Chapter 4: Scouting Party


The day of the Small Heath Settlement bus trip promised to be perfect. The sun rose on the empty lanes of Small Heath unencumbered by clouds, warm and fresh as the first day in the Garden while all over the neighborhood, families were waking up, setting in motion all the small scenes of domestic chaos that precipitate a new adventure - boots to found, hats to brushed and unflattened, buttons long forgotten re-applied to the appropriate garments, picnic hampers painstakingly packed.

Waiting in Esme and John's front room, Tommy watched the tableau with a mixture of amusement at the antics of his nieces and nephews, and muted gratitude that he had not ever felt the call to become a father. (Not that one would ever call John's attempts at being a paterfamilias the answer to a calling - John, like many young men of his class, could be more accurately described as stumbling into the business by way of a night of drinking, a pretty face, and an angry father, but he had continued stumbling along for quite a while and Tommy had to admit that his younger brother hadn't made a complete shambles of his children quite yet.)

But then, Tommy could own to more self- control than John ever could, and it was that, and that alone, that kept him from going the same way as his brother, at this moment tripping over four small children in various states of best-day-out dress as he tried to assist his wife.

There was a knock on the door, and, just before John answered it, Tommy had a sudden premonition of rain.

Aunt Polly's expression clouded over as she stepped inside and took stock of the scene. "What in God's name is this?" she asked thunderously, every syllable of her voice promising wrath worthy of the Almighty with it. Even the littlest ones ground to a halt, confused at the interruption to their morning revels.

"A picnic for the bus trip," Esme said, sounding confused that this should not be patently obvious.

The look the Shelby matriarch gave her niece might have frozen oceans. "I was asking Tommy," Polly emphasized, her gaze shooting past John's wife to the figure of her nephew, calmly lingering in the corner.

All eyes swiveled to the middle Shelby son. "Like Esme said," Tommy began. "It's a picnic for the bus trip."

Polly's next words exploded with all the deliberation of an artillery barrage."Thomas Shelby, are you out of your fucking mind?"

"There are children present!" Esme crowed in melodramatic shock, covering the ears of John's youngest with her hands - a somewhat pointless gesture, as the children present had probably heard a good deal worse in this very room.

Polly snarled and rolled her eyes at Esme's sudden distaste for bad language. "Thomas, the kitchen. Now."

Feeling it far too early to openly disagree with Polly, Thomas did as he was told and followed her to the kitchen at the extreme back of the house, letting her slam the door to afford them a modicum of privacy as John and his family waited in the front room.

With the door shut, Polly rounded on her middle nephew with barely contained rage.

"How dare you, Tommy?"

"How dare I what, Pol? Tommy asked flippantly, just for the temporary pleasure of seeing her seethe. It was still early, he had not even eaten breakfast yet, and he was in no mood to justify himself to Polly or her sense of propriety.

"Have you forgotten your name, Thomas? Well? Have you? " Tommy refused to answer. "Your name is Shelby, Thomas. Shelby! Your father wore that name, and your grandfather and his father before him. And they would spit on you if they could see what you have done to it."

"What I've done?" Thomas laughed. "I've made that name better than it ever was when they had it."

"And now you'll drag it down again," Pol prophesied darkly. "Have you no pride, Tommy? No shame? No Shelby takes another man's charity, Thomas, or his pity. And you'll take both, and from a woman besides."

"I've paid what she asked of everyone else. No one's taking a hand-out, Polly."

"But no one's going to know that, will they? It's the look of the thing. They'll see John Shelby's sons and they'll say the Shelbys have lost their pride, to be going on a thing like that."

"No, Polly, they won't!" Tommy's words blazed as much as his aunt's did, ringing with a kind of righteous anger of his own. "They'll see John's boys and they'll wonder why they didn't tell their children they could go. Because if it was good enough for the Shelby family, it's good enough for anyone! We will make it respectable, Polly! We will do that!" Tommy jabbed his finger towards the front door and the street, suggesting the bus in the streets beyond. Because without our approval, Theodora Carteret is nothing, he wanted to say, and she knows that, and she will grovel at our feet for it.

Except she won't grovel, Tommy, a snide little voice reminded him. She wouldn't grovel for anyone.

"And what purpose will it serve, Tommy? What will that help, your respectable bus trip, eh?"

It will reassure them, the people who think that I have changed, who think that I have forgotten where I came from, he wanted to say. It will show me my enemies, and my enemies' people. It will show me where I am going. "My gypsy blood wants fresh air," he said instead, in a tone that added imperiously, And I will speak no more on the subject.

Pol's anger abated, the line of her temper spent. She'd fought with him too many times not to know when the fight was worth forgetting. "Fine, Tommy. Have your royal nothings. But don't cry to me when it doesn't work as you say it will." She sneered, sighing as she turned towards the door. Before she turned the knob, though, she turned back, ready to fire one last parting shot.

"You're the only one of your brothers I always thought had more brains than balls. Pity you had to prove me wrong." Grievances thus aired, she opened the kitchen door and removed herself from John's front room without a word to anyone else.

The merriment that had characterized the front room had left, blown out the front door with the storm of Polly's anger. "Right, well, pack your things," Tommy said, business-like. It was no use, he judged, trying to forget it had happened. It had, and they would move on. Polly had her moods, and this was one of them, and they would ignore it, as they sometimes did. "They won't wait for you."

