Chapter 85

William Arterton was a portly man - and if Tommy hadn't known that he'd fought in the war, which meant he'd have to have been forty or so at the latest when he enlisted, he'd have guessed the man was in his fifties. Access to rich food and wine aged people, he supposed.

"Mr Shelby, I presume?" Arterton said, holding out his hand across the desk.

Tommy shook the hand and nodded.

"What can I do for you?"

He took a step back, gesturing Rosie forward, "This is-"

"Rosalie Jackson," she said, stepping forward.

He noticed her clenching her jaw slightly and wondered what it was about - the man, or his secretary - or both?

"I really made the appointment on her behalf," Tommy said as the man looked at Rosie.

"Is that right?" Arterton smiled, reaching behind him for the arms of his chair, leaning on them as he lowered himself slowly into it before indicating the chairs opposite him, gesturing for them to sit, "I should warn you if you're looking to adopt you can't fast track it by making an appointment with me, all the usual channels have to be observed. I only oversee the department - your parish council would deal with your individual case."

"Oh no - it's nothing like that," Rosie spoke quickly, then launched into explaining about having recently finished school, getting her results and being advised by the woman who came to the school that she should come and speak to him about the type of work it was she was looking to do.

"I see," the man nodded, looking slightly amused, then looked to him, "And where do you come into it?"

"Mr Shelby is my current employer," Rosie said quickly, before Tommy had the chance to respond.

He fought not to raise an eyebrow at her. He supposed he hadn't given it any thought to what they would say if asked the question - because he hadn't considered that it would be asked. He had really had a vision of him making the appointment and her keeping it with him saying very little once they were inside.

"I do the ledgers for Mr Shelby's business, he's here to act as a reference for my work ethic," she continued, "And to see if he can discuss with you the possibility of hours that would allow him to continue to employ me a few days a week for his requirements."

She had evidently thought about it.

"I see," Arterton repeated, then once again looked to him, addressing him, "And what precisely is your business Mr Shelby?"

Tommy - and presumably Rosie - had the impression Arterton knew fine well what his business was, but he didn't let any concern show on his face, simply pulled out his cigarettes, offered one to the man - which was accepted - and lit up, inhaling before saying, "I own a pub Mr Arterton. The Garrison, Small Heath, perhaps you've heard of it? I bought it after I returned from the war - I was a tunneller, Mr Arterton, and a Sergeant Major," he settled back in the seat, letting the information sink in, letting the man realise they were speaking soldier to soldier, flicking his eyes up and down him before leaning forward again, letting the smoke from his cigarette curl around his face, keeping his eyes locked with the watery ones across from him, surrounded by puffy overly pink skin, "I looked you up. You were a General. Lots of men to keep track of, lots of ranks reporting in to you, so you'll know what it's like - lots of things to keep track of when you own a pub and, well, I just like to know the bottom line figure of how much money I'm making. Miss Jackson here keeps track of my deliveries, my sales, my inventory and makes sure it's all adding up properly. She's my Colonel and, as such, I'm quite protective of her."

"Is that right?"

Tommy blew a stream of smoke, "Yeah. It is."

"One would rather wonder then why you made this appointment."

He clicked his tongue, "When I joined up, Mr Arterton, I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do. The honourable thing, if you will. I know what it is to want to think you're making a difference. And, whilst I'm not personally convinced of the work your council does, she is. And she wants to help."

"You were at Cheltenham Mr Shelby."

It wasn't a question. He flicked his cigarette into the ashtray on the man's desk and cocked an eyebrow, waiting for him to go on.

"You were seen talking to William Kimber."

He stared into the man's eyes, keeping his face blank - wondering what in hell that had to do with anything before, keeping his voice neutral - "I have an interest in racing, I'm looking to invest in horses. I thought, what with that being Mr Kimber's area of expertise he might have some valuable input for me. Now, forgive me," he said, taking the time to inhale and exhale, adjusting his tone to include just the slightest of threats, on the side of polite, for Rosie's sake rather than his own, "But I'm not following what my other business interests have to do with the situation at hand."

