Chapter 9: Princess

A/N: Hello again! Thank you all so much for your reviews and kind words and comments. You have NO IDEA how much they truly mean to me. Also – I have discovered there is a little bit of fan art out there of my story?! My story! That is awesome and humbling. If you made some, please let me know so I can properly thank you. I love you all!

~o0o~

"That is a beautiful horse."

Sophie was so caught up in her own thoughts that she almost didn't hear the compliment. The moment she left the office, fuming over Tommy's attitude, she walked halfway across Small Heath to get to Charlie's yard to see the Princess of Small Heath. Sophie was diligent about riding her, brushing her down, and bringing her treats in her free time, but today she planned on escaping her current reality with the filly.

After Curly helped saddle her, Sophie took Princess out of the Yard, trotting her down the cobbled streets until they were able to break into a canter in the open stretch of fields just outside of Small Heath. Since Sophie hadn't planned on storming out of work to go riding, she had to rip her nice dress up both sides so she wouldn't be restricted. Tearing the seams felt cathartic, as did the wind in her hair atop the gorgeous white horse and the time spent bonding with her new friend.

The sun was getting low in the sky when Sophie rounded back into Small Heath, dismounted, and planned on walking Princess back to the stables to brush and water her. The soft voice startled her back into the present, and that was when she noticed a vaguely familiar woman walking alongside her.

"Thank you." It was all Sophie could think to say, but she did slow her pace as her mind tried to place where she knew the woman from. She seemed a few years older than Sophie, with blonde curls and a very pretty face.

"I'm sorry, how rude of me. My name is Grace. I work at the Garrison and I've seen you there a few times. May I?" she reached out a hand, not to shake Sophie's, but to touch Princess. Sophie hesitated, but finally nodded and the horse didn't seem to mind. Grace seemed confident around horses. A confidence that only came from plenty of time spent around them.

Sophie smiled when the realization came upon her, "It is nice to see you, Grace. My name is Sophie."

Grace pretended that this was news to her and smiled more brightly, taking her hand off the horse and continuing to walk down the nearly empty street alongside them. She had been waiting for a moment to talk to this girl alone and was not going to waste it. "Would you mind if I walked with you for a bit? I have an hour until I start work and if I am being honest, it would be nice to talk to someone. I just moved here about a month ago and I haven't really had a chance to meet anyone my age."

Sophie nodded but felt self-conscious. She looked a mess compared to the well-dressed Grace. Her shoes were caked in mud and her dress torn almost indecently up to her mid-thigh on either side, made less noticeable by her holding the seams together as she walked. "Where did you move from?"

"Belfast." Grace's eyes darted around when they turned down Watery Lane, but she saw no sign of the Shelby's.

"Really? I was born in Dublin, but my parents and I moved to Cardiff when I was very young." Sophie stopped just short of telling her that her mother died a few years later. She didn't know what stopped her from opening up more, but she always trusted her instincts.

"I knew it. I can always pick an Irish girl out from any crowd," Grace's conspiring little smirk made Sophie feel like they shared a little secret, and she liked that. It made her uncertainty fade away. "I've noticed you come into the Garrison with the Shelby's quite a bit. Do you know them?"

Sophie didn't think twice about the question. Of course a barmaid would notice something like that. "I live with them, actually. It's quite a long story."

"I'd like to hear it sometime. They fascinate me. The way people look at all of them when they come into the pub," Grace fished for more without trying to sound too obvious. Truthfully, she was getting desperate for any information to keep Campbell satisfied and push off the unwanted advances he made on her every time she came to him empty-handed.

"I don't know much more than you do," Sophie lied. She certainly wasn't going to go around spilling details about their betting scheme, even to someone who wouldn't care. "But I am sure you would always be welcome to join us for a drink when you have some time off."

"Thank you, Sophie. I think I'd be too nervous. I don't know…there's something about Thomas…" Grace looked down instead of at Sophie now, as they neared the Marquis, still with boards over the broken windows.

"Tommy? What about him?" Sophie asked, trying to keep her voice even. The mention of him made her angry again.

"I'm sorry, you must think I'm a bit off coming up to you like this…but I have seen you walking with him before. He asked me to be his date to the Cheltenham races this weekend and I agreed to go." Grace blushed and Sophie tried to hide her surprise and the disappointment that reared and wiggled in the pit of her stomach. She didn't know why it was there but she pushed it away. Suddenly, she didn't feel as congenial towards Grace anymore. Her feelings towards this women were shifting more rapidly than money changing hands on race day.

"Do you like him?"

"I don't know. I hardly know him. Is he a good man?" Grace kept her voice light and girlish, trying to sound gossipier than interrogatory.

"I hardly know him myself, truthfully," Sophie made it clear her end of the conversation was finished with a large step away from Grace, steering Princess down the road towards the stables. "I hope to see you again, Grace."

Sophie picked up her pace and was thankful when she was alone with her horse in the stables. She couldn't fault Grace. She was just a girl not much older than herself in a very similar situation - knowing no one and wanting to connect. It wasn't Grace she was angry at. It was Tommy. She didn't know what to think of him. He paid Lizzie for sex and nearly almost destroyed his relationship with John over it. Now he had asked the Garrison's barmaid to be his date to one of the biggest races of the year. Was he desperately looking for a wife, or simply wanting to sleep his way around Small Heath? Regardless of what his motives were, she felt hurt in a way she could not articulate. So many summers ago, he would have told her if he had a crush on a girl. At least, she thought he would have. She knew he was much older now and his secrets weren't any of her business, but she couldn't stop thinking about it as she walked Princess to her stall.