The picnic hamper was loaded into the back of Tommy's car and the three littlest Shelbys packed in alongside it with Esme, while Jack, the oldest, got the rare treat of riding in the front. But that still left John, loitering on the curb. "Well?" Tommy asked, gesturing to the space left on the front bench.

"Maybe Pol's right, Tommy," John said hesitantly, not daring to look his brother in the eye. "Maybe she's right." But he did not say what Pol was right about. Listening at doors, John? At your age? But Tommy wasn't going to have this argument either.

"Suit yourself," he said, reaching across his nephew's lap to pull the door shut. "They'll be back around eight."

And, leaving John on the kerb with his indecision, Tommy gave the car a crank and set off in the direction of the settlement house.

The sun was still shining at Small Heath Settlement, the excitement of the rest of the participants in the bus trip undampened by family storms. A few dozen families were loading what seemed like an endless stream of packages and baskets into the bus. The truest sign of the city-dweller, Tommy thought to himself with a lean smile. You'd think they were moving out, not going for a day-trip. But perhaps that was to be expected. Most of these people had never been outside of Birmingham before; the countryside might as well have been another continent for all it held of the unknown.

It didn't take much for John's children to tumble out and join the others, outfitted in their best clothes, running rings around the bus in garishly high spirits, while several of Miss Carteret's young ladies supervised. Esme struggled for a moment with her picnic hamper until Tommy removed himself from the front seat to help her down.

"Mrs. Shelby! So pleased you could come." Miss Carteret greeted them from her position at the door to the bus. Esme smiled and bobbed her head in deferential greeting. "You may put your hamper in the back, Mrs. Shelby," the Directress offered kindly, pointing the way with a well-meant gesture of her pencil. "I didn't think she'd come," she admitted to Thomas, after Esme had moved off with the basket. "Your aunt seemed very set against it."

"Aunt Polly doesn't run everything in the family," Tommy said loftily, settling for a suitably blank and business-like expression as he surveyed the screaming children, and the knot of parents lingering just beyond the bus, the mothers chatting amiably while a few husbands, most of whom would probably be spending the day about their own business, took the same stance Tommy did, watching the comings and goings of their offspring with thin interest.

Miss Carteret nodded, watching him for a minute as though she expected him to do something. Leave, most likely, Tommy thought to himself. And that had been his plan. After Esme had been packed safely onto the bus and he had been seen to do it, he was going to drive back home and busy himself in the office for the remainder of the day, as he usually did.

But at the office there was Polly, and Tommy did not particularly fancy having to dance around her today. And there had been some truth to what he had told her, that his gypsy blood wanted fresh air. Some truth, also, in what he had told himself about his reasons for letting Esme go, about knowing his enemies.

But there was truth, too, in what Polly had said, and that troubled him.

"Mr. Shelby, did you need something?" Theodora Carteret asked. He had waited too long!

Deep in his pocket, there was a crown pressing its cool, round face insistently against his thigh. Before the war, when I had an important decision to make, I used to flip a coin.

Did he have time to flip it?

Did he even want to?

"I thought you might like to take the car," Thomas pronounced, no trace of his former indecision in his voice. "Can't have the Directress sharing a seat on the bus." His mind was made up. When Thomas Shelby says he will do a thing, then it is done.

Theodora Carteret looked at him as though she almost expected him to be joking, but he did not oblige her. "That's very kind of you," she finally acknowledged, packing away her surprise and replacing it with a slim, interested smile. "Let me make sure everyone has their maps, and we'll leave."

Giving a final glance around the street, she gave one final call for the boarding of the bus. The ladies of the settlement house, having one final meeting on the sidewalk, huddled over a map, acknowledged her with a nod, and set to the task of herding the rest of their charges into their seats. After a quick word with the driver, she was back.

"I"m ready when you are," she said, half-gesturing with the small handbag that had appeared in her left hand, the clipboard still ready in her right. "Shall we?"

Tommy nodded, finding himself again enough to open the door for her and help her into the front seat before heading around the front to start the car. Then they were off, Miss Carteret providing the navigation while Tommy drove calmly out of the city and into the country.

Tommy liked driving. It gave him time to think. When there were too many voices in the office, or too much of Aunt Polly's interference in the house, it was so mercifully easy to pack himself into the car and simply go in whatever direction he chose. Sometimes he left the noise and bustle of the inner town for the quieter streets of the suburbs, but often, his drives were simply a matter of seeing a part of Birmingham he hadn't seen before. He loved the city, with its streets and corners and smoke. Cities were predictable - they (and their occupants) operated according to certain rules, rules that Tommy, as a life-long city dweller, knew intimately. And Tommy had to admit a special regard for rules - when they suited him, of course.

The country, though - the country was different. Here everyone and everything seemed to do as it liked - the wind blew one way and the rivers ran another and the grass in the field followed it all blindly. A cow might mosey across the road with no one to mind it and a farmer, too, might mosey along and stare, wide-eyed, at the flash city dweller who crossed his path. No, there was no respect, no order out here.

Tommy had made the mistake of sharing this observation once with Johnny Dogs, on one of his infrequent trips out of town. "Ah, Tommy, and you call yourself a gypsy," Johnny Dogs had lamented with a smile.

The part of me that dreams is gypsy. Polly said that sometimes. But Johnny Dogs was right - Tommy wasn't really a gypsy, and hadn't been in many years, at least not in the ways that counted among the Romani fowki. His heart did not wander, or long for the durra drom, the long road.

