Tabitha Hearn is a young gypsy woman whose father leads the Hearn Clan. With her father's bad health and mother raising her younger siblings, Tabitha is married off to a man named Thomas Shelby, leader of the Peaky Blinders, to end a lasting feud be...
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CHAPTER TWO: Common Love for Horses
TABITHA DIDN'T COME DOWN FOR DINNER THAT NIGHT.
She was in her thoughts, still processing that her father was going to marry her off to the head of the Peaky Blinders. Tabitha's other sisters were taught that they were to marry someone they love, not for power or status or to make alliances. Finneas and Kezia never married for those reasons, and they didn't want their children to either.
Tabitha's mother was from a wealthy gypsy family who hated Finneas' because of bad blood between them, and they fell in love in secret because Kezia's parents wouldn't have allowed it. They got their happy ending, even though it meant Kezia never saw her side of the family ever again.
Thomas filled her thoughts as well, his crystal blue eyes still staring at her, piercing and exposing her soul. She didn't know him at all other than the Peaky Blinders and that they were bookmakers. Still, she didn't deny that Thomas Shelby was physically a handsome man, only four or five years older than her. His eyes were what drew Tabitha in the most, never seeing such a beautiful pair in her life, more beautiful than her own.
The Shelby brothers didn't stay the night, returning to Small Heath. Thomas Shelby was going to come back the next day to go over wedding preparations and to see the stables, due to his love for horses. Tabitha was still fresh in his head from when she walked into the study. Her light brown hair in waves that stopped at her shoulders, her matching eyes with flecks of gold in them, holding the last innocence she had left after the war.
Tabitha woke up early, laying in bed and looking up at her bedroom ceiling. She heard her mother downstairs, smelling the food she was cooking. Her mother was also telling at her father in Romany, telling at him to go check on Tabitha and talk to her as Tabitha got dressed. She headed downstairs right when her mother stopped yelling. Penelope, Charity, and Ocean were silently eating their breakfast as Tabitha sat on the end of the pearly white stairs of their home.
Finneas walked out of the dining room, seeing his eldest daughter on the stairs. He softly sighed, then sitting on the steps beside her. Tabitha didn't look at her father, but looked down at the floor, still upset from the decision of being betrothed.
"I know you're still upset about the...decision," Finneas said, putting his hand on Tabitha's knee. "But we don't have much of a choice."
"There's always a choice, papa," Tabitha mumbled. "How could a man just out of the blue marry off his daughter?"
"You think I want to marry you off like this? This is killing me as much as it's killing you."
"Then don't let this happen." She begged, putting her hand on top of his. "Call this off, for me."
"I...I can't," Finneas started. "Tabitha, I can't allow a war with the Blinders. As I'm afraid to say it, I'm too old, and my old bones can't take it."
