Saving Amelia Black ~ Thomas Shelby

I want to be forgotten

 *(EDITED)*

I was a run away, simple as that, escaping a complicated family and making my life more complicated by having nowhere to live. Call me naive, call me stupid but if you lived in the same home I did, you would run away too. 

With my family, violence was always the answer, they were the men and I was the woman. I didn't need to clean or cook, we had money and lots of it and I think that was the downfall of my family. My father was drunk off the idea of wealth and power and with too much money to know what to do with he would drink, smoke and invited ladies of the night to the house at all hours. 

My brother had grown up the same, following in my father's horrible footsteps, abusing his wealth and treating women liked they owed him something. But my mother had always taken care of me, we would spend hours upon hours locked away in one of the many rooms in the house painting and sewing. My mother was my safe haven, but when I was 15, she died of the flu, she went quickly and the doctor insisted she wasn't in any pain when she passed. But even if she wasn't in pain I was and her pale face and screams haunted my dreams to this day.

My mother was of aristocratic background and belonged to a rich family from the midlands. My father was a 'business' man and forced marriage upon my mother for her money. They became lord and lady Ashfield of Barrow Hall Manor. When he gained his title, my mother said his kindness stopped and he became abusive, once he had taken her maiden name, Black, he also took her freedom. 

 She was locked away in the house and only brought out for special occasions like balls and charity events. But my mother insisted that was the way she liked it, to be away from him and keeping me safe. Then when she passed away I too was locked up in the house, a slave to charity events and pretty dresses, something I didn't want to be.

But that had all changed, I was 21 today and that meant I was to be engaged to an associate of my father's, a 45 year old man called Rofolo Riviera. He was an important figure in my father's business and marrying me would mean he would be a lord too, further increasing my father power. When we had first met he had groped and touched me, grabbed my face and forced a kiss upon me, my first kiss, stolen by an old man. He was going to ruin my innocence, and from that day on, I knew that I couldn't let that happen. 

I had devised a plan. Starting by collecting a tidy sum of money over a few months and when we went to Birmingham to meet this man, I was going to excuse myself to go to the bathroom and I was going to run for it. I'd find a hotel and then get a job and although it all seemed to easy in my head, I knew it wouldn't be.

I had on my finest pink gown and my curly brown and unruly hair was pushed back with a small tiara.  To the outside world there always appeared to be nothing wrong, but inside my head, where no-one could see I knew that when we arrived in that small hotel at noon, I was going to slip away, never to be seen again.

We had sat down to begin the luncheon, my future husband sat a few seats away, staring, his eyes trained darkly on me. I knew that this was my chance.

"May I be excused father?" I said looked down at my lap.

I looked over at me, his maddening eyes widening. "What for?"

"For the water closet father."

He grunted and nodded, he was obviously already drunk.

I stood up quickly, tucking my hair behind my ears as I ran to the bathroom. Once I entered I realised the danger of my situation. I looked in the mirror breathing deeply, what on earth was I thinking... I had little money, no place to stay, no life outside the walls of my house..But did I really have a life inside those walls anyway.