piece of paper from her purse and offered it to him. "Call this number any time during working hours, and you'll get the executive secretary."

He took the card, and Ann peered at him from underneath her blackened eyelashes, waiting for the catch. The men she was hired to kill did not react the way Thomas Shelby did. When powerful white men felt slighted, they showed their true colours. They yelled, tried to assault her, get her removed from the premises, deported. It commonly ended with their spilled blood.

Thomas only abruptly turned around and left the dining room.

It wasn't too long later that she heard shouting from the second floor. Ann walked out of the dining room and stood by the grand staircase when Grace came fleeting down the steps fighting to fix the clasp on her purse.

"Are you alright?" Ann asked, and Grace took in a deep breath before nodding. "What happened?"

"He thought I was a whore." Grace answered, looking like her thoughts were a million miles away. "The common kind."

"I'm just going to wait in the car," she continued and walked away.

Ann looked at the way Grace left, then up at the stairs. Every inch in her body wanted to walk up the steps to Billy Kimber and run the blade of her knife straight into the appendage he liked to use without accord, but she stopped herself, grabbing onto the railing for control. When on a job, she couldn't kill anyone but the expressed target. There couldn't be the slightest chance of her target suspecting death by her hand. However, after her assigned task was completed, her actions would be of no consequence, and Billy Kimber would reap what he sowed.  

Ann unclenched the railing of the staircase, just as a maid was walking down the steps.

"Will you please tell Mr Kimber that I've had a family emergency, but I thank him for his kindness?" Ann said. The maid nodded. "Thank you."

Ann walked the direction Grace had towards the front doors.