CHAPTER 12

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

❝ No lover leaves a rose garden without blood on their hands. ❞

"Miss Salvage, there's someone here to see you." Outside, her housekeeper was calling her but Rose didn't turn around, her attention firmly kept on the bay horse she was feeding. The stables were the closest thing she had to a sacred place; being with horses was the only time where peace became less of a definition and more of a feeling.

Rose looked over to Lucille at the door. "I'm not expecting guests."

"He says his name is Thomas Shelby, miss. And he has a child with him. Should I send them away?"

"Merde." Rose looked at the reddish-brown horse, as if he could decide for her. From her experience, horses often had more common sense than people. "No, Mr. Shelby is not a man one sends away. Bring them here, please."

She waited in silence, the horses' heavy breaths and the persistent smell of hay as her only company. When they stopped by the door, Charles squirmed in his father's embrace, his small arms trying to reach for the animals before he saw Rose and decided to reach for her.

"Rosie!"

"Hi, Charlie." Rose smiled and walked over to them. The stable was poorly lit and Thomas' slender figure stood out against the light like a phantom, a phantom she hadn't seen in a month but still haunted her every day. When their eyes locked, the touch of his fingers against her skin returned to her as if it had been yesterday. "Thomas."

"Hello, Rose." He gave her a short nod, shadows passing through his eyes as he studied her. "I hope you don't mind us coming unannounced, Charlie 'ere had been asking about you. He misses your classes, ya see."

"I've been busy." Rose said, at the same time Thomas let his son into her arms. She took him to a Haflinger pony, chuckling when his mischievous hand tangled on the pony's flaxen mane.

"Ah, yes." Thomas' voice came from behind her. "I heard you're having a big event in your café, something about an art gallery."

"Yes, there's a new movement shaking the art circles, surrealism. It's destroying conventions and contradicting reality and all its logic, so naturally, I took a liking to it."

"Meaning there's going to be a lot of wistful artists drinking absinthe and liquor in your bars."

The way he read her. It never ceased to surprise her, how he could make words out of her silence.

"What can I say? Of all in the world, artists' hearts are the easiest to break."

"I heard Picasso is going to be there."

"Yes. Maybe he'll paint you if you ask nicely."

Thomas snorted, glacial stare melting over her. She didn't know. Whether she was the iceberg or the ship going against it. "I never ask nicely."

The way he said it made waves inside her head, and suddenly she realized she was the wrecks.

"Who is Picasso next to the great Thomas Shelby, anyway?" She shrugged, golden locks falling over her shoulders. "You're invited to come, if you want."

With a smile threatening to appear on his lips, Thomas went over to a thoroughbred mare, who neighed and leaned her head to him as soon as he caressed her chestnut coat. He was good with horses. Probably as good as he was bad with people. "Fine animals you got 'ere."

"Most people stay away from that one. The whole 'chestnut mares are wild' idea."

"That's just a myth. And when someone tells me I can't have something, I want it even more." His eyes darted to her, quick as lightning and just as dangerous, and she felt the bolt inside her, spreading its branches all over her heart.

"Is it possible we have something in common?" She tilted her head, with a smile Thomas had trouble looking away from. "We both like horses more than people."

"We have more than that in common." His stare slid from her eyes to her arm, and she felt the shivers in her slide along. "How's the arm?"

"Good enough to ride, not good enough to play yet." She gestured around, moving to a beautiful Friesian horse, as black as the night without stars. "Pick one. We're going for a ride."

Thomas narrowed his eyes, but Charles clapped and giggled, the idea of a walk making his eyes shimmer like gemstones, and Thomas didn't dare to put the light out in them.

***

They rode in silence through the forest around the Salvage's property, with the rustle of the wind against the green foliage, the hooves of the horses on the ground and the melancholic chirping of birds in the trees as the only sounds. Thomas had Charles firmly pressed against him on the chestnut mare as Rose rode beside them in the Friesian.

They arrived at a hidden part of the woods where a creek ran smoothly between the rocks, the treetops filtering the sunlight and giving the area a place in every fairytale. The willows on the banks whispered lost secrets in the wind and an enchanted Charles trudged around, eager to hear them.