"You were with a woman, Mr Shelby."

"Nor do I see what my social pursuits have to do with this."

"Miss Jackson, would you mind stepping outside, so I may speak plainly to your employer?"

"I would mind if she steps outside," Tommy told him, his voice sliding to openly dangerous, "I'm not here to speak to you. I made this appointment so she could speak to you."

"And yet here we are," Arterton replied, blowing his own stream of smoke - but his voice had a tremor to it that Tommy knew meant, for all the words had been delivered, his own tone had sufficiently done its job.

"Mr Arterton, I'm not involved with any of Mr Shelby's business outside of the pub," Rosie ventured, glancing between them, "If you would like to discuss his other business with him, perhaps I could come back another time to discuss any openings you might have available?"

Her voice was neutral, but Tommy knew her well enough to detect the small strains of frustration in it, the way she clicked the t's out, making her words clipped. He expected she'd give him a mouthful later for threatening the man she was trying to impress.

"Miss Jackson, these results of yours are - well - they're very impressive," Arterton said, his own voice changing as he looked at her, taking on the tone of some kindly grandfather, as if he were indulging her, "But the type of work you're talking about doing - Miss Jackson, quite frankly, it's not suited to women. It's too hard on your fairer sex emotionally. And besides, you're a fairly pretty young thing - not that I approve of those short hair cuts you girls are all going for these days - but I'd presume you'd be looking to get married in the future? It's not every young girl who can ingratiate themselves to their employer the way you obviously have done with Mr Shelby here for him to have made this appointment for you - you're obviously going to make a good wife one day and I don't see that getting yourself involved in this and upset over it is a good way for you to spend the next few years before you do that."

"Mr Arterton - I have no intentions of marrying in the next few years, this isn't a career I'd be choosing to pursue if getting married was a priority for me, I know the policies you have in place," she replied, her voice cool.

"I'm sure you'll change your mind once you meet the right man."

She swallowed then, seemingly deciding to ignore what he'd said, "You say the work is emotionally hard - and that's fair enough. But you don't seem to be considering how hard it is for the children and families you're working with, Mr Arterton. If, as you say, women are the fairer sex and we're supposed to be more gentle than our counterparts, then surely in this line of work having women involved would make sense? It would help set children and mothers more at ease if they were dealing with a woman, with someone they believe is more likely to be empathetic towards them."

Tommy could feel his chest swell with pride as she stood her ground, staying calm and stating her argument completely reasonably.

Arterton lifted an eyebrow and clicked his tongue, "I'll concede that you may have a point there Miss Jackson - but what I've said stands - the children and families we deal with are going to be upset by the proceedings most of the time anyway and adding further upset to that by involving the gentler sex, it's not going to achieve anything, is it? And you say you know the policy regarding married women - do you understand the reasoning behind it?"

"It prohibits married women from working in civil service roles, amongst others, because you suppose married women have no need of income and because you expect them to have other things to fill their time - namely tending their homes, husbands and families," Rosie replied, her eyes focussed on Arterton, her body tense, reciting the words as if she'd memorised them.

She probably had. It was exactly the sort of thing she'd have spent her time pouring over and working herself up about.

"The Marriage Bar is based on the logic that married women, if they were allowed in these roles, would be staking jobs from needier members of society - ones who don't have husbands to provide for them, such as the men who may become husbands with a need to provide for their families or, according to the legislation, single women, like myself. So, in theory, it's there to ensure I get a fairer chance at a job."

A chance she wasn't getting, was the very clear subtext.

"A job you would be required to give up as soon as you got married."

"Like I said, Mr Arterton, I have no intentions of doing so any time soon."

