#hailbabel

Okie dokie. Grabs you.

@hailbabel​ asked:

My Dearest Nancy, 

It feels as though it's been an age since last I felt the warmth of your company, though perhaps it has only been a week and three days. I must apologize for our last encounter, as I must have done something to make you avoid me so. Perhaps I am too forward in my affections, but you must forgive me as I cannot help myself. Might I tempt you with a drink? Though I cannot abide the taste of gin, perhaps it would be sweeter in your company? Or from your lips? 

In lieu of a signature, a cluster of violets has been included in this letter.

Nancy’s hands couldn’t help but tremble as she opened the smooth envelope from Isabella. She knew it was from her. She recognized the impeccable handwriting. The sweeping drama of the way she wrote Nancy’s name. Any other time, it would have made her smile, but today she hurriedly ripped it open and ducked into the corridor to read in relative private. 

Her brow furrowed and she felt a stab of guilt upon reading the yearning tone of Isabella’s note. She had taken herself away to lick her wounds after Sophia discovered them. She was use to doing that- of taking herself away to make things easier- just as she had those many years ago, when she realized that Will was the best thing that would likely ever come Mags’ way. For some reason it rankled her more for being a wound so old. A wound that still had the audacity to blister and bleed after all these years. 

The shocked and appalled look on Sophia’s face had been bad enough, but it was Isabella’s reaction that had clawed at her heart. When she had turned those deep blue eyes on her, filled with regret, and said, “Oh Nance, I didn’t want this to happen.” Nancy had quickly swallowed down her hurt... But Isabella’s words bit her in the head the whole walk home. And if she were honest with herself, they’d been been running round her mind since then too.

She tried to shrug it off. Why should it matter that Isabella wanted to keep her a secret from her daughter? Why should it fuss her? She herself was a secret to everyone. Everyone who ever tried to get close, except Mags... except Isabella.

Nancy lifted the cluster of violets to her nose and breathed in their sweet, powdery, ethereal smell. But it wasn’t enough. She ached to see Isabella. To breathe in her own particular sweet scent, to touch her skin, her hair, to taste her sweet cunny. Why had she been keeping herself away?

She told herself that she didn’t want to make things awkward for Isabella. That she would never, ever, come between a mother and daughter. But that wasn’t the reason. Not the real reason. She did it to protect herself. And why not? She didn’t want to be hidden, like something unsightly that has to be swept under the rug. It had been too many years living like that. But, oh, how can she walk away from the understanding, the gentle touches, the stolen kisses, and the nights of heaven when she held Isabella in her arms?

With new resolve, she fetched paper and set about scribbling a note to her lady. 

Dear Isabella,

I fear I have stayed away too long. I will come to you tonight. 

She didn’t know what else to write. Her heart felt too full for expression, too heavy to twist into the right words. She made her way to the sitting room and found that same book of poems that she had once torn a sheet from for Isabella. She didn’t tear out another page this time, but merely copied the words into the letter. 

Softer than rainfall at twilight. Bringing the fields benediction And the hills quiet and greyness. Are my thoughts of you.

( Another verse from the Poetess. )

Last time she wrote to Isabella, she had enclosed a sleek black feather in lieu of a signature. But she didn’t have another. So she went to the kitchen and pulled a few birch leaves off of one of the branches she was going to use to make into a new rod. She smirked as she folded them inside the note. The leaves were light green, small and triangular-shaped, soft to the touch, but with a tooth edge. They were a bit like her. 

It’s why she had chose her name all those years ago. She remembered well- how she had stood in front of the glass in the mens’ clothes Mags had acquired for their escape from Quigley’s. Mags had put hers away once they were safe. But Nancy had continued to wear hers. They felt right. They felt like freedom. She had gripped her new birch rod in her hand. It had made her feel powerful like no pain could ever penetrate her again. And that was when she had decided. She would no longer be known as Nancy Burroughs. That girl was dead and gone, crushed by Quigley and her cruel culls. She would become Nancy Birch. And she would not live in fear.

❛  Will you stay for some… tea? ❜

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Harlots (TV) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Nancy Birch/Isabella Fitzwilliam Characters: Nancy Birch, Isabella Fitzwilliam Additional Tags: Harlots Week, Missing Scene, Spoilers Summary:

...brains?

Write about Emily Lacey’s lingering feelings for Nancy Birch did you say?

Nancy was back on her feet as soon as she saw the carriage. She had only sat down a moment to down a glass of courage. The rest of the time had been spent pacing.

In her anticipation, she opened the door before Isabella had quite finished knocking. She must have been mad as a wet cat to invite Lady Isabella to her home. She could see the scum slithering out of the alleyway already, sniffing for an opportunity to spice the swells… Many a bunter or pick pocket would risk a dance with the hangman to prig the parcel Isabella held in her hands alone.

It made her laugh, the absurdity of it all. Lady Isabella cut a striking figure, standing in the middle of Russell Street, like some majestic statue of a goddess, erected in a pig stye. She grabbed Isabella by the arm and whisked her inside.

“Come on, out of the filth,” she said as her statement was punctuated by her neighbor throwing a piss pot out of the window.

Once they were inside Nancy’s dark hallway, she suddenly felt breathless with anticipation and had to resist the urge to take Isabella in her arms right there. She walked briskly into the inner room where she had prepared some tea and offered the nicer cup to Isabella. She poured a nip of gin in her cup and offered Isabella some as well. 

As they reclined together, the giddiness in her chest gradually calmed and she began to relax in Isabella’s presence. She had not always thought highly of Isabella. She had once assumed that Isabella was like the rest of the wealthy class who’d always stuck together like pig’s cheeks in molasses. Yet Isabella was truly different. Daring, in a quieter way than Mags, perhaps, but no less forceful. It was not every high standing lady who would open her house to see a courtesan paid the same respect as a great Lord or person of stature. Nancy would never forget that. She felt her eyes fill at the thought of Charlotte and took a bitter draft of her tea.