"So you're Tommy's bird." That harsh, low, womanly voice pulled Lupe away from her rosary and the Hail Mary's she'd been muttering under her breath. Polly Gray stood in front of her with black lace draped over her bound hair, hands on her hips, and fury simmering beneath her gaze. Perhaps it was a Shelby trait.
It appeared there was no removing herself from this conversation Lupe had no desire to perpetuate. She abandoned her prayers and tucked the rosary neatly into the band of her navy skirts. "I'm no man's bird." There was something about Polly that put her on edge, made her shift in the carved pews like a chastised child. The older woman's face was set in a mask reminiscent of the woman who'd beaten Lupe and the other girls when they stepped out of line, on that long, terrible journey to England.
"Fancy finding you here. I wasn't aware that any of you people had ever stepped inside a church." Lupe figured Polly's sneer could be seen clear all the way to London. Would it be better to avoid provoking her? Maybe, but after the events of yesterday with John, Guadalupe had very little patience left for any upstart Shelbys' with cat piss in their tea. The urge to fight, to claw and scratch and scream at someone, anyone, bloomed up her spine and heated her cheeks.
Lupe would never disrespect the savior by slapping someone in one of his houses, however. Adopting her own mask of tremulous, blatantly false innocence, she retorted. "Our Lady the Magdalene would happily welcome her sisters into the loving bosom of Jesus Christ." Oh, she knew perfectly well who Polly was referring to when she said "you people''. The accusation and judgment in those pursed lips… she could see where John got the attitude from. It would be best for her to extract herself before she pissed Tommy's aunt off too much and found a pig's head in her bed. She gently pressed the covers of the bible she'd brought with her from Shanghai together before extracting herself from the carved pew. "My name is Guadalupe Zhang. It's been a pleasure, Miss...?" Guadalupe never professed to be a saint, and sometimes the temptation to rile someone up grew too strong to resist. Temptations were why she went to Mass every week, after all.
Ms. Gray sought the last word with a curt acknowledgment. "Careful there, lass." With the way her luck was turning Lupe would run into Tommy's older brother and littlest sister too, with the way these fucking Peaky Blinders kept popping out of the woodwork.
After he'd taken his pleasure, Tommy always lingered behind. She hadn't a clue why and figured it was one of the many things that made him the most unique man Lupe had ever entertained. She could feel his icy stare as it traced the movement of her fingers weaving her tangled black hair into a plait. A gaze like that made her feel like he was peeling her skin back and peering at her insides with clinical fascination. "Polly says she ran into you at church this morn." Ah, she was waiting for him to inquire about that particular incident. Her head turned to look at him, propped up next to her in bed with linen covers bunched around his scar-marked bare torso.
The truth would be the right answer, she could see it in his face. Nodding, Lupe spoke. "Aye, I was there. I was pleased to make her acquaintance."
"A church?" The incredulous edge that bled into his voice roused her temper, so on edge, once more.
"Is that so unbelievable? That I might wish to bask in the light of the savior?" Maybe it was how she had to defend herself against his aunt, maybe it was how he made her lower her boundaries, get attached, get riled up. Maybe it was the way he saw through the tricks and saw the person she was under the paint and the snide remarks. Maybe it was the way he saw her as his equal, which made Lupe want to tell him everything.
He could read her like an open book. Those hands which had done so much to her an hour ago raised to brush tenderly against her cheek. "I meant no offense, Guadalupe. I've only been as far as No Man's Land in France. I didn't know God's lands extended to China." Such tenderness… he moved as if she'd shriek and push him away at the slightest trace of sincere affection. Was Tommy so starved? That beautiful man nearly flinched when she brought her own hand up, only to relax when all she did was brush a stray, sweat-damp curl off his jaw and tuck it behind the shell of his ear. Blue eyes met brown, and she couldn't help the feeling he was baring his soul to her, in some way he had never done before.
Guadalupe had never felt close to anyone in her life like she felt close to him. If what she was about to do was a mistake, she was prepared to face the consequences. "They don't. Not really-" Her voice trailed off for a moment, hesitating to give him the chance to end this moment. "My father is a sailor. Or was. I've no bloody clue where he is now. You ever heard of the Spanish East Indies? An East Indies man in Shanghai, by way of the American Navy. That's all my mother ever told me of him. She worked an opium den out there, turning tricks. One thing led to another… He didn't stay for long, but he did have me baptized. I haven't missed a day of church since, except when they uh… they brought me here. It almost sounds like a practical joke, doesn't it? The man who made me left me behind, yet I cling to everything he left me. God forgive me." She laughed at herself, at the foolish little girl she still was inside who dreamed of a family that wouldn't treat her as her real one had.
Tommy moved quickly out of bed to come to sit at her side. The gentleness in his face was so bright it was almost unbearable to look at. "If it is a joke, it's not very funny to me."
Most surely he could read the relief written plain across her own, she thought. That must be it. There could be no other reason why he would- She cut her own thoughts off. "Guadalupe Zhang. That's what he named me. I can't help but think every night that the path I'm on… he would be ashamed of it."
The silence hung heavy between them until he broke it. "My dad left too. First, it was petty thievery, and the constables keeping him overnight at the station. Then it was drinking, the opium, the birds he spent all day and night with. Every time he left he wouldn't come back for longer. Until one night he never came back at all." It was her turn now to comfort her. Lupe tucked her arms around the broad plains of his body and pressed her face into the crook of his neck. It took him a moment, a moment in which she was terrified he would push her away, but he returned the embrace. She marveled at the pace his pulse was beating beneath her hands. Like he'd just ran all the way to London and back. He cleared his throat. "How'd you end up here?"
Ah, she couldn't hold back her giggle at his obvious parry. The answering smile on his face was glorious, even enchanting. Lupe hoped to make him smile more. "On a boat, what'd you think? However, that's a story for another night. I just told you most of my sordid past. Now you owe me, Tommy." Could he hear the meaning she hid beneath her flirty teasing? The way Lupe begged him to offer himself up to her in the same manner she had?
Tommy did. The same vulnerability that entered him earlier, when he'd caressed her cheek, washed over the man again. His jaw came alight with tension and she found the way he picked at his nails in anxiety almost charming. "Every night, I dream. I have these dreams that- that convince me I'm not home. That I never came home. I swear I left a piece of my life back there, buried with the bodies in the tunnels we dug. I see him. Just a boy. Not much older than Johnny. He might've shot me dead, and I promise you sometimes I wish he would have, but he tripped. And I just looked down at him and he looked up at me. I smashed his fucking head in like an egg. Guadalupe, my soul is rotted through. I'm terrified it's black as sin and it'll never be clean again. The things I did- the boys I killed. In my mind's eye, I see them die, over and over and over. Until the mildewed blood and bone from their bodies chokes me and I wake up, tearing at my throat." He had struck her speechless. Lupe couldn't pretend to know at all how he felt, what it was like to carry the weight of hundreds of dead souls on her back. Did what he did during the war matter? Maybe, but she was only a woman. Not a saint. She pressed herself to him firmer, trying her very best to show him, prove to him he had come back. The way she did the first time she'd met him. No one had ever trusted her with anything precious in the way he had. She would kill for trust like that. Lupe would die before she betrayed it. Her forehead pressed against his, forcing his eyes to look back at her. You're here, she told him in her mind. Come back to me. All will be well, sweet boy. He could tell exactly what she wouldn't say and melted into her arms.
"Oh Thomas… I'm happy you're alive." She pressed her mouth against his.