I have had such a wonderful response to this story, and I so appreciate it. I apologise for the late update – they may be sporadic due to my job, but I will continue to update whenever possible. Please let me know what you think of this chapter, as things start to pick up with our main characters!
As far as Mercy was concerned, things only became stranger from that point.
Following an equally rapid (and nauseating) dash home, Mr. Shelby had nodded his overtly-amused farewell and ascended the grand staircase to the solace of his office. Mercy was not so proud as to deny the sigh of relief that escaped her, nor the unknotting of shoulders she hadn't realised had wound so tightly. She manoeuvred a sleepy Charlie from one hip to the other, a tired laugh of slight disbelief on her lips and in her tone as she spoke, "Well, that was interesting, wouldn't you say, sweetheart?"
They'd followed their typical routine for the rest of the day, and once Charlie was tucked up soundly in his crib – with the least resistance she could recall, leading her to add (sourly) automobiles to the list of soothing mechanisms for the toddler – Mercy decided to treat herself to a stint in the marble bathtub. Water deliciously hot, enough to redden her skin and steam up the mirror above the sink, she lowered herself to the point of her chin and allowed the heat to persuade her muscles to loosen and relax.
Unbidden, thoughts of fast cars and calloused hands weaved into the forefront of her surrendering mind.
Even hours apart from the afternoon outing, Mercy was unable to piece together something tangible about her employer. He remained a shadow, lurking now in the crevices of her mind, somehow unwelcomed and yet entirely desired. She tried to pull him into the light, reveal something of him using information garnered through their exchange, but he eluded her, passed through her attempts like fog, leaving her fumbling and confused in the mist.
Clearer only, more pronounced and palpable, was the cascade of cigarette smoke, the shine of a razor across the brim of a cap, the gentle turning of a mocking smirk, and eyes that cut through her.
She wished he wasn't so difficult. She wished he wasn't so suddenly attentive. She wished he wasn't so handsome.
As if to chase him from her mind, Mercy sank deeper and distracted herself with holding her breath, washing the thoughts away by force. There was something inappropriate in thinking of Mr. Shelby as attractive to her; it felt downright profane to do so naked, in his bath, with his infant son sleeping soundly in the room beside.
Heat of embarrassment prickled her already warmed skin. It seared through her, obliterating her thoughts into a sea of red and green spots, and she felt around her the pressure of the water on her ears, blurring reality into a strange, dulled confusion. It took a moment for her to recognise the sound trying to permeate her self-inclusion: the cry of a restless, needy child.
Mercy broke the surface of the water, scraping hair away from her face, wringing it free of as much liquid as possible, and grasping for a towel. She shot out of the tub, scrubbed the water roughly from her eyes, and did her best not to slip or stumble as she hurried from the bathroom. Her robe hung from the doorknob (the hook on the door was occupied by the case of lotions and powder for Charlie's bath time) and she scrambled for it, the knock-off silk material sticking to her damp skin as she harried to knot it around her waist.
Her hair curled in dark, damp waves, dripping water down the back of her dressing gown; wet spots blossomed about the cornflower blue, causing the material to shift and hold strangely, ending beneath her knees. She cared for none of it. She was by Charlie's side within a minute, lifting him into her arms.
The door connecting Charlie's room to the hallway opened alarmingly, and Mercy's eyes shot, startled, to the open frame. Thomas Shelby stood, in shirt, breeches and socks, poised and still and wanting answers.
It was unexpected, to say the least.
Tommy had been passing by: had exited his office for the first time since the afternoon to seek out sustenance aside from cigarettes and whisky. He was tired, but never sleepy, and had padded down the peaceful hallway until the lull was pierced by the crying, he knew, of his son.
He had already passed the door to the nursery on his travels. He'd paused at hearing the noise, and after thirty seconds of its continuing had spun on his heels and rapidly made his way back to his son's room. As always, numerous scenarios flooded his heightened senses, and Tommy wasted no time in shoving open the door to confront one of those possibilities.
