✓ | GOLDEN LIAR ↠ Thomas Shelby.

epilogue.

EPILOGUE.

               PLAINTIVE, HIGH—PITCHED CRIES filled the air, entering all ears for a good mile around. In the kitchen of Six Watery Lane, Felicity Shelby and Polly Gray winced as the noise hit their ears, both growing tired of the cries, although the latter nursed her headache with a cup of tea, whereas Felicity only continued to hold the child to her breast and plead with it to quieten.

"Well, she's got strong lungs, alright," Polly declared, her eyebrows raised and her lips pursed as the infant would not cease its screeches.

"You don't say," Felicity returned with an exhausted sigh as she rocked the baby back and forth. "Oh, Jesus, Poll, I'm no good at this. Why won't she stop?"

Barely a month in and the young mother felt just as exhausted and clueless as the day she had screamed blue murder and sobbed until her shoulders ached and her cheeks felt as though they would be stained red. And of course, Felicity was elated when the wait was finally over and a tiny fist curled around her pinky finger, of course she was. She would have had to be psychotic to not be.

"Maybe she's hungry?" Felicity piped up after a moment. "She has to be, hasn't she? Maybe she's—"

The older woman shook her head, smiling tiredly. "Not three minutes ago did you say the same thing, and a babe's not about to grow an appetite in that short a time. Just keep her close to your chest, see. She'll calm down after a little while."

As she continued to try and hush the girlX Felicity barely noticed the door swing inwards and hit the wall with a bang, barely noticed her husband walk over the threshold, and only tore her eyes away from the infant in her arms when he began rifling through the kitchen drawers, seeming to not notice the two women before him, glaring daggers at his back as the child started its cries up again at the sudden shock of sound.

"He's making a bloody racket, that one," Tommy commented to the room, not even looking up as he continued to search for whatever it was that he was looking for. . . and just as loudly as before, much to his wife's annoyance.

"Thought we weren't cursing in front of the kids?" Felicity returned, disapproving and unimpressed with his loud entrance. "And it's not Will. He's been as good as gold all afternoon."

"Thea?" Was Tommy's distracted reply. "Can't be."

"You try getting her to sleep for two hours straight and then say that to me again, alright? Believe me, your daughter's got your lungs, and she's determined to show them off to the whole fucking world."

She turned her attention back to the infant who remained restless in her embrace, and silently begged for her to give her even the smallest moment of peace. Hence why she did not notice Tommy ad he closed the drawers, brandishing a letter in one fist as he made his way over to his wife and pulled her into his chest, kissing the top of her head as he did so.

"I thought we weren't to curse in front of the kids, eh?" He teased, tilting her chin up with the very top of his thumb so that he might kiss her properly.

She smiled against his lips. "Well, one's fast asleep and the other's yelling like the wind," Felicity murmured. "Who's to say what she hears?"

Tommy laughed, kissed her once more before taking a step back so to flourish the letter he still held between his fingertips. "I was going to show this to Arthur, first," he said, running a bitten nail beneath the glued—down fold of the envelope. "But thought you might want to see it. You know. . . before him. You being better at numbers and all."

"I'm in no mood to look at the books now, Tom," Felicity sighed, the thought filling her with despair as both her mind and body were desperate for a rest, even a short one.