Work Text:
A letter lay stuffed among old trinkets, abandoned but not yet forgotten. Awaiting Nell’s clumsy hand, dust had begun to settle atop the unopened surface. Into the worried creases and corners now littered with folds left by fingers bursting with shame.
To keep the worn note among her own aging souvenirs was no frivolous task. Pa had kept the trinkets on Nell’s behalf, perhaps meant as a fond sentiment during the time that she was thought to be little more than bones turning to dust in the dirt, her remains deserted among the bugs and maggots.
The keepsakes no longer truly belonged to Nell Jackson, the woman well acquainted with the stench of death. It permeated her body, tarnished her skin, and she once likely would have referred to such close skirmishes with blood and demise as an adventure rather than a horror.
The memory of Nell, younger and naive, having not yet endured a life outside of the Talbot, was the owner of these trinkets. She had not yet known the feeling of bones cracking under her palms and bullets ripping through skin. The smell of blood-curdling and the sight of skin discoloration as bodies cooled to corpses.
In the time gone from Tottenham, she had not known much sweetness. Captain Jackson had not provided much affection and for that, Nell was grateful. She was not suited for devotion, passion, the sorts of mush that Polly favoured.
Captain Jackson had provided, rather, a necessary escape from which Nell could no longer resist.
There had been kindness, yes, in their marriage, but not of the sorts that Polly spoke of. It had not been a union of unbridled desire, nor of unrestrained longing. His death was a grief that struck Nell still, soured her ribs as if she had drank too much whiskey far too fast. Turned her head dizzy and stomach uneasy if she thought too long of it. Yet, something of it was not—right. Not by the means through which Polly considered love at the very least; a means of utter devotion, an expression of the soul.
Roxy had once explained to Nell the feeling that Amadin prompted in her body. It was like swallowing butterflies, her sister had said, as though critters had made a home in her stomach. Being near him brought about the sensation of fluttering up against her ribs and in her throat. Roxy couldn’t think straight with him around, could hardly speak right.
Nell hadn’t felt that way with Captain Jackson. Not once.
There had been nerves, certainly, with more nights than Nell could count spent sleepless and fidgeting. With her stomach in knots and mouth unable to produce a sound, palms sweating and skin on end.
But it hadn’t been the sticky, sugary sorts of nerves that Roxy had meant, and Nell knew that. It had only been a case of jitters. She’d never been so far from home as she was with Captain Jackson. She hadn’t really known what adventure would entail; what marriage to her late husband would be like.
Her only regret was the failure to recognize, at the time, what life outside the Talbot would truly entail. It hadn’t been as grand as she had always hoped for. The title of adventure had only served to conceal the blood and mud and muck she would endure; ribs disfigured by fists rather than corsets, bruised knuckles and torn skin, cramped muscles and scars still not yet faded to white. Horror and terror and fear she had still yet to fully conquer.
Nell shook her head, frizzed curls brushing her forehead. A hand positioned itself over her stomach without thought, meaning to ward off the rising taste of sickness in her gut.
To think of her late husband in such a way was foul. Captain Jackson had provided Nell with the necessary means of satisfaction. He had allowed her the freedom she had been so starved for and had never required her to don any sort of pretty disguise. The sight of her in slack trousers and clinking boots hadn’t been any trouble for him. He’d fancied her sharp tongue and its knack for cursing, found her bruised knuckles a source of communion, liked her preference for bitter rum and rowdy laughter and allowed her everything that she had not found at home.
It had been every reason that she had run from the Talbot, spineless but so sure hers was made up of steel, tongue lashing at her father as she stepped out the door and didn’t return until she was believed to be dead.
She had thought that the Talbot would suffocate her. To die stuck in one town, one pub, one disguise she was meant to bear indefinitely. It was not the title of barkeeper's daughter that frightened her but the endless terror that she would live and die having never shed her skin. To have never discarded the mask forced onto her body, instead stuck in dresses that did not fit onto her skin right, serving drinks to men who leered at her body, clenching her fists and biting her tongue till she tasted copper.
