Crown of a Prince (Finn Shelby)

111

It was not the first time Thomas Shelby had returned home with blood on his hands. But he was vowing it would be the last time. Evadne Barwell, her two sons and her son-in-law died knowing that cursing his family was what caused her death. The footmen didn't ask questions when he handed his gloves and coat over, both spattered in blood and mud. They were paid enough not to ask questions.

"Mrs Shelby and...the other Mrs Shelby are in the dining room, Sir"

Tommy braced himself. He was struggling with Lizzie, he wasn't sure he had the time, the patience or the sanity to try with Ailbhe too. But he nodded, wiping at the blood on his hand that still clung on despite how vigorously he had tried to be rid of it in the first stream he spotted.

The dining room was deadly silent. And he hated it. Usually silence was Tommy's preference. But when Ailbhe came to visit, she almost always brought the noise and joy that she had always filled their homes with. He often returned home to laughter and shrieking, knowing that Ailbhe was probably keeping Ruby up far past her bedtime, having brought sweets from London or a new set of paints from Camden Town.

They sat at the table, much too big for just the two of them but Mary had probably insisted they had to sit and eat something. Lizzie hadn't been eating and he had seen the disinterest in her in anything that had to do with living.

Ailbhe didn't look much better. Her skin was pale, her shoulders slumped and arms wrapped around herself, ignoring the dishes placed in front of them.

Both women wore black and the grief hung in the air, lurking.

Smoke curled from the cigarette in Lizzie's hand but Ailbhe leaned away from it. The smell was too much like the smell of the pyre that Ruby had burned on. She reached for the glass of whiskey and drained what was left in her glass.

Evadne Barwell was dead. She was the woman who had done this to them. But beneath it all it was Tommy who had done this to them and their pain was his fault. And he felt it in every part of himself that still had feeling in it.

He and Lizzie argued. She shouted and pulled away when he reached for her. 

Ailbhe just sat there. She didn't even speak. It worried him more that she was quiet than if she had sobbed or shouted, screamed or hissed at him.

The door slammed behind Lizzie.

Ailbhe didn't even look up.

Ruby was gone. Arthur was fading into nothing. Lizzie was a mother without a child. Polly was gone. Niall had gotten married and was having a baby that his wife was lucky enough to conceive by accident. Ada and Liam were in London and had pulled away from them all, not that anyone blamed them.

Ailbhe was the one person he had hoped would always stick by him. But he had allowed her to follow him into this mess and he had enabled her to place right in the danger that was Evadne Barwell's wrath.

"You killed her, didn't you?"

He didn't want to talk about Evadne Barwell or Ruby or how empty he felt or how Ailbhe looked more like a ghost than his sister.

"I will donate more money to researching the causes and cures of consumption"

Tommy wasn't even listening. He couldn't.

"Ailbhe, you will expand the Shelby Kennedy Institutes"

It was an order, much like all the orders he had given her before. But she either didn't hear him or didn't listen to him. Because she sat there like a statue, not even looking at him.

She hadn't answered the telephone in three days. She hadn't gone to work nor even to the Shelby Kennedy stables near her and Finn's home. Finn told him that she didn't eat or sleep, she didn't want to talk or work. She just wanted to be left alone. And the only place she could do that was with Lizzie.