Bancroft - Peaky Blinders Reverse Harem x Reader

Chapter 29

I don't know what I'm expecting when we get home, but it's not Thomas Shelby sat waiting for me.

His arms are folded across his chest, cigarette in one hand and whiskey glass before him. He appraises me with cold eyes, and I suddenly forget how to speak.

"You're back," he says.

I nod.

"Good." He taps the cigarette out in the ashtray. "I'll have Charlie ready us a horse. Pack warm, Bancroft. I hope you're ready for the night ahead of you."

We've been over this plan. But only now, as it's right before me, does it fully sink in. A whole night camping with Thomas Shelby.

He raises his eyebrows at my stillness. "Unless you've changed your mind."

"No," I answer quickly. "I'll—I'll go pack."

I need to see this. Need to experience some of this world firsthand. Of that much I'm certain, knowing I cannot truly decide what I want to do with my future until I know what I'm up against.

I dress in my warmest clothes, thermals and cream jodhpurs and a black turtleneck. My hair is in a low bun at the nape of my neck, and I slip on a pair of boots and a knee-length woollen coat. The gun is cool between my fingers as I count the bullets, and slip it into my pocket.

Tommy's fixing the last of our supplies to the horse as I come outside. "Sleeping bag?" He asks me, placing one in the pack.

"Yes," I say. "Just the one horse again?"

"Less risky than two," he tells me, doing a final adjustment on the stirrups. "Last thing we need is a bloody horse causing a fuss in the middle of the night." He glances at me. "Front or back?"

I waste no time in answering. "Front. I was terrified for my life last time."

"Course you were. Riding's a bit different outside the palace walls."

It's a familiar taunt, but he says it far lighter than he used to. As though it's become an inside joke.

I decide it hasn't. "A bit different when your horse isn't pulling a travelling cart, too."

His eyebrows raise slightly, but he doesn't retaliate as I take the reins and mount on a nearby stump. I almost feel bad, before remembering all the insults he's thrown my way since I've been here.

And then, as he mounts behind me, I stop feeling bad altogether.

I don't understand why, but tingles sear up my back where I can feel the warmth of his body. His smell encases me, and with each inhale it's both dizzying and comforting — tobacco and leather and whiskey and musk. I'm all too aware of every inch between us as I nudge the horse to walk. My spine is more rigid than it's ever been on horseback.

"Going to launch us both into a lake again?" Tommy asks as we reach the country footpath, following the narrow road shrouded in trees. The sun is low in the sky, casting its last rays across the shadows before us.

"That depends. Piss me off again, and it'll be off a cliff side."

I hear the flick of a lighter before he speaks again. "I can think of worse ways to die."

"Do tell me. I'll be envisioning them in my sleep."

He chuckles behind me. "Often think of me in your sleep, do you?"

Heat rises to my cheeks and I stare resolutely forward, suddenly very glad he can't see me. "No."

"What do you think of, then?"

I swallow. "Are you asking me what I dream about?"

"No. Dreams are unintentional. I'm asking what goes through your mind as you lie there in the early hours of the morning, with all the freedom for your thoughts to wander as you please."

"Depends," I say quietly. "Sometimes it's what I've done that day. Or what lays before me in the day ahead. Problems I'm trying to solve." I take a breath. "What about you, Thomas Shelby? Are you human enough to have any such thoughts?"

His voice is low as he replies. "Usually it's France. I used to think there'd never be anything else."

"You're being honest with me," I say, speaking the words aloud in surprise.

"That come as such a surprise, eh?" I smell the tobacco as he exhales. "Left, through these trees up here."

I'm quiet as we enter the forest, ducking below the longest branches. I consider his words, not knowing how to respond to them.

"What is it now, then?" I ask. "You said you used to think there'd never be anything else. And now there is?"

"And now there is," he confirms, but he doesn't answer my question. And I'm not brave enough to push. They are personal questions, after all, and I'd given him even less of an answer than he gave me.

"Lately I've been dreaming about my childhood," I say. "I suppose they're more like nightmares. Recollections."

"I know them well."

"How did you get them to stop?" I turn around to face him then, unable to help myself. "How do you find that something else?"

He holds my gaze, with an expression flitting across his face that I've never seen before. Is that... pain, of some sort? On Thomas Shelby? Surely not.

"You don't," he says quietly. "It finds you."

I don't realise we've been leaning closer to each other until he pulls away. I sit up a little straighter in the saddle.

He clears his throat softly. "This clearing, just up here," he points with a gloved hand.

I feel surprisingly hollow as he dismounts behind me, and cold without him pressed to my back.

But the heavy gun in my pocket reminds me we're here for a reason.