He had not always been like this - in the long-ago days of his childhood it had been the world's greatest adventure to join his mother on a trip out to the country, to visit with her kin, with their odd words and their merrily painted wagons and their constantly expanding collection of horses and ponies and dogs. Every varda was like its own little world, a new treasure box of adventures waiting to be explored. But as he got older, the quick, sharp eyes and ears that served him so well spotting easily opened pockets and untended market stalls began to notice that the aunts put their heads together and murmured when his mother came to visit. "Too long among her husband's gawdji ways," they would say. "Not tatcha romani chal, that man." And Tommy would consider the brightly painted vardas, and balance the life he saw his aunts and uncles living against the life of his parents and his Aunt Polly, who owned flats in Small Health and still, to his gawdji-bred eyes, still acted like his aunts and uncles in the country, and wondered if being a tatcha romani chal, a True Gypsy, was worth giving up the corner stores and noise and crowded streets of Birmingham that brought him so much pleasure and security.

France had put paid to that. In France the open country was a thing you dreaded, and the long road just meant a lot of marching and a lot of sore feet and hungry stomachs afterwards. Every field might hide a machine gunner, and every tree a sniper. Tommy spent a lot of time longing for streets and omnibuses and, perhaps most of all, for people who spoke English and answered questions the first time they were asked. No, he was not a traveler at home in any country. Tommy Shelby longed for Small Heath.

You're only a gypsy when it suits you, something inside him reminded. When you need luck or an easy smile or a way out, then you're gypsy. But otherwise...

"Careful," Theodora Carteret said suddenly. Tommy, quickly surveying the road, the relative position of the car, and the presence (or in this case, absence, of other drivers, was momentarily confused, and indicated so by glancing at his companion. "For a minute there I could almost see what you were thinking," she warned with a wry smile.

Tommy refrained from rolling his eyes and returned his gaze to the road. "And what was that?" he asked lightly.

"You were wondering if offering to drive me was a good idea," Miss Carteret contended. "You were wondering what people might say."

"What makes you believe I care about what other people think?" Tommy asked, more to fill time and space than a desire for the actual answer.

Theodora Carteret smiled knowledgeably. "You've supported my enterprise even when it has worked against you, and asked that you be seen to do it. You have made public gestures to associate yourself with me and my work. You wear reasonably priced suits from local tailors when you could have the best from Savile Row in London, and you make great pains to be seen spending your money in the community in which you live and work. What people think matters a great deal to you, Mr. Shelby, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you." She turned to look at him and smiled. "You never makes an movement that isn't calculated to produce a reaction, and I've spent the last half-hour trying to think of what this one is."

"Can't a man take a drive to the country without being judged?" Tommy asked, wondering, again, in earnest, if this had been a good idea.

"Not men like you, Mr. Shelby," Theodora Carteret said simply, returning her gaze to the road with a maddeningly calm smile.

"So where is it, exactly, that we're going?" Tommy asked, trying to change the subject.

"There's a town called Little Branbourne that has some excellent parkland that's very popular with picnickers. There's a field where the boys may play all the football they like without smashing anyone's windows, plenty of trees to climb and flowers to pick, plenty of shade, and a little bit of river that's not too deep." Miss Carteret smiled at the memory, clearly pleased with her choice of destinations - a choice that even Tommy had to admit sounded like a very pleasant day. If one liked that sort of thing, of course.

Suitably informed, Tommy nodded and returned his attentions to the road, and Theodora to the countryside around them, which was now almost entirely farmers' fields.

"If you look to your left just up ahead you'll see one of the local great houses,'" she warned. Tommy let his gaze off the road just as a stretch of woods opened up to a great expanse of green lawn, capped, in the distance, by the house, majestic on its hill. "That's Thornham."

"Bloody hell." The words came out even before Tommy had a chance to think about them. That's not a house, he thought privately to himself. That's a castle.

Castle implied an age and grandeur that even Thornham could not admit to, but, at the same time, house was perhaps a … stingy word to use. A Jacobean expanse of rosy brickwork and towers, it looked as though it would be more at home in the age of the ruffled collar and pumpkin breeches than the current fad for short skirts and tailored suits. It was the sort of house that would prompt the question, in the bus behind them, What kind of family lives there?

But that was a question he already knew the answer to, and had known for some time, since going to the library and sitting down with Burke's Peerage, and reading the entry for CARTERET: "Sir Bertram Godfrey Carteret, 16th Bart, of Thornham, Warwickshire."

When he'd read that page he'd imagined a house, but nothing like this even existed in Thomas Shelby's imagination. It seemed outside the realm of the real that someone - a single family! - could occupy so much space.

And this is Theodora Carteret's home.

Tommy allowed himself a good gape at the house and then returned his eyes to the road, sneaking a glance at his companion as he did so. Theodora was in her seat looking pointedly at the road in front of them, her gaze full of studied disinterest. No, he corrected himself, realizing what was written in that gaze and allowing himself a wry smile. Not home. At least not any more.

And are you the least bit surprised? Knowing what you know about her? another part of his mind asked.

Thomas could only smile again at that, and continued driving until the house, and Theodora's obvious discomfort, were far out of view.