To remain in the Talbot meant to turn herself into the trinket, stuffed into her own skin and ripping at the edges like Polly’s letter was now, something tight and awful wound up in her chest but perpetually unable to snap into her rightful place.
Nell couldn’t imagine herself as a pretty little token, because she had never fit into the image expected of her. Rather, she had always ripped out the tight coils of hair bunched up on her scalp before they could even be properly pinned by her late mother. Her fingers had always tucked into the cinches of corsets pinching her skin and grinding together her ribs, pulling apart layers of fabric, stays, and shame.
It was not the attire itself that presented complications, and Nell knew it to be true. Roxy wore pretty curls and snug fabric with ease. The trouble then, was Nell. She knew herself to be stubborn and brash. It was her who couldn’t quite fit into the garments—and she couldn’t fit right into much else either. It was the reason she’d left, because the Talbots had seemed more like a cramp in her leg than home.
If she could not shed the layers, shed her skin, then she could not stay. She could not die in a mask not made for her body.
Nell could not die having never lived. She could not suffocate under the weight of her own body, her skin itching and ribs aching and blood curdled by shame.
Captain Jackson had taught her that shame was not to be shown, but instead to be buried and spit up and discarded. Her marriage had not just been a means of freedom, then, but a transformation of the mold she had been forced into for so long. Before her departure from her, Nell had by no means been shy, nothing timid or polite about her disposition, but Captain Jackson had taught her about weakness all the same. More so, how to be rid of it. How to dispel it from her blood, pluck it out from her teeth, bury it in her backyard so no one else was to see the soft, vulnerable spots of her body.
Blood was not a weakness, just how Nell chose to react to it. Pain, fear, all the like. They were nothing to be ashamed of so long as she denied their shameful nature.
Freedom, Captain Jackson taught her, was the rejection of sentiments otherwise comparable to shame. And how could she refuse, when he’d provided her the opportunity to dispose of the pieces that did not fit onto her body; the soft tongue, the sweet disposition. The persona of the mellow lass, stripped away to reveal rough edges incapable of softening.
Nell was not in need of the sort of adoration that her sister described. It wasn’t made for her sort of personhood anyhow—rough and stubborn and arrogant.
The letter in her hands, corners creasing and dust settled over top from its time abandoned, was not intended for Nell’s stiff hands. Accordingly, neither was Polly nor her method of appreciation; charming language of eager attachment, audacious acts of physicality, adoration, and sweetness. Nell didn’t have much fondness for such things.
The letter, with its elegant scripture of a noble girl still yet to see the world outside of Nell Jackson, was not fashioned correctly for her calloused hands. The fine parchment did not fit neatly into her palms, with their fading scars, with dirt streaking over the skin, with knuckles bruised from her latest altercation.
For Nell to touch this offering from Polly was to tarnish a possession once unblemished. It was a habit of hers, she thought, the mucking and bloodying of surfaces once clean. Her presence was stained wine across white linens, sticky and wet. Soiled and red.
The parchment was stained at the corner by Nell’s thumb, having left a trace of dirty residue. It was crumpled and dusty and worn with age.
Its script was unreadable, and Nell traced unfamiliar letters with her eyes despite. The sweet scent of Polly stuck to the paper, honeycrisps and sugar and a precious flower that Nell could not possibly name permeating the air.
She flattened one folded corner with a slow, cautious finger.
It was easy to imagine Polly’s voice speaking to her, still, to envision the sorts of fantasies that she had imbued within the writing. It was likely stuffed to the brim with images of Nell’s ethereal beauty and souls bound by desire.
Shame curdled her innards to think of Polly with fondness. Since their first encounter, mouths brushing and Polly devoted, Nell had thought only of her as something soft, something kind.
It was a betrayal to the memory of her late husband, and worse, it was a betrayal to herself.
She had told herself, time and time again, that it was for love. That marriage could be for her sort, that love could be hers, that she could have it even if it were never quite right. His mouth against hers stiff and cold. His hands on her hips strange, unpleasant. His fingers twinging on painful on the few occasions they climbed up the slope of her hips, towards the warmest parts of her. He had been lively, a familiar soul, and perhaps it had, it had been love, but it wasn’t the sort of love that Polly wrote about in those frilly letters.
