the devil knows. peaky blinders

ACT 5

ACT FIVE
— the beginning of the end —

5. SCENE ONE
— everything all at once —

All at once, everything changed.

Eveline didn't argue but nor did Grace give her reason to. The kiss had snapped something into place: a fit of shared anger toward the Inspector and all he stood for. It would all change, they had agreed upon, between fevered kisses, and they knew exactly how.

"I believe last night something inside me changed," Grace had said upon her meeting with Campbell, voicing all she had thought within her silence. Eveline was not with them. The Inspector had looked upon her as if she was a stranger as she quit. But Grace had meant it. The change was obvious. Her guilt and lack of control had grown too strong, and she refused to entertain it any longer. It was not just her killing shot that had changed her either. It was Eveline, their conversations, their kiss.

The kiss that still lingered on her lips, remained on her mind even as she met with the Inspector again, feeling his arms wrapping around her shoulders. It was only with Eveline in her mind that she could act placid once again, allowing his hold to linger a little too long.

"You're too good-hearted, Grace," he had said. Perhaps she was. But it was for Eveline, that she was so soft, holding her in her once hardened heart.

Her agreement with Campbell had set their plans in motion. The Inspector had his guns but Thomas Shelby would not be harmed. Peace was impending, just as their escape was. Grace could almost see it clearly. Their future would be warm. Spain, perhaps, in a small, southern apartment. They would be close to the sea for Eveline and have a balcony for Grace, and she would sing for her, she promised herself. She would sing to her heart's content.

The man's movements brought her back from her dreams. He removed his hat, eyes confident and wanting, but it was his voice that scared her.

"So, I am no longer your superior officer and you are no longer my subordinate. And therefore, the regulation permits me to offer you this," Campbell said and Grace stilled as her gaze landed on the tiny black box between his fingers. He opened it to reveal a diamond band. A wedding band. "I'm a simple man but a good man. And my admiration for you has turned to love. I don't ask for love in return. Just recognition that we are like minds with shared values."

She wondered what those shared values may be. Her hatred was certainly not the same as his. It was he who was disgusted by Eveline's love for a woman, the same love that he held for Grace, the same love that Grace surely held for Eveline. She wanted to laugh and would have, had she not felt so sick.

The mere thought of Campbell's entitlement was nauseating. What marriage could be accepted without love? What working relationship could be respected in the presence of such lust? It was then that she was reminded that she was a woman in a man's world. She could not exist without that lust, without being an object in his eye.

"Grace, will you marry me?"

The now empty grave loomed beside them and Grace thought she might rather throw herself in and be buried, rather than listen to such a proposal from such a man.

Grace brought her hands to cover the box and the ring, hiding it from view, but she could not look away from the man in front of her, from his eager tongue against his lips and his hawk-like eyes. She wanted to see that expression fall as she willed it to. She wanted to see him crushed.

"Mr Campbell, you deserve better."

That was all it took for a stormy glare to darken his face. He drew away from her, scorned.