Little Branbourne was a town of the type loved by propagandists and novels of the cheap paperback variety - homes of an uncertain vintage nodded sleepily over wide streets as yet unblemished by frequent motorcar traffic, the village pub still maintained a painted sign without a name, and several interfering neighbors stuck their heads out of their windows to watch the Small Heath Settlement Bus, and its accompanying traffic, rattle through town. Thomas caught the eye, briefly, of one of the pub's regulars, blearily making his way across the street, and thanked his good luck that he hadn't been born in a place like this.

After clearing the village limits and venturing through another mile or so of quaintly walled roads and farmers' fields, they arrived at the promised picnic spot, turning off the road and trundling down a dirt path until the trees gave way to the promised field (helpfully mowed to a manageable length), the river, and the sunshine.

Tommy parked the car, allowing Theodora to let herself out of the door and greet the bus, content, for the moment, to observe the festivities rather than partake. The children tumbled off the bus like birds out of a cage, rocketing away in all kinds of directions before a single parent or chaperone could slow them down. After them came the mothers, slower and more deliberate and more than a little suspicious. First time most of them have seen trees this size, I shouldn't wonder, Tommy noted to himself. Then, of course, Miss Carteret's young ladies, gossiping quietly among themselves for a moment before putting their best teacher faces back on and chasing down the children to make sure no one drowned themselves.

Tommy stepped down from the car, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the sunlight and the glare from the grass and lighting a cigarette. Not too many men on this trip, he realized. Not too many at all.

He had thought to sit with Esme, in place of John, and play the agreeable uncle for the afternoon. But Esme had found several friends among the other mothers, and had fixed a place in the shade with her picnic basket, chattering happily and shouting, every once in a while, for someone to get down out of the trees before they broke their neck. Tommy cringed a little at the thought of having to listen to them for the rest of the day. Which meant, of course, that his options for company for the remainder of the day were a little thin.

Theodora Carteret's word echoed back at him. You're worried about what people might think.

Nonsense, he assured himself. Thomas Shelby doesn't worry. Especially about what other people think. If he wanted to go for a drive, then he'd damn well go for a drive. And if there happened to be a woman in the car with him, people could think what they liked about it.

But we were speaking of lunch, Thomas, another part of his mind reminded him. Although, if you're still worrying about Theodora Carteret...

"Are you going to join the boys for a game of football?" Miss Carteret asked from the fringes of his vision, returning from her initial survey of the various activities.

"Wasn't ever much for football," he responded, the lie easy on his tongue. "Two left feet - can hardly run and move the damn thing at the same time." She should be content with that. There were some things a man couldn't come back to - shouldn't come back to. Open fields were one thing - and football was another. How many times in camp, and during their periods of rest, had he and his men found a field and kicked around a ball just so they could remember that they were once creatures who were not always stooped and cowering, that they were men who still knew how to run and jump and shout in admiration and in joy?

No, he would not be playing football today, not even if one of John's boys came and begged.

Theodora made a small sound of acknowledgement, watching the game unfold with apparently keen interest. "I've got a spare blanket with my things, if you'd like to sit down in the shade," she offered. Tommy shook his head, perfectly content to stand and sweat against the car's fender, radiating heat in the sunshine, if it meant he could be free of Theodora Carteret and the unease she seemed so good at inspiring in him today.

He watched the game for a while with unseeing eyes, a small hill of spent cigarettes slowly forming in the grass next to him. The light shifted, swinging the shadows around under the trees and slowly pulling the temperature up, up, up, relentless with its wilting gaze. The game broke up as lunchtime was declared, and Tommy ground one last cigarette butt under his heel and finally admitted defeat, following the shadows under the trees.

Eyes adjusting to the sudden absence of the sun, Tommy squinted for a moment, trying to regain his focus and the lay of the land. There was Esme, and the children, and there were Miss Carteret's ladies, settling into their own picnic lunches, but of Miss Carteret herself there was no sign.

While he had been near the car, he had been seen to have a purpose, watching the boys with their ball. Now that he had moved, his purpose was unclear, his intention unknown. His inactivity unnerved him.

Tommy decided he needed a walk.

Lighting another cigarette, he walked between the pillars of the trees deeper into the wood. The air smelled different here, cooler and older and far away from the sunny, sweet smell of the grassy field. Under the heavy canopy of the leaves, the light, too, had changed, moving from bright summer green to darker, safer tones. Tommy's eye caught a glimpse of blue ahead of him, a flash of white, moving through the trees. Moving closer to the movement, the colors resolved themselves into a person - the absent Miss Carteret, walking purposefully away from the picnic.

Now, where are you off to? Tommy wondered, taking another draw of his cigarette and blowing it out silently and deliberately. And did you tell anyone where you were going?

Should he stay, or follow? Was there any profit in it?

There's always profit in secrets.

So he followed.

This was obviously a route that Theodora Carteret knew well - she chose her steps with care, intent on a destination as yet unknown to her pursuer. Perhaps he was a city boy at heart, but the Army had seen to it that Thomas Shelby could move soundlessly enough when he was out on patrol, whether in the shattered muddle of no-man's land or the back lanes of a French village or, yes, even an ancient, semi-silent wood.

But even a well-trained soldier makes mistakes. A branch cracked under his weight, a sharp, clean sound made all the louder by the silence of the woods around them. She turned, startled and - afraid? Tommy was surprised to see the fear inside her eyes. Theodora Carteret, afraid of something? It didn't seem possible. But she recovered well, bundling the fear behind that indifferent, posh smile of hers.

