“Do you remember that day we all came down here when we were supposed to be working?” you said suddenly, a different memory of this room rushing up to meet you. A small smile tugging at your lips, reflected on the face of your best friend and sister-in-law.

“How could I forget? You all nearly got me sacked,” she giggled, taking a sip of her drink and you laughed with her.

“Yeah well… fuck them all, as she said.” For a moment you wavered, Polly’s voice echoing in your head. The memory fully formed in your mind as though it was happening right here in front of you.

“Remind me how it started again,” Ada prompted quietly, her soft blue eyes, so like her brother's, catching yours with the emotion you felt. You swallowed, took a deep breath and began.

*****

Polly’s dark eyes were bright and flashing with mischief, an impish grin on her lips as she gathered all the Shelby, soon to be Shelby, or even merely family by association, women together early one morning. “Right, you all know that the boys have gone to the bloody races without us again.” A collective groan and expression of discontent echoed around the betting shop. “Exactly. And it’s once too often,” she proclaimed to her willingly captive audience. “I think it’s time we showed them who really runs this company, ladies.”

She locked eyes with you, as Tommy’s fiancée you carried a certain level of sway within the group, second only to her own. Asking for your backing with just a look. As if you would ever be brave enough to disagree with Polly-Anna Gray.

“A little rebellion never hurt anyone,” you grinned back, gathering your recently removed coat and bag. Polly beamed around the wider assembly, still seeing uncertainty on some of the faces. Linda, pinched and righteous as ever, was no surprise, but Lizzie chewing her lip, afraid of the consequences if she disobeyed, was something else. She wasn’t family, she was disposable.

“I’ll see to it there are no repercussions,” she said firmly, holding Lizzie’s eyes, pleased to see her a slight nod and a relaxing in her shoulders. She didn’t bother trying to convince Linda - it made no odds to her whether her eldest nephew’s wife came along or not.

“What do you have in mind, Pol?” you asked, grinning at Esme, who was positively vibrating with the excitement of an adventure.

“Why ladies, I think we deserve to have a little treat. A little glitz and glamour that can only be found in London town. You have an hour to pack a few things for an overnight and meet me at the station. We have a train to catch!”

Esme’s face faltered for a moment. “What about the kids, Pol?” She couldn’t just leave the baby and John’s brood unattended whilst she skipped off overnight. There was no saying how late the boys might be back.

“Mary can look after them at the house, I’ll call home and have someone come and collect them,” you said quickly. “What’s the point of having that ridiculous place if we can’t use it to its maximum benefit, eh? And besides,” you grinned, trying to picture his face when he got home, “it’s probably time Tommy did some babysitting for you. He needs the practice for after we’re married.”

Polly cackled in response and shooed the collective out the door with commands of meeting at the station on the hour.

A few hours later and you were in London, slightly merry from the bottles of champagne Polly had insisted upon. You were travelling first class after all. But before you could get going on your adventure in the capital, there was a missing Shelby to be acquired.

Not even vaguely trying to be quiet, you burst in en masse to the library where Ada worked, demanding to know her whereabouts. Esme had acquired another bottle of bubbles from somewhere and was waving it cheerfully at the desks where a number of patrons were studying. A small group of male students chuckled at her antics, only to be shamed into a hush by a formidable older lady.

“What the fuck is going on?!” Ada hissed as she approached, somehow managing to simultaneously shoot apologetic looks at her patrons and colleagues, and daggers at all of you. “Will you being fucking quiet!”

“Ssshhhh!” Lizzie giggled in a mock whisper with her finger to her lips, the fizz having gone straight to her head, linking arms with an equally and unexpectedly giggly Linda.

“Language, Ada,” the blonde woman remonstrated in hushed tones, wagging a finger. “You should be better behaved in God’s house.”

You looked at her in confusion, nowhere near as drunk as they were. “This is a library, Linda, not a church.”