"He seems happy." Rose joined Thomas by the riverside; he was throwing pebbles into the water, watching them bounce and leave their mark on the surface. Rose thought about how everyone was just one of those stones in the ocean of life, creating ripples that would affect others. Small ripples, until someone different enough came around and triggered a tsunami.

"It's you." Thomas said simply, and Rose bent down and dove her hand in the water. It was cold, but it warmed her against the chills the man beside her was evoking.

"When we first bought the manor, I used to come here a lot." She glanced at him, at the grey pebble in his hand. Maybe he wished he could throw thoughts from his brain the same way he threw the pebbles. But the thoughts returned. The pebbles didn't. "I guess Heraclitus was right, when he said no man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."

Thomas threw the pebble; it skipped across the river several times before sinking, and then he looked at her. And Rose felt like all the ripples in the world were in her. "Has any man ever been the same after meeting you?"

She froze, because she had heard those words before, in a different mouth, in a different way. You change people, Rose. For better or worse, you do. You can't not change them. That's your greatest talent. You never go unnoticed when you pass through someone's soul.

She straightened herself up, moving to the Friesian to stroke his forehead. "I could ask you the same thing."

Minutes later, he was beside her, calloused hand passing over the horse's back. "Does this boy have a name?"

"Noir." She looked at Thomas, a lump in her throat when she spoke. The reason she was so set on the future was because she couldn't stand the past. She had a feeling it was the same with him. "You know, when I was in the war hospitals, and a horse was in pain, I was always the one to put it out of its misery. The nuns wouldn't do it, and the other nurses were too scared to. So it was always up to me. Every horse I shot has hurt me more than any man I couldn't save, than any man I killed. Do we have that in common too?"

"Yes." Thomas didn't take his eyes off Noir, but his hand moved over the horse's back until it reached hers. Their fingertips touched. "Yes, we do."

"It's the worst crime in a war." Her voice was venom, all the venom she had to keep in her mouth during the four years of the conflict and that she had since then been spilling, on her country, on her business, on herself. Like corrosive acid in her guts. "Using animals to fight for the foolish desires of wicked men."

"It's war, Rose. It's not supposed to be fair, or good."

Rose shook her head and walked away, letting out a hefty breath when she rested her back against the trunk of a willow tree.

"They've broken us, Thomas. All of us. And now we're supposed to nod and say thank you, as if we did not leave our souls on those damned Flanders fields." She saw the muscle in his jaw clench when he was unable to deny her statement. They both wished he could have. "I don't belong in high society, and neither do you. Pretending like all the destruction didn't happen, just because now we can cover it with gold."

He crossed his hands behind his back, eyes watchful over Charles as he chased a squirrel. "And yet that's where we're both headed."

"And sometimes I hate it." She took a step towards the river and stepped on a rock, spinning around with her hands out in the open. "Sometimes all I want is to take off my shoes, lie on the grass and listen to what the wind has to say. Even when the whole world does, the wind never lies."

She stopped to look at him, surprised that he was right there, as if ready to catch her if she slipped and fell. But she was already on the ground. Feeling as if sometimes she was below it.

"You feel it too, don't you? The restlessness? Of being too free in a world that does not like freedom at all?" She stepped down from the rock, placed her hand against his chest. "People like you and me, Thomas, we need to move. Into the future and out of the past. Otherwise they will both feel the same. We are not entitled to the present. They took that from us too."

He was in silence. That's when he always said the most.

"Come with me," she said, "I want to show you something."

They rode back home, stopping in the garden of roses behind the mansion, where luxurious bushes were bursting with roses of every color. There was a cobbled path that snaked through the middle of the garden, with arches of plaited roses over it. The scent was inebriating, but he was more.

"You know Jules?" She asked, fingers rustling against soft petals and sharp thorns. Thomas picked Charles up before he could do the same.

"The pianist?"

"Yeah. He's in love with my sister, Angeline. Has been since I can remember. So whenever he comes here, his skin never leaves without scratches, and his hands never leave without blood."

"And is there a reason why you're telling me this?"

"Because you cannot love the petals without being torn by the thorns. Remember that, Thomas. One day in the future, you'll need it."