"Trying to escape?" he asked, his voice sharp and accusing. Let's see what she thinks of that.

She looked for a moment as though she might challenge him, but then her face turned again, the indifference dropping away a little. "Yes," Theodora admitted with a shrug. "You've found me out. I thought I would ...walk up to the house." He noticed she didn't say 'my house' or 'to Thornham.' Just 'the house', as if it were the only house for miles. Perhaps to her it is. For a moment, neither said anything, the space between them shifting and restless as a breeze moved through the trees above, moving the light on the leaves beneath. "Would you… would you care to come with?" she offered.

Tommy made a show of considering for a moment, and then, with an indifferent shrug of his own, moved to her side, falling in step with her as she started moving again. She walked quickly, for a woman, a trait he hadn't noticed as much when he was following at a distance, and they covered what seemed to him a great deal of ground in a very short amount of time. The trees began thinning out, the sun getting brighter and the sky bluer until they were out from under the shelter of the leaves and Thornham itself was before them, tall and stately, brickwork gleaming rosy-red in the afternoon sun.

They stopped for a moment, considering the view. "Must have been nice, growing up in a house like that," Tommy mused, watching Theodora as he said it.

She didn't question his knowledge, only smiled a little. She knew I'd have found out already. Was he really that predictable? "It only looks nice if you've never done it," she replied grimly, beginning again towards the wall that must have marked the edge of the gardens.

Now what the hell is that supposed to mean? Tommy wondered, following behind.

She found the gate and opened it with a practiced hand, swinging it wide open so that Tommy could step inside. Beyond the low-half wall of gray stone, a pattern of box hedges, carefully clipped, sprung up between carefully maintained gravel footpaths. Beyond the hedges, a terrace of the same stone overlooked the river, its banisters capped at intervals with urns. All this for one family, Tommy marveled.

Theodora caught Tommy studying the ornamental carving over the windows and sighed, taking a moment to survey the facade herself. "I could give you a tour, but it's all rather stuffy," she admitted, as though the prospect pained her.

"House isn't open to visitors at present, miss - and Sir Bertram doesn't take kindly to trespassers."

The uninvited voice had come from a nondescript mouse of a man, half-hidden by the rather large bush he was pruning. Stepping out from behind the planting, the clippers in his hand took on a rather menacing tone, along with the stony look on his face. He thinks we're tourists, Tommy realized. Not that trespassing was a crime with which he was unfamiliar, but he didn't think the local authorities would treat this quite the same way as the ones in Birmingham would.

Theodora, however, remained undaunted, smiling and turning to face the man. "Hello, Beaton. Sorry for not knocking first."

The change was immediate - smiles for frowns, and a distinct lowering of the threatening clippers. "Miss Theo! My apologies, miss - weren't expecting you today. Sir Bertram's not in, I'm afraid."

She nodded, suddenly all smiles herself. "I know, Beaton. I didn't tell anyone I was coming. Ah, Beaton, this is Mr. Shelby, my be - my friend. Mr. Shelby, this is Beaton, our...gardener." She said the last word with the sudden realization that this was one thing she had not planned on - for him to meet the help. Theodora Carteret, caught out? Tommy almost grinned. This was going to be fun.

Beaton's expression brightened a little. "Pleasure, sir," he said, bowing stiffly. "Will you come up to the house, Miss Theo? I'm sure Cook will have something on hand for you."

"Oh, no, thank you, Beaton, we've eaten lunch already. Is...is Henry about?" She glanced around the garden, as if she hoped Henry, whoever he was, might appear just as suddenly as Beaton had.

Who's Henry? Tommy hadn't read anything in Burke's Peerage about a Henry. There had been a brother, he thought, but not named Henry. Cousin, perhaps? Fiancé? Beaton's helpful face faded a little. "He might be at his lessons now, Miss. Mrs. Frances hates for him to be disturbed." A child, then. Her child? The prospect was suddenly and strangely interesting to him. Perhaps Theodora Carteret's past isn't quite as clean as she'd like.

Theo nodded, some of the joy gone from her own face as well. "Yes, I expect she does."

But just as she said this, a door opened at the far end of the house, admitting one small, curly-haired boy in a sailor suit and his nursemaid, elegantly clad in black. The child ran into the grassy lawn and, seeing the three of them, pointed and waved. Theodora raised her arm and waved back, her smile radiant as the boy ran as fast as his little legs could carry him, colliding with the woman and nearly knocking her backwards.

"Oh, Henry!" Miss Carteret swept the little boy up in her arms and peppered him with theatrical sounding kisses, making him laugh. "How is my big baby boy today?"

"Fine," came the squeaking little reply. "Nurse said we could have jam roly-poly for pudding tonight."

"Oh, roly-poly! My favorite. Can I come too, do you think?" Her eyes were wide and joyful.

"No, Auntie Theo!" Henry said, laughing.

"Why not?" Theodora asked with mock indignation.

"Because you'll eat it all!" Henry exclaimed, laughing at his own joke.

The whole scene was fascinating to Tommy. Here was a woman he had never seen before - not the schoolmistress, who was kind on principle, and certainly not the stern directress who spoke sternly and was no one's fool. This was a different woman entirely, a creature who loved, unashamedly.

