✓ | GOLDEN LIAR ↠ Thomas Shelby.

40.

CHAPTER FORTY.

               PRIDE WAS A FICKLE thing, that was for sure. Felicity would have never thought Tommy would get over his and let her back into the shop where everything she had done had resulted in it crumbling to a short halt, but that was the thing that had happened.

Working at the betting shop was a tedious and repetitive job, but an easy one at that. Now, as the first half of the day drew to a close and the rest of the workers had trudged off to the pubs and bars, Felicity remained in the shop, scrawling letters and numbers in the graphs on the books before her, making sure each was right before she closed them with a heavy bang and moved them to the side. She didn't wish to mess anything up, as she was no doubt under the scrutiny of the many dubious, doubtful employers of Shelby Company Limited, even though Tommy had assured her that no one would say a word about that matter to her ever again. He'd made sure of that, and Arthur had reinstated the message afterwards. . . although his shouts might have been because he had been clutching a nearly—empty bottle of spirits in his grasp as he spoke to the men.

But it wasn't the men that Felicity was scared of. It was the matriarch, the woman who held more reason and intelligence in her little finger than the rest of the Shelby's workforce had combined.

"Thomas has more of a heart than I ever thought he could have," Polly commented now as she swooped inside the shop, removing her hat and coat swiftly as she did so. "I never would have thought he'd let you back in here."

Felicity smiled tightly. "That he has," she agreed, although she was now slightly wary towards the older woman, as Polly must be towards her as well.

"I hardly thought he would go and do what he did, in all honestly," Polly admitted lowly, stopping before her desk.

Felicity rose to meet her level. "I never thought he would, so there's a thing."

"I once told you that everything my nephew did came with a meticulous plan behind it," Polly told her, not breaking eye contact with the girl as she spoke. "That he has a reason for everything — Tommy never does anything without a reason. You've seen that, you were with him for long enough to see that."

Felicity nodded, only slightly. "I used to be able to know where he was going with something," she admitted quietly. "But I can't, not for the life of me, figure out what he has planned now, what with him getting me to work at the place I would've thought he'd want me as far away from as he could get me. I can't think of anything else but for once, thinking isn't helping."

The older woman hummed. "Come with me," she instructed after a moment.

Not ten minutes later did Felicity find herself following Polly Gray into the Catholic Church that was just a couple of streets away from the Shelby's residence. The door slammed quietly behind them and, what with the older woman moving without any hesitation in her steps, Felicity had no choice but to follow her out of the shadows and into the dimly—lit space that was the church's gallery. Amber light threw itself down into the space from the high candles set in stone; wooden pews were not as chipped and derelict as one might have expected them to be in such a town or setting; and whilst it had been repaired since after the war, the thing that remained from before that dreaded declaration in Nineteen—Fourteen were the rows of candles that stood at the end. Some lit, many not, they all sat there with wax dripping from them as the only reminder of all of the mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers that had lit them for their boys who never came home.