To Polly, love was nothing short of grand expressions. Nell’s beauty was an ethereal entity, her eyes like the stars and hair like the sun. The flicker of affection between them was all-consuming and larger than the both of them.
It was far more substantial than Nell knew what to do with, too infectious to combat. It wasn’t the worst sort of ailment, Nell could admit. Polly was gentle and yes, perhaps eccentric, but kind.
And Nell could remember their mouths pressed together, quick but warm, nothing shy about Polly. Hands on Nell’s cheek, turning rosy with shock.
But Polly was—everything that Nell wasn’t. Polly, extravagant and pink, hair coiled at the nape of her neck, vibrant fabric cinched at the waist, perfume slipping down her skin. Soft and sweet and feminine. Everything that Nell fought against for years, everything that Captain Jackson wasn’t, everything that Nell fought tooth and nail and blood and bone to discard herself of.
It wasn’t right to think of Polly with such fondness after her late husband had allowed her the liberation necessary to reject Polly’s very person.
And it was not right to compare her late husband to Polly. It was not right.
Nell dropped the letter carelessly, watching it flutter back to its rightful place among forgotten relics of her childhood. Specks of dust fluttered upward at the disturbance, trinkets that no longer belonged to her clattering as she stood. With a single boot, she kicked the entire trunk of items back under her bed.
“Out of sight, out of mind,” she muttered. There were no witnesses to overhear her proclamation and no judges to convince besides her own faithless head.
Polly Honeycombe was no forgettable figure, try as Nell might. The memories of Polly stuck to the crevices of Nell’s brain. It was as constant as it was frustrating. The letter only provided further recollection, despite Nell’s inability to read its contents.
It was easy enough to imagine the contents; they were likely stuffed to the brim with fanciful perceptions of Nell’s eyes and hair and hands. Her skin, her mouth, her soul. All of which Polly thought to be perfectly wonderfully, beautifully constructed. She had said as much in their last encounter.
In the brief moments spent before Nell and the others had raced to save the Queen, Polly had tugged her quite scandalously into the privacy of her new office, shutting the door quite firmly on the others.
Nell smiled to herself at the thought. Polly’s cheeks had lit up pink, apologizing for her brazen movements, but a moment's reprieve was necessary before Nell Jackson transformed herself into the country's hero. The title was quite unimaginable, even now. She’d spent months being compared to the worst demons of hell, a monster incapable of redemption. Polly’s branding of Nell as a hero was a burden too substantial to even consider.
Polly’s appreciation had only continued to unfurl; she had clasped onto Nell’s arms quite firmly, claiming that in her absence, the moments shared between them would perform in her mind. The recollection of their kiss—and Polly had sighed wistfully at just the mere mention of it, whereas Nell had bit her tongue with hot, flushed cheeks—would warm even the bleakest of nights.
Nell flushed at the thought of such ridiculous passion, even now. Polly had practically swooned in her arms, proclaiming her hair to be the flames of passion, her hands the sturdy anchor that Polly sought on stormy days.
The sentiments were ridiculous, as were the flush of Nell’s cheek. Shame twisted up her chest. Such adoration did not, could not, belong to her. Just as Polly Honeycombe did not belong to her, neither did such blatant sweetness.
Nell Jackson was not a creature of gentle affection.
The letter was of no importance. She hurried to force it out of her mind as days passed, focusing rather on the Talbot. It had not crumbled to pieces in her and her sister’s absence, as she had almost feared. Still, her focus was meant for the bar and to keep it standing.
Nell wiped down the bartop, sticky and wet with rum. Altercations didn’t often disrupt the evening but when they did, she was forced to intervene. A drunken brawl over next to nothing had ended in the splitting of her knuckles over a sloshed sod’s nose. Drinks had spilled, as had the blood on her hands.
“Useless shite,” she said under her breath. Split knuckles weren’t much to fret over. It wasn’t the first occasion, nor would it be the last, that she had been forced to break the nose of a customer. Still, she didn’t care much for the commotion of drunken skirmishes.