Dripping wet and barely dressed, Tommy had not expected Mercy Hale – shocked, and lifting an unhappy Charlie from his crib – to greet him as such. And by the look on her face, she had not expected him either.
The room hovered in stillness for a brief moment, and Tommy exercised his skill of subtlety in the lapse. Eyes of cold blue darkened and stormed a little – without seeming to shift they engulfed the curves of the woman in front of him, and committed to memory the dip of her narrow waist, accentuated by the fullness of her hips and breasts. Her lovely lips were parted, amber eyes wide and cheeks a flushed pink.
What a surprise this pretty nanny was turning out to be.
A silly, hypocritical thing to think when one is stood in nothing but a robe, but Mercy couldn't recall ever seeing Mr. Shelby in such a state of undress. It struck her as odd – had she ever seen him without shoes before? Without a waistcoat? With the sleeves of his white button shirt rolled up to his elbows, revealing strong forearms, and his hair dishevelled and across his forehead, almost to his eyes?
It seemed his version of unkempt was seductively charming – and far more put-together than her own.
She felt the blush run through her very core and blossom, unyielding, in the apple of her cheeks. How bizarre she must look. How silly. How revealed.
With nothing to say – and it was not often Mercy found herself speechless – she clutched Charlie swiftly to her chest (both to soothe him, and, admittedly, cover more of her than the robe allowed) and the spell was lifted. Her mouth remained open, as if to suggest she had some hope, some way, of conjuring up words. With a helpless look she snapped it shut, and allowed her gaze to fight humiliation, and connect with her employer's.
Momentarily, ridiculously, she wondered if Mr. Shelby was at a loss too, as his eyes levelled with hers for a ghost of a moment. Her own naivety surprised her, and was proven again when he gave her a swift nod, lowly muttered an "Alright then," and closed the door with a click of finality, leaving the lingering scent of alcohol and cigarette smoke.
Shutting her eyes in shame, Mercy wanted nothing more than to clamber back into the sanctuary of her bath and sink herself in the depths of dark water and darker mortification.
It was certainly a day Mercy was glad to see the back of.
She was avoiding him.
The thought made Tommy smirk with amusement, and he whetted the tip of his cigarette along the line of his lip before holding it there and lighting with a sheltering hand. The pretty nanny was skirting his presence at every turn, and he could not help but find the hilarity of the situation uplifting.
Enough that he'd been watching her, pushing her: looking for her reaction to him in the spare time he gifted himself.
Tommy wouldn't deny that there was something sadistic in the joy he took from watching Mercy Hale squirm: watching as her lightened whisky eyes shifted from his as they passed in hallways of the house; watching as a pink hue dashed her cheeks with warmth as she sidled by him with a jerky nod; watching her throw her head back when she thought she'd manoeuvred out of his line of sight, groaning softly at the awkwardness of it all.
It was funny. And Tommy looked forward to prodding a little more at the opportune moment.
Three days of discomfort (at least on the pretty nanny's behalf) passed before Tommy felt it was time to indulge himself.
Mercy had been innocently passing by the somewhat ostentatious dining hall when the voice of her employer called out to her. "Miss Hale!" Mercy had stopped, closed her eyes, breathed deeply to collect herself and turned, poking her head through the gap in the double doors, unwilling to enter unless entirely necessary.
Necessary it seemed to be, as Thomas Shelby lifted his eyes briefly from the newspaper he held in one hand and released his fork to raise his other, gesturing her to enter the room.
Attempting to appear as nonchalant as possible in her tense and uncomfortable state, Mercy slowly entered the room, feeling dread grip her. Tommy folded the newspaper and threw it down, watching instead as Mercy reluctantly walked the length of the obscenely long dining table – the longest walk of her life, she was sure – to perch herself in the seat beside her employer, as he gestured to it.