***

La Vie en Rose was transformed into a dream. The fragments of life and art one could breathe inside the café infused the century with a new brand of hope and closed the door at the dangers and nightmares lurking outside. And after a lifetime of nightmares, her family deserved it, it deserved the peace and the happiness and the ability to dream again, and that's why Rose, despite her slow recovery, had worked so hard to organize the gallery.

"Rose!" She turned her head to the sound of her name, coming from a table of artists who were the center of attention in the café that day. Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, René Magritte and Henri Matisse were among them; they all had a cigarette or pipe in one hand and a glass of absinthe in the other. "Rose, why staying here, in this smoke-filled city? You should go back to Paris, where you can breathe art and culture in every corner."

Rose smiled, placing a bottle of Chambord liqueur on the table.

"I can't push away the dark cloud that's hanging over my Paris, and I'm afraid it will only get worse in the years to come. I love France, but we don't always have to be close to the things we love."

Her words sparked a heated discussion around the table, but her eyes were drawn to Raphael, who was dragging an embarrassed James to a circle of writers.

"Gentlemen," Raphael greeted. Beside him, James shifted his weight from one leg to the other, looking as if he wanted a hole to open up at his feet. "This is my good friend, James. He's a writer, like all of you, and I'm sure you'll love every word he has to say."

"Raphael..." James murmured. Among such resounding names, it was Raphael he was looking at. The familiarity between the strangers. "I'm sure these gentlemen do not wish to be bothered."

"No, no, it's alright." When the man with round glasses spoke to him, James' eyes widened to the moon and blood flooded his cheeks like the rising tides on the shore. The man had an Irish accent and James had his most recent book, Ulysses, on his nightstand. "Seat with us, lad, have a drink."

"T-Thank you, Mr. Joyce."

"Please, call me James, we share the same name after all, don't we?" He smiled, and James nodded; soon enough he was caught up in a conversation with minds like his, who lived and breathed in words. Rose recognized Robert Frost, who had won a Pulitzer that year, and Theodore Dreiser. Then there was T.S. Eliot and Bertrand Russell, debating over an open book.

Rose walked over to the bar and closed her eyes for a second, hearing the first verses of the poem In Flanders Fields being recited by Gertrude Stein, who had written one of Rose's favorite lines.

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.

But she was more than a rose. She was all the thorns. The shots kept ringing in her head every time she sought a bit of silence. Her family had tried to help her, but they couldn't. Thomas was right. Rose had been trained to save, but she was destined to kill.

"Are you alright?" It was Renée's voice, soothing and concerned as always, and her hand was on her back like it had been so many times, only this time Rose could barely feel it. She looked around; she didn't know how art and war could exist in the same world at the same time; it didn't make sense. Her only explanation was that art was what happened to humans after they had endured war. It was all that pain expressed in the most human of ways. "Is it your arm?" Rose shook her head. "Your conscience, then?"

"Just give me a whiskey."

"Irish or Scotch?" Evelyn asked, the concern stamped on Renée's eyes passing to hers. They weren't used to this Rose. Neither was she.

"Irish. I never drink Scotch."

"Renée! Rose!" Audrey ran to them, the smile framed on her lips instantly pushing away the cloud over Rose's mind. "You'll never believe who I just talked to! Scott Fitzgerald! Look, he even offered me a copy of his next book. He thinks it's not going to be well received, but I'm sure I'll love it!"

Audrey showed the book around; it was blue, with sad eyes and tempting lips on the cover. But then Christopher appeared in front of them with Andrea and Finn dragged by the ears, and The Great Gatsby was forgotten. Isaiah was some feet apart, bent down in laughter.

His heart was softer than honey and bigger than the sky, but Christopher seemed on the verge of his patience, so Renée placed her hands on his shoulders and made him release the flustered couple.

"I thought I had seen everything, until I found these two in the back, sniffing snow off each other's bodies. I'm pretty sure I'm going to die of a heart attack in the next twenty four hours due to the horrors my eyes were subjected to."

"Mon Dieu, Chris, we were not even that naked!" Andrea crossed her arms over her chest as Finn's eyes swept the floor. "We were just playing a game. Ever heard of strip poker?"

