✓ | GOLDEN LIAR ↠ Thomas Shelby.

05.

CHAPTER FIVE.

               FELICITY WOODS WASN'T A fool, in her opinion, although many would argue with that. She was as naïve as they came, with her blonde curls and her hopefulness and her desire for a world that wasn't constantly at war with itself. . . one where people could walk the streets without worrying about the next man along, or one where they wouldn't even be able to imagine the sight of a man lying dead in a darkened alleyway. Felicity Woods thought that could happen, she thought that one day each man wouldn't feel the need to prove themselves through violence, through force, through great, unimaginable force.

Felicity Woods was most certainly a fool, more so than Thomas Shelby could ever imagine her to be.

Yet as the woman was making her way down Garrison Lane with her coat buttoned tightly together in a feeble attempt to keep the chill out, she didn't think of the blue-eyed devil who had caught her attention so well. Or rather, she tried not to think of him. It was hard not to, especially when one was to see him every other day whenever he walked through the Garrison's doors, demanding a bottle of whiskey or white rum and creating a presence of fear wherever he went. Felicity wished she wasn't so captivated by the way he did such a thing but even she couldn't deny that she was.

Thomas Shelby was strange to her, but that didn't mean she was any less frightened of him than she once had been, only a week or so ago. She knew that he had fought in the war alongside so many other men and as with all of them, he came back as though he were a different person. No one could blame him for that - no one had that right, not even the others who came back. Felicity Woods hadn't a clue what the war did to people, not really, but she knew of what effect it had on those back home.

As the girl walked, she didn't glance either way down the road, like she once would have done. She figured that she had already been dragged into working at the Garrison - for a reason that was still unknown to her, much to her annoyance - and no matter what became of her, anxiously checking the road for the blue-eyed gangster wasn't going to help her situation in the slightest.

And so that was why she stepped out across the concrete and almost walked straight in front of Thomas Shelby and only realised she did such a thing when he had snapped his head up in surprise. . .  and that particular emotion only deepening when he caught sight of the blonde and realised just who it was.

By his side was a horse - one of the most beautiful horses that she had ever seen - and whilst it was as white as snow, it seemed nervous and anything but the calm being that Felicity had expected it to be when she first laid her eyes on it.

Felicity inhaled sharply. "I'm so sorry, Mr Shelby," she apologised profusely.

"Don't be," was all he said in return, yet he tugged at the leather reigns that he held and wrapped them around his hand, only reinforcing the tension that Felicity was naively hoping would disperse.

Felicity nodded with a tight-lipped, awkward smile. "What. . . what's his name?" She asked, gazing at the horse.

Thomas glanced at it. "He doesn't have a name," he clarified, as though it was nothing.

"Poor boy, he deserves a name."

He regarded her with amusement yet when he spoke, his voice was filled with anything but. "D'you have something to say to me?"