"Miss Jackson," the man sighed,"You and I both know that regardless of your current intentions, you will end up married. It's your duty as a woman and, if what your current employer says about your wish to do good is true, then you've obviously got a good heart and it would be a sin to deprive that heart from becoming a mother. Now you're obviously a nice girl - if you want to do some sort of good before you get married why don't you go become a teacher or a nurse? Work with children, give care, do what your sex are good at could look into working as a teacher within one of the Industrial Schools if you're particularly interested in dealing with children who are removed from their families."

He watched her jaw clench and she flicked her eyes to him, resting them there for a second, making whatever decision she was making, before moving them back to the man across the desk and speaking, her voice still calm - far calmer than Tommy had expected it to be given the blazing eyes that had met his - , "Mr Arterton - if I may speak plainly?"

"I wasn't aware you weren't," the man replied, his tone suddenly taking on the same clipped tones as hers, evidently realising she wasn't going to accept being palmed off.

"I don't want to work as a teacher or a nurse, at all. And I certainly would have no interest in working as a teacher in an Industrial School. But even if I did, there would need to be an Industrial School around here for me to work in. The legislation says there should be Industrial Schools for children who are orphaned, abandoned or forcedly removed from the care of their parents through no fault of their own. But those children, around here anyway, are not kept separate from the children removed through what you classify as their own faults - children who break laws. Around here they all end up in the same Reform school, run by the church, because you don't have the budget to oversee the runnings of these schools yourselves so you contract out the service fulfilment - and around here no one but the church is willing to fulfil that contract - and they don't have the resources to staff two separate schools," she sat back, her eyes dark as she looked him up and down, the same way Tommy had looked him up and down earlier, then she continued - her voice still eerily calm, "I'm not an idiot, Mr Arterton. I know legislation comes in and it's all well and good but there's the real restrictions of budgets and availability of services to make sure the legislation is carried out. What I can't quite understand though, is why you're ignoring the legislation in the Sex Disqualification Act that says no one should be disqualified from being appointed to a government position on the basis of sex -"

"Now just a moment, Miss Jackon!" the man cut in, huffing, "I'd hardly say I, a senior member of the government, could be said to be ignoring legislation!"

"I'm not finished," she said acidly, arching an eyebrow.

If he had been proud of her before, he had hit a euphoria now, watching her not just stand her ground, but stand up for herself - and doing so completely unapologetically.

"Ignoring that legislation is exactly what you're doing when you sit there and decide that because I'm a woman, despite my qualifications, you don't want to offer me a job because you think it's my duty as a woman to get married," she continued, "That plaque, Mr Arterton, it says I came first in Birmingham. That's above all the males who sat the same exams. And it's above everyone in the fancy, fee paying schools in Edgebaston and the like. Now, if I wasn't a female, I think you and I both know this entire meeting would be going differently - for a start when I wanted the meeting I'd have been able to make it myself, not been reliant on my male employer doing it for me. But all that aside, the government has been making a lot of noise since 1918 about celebrating the working man who went off to war and fought for our country - and the working women who carried the country in his absence. That was why both the Representation of the People Act and the Sex Disqualification Act went through in 1918 and 19 respectively - a way of paying some kind of tribute to the work women did when you were all away. You have a difficult job, Mr Arterton, I don't underestimate that. But I want to help you. And, well," she cocked her head, "The thing is - you turning down help from the working class, Small Heath girl who got the best exam results in Birmingham… That doesn't sit well with what the government's trying to put out at the moment, does it? In fact, I'd say if that story were to get out, it would have the potential to become a rallying point of support for those who, right now, are trying to tear down the institutions, those who think the barriers of class and rank need to be abolished completely - after all, the Marriage Bar only applies to what you might term 'white collar' jobs, doesn't it?"

"What are you-?"

"Communists, Mr Arterton," she said, raising an eyebrow as the man's jaw dropped - almost comically, "I'm saying you should find a job for me in your department, doing what it is I want to do - or I'll ensure your refusal to do so becomes something that gets rioted over. And I think we all know the government doesn't want that, don't we? I reckon they'd be replacing you with someone who could make better political decisions within a few days of the story breaking. It'd be picked up the length and breadth of the nation I'm sure - and the government's already having all these problems with losing control of Ireland as it is - I don't imagine you'd be well received by anyone if you were the one at the root of putting Birmingham at the centre of it all."

