The Fallen

Part Three

Seven months later, 1902

Angel

Thomas hit oil today.

I was in the kitchen with Nora, washing up after having mucked out the stables, when we heard the commotion and shared a puzzled look.

Once we took on hands on to help build the derrick and operate the cable drill, it quickly became clear that my attempts at cooking would not suffice. Thus we built another room onto the house and Nora was hired. Everyone was thankful for her addition to the household.

I picked up a towel to dry my hands and we made our way outside to see Thomas coming back to the house with his men, covered in the black goo and grinning like a fool. His white teeth looked like a tear in the night sky.

Before I could forbid him, Thomas scooped me up into his arms and kissed me.

For a moment I wasn't sure whether to be angry that he was covering my clothes in oil, or happy that we had succeeded in our task. Pretty soon though, both warring emotions were overridden by a new longing and I returned his kiss, wrapping my arms around him and pulling him even tighter against me.

I shared a home with this man, slept beside him each night, we had even huddled together under the covers during the cold winter months. I held his hand sometimes and we embraced on occasion. We poured over his inventions each evening, sometimes into the wee small hours. Even if I couldn't help, just explaining things to me was helpful, he said, a sweet smile on his lips.

I already held a great deal of respect and affection for him, occasionally I felt something more but nothing like this. This was an emotion I had never experienced before. Was it desire? Lust perhaps?

When he pulled away, neither of us were smiling any more.

The two hands were dancing around us, as jubilant as children at Christmas and our maid, Nora, was keeping them at bay with a broom, since they were threatening to hug her as Thomas had done to me, but it felt as though Thomas and I were all alone and I swallowed, suddenly feeling very nervous, although it wasn't an unpleasant feeling.

The moment stretched on. I didn't know how to respond to these feelings, and Thomas was evidently not willing to continue. When Willie and Pete knocked into us while attempting to avoid Nora's broom, the moment was lost and we separated.

"You need to clean up," I told Thomas, but my embarrassment caused me to quickly look away from him. "You too," I told the hands.

"I'll take care of them," Nora assured me. "You just look after him," Nora pointed at Thomas, then turned back to the hands herding them over towards the stables

"You should get changed out there," I said. "I'll run you a hot bath and put some newspaper down."

I darted inside, eager to be away from him so I could get myself back under control. I put old newspapers down on his path from the kitchen door while the bath ran, then called him when I was done.

I didn't know if he would have undressed complexly, or only partially to spare my blushes, but I kept my back to him as he made his way. Once the bathroom door closed I went into our bedroom and changed out of my clothes. Mine were probably salvageable as they just had oil transfer, but I had no clue how I was going to rescue Thomas's. Maybe now they had hit oil and we didn't have to worry quite so much about making our money last, we could just burn them.

***

Thomas

It took a lot of scrubbing with lye soap and two baths to get rid of all the oil but nothing could dampen down my mood.