Chapter Text
“My, my! Don’t you look lovely!” Thomas exclaimed as Ruby reached the bottom step and stood in front of him in her red party dress. The skirt was sparkly and when she turned or when the light hit it at just the right angle, you could see each and every sparkle shimmering. Combined with the white leggings, matching white shoes and red hair ribbon, she looked every inch like a princess. “Doesn’t she look lovely, Jessie?”
Tapping my chin thoughtfully, I nodded. “Yes, she looks very lovely, indeed. Only, I cannot tell why she looks so familiar to me.”
He knew the game I was playing without even mentioning it and since Charlie had come down shortly afterwards, he decided to play along. “You’re right. She does look familiar, so does the handsome young lad standing beside her. Where have I seen him before?”
“Haven’t the foggiest,” I shrugged. The children were only briefly confused about what was going on before they realised we were playing a game with them and while Ruby started giggling at our confusion, Charlie stepped closer, not quite smiling all the way yet, but he was this close to it fully spreading across his face.
“It’s us, silly,” he said. “Charlie and Ruby.”
Thomas gasped. “No! There must be some mistake. This strapping man cannot be my Charlie, nor can this giggling princess in the sparkly red dress and white shoes be my precious little Ruby. Very well, if you’re really Charlie and Ruby, what song did you both sing at my birthday party?”
“Happy Birthday,” Ruby answered. “That’s the only birthday song we know.”
“Easy question,” Thomas said with a playfully dismissive wave of his hand, as if he hadn’t just come up with that question on the spot to keep the game going a little while longer. “Tell me something only the real Ruby and Charlie would know.”
Ruby scrunched up her little nose and thought about what she knew about her dad, anything that no one else would know. I thought of something and with a grin, whispered it to them, causing them to both start laughing and for Thomas to glance at the three of us, both amused and confused. He bent down to their level.
“What’s so funny?”
Their smiles and giggles turned into laughter and when Charlie was finally able to catch his breath while leaning on me for support because he was laughing so hard he was this close to falling over, he said, “You snore really, really loud.”
“I, what?” Thomas blinked several times and then gasped again, placing a hand over his heart in a dramatic way. “Lies! I do not snore!”
“Yes, you do!” said Ruby, then pointed to me, “Jessie told us.”
“Did she?” His gaze centred on me and one corner of his lips turned up into the kind of almost-smile-almost-smirk that roughly translated to, ‘You will pay for this later, so be prepared’ and then he said, “Well, don’t believe anything she says, especially when she tells you that I snore. She has this charm that if she told you the earth is flat, you’d believe her.”
“It’s true, the earth is flat,” I nodded, even though I paid enough attention in school to know that the earth was not flat, it was round. Not perfectly round like a circle, though most of us probably imagine it to be that way. I knew they knew better, too, but for Thomas’ sake, I decided to say otherwise. “Therefore, if the two of you ever decide to go sailing one day, you have to be careful, or else you may just tip off the edge.”
“Really?” Ruby’s eyes almost became brighter than stars.
“Really,” I answered with a wink, letting them know I was playing.
“Do you believe us that we’re really Ruby and Charlie now?” Charlie asked.
Thomas pretended to consider his response and he brought them both into a bear hug, nodding. “Yes, despite having relied on your cheeky governess, you have convinced me that you are really Charlie and Ruby. Speaking of which, you’d better get in the music room. Miss Milligan will be waiting.”
Both of them took off into a sprint and Thomas and I eventually made our way inside as well. Everyone was either sitting or standing with more guests arriving by the minute and more chairs being brought in because they’d invited their friends, including Johnny and his kids, to the recital. If you thought it was a full house before, it was even fuller now and while there was a lot less space to move around, everyone seemed happy.
I sat down on a wooden chair between Lizzie and Thomas, who glanced at each other with a soft glint in their eyes. The good kind, like all the tension that had once been between them didn’t exist at all, or was at the very least diminishing to the point where they could be in the same room together and tolerate one another’s presence without wanting to tear into the other person.