As before, there was something mocking, scrutinising and searching in the look of Mr. Shelby, and Mercy felt all the more exposed for it. The gaze seemed to seep beneath her skin and alight it, and Mercy had to dampen the urge to fidget. She wished she had not handed Charlie over to Mr. Shelby's sister for the evening, so she would have a ready excuse to depart at any moment.
As she was about to break form and shift childishly in her seat, Margaret was called for, and a dinner plate requested to be made up for Mercy. Alarmed, she shook her head adamantly, "Oh no, thank you, sir – I take my dinner in the kitchen at a later time."
She received a dismissive look for her protests, "I require your company this evening, Miss Hale." He said it with such finality that Mercy only exhaled, and moved herself back in her chair, so she didn't look quite so ready to bolt at any moment. "Margaret, another plate, please."
Margaret nodded with an obligatory, "Of course, Mr. Shelby," but her demure demeanour did not extend to Mercy, to whom she sent a pressing look that Mercy could not decipher or translate in her nervous state of mind. She only looked at Margaret, a little pathetic and helpless, before running her tongue to wet her lips and pinning her hands down fiercely.
"Can I be of some help to you, Mr. Shelby?" A sweat fostered on the film of her hands as she continued to press them together. She raised her eyes to meet his, and he continued to survey her unflinchingly. The cutting angles of his face caught the light of the summer dusk gazing through the window, and again, she was struck by the striking, attractive force he imposed.
"What else do you like, Mercy?" Blunt and to the point, his answer caused a knitting of her eyebrows, and he watched as those confused and nervous emotions shifted over her features. It was somewhat enticing to see: her openness, and it made him smirk.
She hesitated. "What do I like, sir?"
A maid entered the dining room and, with some confusion – and did Mercy detect a little jealousy? – gracelessly dumped a plate of salmon and seasoned potatoes with greens in front of her, before huffing out of the room again. The maids did not like Mercy as a general rule: some were rude; some were just busy and indifferent. She had a feeling eating with the handsome master of the house was not going to be of help to her reputation with them.
Tommy waited for the maid to leave before continuing, "You don't like cigarettes and you don't drink alcohol." He was still watching her, the puzzlement lifting from her face, but a suspicion growing. Internally, Tommy lit up – she had good reason to be suspicious. "But you do, apparently, enjoy a late night bath." He wouldn't deny the appreciation of the blush the comment evoked, "So," he raised both hands as if to proffer the question, "What else do you like?"
Mercy desired to ask why on earth he wanted to know. That was her first thought, though it must have played across her face, as her employer's unyielding gaze persisted. The second was that she liked her privacy. But she wondered if that would be an intelligent thing to say, and shook her head a little to dismiss the idea.
She settled instead for a simple, if not cheeky, "My job, Mr. Shelby."
He laughed. At her, she was sure, but it was a definite laugh, and it startled her a little to watch him lean back in his chair and look to the ceiling. He shook his head slowly from side-to-side, before lowering his gaze to meet hers again, and the unfiltered, unfettered enjoyment threw her entirely. "Your job and baths."
A question, or a statement? She wasn't sure, and though it was – as usual – off-putting, it also somehow put her back in familiar territory. Self-awareness made her want to shake her head at herself, but the situation demanded her stillness. So Mercy simply shrugged, and responded as she traced the movement of the cigarette across Tommy's lip with her eyes as he lit up habitually, "I'm a woman of simple pleasures."
Leaning back and looking up, Tommy nodded and blew pails of smoke into the air above him. A small silence stretched as he pondered. "How old are you, Mercy?"
She was entirely unsure what he wanted of her, and so followed the veering of the conversation without question. "Twenty-one, Mr. Shelby."
"Twenty-one," he rolled the words over his tongue, tasting them, entertaining briefly the twelve year difference between them as he nodded, "Shouldn't twenty-one year olds like parties, and dancing, and-" he shot her a mocking glance, or was it teasing? She couldn't tell. "-fast cars?"