A flash of bright hues darted across the window from outside.
Nell paused, eyes darting up and hands pausing. Her eyes shifted to the door but when it failed to open, she bit the inside of her cheek and resumed cleaning.
It was likely Roxy, dressed still in one of Polly’s stolen garments. Polly had gracefully allowed the garments to be kept; following a proclamation, of course, that it would remind Nell of Polly’s memory. Should Roxy wear them in the Talbot, Polly had argued, Nell should be forced to think of Polly and her beauty often.
Nell had tried not to snicker fondly, instead offering a polite smile. At the time of their departure and Polly’s assertion, Nell had thought the claim to be baseless—as well as absurd.
In due time, Polly had proven herself correct.
Roxy did not wear the stolen garments often for complaint that they were itchy and tight, meant for the poise of a noblewoman at tea rather than a barkeeper's daughter serving customers. Still, on occasion, she adorned the intricate fabrics, decorating herself in layers of pink and yellow, and it struck Nell blind without exception.
It left a small, hollow dent in Nell’s chest, one that grew and caved in by the day.
Nell knew by now that bright flashes of color were Roxy adorned in pilfered dresses. She turned away from the bar, turning the rag to a corner and stretching her sore shoulders. Her teeth dug into the inside of her cheek without thought, attempting to ward off thoughts of pink fabric and a sugary sweet mouth against hers.
“Nell,” a high voice called. Nell paused, heart thumping and halting all at once, stomach fluttering. She pivoted on her heels till she could face the familiar voice.
Polly Honeycombe, pink in the cheeks, teeth gleaming with the force of her smile, and dressed in pale blue stood across the bar.
Nell relaxed her tense shoulders and tipped her head. “Shouldn’t you be with Old Mogs?”
She winced at the bluntness of her own tongue. After such time apart, it likely wasn’t the sort of reunion that Polly had envisioned. Frankly, it wasn’t how Nell had imagined it either—not that she had thoroughly, or often even. Were the thought to have crossed her mind even once, she might’ve hoped to indulge a few of Polly’s fantasies. Perhaps nothing as grand as sweeping Polly off of her feet or planting kisses across her skin. Even the thought of such a shameless display made Nell’s stomach turn.
As it were, a few onlookers, tipsy and harmless, gazed between the brightly-colored toss and the barkeeper. Nell gave them a quite withering stare and they returned politely to their conversations.
“Do you mean to protect my reputation, good sir?” Polly teased. Her eyes had latched onto Nell and refused to veer.
“I’ve no interest in stopping yet another fight,” Nell said. The skin of her knuckles had begun to burn. “And a pretty toff like you draws all sorts of attention.”
It was easier to imagine that the unabashed stares were directed toward Polly rather than Polly and Nell. Polly’s attire hugged the frames of her hips quite nicely. It was comprehensible that miserable old blokes half drunk would find her rather lovely, even if it made something vicious and sharp poke up against her ribs. Like the feeling of Billy Blind rushing through her but something gone rotten creeping through her, too.
Staring wasn’t right. Polly Honeycome might be mighty pretty, lovely and sweet, but she wasn’t made for the grubby hands of the men in the corner. She was deserving of a soft touch, Nell thought, something doting alike to her fantasies.
“I am not in the slightest intrigued by the wandering eyes of,” Polly paused, eyes darting to-and-fro as her voice lowered, “intoxicated scoundrels.”
She said the word as if having never been in contact with drink before. And, Nell supposed, it was likely that she hadn’t. Her delicate, rich fingers coming into contact with bitter whiskey was a laughable image.
“Don’t fret, Lady Honeycombe,” Nell said, tongue turning the words soft and soothing, “these men won’t come within an inch of you.”
Polly’s hands clasped in front of her chest. “My handsome hero.”
A smile crept up Nell’s mouth. There was only sincerity in Polly’s voice, despite neither title of handsome nor hero truly fitting Nell.
“Did you say another?”
Nell’s brows creased. “Sorry?”
“Another.” Polly pointed a finger toward Nell’s fist settled atop the bar, its skin torn and red. Dried blood creased in the lines of her knuckles and Nell clenched her fingers. “You’ve already had one skirmish tonight?”