"Now that would be very bad of me, wouldn't it?" Theodora acknowledged with a smile. She glanced, for a moment, over her shoulder, and the look in her eyes when her gaze met Tommy's told him she had nearly forgotten he was there. Now that's a telling thing. In fact, Tommy had practically forgotten he was standing there, so amazed was he by such an open display of affection from the woman that he had never, until this morning, seen without her guard up. "Henry, would you like to meet someone?" she asked, turning and walking ever so slightly towards Tommy, waiting on the lawn.

At the promise of a new acquaintance, Henry buried his face in her shoulder and shook his head vigorously. "No!" he exclaimed, most of the sound getting lost in Theo's shirt.

"Oh, but I think you will like him," Theodora promised. "This is my friend Mr. Shelby. Can you not say hello?" She bounced the boy expertly on her hip, as if trying to coax a different answer out. Are we friends? Tommy wanted to ask. Is that the word for what we are?

Henry's eyes darted out of Theodora's collar for a moment. "H'lo," he managed, mostly, again, to her shirt-front.

"Oh, come now, that won't do at all!" But Henry refused to budge. Theodora considered a moment and tried another line of attack. "Can I let you in on a secret? Mr. Shelby and you have something in common. You are both exceptionally fond of motorcars." Henry unburied his face to look, disbelievingly, at his aunt. "And Mr. Shelby owns three," Theodora revealed, enunciating the three for maximum effect in a whispering tone.

"Real ones?" Henry looked amazed, and his aunt nodded with all the gravitas she could muster.

"So will you go and say hello properly?" She asked, bending down so she could return him to the ground. Armed with this new enticement to make friends, Henry extricated himself from his aunt's embrace, turned to look at Tommy and said, with the same gravitas he heard from adults in every lisping syllable, "Very pleased to meet you."

"Very pleased to meet you, Henry," Tommy said, politer than his usual children's greetings.

But continued conversation seemed doomed to failure, for at that same moment, another door was opening, and another person - blonde and slim and immaculately dressed - joined the little group on the terrace. She was young, perhaps a few years younger than Miss Carteret, and, at least to Tommy's eyes, not half as worth paying attention to. Had Arthur been present, or John, there would have been whistles, glances of easy appreciation. But all Tommy saw was a woman as easily ignored as other women - except, perhaps, by Theodora, who stood up a little straighter and clenched her fists a little tighter.

"Oh, hello, Frances," she said, her voice conversational and pleasant while every fiber of her body seemed intent on some form of bodily harm. No love lost here, then.

"Theo." The blonde's voice was resonant, pretty - an ornamental thing. On closer inspection, Frances seemed like the kind of woman who was regularly kept (primarily by men of this class) for their ornamental value - perfectly manicured hands, shoes that looked like they had never seen a gravel road, a perfect coiffure and a blank expression to match. Tommy guessed she didn't regularly shout above a classroom full of eight-year olds or console grieving mothers. In fact, he was willing to bet a lot of money that this Frances didn't do anything at all. "We weren't expecting you. Henry, I think that's enough fresh air for today. You should go back to lessons now."

"Shan't!" The little boy declared, and Frances' face lit up in momentary surprise that she should be so rebuked. This was clearly a woman who was used to having everyone see her side. "Want to stay with Aunt Theo!"

Theodora took firm charge of the situation before Frances could get another word in. "Henry, you should listen to your mother. Or there will be no pudding for dinner. Now, give us a kiss and go back to Nurse."

Henry looked torn, but he did as he was told, kissing Theodora's cheek and returning inside to the waiting hand of his nursemaid.

"You will spoil that boy, Theo. It's not good for him," Frances declared.

"What, laughing with him? I've not spoiled his dinner, Frances. It was just a bit of fun."

"I hardly think -"

"No, Frances," Theodora spat, "That's just your problem. You don't think."

The stern headmistress had returned, and for another moment, Tommy quite fancied they had forgotten him again, giving him the perfect opportunity to compare the two women as they stood, toe to toe, gazes locked. On the one hand, Frances, golden and glimmering and immaculate, not a hair out of place, more like a diminutive china shepherdess than a real woman, and on the other, Theodora, towering like an Amazon, dark and dangerous and strong. If he was a betting man, (and he liked to admit he was) his money would be on Theodora, in a heartbeat. Frances looked like she might put on a good show for the first few lengths, but Theodora was ready for a longer run.

Frances managed her scowl into a thin line. "I think it would be best if you and your friend didn't stay for dinner, Theo. It upsets Cook, when there's more than what I've planned for."

The Amazon sneered. "Oh, please don't trouble yourself, Frances, I wouldn't dream of upsetting your dinner plans."

And, just like that, the meeting was closed. Theodora Carteret turned and stalked away from the house, Tommy following in silent pursuit. Looking back, he could see Frances was still on the terrace, arms folded, watching them go as if she were concerned they'd sneak back when she wasn't looking.

There was a long silence as they walked away from the house, keeping company with the wind as they made their way back through the spruce plot, the needles high above their heads giving everything a gray-blue glow.

"So," Theodora said with an air of finality. "Now you've met my family."

"I see why you don't go home often." It was an honest observation on Tommy's part, and genuinely meant, though of course he delivered it with the same cutting coldness with which he addressed everything.

Theodora smiled in silent agreement. "You know, I envy you, Mr. Shelby."

Her words took Tommy by surprise. "Really," he replied with an even tone.

