A/N Happy New Year everyone! Thank you so much for all the wonderful reviews, I really appreciate everyone taking the time, particularly over the holidays.
"Holy shit, you're actually in! I need your help, come on."
Thomas had disappeared down the steps before she'd even had a chance to register that it was him at the door. Probably for the best, there was no time for the disappointment to arrive in the pit of her stomach that he wasn't Anthony.
She pulled on a ragged cardigan and followed him down to the factory floor.
He waved her over to a batch of liquid foil, "I need you to stir, whilst I pour." It was something to do, an occupation, she was grateful and nodded dumbly.
Thomas picked up a small pallet of liquid black and poured it into the gold. Anthony would have a fit if he could see her handling industrial materials whilst still in her nightclothes. Infinitely more dangerous than living above the factory was being a sometime-assistant for its owner. Stop thinking about him.
Heaving a sigh Thomas dropped the tray, "I think this might get it. Bloody Cadogan Gardens Russian princess." He called up an extreme imitation of the accent, "I vant the gold to be ze zame colour azzz Daddy's lions."
Edith snorted, "Daddy's lions?"
"Fake gold, or maybe real gold, eight of them lining the path up to the entrance of the townhouse. They're really, really Russian."
"Sounds elegant."
Thomas sat down on the chair beside the vat of melted foil and put his feet up. He nursed a cup of coffee, took a gulp and emitted a comedy gasp. He flicked his free hand towards her, "Don't stop stirring."
"You are irritating."
"I'm tired and you're not doing anything else."
That much was very true. She was free. Painfully free.
The black swirled into the gold, almost a perfect spiral. The colours bled together at the edges, a deeper, richer shade begun to emerge as they blended. Thomas was a genius with this stuff. She wouldn't tell him, his head was already far too large.
"I thought you'd be with your Judge." She shrugged. He knew her too well, "Ede? What happened?"
"Nothing."
"Ede?"
"He's not 'my' Judge."
"Well, you're painting him. Not to mention that you've lived in each other's pockets for weeks."
"Can you take this?" She nodded towards the spoon. The factory was suddenly unbearably hot, she wanted to go back to her bed, curl up and sleep for the rest of the week. The month.
"No I can't, and if you stop you'll ruin the whole batch. What happened with the Judge?"
Edith grunted an unattractive sound of frustration, "you are –" Thomas raised his eyebrows in anticipation, "so mean."
He laughed, head in hands, "and you, dear, are the worst purveyor of insults in history."
It was time to share the burden, "He kissed me. Or I kissed him. We kissed, I suppose."
Curling his mouth into a whistle, Thomas arched a brow, "And the problem is?"
"He ran away afterwards. Said 'we didn't suit'." Unintentionally, she'd imitated Anthony's serious voice. She had spent a lot of time with him, discovering a thus far unused talent for mimicry.
"Right. First, I have to ask this, I'm sorry." He leant forwards, elbows on knees, "did you fuck up the kiss?"
Edith deadpanned, "Do you think it would hurt if I poured this vat of boiling metal onto your head?"
"I had to ask! That might explain it all. Sloppy kissers are a turnoff, I give you a few lessons – suddenly the situation is fixed and I've saved the day!"
"You would give me lessons?!"
"I happen to be an excellent kisser."
"I'm sure. You've done enough kissing." She shook her head, "I don't need lessons. I did not – 'f'-up – the kiss. It was –" She trailed off. Just the memory of it made her lips tingle, and other parts too, as if his thigh was still pressing between her legs. She wasn't alone in it; she can't have been alone in it. It was remarkable: heat, desire, passion. She looked straight at Thomas and shook her head again, "I did not fuck it up."
"I believe you. He said you didn't suit?" Thomas stood and paced, "what the hell does that even mean? Is he from the 1920s? You don't suit? No one spends that much time with someone who doesn't 'suit'. You haven't been able to get rid of him for the last month."
"I didn't want to get rid of him."
He waved her comment away, pacing all the while, a detective at work, "And if the kiss was good." She looked at him pointedly, "and apparently it was. Well, I just don't understand. Here is a man, with a beautiful woman, who he gets on with, who wants to have sex with him. What the hell is he playing at? The straights continue to baffle me at every turn."
Edith laughed at that, slightly hollow, but she felt a little more human. "Well, it's something. There is some reason he walked away."
"You should call him." Thomas put his phone on the table beside her, "call him and tell him to stop being such a pussy about the whole thing. Tell him you want to continue the kiss."
She eyed the phone, tempted, but shook her head, "no."
"Oh, come on!"
"No. I'm done. Last night I cried myself to sleep. And that's just because he left after we kissed. Can you imagine if I let this go further and then – " The thought went unfinished. "I don't want to risk everything for him."
She'd become a fixture in his life, this she knew. But before the kiss she hoped that she was a fixture in his heart too, just a little one, a flicker in the corner of cobwebbed room. The fact that he'd pushed her away so resolutely after their kiss actually suggested she'd succeeded in the aim. Just her luck though - he didn't want her there, or, he did, and wasn't able to get his big brain around such a concept. She might flatter herself with that thought, but it was possible he was afraid of how he felt. Afraid of her.
