It was four in the afternoon when Blair arrived back at Thomas Shelby's home. It was the middle of summer and the air was thick and heavy, the sun still burning high in the cloudless sky as birds sang in the trees.

She knocked on the heavy doors, a gentle breeze cooling her bare legs as the hem of her pale blue sundress floated gently around her knees. Her hair was pinned up in a clip with two curled strands framing her face softly, a natural pink blushing her lips and her cheeks, her pale skin deepening in tone from the exposure to the sun, freckles dusted across her chest and shoulders.

"Mrs Kennedy, please, come inside."

Frances opened the door with a beaming smile, settling the nerves that had been growing in Blair's chest all day. Despite the past she shared with Thomas, it wasn't him that was causing the stirring of her emotions, it was the worry that his child might not warm to her, taking a dislike the same way his father had done all those years ago.

Blair followed Frances into the house, immediately feeling cooler indoors. The high ceilings and thick brick walls made it almost impossible for any heat to hold in the main hallway and the absence of windows blocked out warm sunlight, making the home seem invisibly cold.

"Mr Shelby and Charles are upstairs in his room, I'll take you up there now."

Nodding, Blair stayed close on Frances' heels as they climbed the wide staircase up to the second floor. Large portraits of Thomas and Charles hung on the walls, but the one that caught her eye at the top of the stairs was the one with a woman Blair assumed was Charles' mother in.

Intrusive thoughts were inescapable for Blair and she found herself wondering constantly who the woman that Tommy had left her for was. She developed a self-hatred, comparing herself to a woman whom she had never even laid eyes on, yet was convinced was superior to her in every single way. Though upon seeing the portrait on the wall, Blair was shocked to see that she seemed to resemble herself in many ways, making the question of why her so much harder to answer.

Frances knocked lightly on a door halfway down the hallway, gently pushing it open. Blair walked inside after her into a light and airy room. The walls were painted the same shade of blue as her sundress and the windows were open on a latch, letting in fresh air and late afternoon sun stream through the glass.

Charles was sat at a small wooden desk with a pencil in his fist, scribbling messily across a sheet of paper. He looked up at Blair with a blank expression, staring at her for a long moment before turning to look at his father.

Thomas was leaning against the windowsill, the sunlight glowing behind his body like a golden crown, a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger.

"Charles, come here," Tommy cleared his throat and beckoned over his son, placing his hands on the boy's shoulders.

Blair stood with a friendly smile beside Frances, feeling unusually nervous around the child in a way she never had before. She was a naturally maternal person and the loss of her own unborn child had made it a passion for her to connect with other children with ease, though with Charles, there was a dense wall she knew she'd have a hard time to break down.

"This is Mrs Kennedy, she's going to help you learn how to read and write, play games with you and take you to see the horses in the fields, all of the things you love. Why don't you say hello properly?"

Blair took a few steps closer to Charles, bending down to his level. She softened her smile, her eyes warming as she looked at the child, a hand outstretched.

"It's lovely to meet you, Charles. I'm Mrs Kennedy, but you can call me Blair."

He placed his hand cautiously into Blair's, shaking it ever so slightly. He looked petrified, wide-eyed like a shaking deer, but it was nothing that Blair hadn't seen in a shy child before.

"You can call me Charlie, I don't like Charles."

Blair smiled, nodding her head.

"Charlie it is. Do you want to show me what you were drawing over there?"

Charles scurried across to the table, grabbed his piece of paper and carried it back across to show Blair. He held it proudly up to her, standing by her side as he explained what he had been drawing.

"Daddy's horse. It lives outside in the stables, her name is Dangerous, she's my favourite. Do you like horses?"

Blair looked up at Thomas as Charles asked her the question. She noticed the way he swallowed hard, his eyes staring straight into hers before she tore away from him, looking at his son.

"I love horses. Perhaps you can introduce me to Dangerous one morning?"

Charles gave Blair his first smile and she instantly relaxed, feeling reassured in herself knowing that the tension she'd felt when she first walked into the room wasn't between her and Charlie, but between her and his father.

Frances soon excused herself, closing the door on her way out. Blair pulled up a chair beside Charles who began eagerly showing her a collection of his other drawings, none of which looked anything even remotely close to what he told her they were supposed to be.

She stayed for a while longer, engaging with the boy and asking him questions about his interests to allow him to open up to her, all while Thomas stood idly watching, smoking his cigarette by the window.

There was something that felt the tiniest bit wrong about the whole situation to Blair. As she sat and listened to Charles talk, her mind wondered to the depths of her memories, thinking that perhaps it felt strange to her in that moment because once upon a time, she had dreamt of a life with Thomas, child and all, picturing it almost exactly like they were just then, together in a beautiful home.

Only the reality was far more chilling, making meeting Charles bittersweet. Blair loved children and she was incredibly excited about the opportunity to give Charlie a one-to-one education, but with the recurring memories she would have to let cross her mind every time she saw Thomas' face, she knew it was going to be tough.

"Right," Tommy said, stubbing out his cigarette on the window ledge and brushing the ash onto the floor, "I've got some work to be getting on with, will you be alright with Mrs Kennedy for an hour, Charlie?"

Tommy headed towards the door when Charles jumped off his chair and ran towards his father, tugging on his sleeve. Thomas picked up his son and held him on his hip, looking over the boy's shoulder to lock eyes with Blair who was sat daintily, one leg crossed over the other, the same way she had been sat in the restaurant on the last night he'd seen her.

Charlie covered his mouth with his hands as he whispered something quietly to Tommy. Blair watched with an expressionless face, one that matched Thomas' as he listened intently to what his son was saying.

He swallowed again, a noticeable lump in his throat and a glaze of something over his blue eyes, but what, Blair couldn't quite tell.

"Yes," Tommy said, kissing his son's head before placing him back on the ground, "I suppose you're right."

Blair couldn't help but wonder what it was that Charles had whispered to his father, feeling overly self-conscious all of a sudden. She didn't have time to dwell, however, and Thomas left the two of them alone, telling her he'd come back upstairs in an hour.

"Your dress is very pretty."

Charles grinned at Blair as he began to pack away his pencils into a wooden box, stacking his drawings on top of one another and placing a small paperweight on the top of the pile.

"Thank you, that's a very kind thing to say."

He shrugged his shoulders and lifted the lid of a toy box in the corner, pulling out pieces of wooden train tracks and small coloured stream engines, throwing them onto the rug beside his feet.

"You're welcome. Do you want to be the blue train, like your dress? I'll be the red one, it matches my jumper."

Blair smiled and knelt down on the floor, beginning to assemble the pieces of the track together as Charlie dug deep in the toy box.

"I'd love to."

Together they built the train track into a figure of eight, both of them pushing the engines across the wooden tracks up and over the small bridges.

"Do you think you'll stay? The last time I had a teacher she didn't stay for too long, I think she was scared of my Daddy."

Blair laughed quietly to herself, shaking her head as Charlie continued to play with the trains.

"You don't have to worry about that, Charlie," she said with a smile, "I'm certainly not afraid of your Daddy."