"Those two words don't go together, young lady." Christopher pointed an accusing finger at her. Rose smiled behind her glass.

"Finn, does Thomas know you're here?" She asked.

"If he didn't yet, he does now." Finn let his shoulders fall when he gestured to the door. Rose took another sip when she saw Thomas weaving his way through the crowd. To her. To whatever was happening between them.

But before he could, another face filled her vision. A young, handsome man with a square jaw and broad shoulders that made Audrey squeal a bit.

"Miss Salvage, a pleasure to meet you. Your absinthe makes me dream in ways my brain itself can't." His voice was softer than his muscular frame indicated; his strong accent made her travel to the other side of the ocean. "I was told you were a nurse in the war, is that right?"

Rose blinked. The people around her seemed to evaporate when Thomas walked around them and rested his back against the counter. "Yes, I was."

"I'd like to speak to you about it, it's for a novel I'm thinking of writing." He held out his hand to her, and Rose felt the boxer in him when she shook it. He had the same strong handshake as Raphael. "I'm Ernest, by the way."

"Ah, Mr. Hemingway. I've heard quite a lot about you. What's the story about, if I may ask?"

"Ah, y'know, the usual. Love that is born in war. An ambulance driver is injured in the war and falls for his nurse. It's inspired by my own experiences when I was in Italy. Those nurses, they do a number on us, don't you think?" He wasn't looking at Rose, but at Thomas. "I'm sure you've had your share of pretty nurses, we all have."

"Not really. I seem to remember the old nuns the most." He shook the glass in his hand, watching the liquid fire swing from side to side like a drifting boat. "There was one, once. But I only saw her for a day."

"Those are the best. The ones you can admire but cannot hurt you." The brown eyes of the confident man returned to Rose. "What about you, miss, any soldier you fell in love with?"

"You should have asked the other way 'round," Thomas spoke for her. "I'm sure there were a lot of soldiers who fell in love with her."

"I can confirm that." Christopher attested. "Back in the French hospitals, every soldier knew our Rose's name."

"What's the book's title?" Rose asked, placing the glass down. No matter how she tried to escape it, her past would always be present.

"I was thinking A Farewell to Arms, but I'm not sure yet."

"I didn't realize you were writing a utopia," Thomas scoffed. "Men will never say goodbye to arms."

"You, sir," Ernest said, pointing at him. His voice was low, cognizant. "No doubt you're a clever man when you think with your head. If only you were as clever when you think with your heart."

***

Thomas was alone in one of the tables, indifferent to the buzz around him. It was as if the whole world was inside that café but none of it was inside him. The abyss between him and people was wide and no one could cross it. And anyone who tried just fell to their death.

"I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others — young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life." Audrey sat across from him, closing the blue book she was holding and opening a smile. "Seemed appropriate. Have you been to America?"

He took the cigarette from his mouth, observing her from across the smoke. "I have."

"What's it like?" She looked around with dreamlike eyes. "All these Americans seem to love it and hate it at the same time, I get confused."

"It's just like here, love. Just shinier and with a lot more advertising." A soft chuckle dropped from her lips, and then to the floor when Thomas spoke. "Tell me about the man Rose loved."

"I can't. That's... that's up to her to tell."

"Then tell me what you can."

"I..." Audrey bit her lip, eyes flicking over to Rose, who was still talking with Hemingway. Thomas' jaw tensed, just a bit, when he saw her lean her head back in laughter at something he said. "It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. Doesn't it remind you of her?"

"I asked you something, Audrey."

"Their love," she said. "I can tell you about their love. It was a love that consumed them, flesh, soul, down to the very bone, burning even in the people around them. Until one day it became so unbearable, we all felt the ashes."

"You told me he was far away. How far?"

"All the charm in the world is not enough to make me betray my sister, Mr. Shelby. I think you should know our father used to say the only thing we should be stealing from men is their wallets, not their hearts, because they're most likely to have the former anyway."

"I'm guessing Rose is good at both."

"Yes. Are you not afraid she'll steal your heart?"

"No. Me heart is far emptier than me wallet, she won't be finding anything in there."

"Ah, no amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart," Audrey quoted again. "I need to know, Thomas. If you're after my sister just to leave her in more ashes, or if you're after her so her fire can burn again. Because France will hurt you again if it's the former. And this time you won't get medals for it."