The man's mouth moved wordlessly, shock all over his face. For his own part, Tommy couldn't entirely decide whether he wanted to kiss her senseless or turn her over his lap for the brazen gall of sitting there and claiming she'd go to the commies with her story.

It was, perhaps, a slight exaggeration on her part to suggest that her story was going to be picked up the length and breadth of the nation and he rather fancied it was a wild exaggeration to think any of the Paddys would give a flying fuck about her situation, but it wasn't entirely outwith the realms of possibility - and all three of them in the room knew it.

He had known she was capable of handling herself - he'd observed her seeing off men in the tobacco shop, he'd listened to her conversations at Ada's birthday and he knew she'd gone and punched that Becker kid later on too. But this was the first time he'd truly seen her in action, first hand - on a whole other level to what he'd seen before. This wasn't swinging a punch or speaking back to men who were being rude, it was the issuing of an ice cold threat, delivered in a calm and considered manner that indicated she fully intended to carry it out.

But the man across the desk was recovering himself, his jaw closing, his lips pressing together, turning slightly upwards and then opening his mouth as if he were going to speak-

"No, Mr Arterton," she said, shaking her head and leaning forward on the desk, cutting across him, pre empting him, "Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm not serious. I'm sure you don't know much about communists, being the upstanding member of society that you are, but my employer here - well, like you said, I've ingratiated myself with him. And his brother in law happens to be Freddie Thorne, a well known communist agitator who currently has a warrant out for his arrest for all the annoyance he's been causing to the government. I'm not bluffing," she sat back, raising an eyebrow, "I'm not a communist myself - don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily think what they're aiming for is wrong - but I don't think it's achievable through their methods and I'd far rather try and find ways to work within the current structures to improve them and make them fairer and more equal. Make it so that I don't need to have these types of exchanges just to be taken seriously because I'm a woman. But my access to communists is not limited."

Tommy had gone from being unsure if he wanted to spank her or kiss her to being entirely sure he wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled for her bringing up of Freddie Thorne in relation to him and, after he was done with that, to kiss every inch of her body and tell her how impressive she was, how proud he was of her, how proud he was to say she had chosen him.

She was like a queen in her chair, her eyes and her hair full of fire, her beliefs and convictions too - but her willingness to ensure her fire was realised and fed to become a blaze - it was pure ice. It made the hairs on the back of his own neck stand up to see the way her eyes looked as she regarded Arterton, but, God, he had never wanted a woman more.

Arterton glared at her before saying, all traces of niceties out of his voice, "Well well - you're quite a piece of work aren't you Miss Jackson."

"Thank you," she said - her mouth smiling sweetly, her eyes still bearing the threat.

He scoffed, then looked to Tommy, "Can't say I can see why you'd want to be making any effort to keep her. I'd be offloading her as quickly as possible if she were mine."

Tommy smiled himself, flashing his teeth dangerously, "Thing is Mr Arterton, when someone's that impressive at getting their way, I like to harness their talents, not try and shut them down. I'd keep her full time, but she wants to be here, so we've compromised. Anyway, given I think she's made it clear she is yours and given how you obviously feel about it, I presume offloading her to me two days a week isn't an issue?"

"Take her as many days as you like," the piggy man huffed.

He had a feeling the man wanted to cross his arms and kick the desk, throw some sort of a childish strop to relieve himself of his frustration at being outwitted by the five foot, female, redhead.

Tommy flicked the dwindling end of his cigarette and looked to Rosie, raising an eyebrow, waiting for her to chime in with something.

"Any preference on which end of the week either of you want me?" she asked acerbically.

"Getting a choice in that am I?" Arterton grunted.

"I've a preference for Thursdays and Fridays if it doesn't bother you too much, Mr Arterton," Tommy said, moving his tone back to the polite side of neutral, as if they hadn't just all taken part in the interaction they had done, "Weekends are busy, better if I can get one week's books signed off in advance of the next."