Shortly after sitting down himself, he put his one hand on my knee and it jerked upwards involuntarily. I may or may not have let out a surprised little squeak at the feeling of his skin coming into contact with mine. I made a point to look over at him and remind him that we were in the midst of a rather large crowd and such displays of affection whilst in public, were frowned upon, but the words did not come, especially when he took it a step further and wrapped his other arm around my shoulder, pulling me close enough to whisper in my ear.
“Hiding my feelings for you is not easy when you’re sitting next to me in that dress, you know,” he said, sliding his hand up and down my knee and making me shiver. I could not prevent the blush from creeping up on my cheeks and I prayed to our Lord in Heaven above that neither Lizzie or Polly, or anyone else for that matter could see it nor could they hear my heartbeat.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, dear reader, and I do apologise if I am being repetitive, but if there was one man in this whole world who could make me feel the way he did, who made my skin crawl and my insides churn in the best possible way, not only with his voice and his touch, but with his words and his smile, it was Thomas Shelby. I was happy to have a man who was proud to show me off as his own while out and about, as if silently reminding everyone and anyone who looked at us that we were together.
“You’re mine and I want the world to know that.”
“Yours?” I echoed, relieved that the clamour around me, people coming in and out and chattering loudly and excitedly amongst themselves, was enough to drown out our voices, and to conceal the slight shakiness in my own voice. Why my voice was so shaky, I had no clue, though I might have had some suspicions.
He nodded, dipping his head lowly so that his warm breath could be felt against the crook of my neck. “Mine. My love, my life, my reason for breathing.” I smiled as with each pause, he kissed the spot between my jawline and my shoulder, the one place I knew would elicit the most pleasurable feelings and if it was only the two of us, a deep hum of satisfaction.
The words were repeated in Romani and they sounded twice as beautiful as they did in English. My understanding of the language was adequate at best. I had grown up hearing it and my friend, Django taught me a few words, mostly terms of endearment, as if that wouldn’t get his parents’ and my aunt and uncle’s hopes up that we would be married in the future, but also a few basic words. Never under any circumstances was I allowed to utter them to anyone outside the circle they’d built, considering it was and still is a secret language, a trust system used in darker times in order to be able to tell friend from foe and to survive.
After learning this fact, I wondered if it was a good idea for me to be hearing it, but they told me that they had known me long enough to trust me and to know for a fact that I would not betray them by uttering the language aloud. Thomas knew this, too, so we only spoke it when it was just the two of us, or the four of us, including the children.
“I love you,” he said and pressed a chaste kiss to my cheek, unwrapping his arm from my shoulder to join in the applause as the children took to the stage. They took a bow before walking over to their instruments. Ruby sat down on the piano stool and wiggled her fingers to stretch them out a bit while Charlie checked to make sure all of his strings were tuned properly. He turned the one peg and we heard a snapping sound followed by a high-pitched ping, like when an arrow shoots from a bow. He winced and looked to the crowd almost helplessly.
Luckily, Miss Milligan had brought along some spare strings in her purse and swooped in just in the nick of time to help him take out the old one and slide the new string in through the peg. Thomas saw the light return to the little boy’s eyes and he sat down in his recital chair, waving to the crowd.
He and I waved back to him and I saw his eyes close and his mouth move as he counted down from three and he and Ruby started to perform the song.
You could tell just from the way Thomas watched his children perform to the very best of their ability that he was proud of them. Of course when wasn’t he proud of them?
He regretted not being as present in their lives whenever the businessman side of him took over, mostly because the last thing he wanted was for them to get mixed up in it. I mentioned this before, but shortly after Grace died, a bad man took Charlie and used him as a ploy to get to Thomas, and to say the least it shook him to his core.
“I missed Charlie’s first steps,” he once said to me one afternoon as we sat outside and watched the children play after their lessons. “I missed Ruby’s first words. I’ve missed birthday parties and Christmases. I’ve brushed them aside when they needed me most. I don’t want Charlie to lose another parent, nor do I want Ruby to have to grow up without a loving father to protect her.”
The fact that he was willing to take some time away from work and make up for those lost, precious moments by spending as much time with them as he possibly could, by letting them come into his room when they had nightmares or if they were troubled by something. Surely he would have to go back to work eventually, but for now, he wasn’t going to let another second pass him by.