“Yeah, well, happens when you work in a pub, I suppose.” Nell sniffed, rolling a shoulder and swallowing back the sour taste in her throat. That sharp feeling snuggled up against her ribs had been replaced with the nausea earned after a good night of drinking. It was turning her head queasy and stomach dizzy.
Polly hurried closer until only the bartop separated them. Just mere inches of empty space.
“Are you in need of aid?” Polly’s eyes darted between the blood on her skin and her eyes.
Nell tried not to recoil, biting her tongue rather than hiding her fist as she truly desired. Captain Jackson had taught her that scrapes and bruises were no source of shame. Every man bled. Only some bled and endured. It was proof, her late husband would say, that she had prevailed.
Anything less was frailty; to hide her knuckles now, after already having been seen, was to admit that she saw shame in her own blood. And Captain Jackson didn’t like much when she admitted to shame, even less to weakness. Best to keep it bottled up.
“It’s just split knuckles, Polly,” Nell said. “I’ll live, I’m afraid.”
Polly sighed pensively, doe-eyes gone soft. “Oh, Nelly.”
“Don’t—”
“The wound of my dearly beloved is an ache on my own soul.” She sniffed and clutched her hands tighter to her chest. “If only I could share in your anguish, perhaps relieve the burden and carry it myself.”
Nell’s retort faded on her tongue. Her mouth tasted of blood, faintly. Polly placed a gentle hand on her forearm, allowing her aching hand a wide and polite birth. Nell’s teeth released the muscle of her cheek and she swallowed copper.
Her face felt hot, her head gone dizzy. As if she had swallowed a gallon of rum and swung in circles. It wasn’t a shameless feeling. It wasn’t quite as rotten as Nell had expected, either.
Roxy had told Nell, once, that Amadin reminded her of the rising sun after a long winter: warmth prickling her skin, coloring the skin of her cheeks pink with gentle longing. Nell didn’t enjoy much hearing of her sister’s kinship with Amadin, but the portrait painted was nothing like Nell’s marriage.
Captain Jackson had reminded Nell of a long, sour drink; turning her head woozy and sour, her stomach flipped this way and that. Unsettled nerves and skin standing on end.
Polly Honeycombe was a fresh sip of wine, brimming with sugar and turning Nell’s skin warm. Nell could understand, now, what her sister meant by swallowing a case of butterflies.
A sensation of twitching critters fluttering up against her ribs forced Nell to swallow heavily.
Her eyes shifted, lowering, and it was only then that she noted the parchment clutched in Polly’s hands.
“What’s that then?” She nodded toward the wad of paper.
Polly blinked, as if having forgotten it herself. “For you, naturally.”
“Naturally,” Nell breathed. Polly was accustomed to sweetness like Nell were her fists.
Polly smiled, bright and wide, and offered up the letter to her across the bar. Nell’s fingers twitched but refused to reach toward Polly.
“You remember I ain’t able to read that, correct?”
“Yes,” Polly said slowly, hands retracting. “I hadn’t meant to suggest that I forgot such a thing about you.”
Hurt colored her tone and Nell couldn’t quite place the reason. The insinuation, maybe, that Polly could so easily disregard Nell’s state of literacy.
A missed spot of spilled rum caught Nell’s attention. She grabbed the abandoned rag and pushed back the sleeves of her shirt, meaning to return to work. Before she could, her eyes lifted and she caught sight of Polly.
Polly’s eyes were attached to the muscles of Nell’s arms, her mouth parted and cheeks turning pink. Her eyes lifted and as the realization came that she had been caught, the flush of her face rose to a fierce red.
Nell pretended her own face wasn’t equally flushed and instead grinned unabashed. She wasn’t ashamed of this. The physical attraction was easier to handle than thoughts of sweetness and affection. It was admittedly more comfortable to imagine that she was simply flattered by a speck of attention after a drought of universal hatred, what with the entire country rounding up pitchforks to hunt her down.