Whichever was true – not wanting her, or wanting her and fearing it – Edith decided that it was best to beat a path of retreat, far away from danger. Because she was in real danger. Curled up in her bed on Saturday evening she felt almost as wretched as she did when Sybil died. Allowing a man with such power into her life was not a wise course.
She had sufficient sketches to complete the picture. She decided as she stirred the sluice of molten metal that it was for the best if she didn't see him again. She didn't want to risk everything. She didn't; it wasn't worth it. Except she did, and maybe it was. She couldn't trust herself to see him again.
"So that's it then?"
"Yes. I'm not chasing him. I'm not going to run headlong into a minefield."
Finally, he took over the stirring, "When you put it that way, of course it seems sensible. No one runs into a minefield. But Ede – I gotta say – pass me the moulds?" He poured the liquid into the templates of the Russian's party invites, a gilded kitten on each one, "I gotta say – in this life, you don't get anything worth having without a little risk."
"This isn't a little risk."
His eyes narrowed, "if you say so."
The business of extricating herself from Anthony's life was mercifully easy. She called the restaurant. She usually worked a couple of evenings a week and a day at the weekend. Not so this week. She offered to take extra shifts.
Perhaps she should telephone him directly and explain but she couldn't manage it, the phone was in her hand and the number on the screen. If she talked to him, she'd want to see him. She already wanted to see him, kiss him, touch him. She rung the court when she knew it was shut and left a thoroughly impersonal answerphone message. She couldn't come and sketch, she had to work.
Daisy stood behind the bar polishing a wine glass with such vigour that Edith worried the stem might break clean off. She pulled herself up onto a bar stool and yawned. The balls of her feet were numb and a wave of pins and needles swept up her calves. All her exhaustion pooled in her limbs. Three days, three twelve-hour shifts. To grumble too much about her situation wasn't really fair. Her object was achieved. There was nothing from Anthony for three days. Apparently she'd saved herself.
"I just sat someone in your section."
Daggers practically launched out of Edith's eyes and into Daisy's stupid head. The anger in her voice was palpable, "What?"
She repeated herself, as if speaking to someone with a comprehension problem, "I – just – sat – someone – in – your – section."
"You are joking?"
She shrugged and placed another newly shined glass on the rack behind the bar, "no."
It was useless. Daisy had no sense, at all, that Edith might be annoyed that - thirty minutes before the restaurant closed - when she'd had been on shift all day, that the final customer of the night was sat in her section. None of these factors would have occurred to Daisy, even if they had she wouldn't have understood why they would bother Edith to such a degree.
Her feet groaned in protest as she lowered herself gingerly off the bar stool, swearing under her breath and sighing loudly in Daisy's direction. She took a menu from the side and went through to the front of the restaurant.
Silhouetted in the window, the streetlights shining through the glass behind him, was Anthony, like a figure in a Hopper painting.
He stood when he saw her, and gave her the crooked smile.
In spite of herself, in spite of all good sense, in spite of all the decisions already made, she was relieved to see him, and happy - stupidly, wonderfully - happy. She'd missed him.
She'd resolved to cut herself off from him. Yet here she was, walking straight back up the path of retreat, directly towards the enemy. For someone who was saved, she fell right back into sin. All the pledges she'd made were forgotten. It was too good to see him. Too good to feel this way: delight and desire twinned in an embrace throughout her whole being.
She beamed and flushed.
Daisy bustled past her towards Anthony's table and nearly knocked her clean off her feet.
"If you're going to moan about it, I'll serve him. It's not like it's hard." She shoved a menu at Anthony's chest, "what can I get you?"
Exasperated, Edith shouted, "Daisy!"
"What!"
"I'll take this one, it's fine, really."
She jabbed her finger in Edith's direction, "oh, I bet you will. Just because he's handsome." Just as quickly as she'd hurried into Edith's section, she was gone.
Edith looked at Anthony, they laughed. After three days in Daisy's company she could cheerfully have murdered the girl but she'd shattered the tension between them and for that Edith was thankful.
He looked to where she'd retreated into the bowels of the restaurant, "The famous Daisy! She's a treat."
"I told you."
"You often serve customers just because they're handsome?"
"I only serve the handsome customers. No attraction, no service."
He laughed, "can I expect a drink then?"
"I'd say you have a fair chance." Now she was flirting, a traitor in a battle she was fighting only with herself.
He cleared his throat, "You've been missed at Court. Mrs Hughes desperately needs someone to moan to - about me, I hasten to add. Mr Bates and Mr Gregson asked after you this morning. Even Carson took his eyes off Mrs Hughes for long enough to notice your absence. You're as much a fixture around the place as Lady Justice herself."
Had he missed her? She supposed he must have done, he'd come all the way here.
"Sorry –" she threw her arms up and lied, probably unconvincingly, "work, you know?"
"What time do you finish?"
"Tonight? 9.30. Why?"
He looked at his watch and sat, "if you're interested I have a lesson for us. Well, more for you."
She arched an eyebrow, "at 9.30 at night? What is it?"
"A surprise."
She bit the inside of her cheek, "whiskey?"
"Just a coke, I'm driving."
Thomas's voice reverberated in her mind as she walked to the bar – you don't get anything worth having without a little risk.