It was hard to think of one man who was more proud of his daughter and his son than Thomas was listening to his children play the song they’d practised for ages to learn, even if they made a few mistakes. Mistakes were to be expected since they’d only just started learning and this was their first ever performance.
Charlie’s violin bow needed a little more rosin or perhaps he’d accidentally put too much on, but aside from that, they looked like they were having a good time and that was the important thing. If they had trouble, they shook it off the same way they would shake a speck of dirt from their shoulders and kept going.
When the performance ended. The whole audience clapped and cheered and whistled their praises as they rose to their feet, in the acting or music industry, we call that a standing ovation. If they were on a real theatre stage, no doubt people would be tossing flowers and sweeties as well, but as far as the sweets were concerned, they would have plenty of those later on that day.
Not before bedtime, though.
Giving a group of already wound-up children candy before bedtime was out of the question, at least for tonight. Mainly because we wanted their parents to be able to get a good night’s sleep if they wanted to get back on the road by tomorrow morning.
Not only that, they’d had their fair share of ice cream this afternoon after they went swimming.
“Daddy! Did you see us? Did you see us?!” Ruby exclaimed. She could barely contain her own excitement while she ran over to us. Thomas bent down to pick her up and spin her around in a circle before kissing her cheek.
“I was watching you the whole time, sweetheart,” he replied, adjusting his hold on her so she was resting nicely on his hip and her hands rested on his shoulders. Charlie, who was soaking up the praise of his aunts and uncles, joined us and Thomas wrapped his free arm around him in a tight bear hug. “Can we stay in this moment forever and ever?”
“Forever is a long time,” Charlie said, “I don’t really want to stay a little boy forever and ever. I can’t meet a girl and fall in love like you and Jessie if I don’t grow up.”
Thomas’ eyes widened again and I swear on my life that there was a hint of blush on his cheeks. “I suppose it’s no secret that we love each other, is it?”
Charlie shook his head. “Everyone knows. Ruby and I stayed up late the other night and heard you saying ‘I love you’ to each other a hundred times.”
“A hundred, eh?” Thomas asked, “I don’t think we said it that many times, did we?”
I shrugged. “No, I counted two-hundred times.”
“In case the two of you have forgotten, tonight is about your children,” said a voice from nearby. All four of us turned our heads and saw Polly standing a few feet away. She had been listening to the whole conversation and no doubt she’d been watching us when we were sitting down, too. “So, if the two of you could save your displays of affection for when you’re alone, that would be lovely.”
Thomas puffed his cheeks and met his aunt’s eyes with a grin as he set Ruby down on the ground and she and Charlie sought shelter from our amorous gestures.
“You’re right, Pol. As always, but you can’t really expect me to be able to resist her while she’s standing right here in front of me, can you?”
A knock at the door cut off whatever Polly was going to say next and everyone paused whatever they were doing or whatever conversations they were having at the time to look toward the door. Out the window, I saw a man wearing what looked to be a doctor’s cloak and was carrying what looked to be a suitcase. It occurred to me that he may have been the animal doctor that Thomas spoke to over the phone.
“Well, looks like you’re going to have to resist a little while,” she said.
Rolling his eyes, he looked over his shoulder. “Will you be alright waiting here while I speak with the doctor? It might be boring listening to two grown men talk about horses.”
“You’ve got to be joking!” I exclaim. In two gigantic strides, I am standing by his side and he loops my arm though his.
He laughs. “Well, in that case, we should get going then. We don’t want to keep him waiting.”
The doctor met us at the front door and we walked to the back where the stables were located. Grace’s Secret was grazing on what was left of her last meal and when she sensed us standing in the entrance, she lifted her head and he calmly and cautiously walked over to her, trying his hardest to earn her trust before proceeding with the examination. In general, she was a gentle soul who would never hurt anyone, but if you happened to annoy her or get on her bad side, then she might have slapped whoever or whatever was bothering her away with her tail as a warning, and if that didn’t work, give you a good kick.
Trust me, you don’t want to be on the receiving end of that.
“Good girl,” he muttered softly, petting her muzzle. Thomas and I watched as she completely relaxed under his gentle touch. Clearly, he had worked with horses many times during his career. He understood their behaviour as well as their own individual personalities and needs. “I’m just going to take a look over here, is that alright?”