Perhaps her current kinship with Polly was just a show of damaged pride in need of being stroked. Maybe Polly’s flushed cheeks and the matching rouge of Nell’s was a matter of dignity, not desire, not love, not sweetness. Just an empty, shallow hole in Nell’s chest. Something to fill and then be done with.
Nell angled herself across the bartop, revealing the skin and muscles of her arms. “What were I meant to do then? If I ain’t able to write you back?”
Polly swallowed carefully, eyes flashing between the exposed skin of Nell’s arms and her face. Her blatant desire lasted only a moment before her fantasies overtook her and the desire across her face was replaced with a familiar starry-eyed expression.
Before she could speak and inevitably spout off a list of heroic tales that did little to match Nell Jackson’s personhood, stray whispers cut through the bar.
The earlier onlookers, still inebriated and still gawking, had returned their gazes to the two women. Irritation coiled up Nell’s spine, hot and sharp.
“How was I supposed to respond?” Nell repeated off-handedly, beginning to cross the bar. Polly’s body followed her movement, pivoting in small steps each time Nell moved. It was a bit charming, Nell was loath to admit. She laughed, small and quiet. A puzzled smile crossed Polly’s face and Nell said, “You seem to be imitating my every move.”
Nell was only a step away now. Polly glanced between their bodies, seeming to notice her replication of movement, and exhaled a quiet giggle.
“You are the star I mean to orbit, Nell Jackson.”
Nell nearly swallowed her own tongue, mouth gone dry and pulse rocketing. With wide eyes she stared, silent.
“And besides,” Polly continued carelessly, as if Nell’s heart had not begun to pound to the point of breaking her own ribs, “I hadn’t intended for you to write back, silly Nelly.”
“What did you intend, then?” Nell asked quietly.
Polly sighed wistfully. “I dreamt you would come and see me, of course.” The words were the necessary reprieve, and Nell snorted, not unkindly. Polly placed her hands on her hips and huffed. “Is it really so absurd?”
“Not absurd,” Nell corrected, “just unlikely.”
“How come?”
Nell sputtered. “I’ve got duties here. I’ve got an entire bar to keep, and my sisters to watch over.”
“You forget I’ve met your sisters,” Polly interjected. “They’re fully capable of handling themselves, even young George.”
“And the bar?” Nell tipped her head back toward the drunken lads in the corner. “Who’s to manage them?”
Polly’s shoulders dropped, and for a moment, Nell thought she’d forfeit. It was a vast miscalculation on Nell’s part.
“I do believe one night without split knuckles wouldn't be your end, would it, Nell?” Polly said. Nell sighed, equal parts enamored and frustrated, and leaned her back against the bar. “Your body might even relish the absence of agony.”
“A few scrapes and bruises ain’t nothing to throw a fit about.”
Captain Jackson had reminded her time and time again that shame only came about if she brought it. Shame could be, and should be, concealed. There was nothing inherently dishonorable in having bled. Having been stung and stained happened to the best and the worst alike, but only the weak unveiled their shame.
Polly made a noise in her throat, short and disapproving. Rather than respond, she stepped closer, till her hands brushed up against Nell. The edges of crumpled parchment nudged against her skin.
“I thought of you often.” Polly’s pinky, covered in pale blue satin, brushed against the back of Nell’s hand. “I waited for you to come to me.”
Nell shook her head in dismissal. “You fancy yourself a hero. And I ain’t no hero, Polly.”
“I fancy you,” Polly corrected, audacious as always.
“Polly—”
A steady palm reached out to cradle her cheek. Blunt, defiant, and wonderful, Polly continued, “You, Nell Jackson. You are the light that guides my path. A hero that you have made of yourself. Loyal, brave, just Nell Jackson. My handsome highwaywoman.”
Nell’s head had that dizzy spin to it, again.
“You think too highly of me.”
“I think just enough.” The entirety of Polly’s hand wrapped around Nell’s and she squeezed, just once, before withdrawing. “Maybe not enough, even.”
Nell laughed, stunned. Polly’s face lifted at the sound and she offered up the parchment still carefully held in one hand.
“This is yours,” she said. “Even if you can’t read it yet. It’s yours by all accounts.”