Mercy realised too late that this was a mission in enjoyment for employer, at her expense blatantly. She shook her head and allowed the corner of her lips to turn up, "I imagine some do. I enjoy a more leisurely pace." She looked back down to the plate in front of her, "I do not, however, enjoy salmon."
"My list of your dislikes continues to grow," Tommy rang for a maid who removed their plates. He looked to her, prompting with the silent question. "Soon I will be left with nothing but the idea that you are difficult to please."
"Reading." She stated, acquiescing to her employer, "Fiction mainly, and poetry. I like reading."
He looked at her, long and hard, and she realised he'd wanted a piece of information like that all along. Something to use. Something to garner more of her. Her assumption was proved by his following question. "And how does a woman such as yourself learn to read?"
Mercy couldn't help the quirking of her eyebrow, and Tommy smirked a little at the challenge of it all. "Such as myself?"
"From a poor village just down the road." Tommy tapped his cigarette in the heavy crystal ashtray on the table, and his mention of money had Mercy wondering just how much it cost. Would it be worth more than the small, one-story house she was raised in? Possibly. Quite possibly. "Schooling can be expensive."
She paused for a moment, but Tommy wasn't worried about whether she would answer. He was aware that she would. She just liked to pick her words carefully when it was something she didn't like talking about. He'd noticed that at the village park too. "My grandmother. She taught me using the bible."
More information revealed. Tommy grasped it firmly. "You're religious." It was a question, though stated again. Tommy had never heard her ask to go to church, or take Charlie; never heard her request a bible; never seen her with a rosary or any religious paraphernalia. He thought about her in a wet, clingy robe, and looked at her now in her fitted blouse. No, nothing high-minded and ethical came to mind when he thought of this woman. No godly intentions rang in his own head.
"I never said that."
"You don't seem to say much at all, Miss Hale." His comment made her smile, because nothing could be further from the truth in reality. He just made her thoughtful, and consequently, quieter. Tommy saw the mirth in her sun-dozed whisky eyes, and let his tongue brief his lips, wetting them before another drag of his cigarette.
"That's an interesting conclusion to draw after two conversations," She smirked at him a little, and then remembered herself and tacked on an obligatory, "Sir."
"Aye." Her employer scanned her with scrutiny, enjoying – though he showed none of it outwardly – the glance of personality she had allowed him, "I suppose we'll have to organise more time together then, Miss Hale, so I can be suitably informed." He picked up his newspaper, and Mercy – with slight relief, and a perplexing mixer of disappointment – recognised the dismissal.
Tommy watched her stand, followed her with his eyes, nodded as she bid him a good evening. He allowed his gaze to sit inconspicuously above his newspaper, and to stalk the young woman as she left the dining room, unaware of his observation. The pretty nanny, it turned out, was quite a lot more than pretty.
Should she be so exhausted after one conversation? A simple, short conversation, with a man she shared a roof with, no less?
The trill of wariness battered down the embarrassment she had felt previously: what did her employer want of her? Why was he so interested in her life? What was it he hoped to gain through conversing with her? Through future conversations with her?
Beneath the smirking, and the non-questions, and the scrutiny, lingered one of the most dangerous men in the country: a dangerous man that seemed amused by her. That seemed to enjoy her. That liked to play with her. Was it harmless?
Did the leader of crime family know how to be harmless?
Too many questions flooded her head, and Mercy released a hefty sigh. Normally, when feeling the need to unwind, she would turn to the beautiful bathtub sitting just metres from her bed.
She rolled her eyes. There was nothing relaxing about that idea anymore. Thomas Shelby had been quick to infiltrate numerous aspects of her life in an inordinately short amount of time; who knew what the next conversation of theirs would taint.
With a quick sigh and hard fall, she found the sanctuary of her bed and spent the rest of the night attempting to soothe the burn beneath her skin that her employer seemed to have unintentionally, yet irrevocably, set alight. A burn of what, Mercy refused to ponder, too afraid of the answer to a strangely difficult question.
Stranger by the day, indeed.
Thank you again to all my wonderful followers and reviewers! Let me know what you think!