Being a horse who didn’t have the capacity to communicate in the way humans do, her jaw remained loosened and her eyes remained soft when he touched her distended abdomen. He took this as a sign of permission to continue, but he kept observing her for any discomfort.
“Good girl. I’m almost done,” he said after nearly a minute of him first feeling around the area, then listening to their heartbeats. He wrote everything down on a slip of paper attached to a wooden board, then he stood up again, holding onto one of the wooden crates we used when we needed to bathe her to keep himself steady. From there, he examined her coat, her eyes, even underneath her tail.
I kept a safe distance and paid attention to his every expression. I knew that if something was wrong with Grace’s Secret, or the foal growing inside of her, he would say so. Thomas was holding his breath, waiting for the news that would either confirm what he long suspected or worry him because of course the lump could be anything besides a baby. I did what I do best and slipped my hand in his, giving it a tender squeeze and looking into his eyes, silently reassuring him that no matter what came our way, we would face it together.
“Alright, Mister Shelby,” he finally said after an admittedly intense moment of silence and it sounded like he was breathing a sigh of relief, which could only mean there was good news. “You were right to call me when you did because your girl is indeed pregnant.”
Beside me, Thomas released a sharp breath, too though I wasn’t sure if his was because he was relieved, or if the doctor’s confirmation made him even more anxious than he was before. His expression seemed to flicker between every emotion humanly possible. Surely he had a million different questions, no doubt concerning her well-being and the well-being of the baby, because that was my main concern, too, but there were other questions in our mind, too, like which one of our male horses was the foal’s father.
All of our horses had been in the same stable, but while we let them interact with each other during the day, we kept them in separate paddocks during the night when we weren’t present. We made sure that they were built properly and that the gates were locked at night before they went to sleep. But someone must have gotten out, or else how would this have happened?
“Have any of your male horses—”
“No,” Thomas interjected. “We keep them all separated when we’re not around.”
“Interesting. Well, it seems like your horse is living up to her name,” he said. “A secret lover. Or maybe, it’s not so secret after all. Turns out there is another family just up the road, who was telling me that their stallion kept getting out of his enclosure in the middle of the night and when they replaced the part of the broken fence, fretted and paced all the time and lost lots of weight.”
“You believe him to be the father?” I asked.
“I have my suspicions, yes,” he answered.
Thomas stopped pacing long enough to hear what the doctor had said and the nervousness came right back, hitting him like a tidal wave. He sat down on the crate, groaned and wiped one of his gloved hands across his face.
“I understand this may come as a bit of a shock to the pair of you, but not to worry, as far as I am aware, she and the little one are both perfectly healthy, and I’ve been doing this for nearly twenty-five years so I know a thing or two,” he assured us. “She appears to be at the third month period, so you have plenty of time to prepare. I don’t recommend taking her out riding because that might cause her stress, but walking with her and giving her some exercise will help improve her mood.”
“And what happens if the foal comes early?” asked Thomas.
“That probably won’t be likely if this is her first time and first time mothers almost never deliver early. However…” He looked over his notes and wrote something down on one of the pages, tearing it off. “Call me if you have any questions or concerns, if there are any changes in her appetite or behaviour and I will come straight away.”
Thomas took the slip of paper and put it in his coat pocket.
They talked for a few more minutes, letting us know that the stallion was also perfectly healthy other than he had a tendency to escape. He said that we should let Grace’s Secret and the stallion see each other now and then, but keep them at a safe distance. We thanked him, paying an extra sum for his troubles and he went on his way to his last and final appointment.
“So,” Thomas said once it was just the two of us. “We’re going to be grandparents.”
“Apparently so,” I answered. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
“I was worried, but she and the baby are healthy, that’s all that matters. We’ll make sure she’s well looked after, and like he said, if we suspect anything is off, we can give him a phone call.”
Knowing Grace’s Secret was healthy and that her foal was healthy, too, put his mind at ease. I could almost feel the stress leave his body as he held onto my hand. He’d been holding onto it since walking into the stables and he hadn’t let go since. I smiled, leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Yes, we will.”
We went back inside where the rest of the family was waiting and for one moment, everything was as it should be. Everything was falling back into place and everyone was happy.
To Be Continued