The next day Irene went with Mr. Todd to purchase some small ornate cast iron tables with two chairs to each of them and placed them outside. She spent the day making little flower beds against the inside of the fence filled with daisies and other miscellaneous flowers. Mr. Todd sat on the steps that led to his shop and watched her as he sipped from a bottle of whiskey.

"I think these will relieve the gloom, sir." She remarked as she worked on a bed right next to the stairs.

Mr. Todd smirked. "Just a bit of flowers, pretty daisies, might relieve the gloom." He sang to her softly.

"I didn't know you sang." She laughed.

"When the mood strikes." He remarked. "I'm not so terrifying after all."

Irene looked down for a moment and thought to herself. "Why were people so afraid of the barber? Rumors as horrendous as that could not be true, he was still walking the streets after all."

"My dear." He said sternly.

She snapped out of her thoughts and stood up. "Yes, this should do it for the outside."

"Marvelous Ms. Hollow." He stepped down to where she was and grabbed her waist. "My love."

"My dearest." She kissed his cheek.

He smiled with delight and looked out into the street. "You are beautiful and pale." The barber started to sing again. "With yellow hair, like gold. The angels have prevailed the way I dreamed they would."

Irene smiled and swirled with him as he sang.

"You've come and you are mine. My dear Irene, it's our time." He brought her inside still singing.

"We'll open tomorrow, sir." She smiled.

He sat down and pushed his hair back. "We will be the most magnificent pair this city has ever seen."

Irene put her arms around him. "I could eat you up Mr. Todd." She kissed his cheek.

"I'm sure you would be delicious also." He held her close to him. "There is enough here to make things for our opening tomorrow. You will do that tomorrow morning while I prepare my shop."

"Yes, sir. I will not disappoint." She stroked his hair.

He grabbed her hand suddenly and she gasped almost taking some of his hair with it. "Now." The man whispered in her ear. "What do you know of Benjamin Barker?"

The words made her chill, she managed to look him in the eyes but he did not let go of her. "There was a barber and his wife, and she was beautiful. He was sent across for crimes of foolishness, his wife came to a sudden death during his sentence. Mysterious disappearances were attributed to the barber upon his return, discovering the death of his wife and all. They say you ate them sir." She said with a lump in her throat.

"I didn't personally." He smiled a wicked grin pulling her in closer. "Tell me, knowing all this, why are you here?"

Irene got close to his face. "Where do you think I've come from?" She said emotionlessly as she broke his grip on her. "I served time same as you!"

The barber started to laugh. "We're both so alike my dear!"

She took a few steps away but didn't stop looking into the madman's face. "I poisoned my first husband."

"Wrong. You would've been hanged. Try again." Mr. Todd leaned back.

"I was caught with his brother the next day. In bed." She stared down her new lover.

"Black widow aren't we? I like that. But you are much too cowardice to return home. No matter, you have one here with me." He opened his arms in a welcoming motion. Irene came back up to him and sat on his lap, unsure of what to do she leaned in to kiss him. Quickly he retrieved the knife from her bodice and held the point to her neck. "Don't try anything."

"My husband was a fat pig." She scoffed. "You are a man I could truly love."

He licked the side of her face with the knife still aimed at her. "We'll see. You'll come to bed with me tonight."

She felt his other hand grab her waist tightly as the other closed the blade and tucked it back into her bodice. Mr. Todd carried the young woman over his shoulder and into the back. Irene couldn't believe that she confessed such a thing to the barber. Her crime was out of desperation and a misplaced love in her husband's brother who was the one who had her sent away. She thought she could handle the barber, she tried to use her story to shake him but there was no scaring the demon barber of Fleet Street. There was admiration for the man in her heart but there was still an ounce of fear that remained. Property, that's what she was now and there was no way out now that he knew.