A Gemini sky hovered with haunting depths over Arrow House, but the constellations were amiss. Lost as though they refused to shimmer that night, leaving behind a thick blanket of ebony tinted indigo in their absence. The moon lingered somewhere beyond the clouds that seemed mere invisible whisps of a forgotten breath. A sliver of a silver crescent somewhere amongst the vast and lonely universe, but it's pale glow never showed.
A balmy embrace captured the Warwickshire countryside, as the softest evening breeze drifted through the dense tree line of luscious evergreens and fresh oaks that finally finished blooming for the summer season. A warmth that made the Earth erupt in the scent of the soil rich beneath the blades of deep jade grass. The wind even seeped through the open corridors of the wide stables on the grounds of Arrow House, dancing through on a breath scented with sweet hay and familiar contentment of horses kept safely in their fine paddocks.
The grounds were illuminated by the flickering sway of raw flames leading up the steps to the grand house, a vision to the unknowledgeable eye but a haunting monument to unspoken grief and unfathomable pain. Bricks of gothic grey cemented in place with the tarnishing stain of crimson blood, while not a stone of gravel was left unturned by the harsh hand of death creeping over the premises.
Fallen tears saturated this cursed house, the salt eroding the interior like a cancer in the very walls, waiting for the day when the structure came crumbling down in a pile of shattered rubble and broken hearts.
But for tonight, the mansion whispered sweetness in the absence of the secrets it craved to spill over the carpet like a cabernet wine. Like a sheet thrown over the evidence of bodies and mourning, the house that echoed with the ghosts of the past and the present, wore a mask that concealed the true nature of its turmoil. Just as its rightful owner did.
His footsteps fell in a strong stride, as Thomas Shelby made his way through the shadowed stable. Deep onyx clothed him, fabric tailored to the utmost perfection as it draped down his imposing frame, in a breath of the shade that matched the darkness hidden within his aching chest. The suit accentuated everything his physique had to offer, allowing the deception of a society man to peer through the flesh of a Birmingham gangster and gypsy boy through and through.
Abandoning the cap once rimmed with razor blades, long ago turned solid black from the Small Heath textile of tweed, leaving the loose fringe of his deep raven locks brushing over the bridge of his forehead. The breeze danced through the stray strands, like timid fingertips weaving between thin threads of filament.
Feeling warmth against his chiseled cheekbones, tainted with the faintest tinge of a chill that moved in with the falling night, but Thomas breathed in the fresh air like it could cleanse the smoke and the smog out of his scarred lungs.
He was not naive enough to truly believe there was healing instore for a man like him. One whose very soul was well battered in the lashes thrown by the sharp whip of life and disfigured by scars never bound to fade with the ticking hands of the universe's clock.
Thomas knew far too well the condition in which the strings of his heart pulled, frayed chords threatening to snap in half with the weight of his pulsing bloodstream, prepared to send the useless organ shattering through his chest in a heap of endless suffering and broken bones. He knew there was no such notion as peace for a man like him, but he appreciated the way the crisp air still endeavored to meet his senses like in some other world, it could be the cooling balm to his aching wounds.
A few paces lingered between Thomas and the threshold to the stables, but it wasn't the sight of the open space coming fully into view that captured his attention all this time, but rather the sight of her leaning against the wooden post as a cloud of cigarette smoke twirled up into the air in front of her.