A tiny glint of metal caught her eye when she led the horse into the stall and Sophie bent down to fish the object out of the hay. She almost dropped it when she realized it was a bullet with 'Tommy' etched crudely along the side of it. Yelling to Curly to finish up with Princess, she took off in a run back towards Watery Lane, not caring that the entire town would see her slip under her dress on the way.

~o0o~

"She is going to look just like you."

"Or he, Freddie." Ada smiled lazily up at the man she has been in love with for so many years of her life. And she was finally back in his arms. He had been back in Small Heath for three days, but didn't want to risk being seen by anyone, so he had a friends' wife, who worked at the dress shop Ada likes, slip her a note with the address of where he was staying. She came right away and they hadn't left his bed since. Freddie rubbed the small bump of her belly, still in awe of the fact that Ada was pregnant. He wished he never left, but knew he would not leave her side again.

"We need to get married Ada."

"Need to?"

"I want to." Freddie assured her, "I've always wanted that. Even when we were much younger. I have some money. Enough to make a start outside of Small Heath. It will just be you and me and the baby."

"Promise?"

"Always. We'll plan the wedding for a few weeks from now. You get yourself a dress and tell me who you want to be there. And we will make it official." Freddie sighed and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.

"Polly should be there. And Sophie." She wished things were better with her and her brothers, especially Tommy, but she would have to let that go. As long as she was marrying Freddie, she wouldn't be having the grand white wedding of her childhood fantasies.

"You two are friends again, yeah?"

"You were right about her."

"Well, you can't always be the smarter one between the two of us," he laughed with her as the sun started to set through the window of the tiny flat he rented out. It wasn't much bigger than a crate, but it felt like a paradise with Ada in it.

"Tommy can't know you are back. Alright? He told me himself he would kill you if he saw you again. And I can't lose you." Ada kissed him softly and luxuriated in the final moments with him before she would have to leave him for the day. Even if Freddie wasn't concerned about Tommy finding out he was back, she was.

~o0o~

"Sophie…what?" John rushed to her when she burst through the kitchen door. He was having a drink with Arthur and both men were concerned when she doubled over, out of breath from having run across town. She stuck out her palm with the bullet in it and Arthur grabbed it.

"Fuck. I knew the Lee's weren't going to let the horse go that easy." Arthur grumbled, "Lemme go get Tommy."

As he walked into the betting den, Sophie's stomach lurched. She was scared to see him, acutely aware that she had left the office that morning without so much as a 'goodbye'.

"Soph, where have you been? Where did you find this?" John pulled out a chair for her and she gratefully sat down, her breathing finally steadying. "Did one of them threaten you?"

"One of whom?" She asked as Tommy walked into the kitchen. She watched his eyes graze over her slowly, from her dirty shoes to the bare expanse of her leg peeking out from her dress, to her flushed face. It made her feel vulnerable.

"Where did you find this?"

Tommy's voice was cold when he questioned her, holding the bullet between two fingers up to the light. He smirked when he saw his name. It certainly wasn't the reaction she thought he would have.

"In Princess' stable. It was there in the hay." She looked from one Shelby brother to the next. John looked visibly shaken and Arthur looked ready for a fight. The only calm one in the room seemed to be Tommy.

"Tommy, I knew this would happen. I fuckin' told you. Now they are coming after Sophie!" John raised his voice, taking a step towards her and putting a protective hand on her shoulder.

"They don't even know she exists. They only know where the horse is, that's all. We move the horse and I'll take care of the Lee's." Tommy stated, as if the solution was that simple.

"Who are you talking about?" Sophie spoke up. Her horse was in question here, the horse Tommy had tasked her with taking care of as her own. She wanted to know where that put her in all of this when someone was clearly making a threat against the whole family, beginning with Tommy. What if she had come back when whoever had left the bullet was still there?

"You do not get to speak when you walked out that office this morning, showed no respect for any of us or your job, and disappeared to God knows where all day, and then come home with a fucking bullet for me and looking like you rolled around in the street." Tommy's voice cut her like a knife and John's hand tightened around her shoulder in anger.

"Fuck off Tom, she's my daughter. Not your fuckin' property." John shot back.

"How many times do I have to tell you, John? She never was your daughter and never will be. She's the sad, lonely orphan of your dead wife's sister who has been thrust upon our family not once, but now twice. And if she is going to stay here, then she needs to have some respect." While John's voice grew stronger and angrier, Tommy's stayed calm, even, and irritatingly unaffected.

"Stop talking about me as if I am a child!" Sophie stood up from the chair and she noticed Arthur's face showed the beginning of a proud smile underneath his beard, even if he was keeping largely out of the conversation.

"Do you like ruining the good things other people have in their lives? You took Lizzie from me, but you sure as hell aren't taking Sophie." John was red in the face, "You started this mess. You went back on your word with the Lee's and it isn't a fuckin' surprise they want to make things even."

"I said I would take care of it, John." Tommy finished, pocketing the bullet, "Since she clearly isn't going anywhere, tell your daughter to put on some more clothes."

Tommy sighed as he left the kitchen to retreat back to his office. If he had to look at Sophie's gorgeous, long legs for another moment, he was going to lose his mind.

A/N: LOVE YOU ALL