Thomas didn't answer. Because for him a fire wasn't a fire without the ashes.

***

"Who the hell is that woman Jules is talking to?" Angeline plopped onto the chair in front of Nicolas, who seemed to have had one too many drinks. He raised his head to her briefly, before bringing it down to the glass.

"That would be Myra Hess, one of the greatest pianists of our time."

"Of course she is. But why is she smiling like that to our Jules?"

"Because people smile at Jules. He's an easy person to love. Only you make it seem like it's hard."

"I beg your pardon?"

Nicolas kept quiet, eyes roaming over the crowd until they got stuck on the only woman he ever saw. The bottles he had opened were for every man he had seen flirting with Rose that day, and then came Thomas. He remembered the miserable cold he had felt when Rose told him she had been shot, and then the burning rage when she told him Thomas had helped her. Thomas. Not him.

Angeline clicked her tongue, like a snake about to bite.

"You will always be in love with her. And she will never be in love with you."

His head snapped to her, mind suddenly very sober.

"Is the reason why you love to talk about other people's feelings because you can't stand your own?"

"Your point being?"

"My brother." He gestured with his chin towards Jules, by the piano with Myra. "He's been in love with you ever since we were kids chasing you girls down the corn fields. And I have stood in silence as I watched him adore you and worship you and suffer for you in silence too. He's a gentleman in all aspects, he will never make his heart heard or his feelings known. He doesn't think he's worthy of you. And I don't think any woman is worthy of him."

"Least of all me?"

"You aren't kind to anyone, Angeline. But you're kind to him. So yes, I think you love him. But that doesn't make you good for him."

Nicolas was shocked to see a flash of hurt cross her eyes. He didn't think it would hurt her, not this much.

"You just said it yourself, I'm kind to him."

"Yes. But people can be good to you without being good for you. See Rose and I. She's the best to me, but she's the worst for me. She loves damaged men, and perhaps I'm not damaged enough."

His stared paused on Rose and Thomas. Ernest had disappeared. It was just them now. The whole room was full of art, of some of the greatest paintings of the century, and he was looking at her. And she was looking at him.

"She wants to heal them, doesn't she?" Angeline asked. "All of them."

"No. She wants someone that needs healing as much as she does, so she won't be alone with her pain. And I can't give her that."

"Do you think he can?"

Nicolas brought the glass to his lips, the taste suddenly sour in his mouth. "I hope he doesn't, but I'm sure he will."

***

At the end of the night, with the sun about to rise in the sky, Rose could barely keep her eyes open, but for the first time that month her exhaustion made her energized. As she looked down at the note in her hands, she didn't fear she would see blood in them.

It was a letter Ernest had left for her. His calligraphy was simple, precise, the words of a man who knew exactly what he wanted to say and how he was going to say it.

Dear Rose,

I watched you, and I watched him, and as I watched you both, these words came to my head, and I had to write them. I'm sure I'll include them in 'A Farewell to Arms', but for now, they're yours.

If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

And then further down the page.

You are one of the good and gentle, Rose. So I'm sorry it kills this much.

A tear fell down, smudging the letters. She glanced around, prickling eyes landing on a bouquet of roses forgotten over the counter.

"Jules?" Rose called. He had stayed by the piano to practice. "If you were planning on giving her these flowers, Angeline already left."

"They're not mine, Rose. She has a new admirer?"

Rose grasped the silver card on the bouquet and swallowed. "No, actually, they're for me."

"No wonder, I bet many artists will leave here today to write about you." Jules smiled. But Rose wasn't smiling when she opened the card.

Five little words.

I can handle the thorns.

It seemed like, that day, Jules wasn't the only one who left the garden with scratches on his skin and blood on his hands.

author's note.

Ok so one of the joys of writing historical fiction is being able to write real historic figures so I had a lot of fun playing with that in this chapter! I hope you liked it, and let me know if you did :) There's also a lot of quotes who of course belong to their respective owners.

This chapter is dedicated to MenoraMatthews for the support on this story and the amazing graphics she did for Tommy and Rose:

Thank you so much again <3