Tommy drove his car all the way up the winding drive to the doorstep of May Carleton's manse and honked the horn. He waited five minutes, give or take before May opened the door, her face grim and white in anger. She had every right to be angry with him. He was late, yet again. By the time he got out of Churchill's, tried to salvage his appointment with the notary, and battled against an onslaught of traffic due to some parade for some bloody useless government officials, it was long past morning. He didn't even have a notary with him because his appointment had been cancelled after he didn't show up. He'd stopped by the law offices only to find the man occupied with another couple with a line out the door. Apparently everyone in the Birmingham wanted to get married.
Tommy rolled down the window, leaned out into the chill air, and called;
"May, get in the car."
She had her arms crossed closely to her chest. It was chilly outside and she remained behind the partially open door. She was wearing riding boots and her clothes were splattered with mud as if she had just been out for a ride or in the stables. Tommy didn't care. She looked beautiful and he wasn't going to miss his chance to make her his wife.
"Thomas…."
"You. Me. We're driving to the notary. End of discussion."
He knew he was being brusque, but he didn't want to hear whatever words were forming on her lips. Not because he was inconsiderate, but because he had a feeling he knew what she was going to say and deep down, it made him feel panicked.
Damn you, Churchill for making me late.
She'd forgiven him once without him having to go into excruciating detail about his near death experience, which he was not yet prepared to disclose to anyone. But a second time? Could he push his luck with her that far? May wasn't the kind of woman to sit around twiddling her thumbs waiting for him.
"May. Get in the car."
May shook her head.
"May, sweetheart." He made his voice less harsh, and more coaxing and apologetic. She wasn't having any of it.
"Is this how it's going to be? Me waiting for you to come around whenever its convenient for you?"
"May…"
"I waited for my husband to come back from The War. I waited and waited and when he came back, he was in a casket. Now you're here, but I'm still waiting. This feels like the war, Thomas except you're right here in front of me. I can't…."
"May, I'm here now. All we have to do is drive…"
May shook her head again, brown curls falling around her pale face, and hard lines forming on her face. Her lips were pursed and and she was not budging from the doorway.
"Damn it May!" he said in desperation, not truly angry at her, but with himself . " This isn't what it's going to be like. I was in traffic. There was a reason…"
Like a new mobster pretending to be the Prime Minister who has decided to play cat and mouse.
"There's always a reason Thomas, always an excuse, except some people know how to keep their commitments!"
She stepped back and slammed the door shut in a sudden outburst of anger. Tommy swore and banged his hand on the steering wheel. He flung his door open, strode up to the door, and tried to open the handle. Locked. Then he grabbed the knocker and slammed it against the wood.
"May, open this door."
"No," she said, her voice just as forceful. "If you don't leave I'll have you thrown off the property." She had him there. She knew he didn't want to cause any sort of scene that would get people talking. Their whole relationship had been a secret thus far. It wouldn't do any good to expose it by having an open fight where he had to be dragged off the property.
"I was late, May. Everyone runs late in traffic… Just because I was late doesn't mean I don't love you."
A pause.
"Thomas, you need to leave."
There was a finality to her voice that made Tommy pause from knocking on the door again.
"I'll come back," he said after a long pause. "Every day. I'll prove to you that I'm not a mistake." Silence.
Tommy raised a hand and rubbed it across his face. Then…
"Give me some time," she said, her voice lower, more hesitant. "I need to be alone for a while."
"Done," he answered immediately. He placed his hand on the door, knowing she was still standing on the other side.
She'll come around.
He turned reluctantly and walked back to his car, feeling anger stirring in the pit of his stomach.
This was Churchill's fault, or whoever the hell he was. Frankly, Tommy didn't care who he was or wasn't. The fact was, the man was meddling in his life, threatening his business, his family, his future marriage, and Tommy was going to stop it. He drove all the way back home, stopping at the Garrison for a quick whiskey and then to his office. He opened the door and was greeted by a fist colliding into his jaw and knocking him to the hardwood floor.
May watched as he turned and walked to his car. She felt the barrel of the gun ease up on the small of her back, but it didn't move completely away.Get in the car. Please drive away. She internally begged for Thomas to leave. She loved him. She wanted to marry him, but he had to get in his car and drive as far away as possible.
The man with the gun was a Scott who called himself Kincaid. Kincaid said that Thomas Shelby had to walk away and if he didn't, if Shelby saw an opportunity to get past the door, he would shoot him and then blow her brains out. Then he would kill everyone else in the house.