The man let out a harrumphing noise, like an irritated horse, then said, "I suppose it'll do. And to think - the reason I asked you," he glared at Rosie, "To step outside was because I thought this man might be taking advantage of unsuspecting young women in his employment!"

"Oh trust me Mr Arterton," Tommy said, stubbing out his cigarette on the wood of the man's desk and smirking, "If anyone's being taken advantage of between the two of us, it's me, not her."

"Monday then, Mr Arterton?" Rosie said, that sarcastically sweet smile firmly back in place.

He grimaced, "Monday. Come back here for eight o'clock. I'll need to see where you can go."

"I'll be going somewhere I can be of use, Mr Arterton, don't think you'll be sitting me at a desk and expecting me to keep quiet. We have a deal, remember," Rosie told him, then turned and swept imperiously from the room, leaving Tommy to follow in her wake.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"I - am - going - to - roast - you," Tommy told her between kisses as they stood on the steps of the building, his hands holding her face up to him.

He was not now, and never had been, particularly prim in terms of his ways around women he was with, in fact he had always liked when he had felt Greta shiver and he had had an opportunity to put his coat over her shoulders - he supposed he was possessive, he liked his arm around a waist or his coat on a woman's shoulders to show that the woman in question was his. But standing kissing her on the steps, not giving a flying fuck who could walk by or see them, too caught up in wanting to express how impressed he was by her, was not his norm.

She knew it too, smiling almost bashfully up at him, her cheeks pink, the ice queen who had dominated the head of a government department not five minutes prior gone, until her smile turned slightly sly and she pointed out, "You were the one who told me to go in with a gun."

"Yes - and I recall that you didn't want to."

"I tried not to - but he wasn't giving me much of an option, was he?"

"He wasn't," Tommy conceded.

"Then you've no grounds to roast me on, Mr Shelby."

"I'll turn you up and roast you as and when I feel you deserve it sweetheart," he told her, kissing her smart little mouth again, "Bloody bringing up Freddie Thorne and communists and even mentioning the bloody Irish situation! He was right - you are a piece of work. God only knows how I should go about attempting to keep you in line."

She rolled her eyes at him but kept her arms on his waist.

"I'm very proud of you though, you got exactly what you wanted and you didn't take no for an answer," he told her softly, kissing her forehead.

"Couldn't have done it without you getting me past the first hurdle," she replied, her own tone as soft as his.

"Hmm, not that I'm sure I'll be repeating that," he grinned, "Seeing how you abused it. Get yourself on home you little wench, before I sit down and turn you over my knee right here."

She shook her head and narrowed her eyes, "You wouldn't."

"Want to test that?"

She pouted and he laughed, his hand stroking her face one last time as he kissed her again, then, taking a grip on her shoulders, he turned her round and walked her down the stairs.

"Right, now, out of my sight with you," he said teasingly into her ear once they were on the pavement.

"You're not coming with me?" she asked, a note of surprise in her tone.

"No, I have things to do my darling girl - and you, I believe, have things to prepare ahead of tomorrow so go get on with it and I'll see you for dinner."

She turned her head over her shoulder to him and he kissed her cheek before saying, "Right, you, get!", propelling her into step with a heavy smack to her arse.

She glared over her shoulder at him in a faux show of annoyance, a hand going to rub at her backside.

He laughed to himself and repeated, "Get!", before lighting up a cigarette and watching her walk away, cutting a diminutive figure alongside the railings of the grand sandstone buildings that housed more corruption than all of the streets of Small Heath - banks and councils and courts.

He knew, for all she'd gotten herself in using corrupt methods, she still ultimately believed that, whilst there were barriers to women getting into the jobs, that the corruption was based solely on sexism. He hoped, when her eyes were opened to the contrary - and they would be, now that she was in, there would come a day when she would see it and never again be able to unsee it - that she would be alright.