“Is it?” She looked around in surprise, neck craning back at the high ceiling, walls lined with books as far as the eye could see. “So it is. My mistake. Carry on.” She waved her hand magnanimously.

“What. The fuck. Are you all doing here?!” hissed Ada, her limited patience already spent.

Polly pushed forward to take charge.

“We, the Shelby Company Ladies, are having a well deserved day off, Ada love. And no matter what you choose to call yourself, you’re a Shelby, so go and get your things, you’re coming with us.” Her tone courted no argument and Ada looked around plaintively, appealing for help that wasn’t forthcoming.

“I’m working Pol, I can’t just leave.”

“Well we’ll just have to wait for you to finish then,” you said, theatrically pulling out a chair and plonking yourself down as Linda and Lizzie chorused in disappointment.

“I’m not spending my day off in a fucking library,” argued Esme, letting out a little growl as Linda tried to take the bottle from her.

A short, portly man approached, looking deeply unimpressed. “Ada, please take the afternoon off, if only so your family will leave our establishment in peace.”

You wondered if he might have met some of the Shelby clan before, hiding a grin behind your gloved hand. Thomas could be quite a handful when he wanted to be.

Ada went scarlet with embarrassment, mumbled an apologetic thanks and scurried off to retrieve her belongings.

It took three martinis to thaw out her sour mood but once she mellowed she quickly got into the party atmosphere. The giddiness of being rebellious rule breakers coming from the rest of you was simply too strong to fight against.

“Fuck them all!” Polly proclaimed, much later, as you took over a private area in the Shelby owned Eden Club, tossing her head in emphasis. You had made the mistake of musing about whether the boys had discovered you were missing in action yet. “Fuck the whole damn lotta them.”

A cackling chorus of ‘fuck them all’ was taken up by the group, followed by a percussion of clinking glassware.

You stumbled back into Ada’s house many, many hours later, happily drunk and footsore from dancing the night away, to a whole sheaf of messages that had been left with her lodger, James.

“Thomas is really quite upset about something,” he said with a worried frown as he passed half the pile of scribbled notes to you. Polly whipped them from your hand, snatching up the others from Esme and Linda, and threw them in the fire.

“It’ll do them no harm to know what it’s like to wait up for news for once,” she commanded.

As the others headed upstairs for bed, faint giggles trickling down from above, Ada wrapped an arm around your waist and laid her head on your shoulder.

“He’s going to be very angry with me tomorrow,” you murmured, the highs of the day’s revelry beginning to wear off, giving way to anxiety. Tommy wasn’t always the most relaxed individual when things didn’t go as he wanted.

Polly lit a cigarette and patted your cheek gently. “What have I been saying all day, darling?”

You felt Ada giggle against your shoulder.

“Fuck them all!” you both chorused, like children learning their lessons by rote and she smiled fondly at you.

*****

“He was so cross with me when I got home,” you laughed, “I honestly thought for a moment he might change his mind about marrying me.”

Ada scoffed into her glass. “Are you joking? You’re the best thing that ever happened to him and he knows it. He’d never have been so stupid. Besides, Polly told him she’d box his ears if he ever even considered letting you go and as someone who has been a recipient of that delight, let me tell you, that’s no joke.”

“She what? When??”

“I think it was after the first time she met you. That night when Tommy got himself shot you were the only one around. Said by the time she got there, you’d taken the bullet out and cleaned the wound and were having a go at him for being an idiot. Said she knew right then you were a Shelby.”

Your eyes filled with tears and she reached a hand towards you, squeezing tightly as a tear slid down her own cheek.

“I miss her so much, Ada. I don’t know how to help him like she did. He’s stopped letting me in and I’m so afraid for him.”

She set down her glass and scooted closer to hug you. “I miss her too. Every single day. We’ll find a way to help him, together. I promise.” She pulled back, sniffing as she smoothed away the tears from under your eyes, and gave you a wry smile. “You know it’s the women of this family who really run things around here.”

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