"Your family understands you," Theodora said, her own voice bitter with some long-remembered hurt. "And what they don't understand they let you keep." It was an odd phrase, and Tommy remained silent, taking it in. Does this have something to do with pity? He wondered to himself. "All the country houses in the world can't make up for that."

Fair enough. But there were still unanswered questions fluttering around the house and the people he'd met there, questions he felt he needed answers to if he was to continue an association with this woman who seemed to dance further and further out of his understanding of her the more he learned about her and her past. "Where does Frances fit?" he asked, trying to make conversation and, with the lightest of touches, pry a little bit more of useful information out of the woman herself.

"Frances is my sister-in-law. She was married to my brother, Michael. Henry is their son."

Not your cleverly disguised bastard, then. Well, at least that's something.

"Doesn't seem it, though, does it, from the way she acts with him?" Theodora was saying, guessing his thoughts. "She's not made of mothering material. I don't know why Michael married her, but I suppose there were stupider women in the world for him to chose. It was very quick, their engagement. They met once or twice and then suddenly they were engaged! Very fashionable to have a quick engagement with him going off to war. Frances is very keen on fashion," she added, as though she could not find anything more despicable. Tommy, remembering when Ada had been that type of girl, silently agreed. "But you seem to have escaped all that."

Tommy realized she was talking about him. "John caught it bad enough for all of us," he admitted, though he wasn't sure why he would. "One of us had to be sensible, and it wasn't going to be Arthur."

Theodora nodded wisely. "He doesn't strike me as the sensible type."

"Do I?"

The minute he had asked the question he regretted it, both because it made him seem vulnerable and because (and perhaps this was more frightening) because there was a part of him that really wanted, yearned, even, to know what she thought. Has my mask fooled you, Theodora Carteret? He earnestly wanted to know.

She stopped and studied him for a while. It was obvious that she was trying to decide what he had meant by the question, and whether she should give him the answer he wanted (What answer did he want? He wasn't even sure himself.) or the answer she believed in.

"I cannot think of a better word for you, Mr. Shelby," she decided, and, watching her smile, Tommy was not entirely sure if she meant it. "It is one of the things I admire about you."

First envy, and now admiration. Tommy wasn't sure what to do with that. In fact, he was realizing that he wasn't sure what to do with a lot of what Theodora Carteret was telling him, and the only thing he was sure of was that not knowing was making him very uncomfortable, a feeling that he hoped he could still keep to himself.

"Admiration's a cheap thing," he admitted stiffly. She is the enemy, something inside his head began repeating, she is the enemy and you must be on your guard with her and her great houses and her footmen and fine manners. She does not know anything about you and she cannot be allowed to know.

"Is it?" she asked.

"Admiration's...waving flags on street corners and free drinks in pubs," Tommy said dismissively, staring off into the thickening trunks of the spruces, digging in his pocket for a cigarette and his lighter. The air smelled strange here. Admiration's for the boys who come home clean and neat and say the right things. Admiration's what they give you when they can't be bothered to give anything else. Admiration gets you nothing. His thumb snapped ungracefully at the mechanism of his lighter, trying to get the flame to catch.

"The thing that bothers me most about Frances," she began again, "is that she will always see the War as two things. My brother in his dress uniform, twirling her about a ballroom, and the telegram we got when he died, calling him a hero. She never saw anything else but that. You're right. Admiration is a cheap thing."

Now, see, she means that, something inside his mind registered. And maybe that also has something to do with pity.

"We should be getting back,"she said, checking her wristwatch and the set of the sun, lower now in the afternoon sky. "Can't let them wonder where we've been."

Is she laughing at me or testing me? Tommy wondered.

They walked for a while back towards the picnickers - from the sound of it, another football game was in progress. "You should stay back a while," Tommy offered, scanning the trees for watching eyes. Had it not been thus leaving Lizzy Starke's lodgings, looking to make sure no shadow threw out a person who might see, might know?

"No," Theodora said. "We've done nothing wrong. If we hide it, they'll think we care."

"I don't if you don't," Tommy said, thinking, all the while, of what she had said earlier about what other people thought of him. I will not prove her right, he declared to himself.

They returned from the woods casually, two people who happened to be enjoying the same space at the same time. Everyone's eyes were on the football game, and no one noticed. Tommy returned to the edge of the forest and began another cigarette, and Theodora slipped in among her ladies and cheered, loudly, at the next goal, making the others wonder if they simply hadn't been hearing her before.

The rest of the afternoon progressed smoothly enough, and as the sun sank and sank, and the children's whining grew louder, and some of the smaller children started drifting off to sleep, their mothers began the long and thankless task of packing their picnic things and loading the bus, recalling the children from the shade of the river or the football pitch, demanding that they find their toys and retrieve any lost clothes.

Eventually the bus was full, the lawn had been gone over with a fine toothed comb, and the children, sunburnt and satiated with a day out -of-doors, practically lay in their seats, some of them sleeping in the most impossible positions.

Theodora returned to Tommy's car after getting one final headcount, and they returned to the road in silence as the sun continued sinking, turning gold and red over the tops of the fields. By the time they entered the city limits, it was getting quite dark out.

There was a small knot of concerned looking fathers waiting on the steps of the Settlement House, their cigarettes glowing against the coming night. As Tommy pulled the car to the kerb, he could just see another car, parked across the street. John. So he survived a day without them, Tommy thought to himself.