And, whenever that day came, however it came, he would be there for her. In the meantime, he needed her to know that.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

He arrived back to number six to peals of Lily's laughter coming from the kitchen and, when he got to the doorway to see what was going on, he was hit by a wave of content. The child was in the tub in front of the fire, Rosie holding one of her arms aloft to wash under it - bringing forth much laughter and wriggling in the process and, as a result of the latter, splashing and slopping of water across the floor.

"That you getting an extra bath this week ahead of being the birthday girl tomorrow?" he asked.

"I have a bruise Tommy!" Lily told him.

"A bruise - oh no!" he replied, feigning horror, "How have you managed that?"

"Dunno," she shrugged, looking and sounding rather like Katie for a second, before she told him, "Rosie kissed it better."

"Ah, it'll disappear soon then if Rosie's kissed it better, eh?"

Lily nodded and kicked her foot up out of the water, watching it splash onto the carpet as Rosie moved the cloth around to her back and met his eye, smiling softly at him.

He returned it, feeling slightly hazy. He had likened her to Persephone before - a goddess of spring and of the underworld. But today was presenting her duality to him far more starkly than ever. He had seen her that morning, in a way he never quite had done. Had seen what she was capable of. Had seen a little of the animal in her - in a different way to the temper he had seen her express through her gun play on Monday. A more evolved beast than the one she'd shown him in her anger with the secretary. And yet here she was in his kitchen, bathing their child, her smile and her hands soft and warm, her wound healing kisses - the claws that could inflict wounds retracted.

And, he realised with a thud to his gut, she was allowing him to be in the kitchen, to partake in this ritual she had always been so stringent about performing privately.

He glanced to the back door and noted that it was locked, with the curtains drawn across all the windows, despite it being just gone five and still bright. The ritual was still private, the kitchen was still the inner sanctum of it, but he had passed some kind of test, he had been granted access.

"Alright, I reckon you're about as clean as you'll ever be," Rosie said, dropping the cloth into the water, "What do you reckon?"

Lily held her arms out in front of her as if to inspect them then nodded and Rosie reached over to where she had a folded towel sitting on a chair, opening it up and stretching it wide.

"Up you get then," she instructed, before wrapping Lily up in the thing and lifting her out onto the rug, rubbing her hands up and down the material, encouraging it to absorb the water.

He was struck again by the tenderness of her as he watched her dry the child, Lily's hands on Rosie's shoulders as one foot was lifted to be dried, put back on the ground and replaced by the other, Rosie poking the corner of the towel in between the tiny toes.

His own memories of being made to wash as a child mainly consisted of being shoved in that same tub with Arthur, the two of them kicking at one another, soaking the floor far beyond Lily's splashes, sometimes getting themselves hauled out by the arm to be smacked around the kitchen for their trouble. Other times one or other of them would pee in the water in order to get the other to jump out. He didn't ever recall being cocooned in a towel and dried like Rosie was doing for the baby. After a while he and Arthur had gotten too big to bathe together and their mother had left it up to them to maintain their own schedule - which had resulted in them rarely bathing at home and more often getting their immersion in The Cut.

"Alright," Rosie said, sitting back on her heels, "You'll need to sit in front of the fire for a bit to get your hair dry - you want to put your dress back on or your nightdress?"

"Nightdress," Lily replied.

He smiled at the notion that that meant the child was planning to stay in for the night with them. It hadn't happened much over the summer and he relished it when it did.

"Alright, you go put it on," Rosie nodded, watching Lily toddle off towards the shop door, which he opened for her, since her hands were busy holding the towel around her at the front, letting it hang at the back, creating a train that swept the floor behind her like a wedding dress made of terry.

Rosie was already picking up the tub, ready to go empty it, by the time he turned back into the kitchen.

"Leave that a minute," he told her, nodding his head through to the front room, "Come here."

He led the way and she followed, watching as he sat down on the sofa.

"Kneel down there," he instructed, indicating the spot in front of him.