With a ginger hand, Nell plucked the letter from her grasp. Her own hands, ungloved, still stinging, rough and familiar with the worst sorts of foul harm, grasped the letter as carefully as she knew how.
“Thank you,” she said, throat stuffed with emotion.
Polly smiled easily. “For the letter?”
“For thinking of me.” Nell turned the letter over in her fingers, thumb rubbing over neat, lovely script along the front that she could not read. “Thank you for thinking of me.”
Polly only sighed, leaning forward to place a palm over Nell’s cheek. It was reminiscent of that first kiss and Nell fought to keep the heat out of her cheeks. Polly fluttered her eyes up at Nell, unassuming, unintentional, simply sweet and feminine and inherently darling.
“I think of you always, dear Nell.” Her thumb brushed over the high bone of Nell’s cheek, tracing skin that had certainly gone pink.
“You know you’ve crossed my mind once or twice as well, right?” Nell gestured to Polly with the letter still in hand, waving over the broad expanse of Polly’s figure. “I hadn’t known you’d wanted me to up and visit you, what with me being unable to read what you’ve written me.”
Polly shook her head. “I wasn’t troubled by your absence, Nelly. I’m perfectly capable of managing our future affairs, should it lift a burden off of your shoulders.” Her shoulders lifted and chest puffed up a bit in pride. “I managed to trek here in my lonesome quite kindly, didn’t I?”
Nell clucked her tongue, a grin working its way up her face. “I’m sure you did, darling.”
The endearing term slipped off of her tongue without thought. Nell’s gut seized, fingers cramping tight over the letter in hand and turning pristine parchment to wrinkles. Polly’s face positively glowed, a giddy grin poorly hidden behind one hand. Rather than acknowledge the slip of tongue, she allowed Nell a stroke of sympathy.
“I even managed to avoid another theft, dear Nell, of both my garments and my heart.” Polly’s tone was dipped in sugar. There was no need for hidden satisfaction, really; the toothy grin on her face betrayed her stark joy in the endearing term. Still, the sweet edge to her voice prevented Nell from retaliation; Polly was not taunting her, nor did she mean to use the slip as leverage. Polly’s joy was genuine.
It startled Nell, how something so trivial to others could be so monumental to the pair of them.
She didn’t often use such terms with her late husband. He didn’t care to hear them and she didn’t care to speak them.
And yet. Polly seemed to provide an exception to Nell’s contempt for such sentimentality. Not just the slip of the tongue but in all matters of concern. The warm press of their mouths had ignited a pulse of nerves scorching Nell’s gut. Polly’s letters, illegible and absurdly romantic, was a sweet memory of Polly. The toff was wrecking all of Nell’s claims that love was nothing but rubbish. Just mush out of reach, not meant for her hands.
It wasn’t so easy to accept that perhaps Nell did have room in her heart for Polly. That it wasn’t so bruised and bloodied, torn up and ripped apart, as to reject the sentiments that Polly offered.
“Well,” Nell said, “I do believe one notorious highwaywoman was successful in both.”
Polly smiled and placed a considerate hand on Nell’s cheek, reminiscent of their first embrace. Leaning forward, mouth met skin, and Nell’s heart stumbled. The kiss to her cheek was modest, warm but not shy, familiar.
As Polly leaned back, Nell allowed her gaze to stray, lowering to the mouth that she now knew well. Polly’s cheeks flushed but she said nothing.
“I’ve kept your other, you know,” Nell said, gesturing to the letter still in her hand. “I’ll keep this as well.”
Despite being unable to read it, despite the crinkles left behind by her own fingers, there was a space reserved in that old box of trinkets for the letter. It was not so awful, she considered, to remember herself before Captain Jackson. It was not a clean split. The girl from before still belonged to her, was still a part of her.
The sentiments offered up by Polly’s sweet hands could perhaps belong to Nell, in the soft space behind her ribs. Maybe it could be hers—love. It could be.
“I hope you’ll think of me,” Polly said, “in the time that I’m gone next.”
“I will,” Nell promised. She held up the letter, crumpled at the corners, elegant script illegible to her. “I’ve got a keepsake to remember you by.”