It took all of May's self control not to tremble in fear and in rage. She had the urge, not to cower in fear, but to swing around and claw the man's eyes out. How dare he break into her property, threaten her life the man she loved, and all of her staff? She'd come home from an early morning training session, inserted the key into the lock, and been overpowered by a man who'd spent the entire morning and evening lounging around her house, eating her food, and threatening the staff. If it were one man, someone would have been able to stop him. There were others with him, stationed in the various wings of the manse, saying that if anyone tried to leave or raise the alarm, everyone would die. These were men and women living with their children under he employment. They were like family to her and it was her responsibility to keep them safe. She was horrified that they were all at the barrel of a gun in the rooms of her manse and she was powerless to do anything but comply with this man's orders.
She looked through the peephole, feeling the man's breath on the back of her neck as she watched Thomas get into his car and pull down the long drive. She held her breath and only exhaled when his car disappeared from sight. Only then did Kincaid move the gun away from her back and turn her roughly around to face him, giving her a revolting grin and a flash of his tobacco stained teeth. May hated him, his pockmarked face, his watery red eyes. She hated that he and his group had overpowered them all.
"Thank you kindly," he said, leering at her. "Not hard at all was it. Now, you stay away from Mr. Shelby from here on promise me that and we'll all go."
The words tasted like poison in her mouth, but she made the promise. In the wing above her, her butler and seamstress had been forced into a closet while two men
"And a kiss to go," the man said.
"I did what you said. Get out of my house," she said, her voice shaking and her hands forming into fists.
Fair enough, I am a gentleman after all," he said, giving her a look up and down that was anything but gentlemanly. May felt her nostrils flare and the blood rush to her cheeks, but she resisted the urge to attack, knowing that one wrong reaction she would be reduced to blood and brains on the hardwood floor. She was not going to die. She wasn't going to die knowing that she had condemned her people to death by being rash.
Kincaid put a finger to his lips and whistled.
"Alright boys, back we go. We've got a report to make. Chop chop."
May saw a troop of rag tag gruff looking men appear from the doorways on the first and second floor and watched as they filed out the door. She counted fourteen.
"Don't think we won't be watching you, May," Kincaid said as the last one trudged out the door. "Beside's, yer too pretty not to be looked after."
May bit down on her tongue to prevent herself from swearing at him.
"Remember," he said wagging a finger at her. "No contact with Mr. Shelby. Not a word. We've got big plans for him and they don't involve him distracting himself with you. So you keep mum and we won't have any problems."
He closed the door behind him, and May let out a sigh of relief. She turned and saw the haggard white faces of her staff as they all clustered around her, hugging her, touching her shoulder for some sort of support.
"Everything is fine now," she said, clearing her throat. Her throat was parched. "They won't come back as long as everyone is quiet," she said, looking at their pale frightened faces of the women and the angry ones of the men who worked in her stables.
Thomas, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?
She wasn't a fool. She knew Thomas wasn't an upstanding citizen who implicitly followed the law. Everyone knew bookkeeping and the races were like that. His success was a result of breaking rules. Unfortunately, he had done something to upset a very large group of people and now these people had involved her and her staff in some sort of rivalry. Now, she and the members of her household had to live under the threat of those men and whoever they were working for.
"Miss Carleton, what if they come back?" one frightened woman asked, looking around as if were going to reappear.
"If they come back," May said with a strong emphasis on the if, "we will be ready for them." "No one walks around the property alone from now on and you are to tell someone where you are going. And all of you will be armed. No one will walk around this property without some form of protection."
She wasn't going to have anyone be in a vulnerable position again. It was fortunate that those men kept their word about no harm befalling them, making her believe that their issue was with Thomas, and they wanted him all to themselves with minimal collateral. They wanted to keep their intrusion quiet, but May saw the looks on their faces that they would kill all of them if they caught a whiff of defiance. She wasn't going to gamble with peoples' lives including her own on the possibility of a bluff.
Thomas, you need to fix this and soon.
In the meantime, she needed to calm her frightened staff and block any possible form of entry other than the front door.
Get in the car.
May felt her eyes water. She wanted to get in that car with Thomas. She wanted to jump in that car and kiss him. She wanted to tell him that she was under duress, that he was in danger. She feared for him because he was at war. A chill ran through her as the thought occurred to her that Thomas Shelby might not know what he was up against, a walking target without the slightest idea of who was after him.