She blinked at him, evidently remembering the last time she had knelt in front of him as he sat on the sofa, then looked first towards the front window then to the ceiling before she said, her voice unsure, "Tommy..."

"Come on," he told her, "I've a present for you."

"What's that - a roasted arse?" she muttered, rolling her eyes but stepping over to where he wanted her.

"I'll save that for later," he said, taking a grip on her hips and spinning her around, facing her away from him, "Now, kneel down like a good girl."

She looked over her shoulder at him, eyebrows raised, but she knelt.

"Close your eyes."

"What are you at Tommy?"

"Close your bloody eyes before I do decide to roast your arse," he murmured into her ear, smiling and kissing her cheek.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head, then closed her left eye, keeping her right one on him.

He rolled his own and put his hands over her eyes for her, "I'm not giving you your present unless you show me you're a good girl who'll close her eyes."

"I don't trust you Thomas Shelby," she giggled.

His heart soared a little at the sound - she wasn't a giggler and he enjoyed when he was able to get it from her.

"I'd say clever girl - but you'll always be able to trust me my little loli phabai," he told her, kissing her head before demanding, "Right, are those eyes shut?"

"Yes, they're shut!" she insisted.

He lifted his hands and went into his pocket, bringing out the box.

"Now," he said, leaning forward to brush her cheek with his lips, "I want you to know how incredibly proud I was of you today, " he watched her mouth smile in pleasure at his words, though her eyelids did stay closed, "You did well - very, very well - to keep so calm and collected and to stand up for yourself. I was impressed. And I wanted to get you something. But I thought on what you said about women's clothes not having pockets. So I thought maybe something you could wear around your neck might be a nice way for you to have a piece of me with you every day, something to be able to feel and to remind you how proud I am - at all times - of you."

He opened the box and slipped the necklace out of it, taking it and spreading it between his hands, holding it out in front of her.

"Alright, you can open."

She did and gave a sharp intake of breath.

"Emeralds, because green's your favourite colour. And, to compliment them, amethysts and pearls - your suffragette colours," he explained, "Because for all I like it that between us you will answer to me, I want you to always remember that I support you - that I don't think you should be stopped from doing what you want to do in life on the basis of being a woman. That I respect that you have a voice and that I will always be proud of you for using it. I want you to remember that regardless of who or what you'll face in this world, you will always have me on your side."

"Tommy it's - that's - it's too much," she croaked, her earlier flippancy gone, looking over her shoulder at him with wide eyes.

He kissed her slightly agape little mouth, "You, my darling girl, are too bloody much. This, this isn't even close to enough. But it's a start."

He fastened it around her, letting the coloured stoned slip beneath the neckline of her dress, so that only the gold chain was really showing. It was exactly as he had imagined it, long enough to be easily hidden and tucked away under her clothing - and something she could wear every day because of that.

Her hand went to it, feeling it through the fabric of her dress, as if she didn't quite believe it was there.

"I love you," he told her, sitting forward and putting his arms around her, resting his chin on her shoulder, pressing soft kisses to her neck, "I want you to have a physical reminder of that on you at all times, so that even when I'm not there, you know you have me in your corner."

"I think you're imprinted on my soul Tommy," she told him, still running her hands almost nervously along the pattern of stones.

He loosened his hold and she turned to face him, kneeling up to kiss him properly, his hands threading into her unruly hair until they were interrupted by padding little footsteps and a thump as Lily put her book on the sofa beside him.

"Tommy," she said, scrambling up onto the space next to him on the sofa, nonplussed by their show of affection, "Will you read the story to me?"

Thank you as always for reading along, for your reviews and messages, they do keep me focussed and this project of mine would have definitely been abandoned long before now without the motivation of knowing people are reading!

History of the policies in this chapter (ie the marriage bar and the sex disqualification act 1919) plus the necklace that the one given in this chapter is based on can all be seen over on my tumblr which is findinghisredrighthand dot tumblr dot com then put in /post/650667320224759808/chapter-85 at the end.