One by one the children were unloaded from the bus, the mothers thanking Theodora and bullying their children into sleepily doing the same before heading home. Esme, one of the last off, looked surprised when she saw John and the car, but said nothing, a silent gaze passing between the brothers as Esme loaded the kids in. It was hard to tell what expression was on John's face, but it felt a lot like disapproval. So he's been listening to Polly, then.

A woman cleared her throat on the sidewalk behind him, and Tommy turned to see Theodora Carteret, waiting patiently for his attention. "Thank you, Mr. Shelby, for a very enjoyable afternoon. Your offer to drive was most appreciated."

"Happy to be of service," Tommy said.

"Will you...would you come up for a drink?" Theo asked, her voice halfway between business and hospitality. "The least I can do for services rendered."

Tommy considered thoughtfully for a moment, watching John's taillights disappear. "What will we be drinking?"

"Scotch," Theodora said promptly. Tommy considered it, the offer and the empty street and the Settlement House, quieting as the teachers bundled themselves into their rooms or off to their lodgings. He nodded once, and followed her upstairs.

Theodora Carteret's office seemed different in the dark. Different, perhaps, because of the light, or perhaps because he was here alone. She had pulled the bottle from a cabinet behind her desk and then disappeared upstairs, looking for glasses.

Tommy took the opportunity to examine her desk. Papers everywhere, folder upon folder of reports, technical manuals, statistics. Buried underneath all that, the usual paraphernalia - penholder, blotter, the in and out trays that the folders had overrun. And then there were the two picture frames - the only such frames in the room. One was obviously of Theodora, in her VAD uniform, standing behind a man who looked extraordinarily like her, except, of course, that he had captain's pips on his shoulders - the brother, Michael, obviously. They looked happy together, content in their place. Born to rule and sacrifice, isn't that what they always said? The other was of a single man, also smiling at the camera with captain's pips on his coat. He had the kind of eyes that women love to lose themselves in - a poet's eyes.

There was a small noise at the door - Theodora with the glasses. He didn't bother to hide that he'd been poking around - he almost thought she'd meant to leave him so he could do just that, prove that she had nothing to hide. She laid the glasses down and poured a liberal dram in each, raising her glass to Tommy in a silent toast before drinking. The label on the bottle was a name Tommy had never heard of before, the liquor itself exquisite. Wouldn't like to think what this costs. He passed it around his mouth once before swallowing, and then turned his attention back to the desk. "Your brother?" he asked. Theodora nodded. "And…" Tommy pointed to the other picture, with his half-drunk glass.

"That's David," Theodora said quietly. "Captain David Bailey-Smythe."

He considered the picture again. "Good looking bloke."

She looked like she was ready to respond, but her mouth stayed firmly shut. Tommy took another sip of his whisky. "You're wondering why I left," she asked, moving past the picture with obvious discomfort. "Why anyone in their right mind would give up all of that... for this." She gestured around to the dim office and the desk piled high with paperwork.

"It had crossed my mind."

"Your family knows what you do, Mr. Shelby. They know, and they approve of it."

Not always, he had to admit. "I would have thought they'd love it. Helping all the poor little people and all that."

She considered him and his faint sarcasm with a long, wry look. "Wiping noses and teaching times tables isn't romantic enough for them. My father wants a heroic child he can parade around at social functions. My family would much prefer I were helping orphans in Belgium or... organizing silly little garden parties to raise money for...farm implements for France. Useful help isn't in fashion." She gave another attempt at a smile. "They're still disappointed that I came back and Michael didn't. He was at Lys," she added. "A volunteer, too - 1914. Another seven stupid months and he'd have made it."

Tommy's eyes returned to his glass while he said nothing. There was a lot of that where the officer corps was concerned. What was it about the upper classes and their public school educations that made them so good at getting shot? Maybe it was that they'd never had to keep their heads down before they'd come into the trenches. But us, now...we were good at cowering, he thought triumphantly.

But Lys was 1918, and if Michael Carteret had volunteered at the beginning of the war, then maybe he had known a thing or two about keeping his head down.

Always more questions with this woman. Tommy felt the burn of the whisky in his throat and eyed the bottle again, considering the gilded label. Strong stuff. He'd have to be careful, or he'd say something he'd regret later.

"Thanks for the drink," he said, tossing back the rest of his glass as if it were the cheapest bottle on the Garrison shelf. "It's good stuff, that."

"You can thank my father for it," Theodora said crisply, standing as he stood, her own glass still in hand. "Just about the only thing he's given me since I started this project, as it happens." She considered the bottle for a moment, lips pursed in the slightest of frowns. "Will you be at the meeting at Cheltenham, next month?" she asked, as if this question were the most logical thing in the world to ask after a conversation like theirs.

"I like to go to the local meetings, when it's convenient," Tommy replied coolly, wondering what she meant by such a question, since she was no devotee of the turf, and certainly not fond (whatever else she might say) about his business on it.

"You may just meet him, then," she said with a smile. "He likes to go to the races, when he's home."

Tommy nodded, considering the meeting finished. Theodora, recognizing his silence for what it was, set her glass down and escorted him downstairs, thanking him again, at the door, for driving her.

As he drove home, thoughts of what Polly would say fresh in his mind, Tommy realized that even after the trip today, after seeing her house and her family, even after the drink and the long conversation that had gone with it, Theodora Carteret had left him, once again, with more questions than answers.