"I did, once. Very much. And we both loved Charlie. We were more than pleased to make it work out for the best, for him, and the face of it all." But Tommy is a creature too used to freedom, and he thinks he might have loved May, as well. Not enough to abandon Grace to her New York husband to raise his son, but enough to be straight and honest with her.

For a moment, he's almost not sure how to answer. He was a Gypsy in Birmingham, and he is here. He was a gangster in Birmingham, which he is not here, but he is a card sharp, a dealer for the local casino, and he has designs for business and profit in this city. And she lists off things, and they're all things he's done, does, did.

"I did not trade in flesh and drugs," he says, definitively. "But I was a Bookmaker, and not always the most reputable one at that. My father was a bookmaker before me, and definitely disreputable. And his father before him, running penny deals from a barge. My mother's people were cutpurses and tinkers. We went to the Fairs. I grew up with horses and on locks, in the back alleys of Birmingham. And when I came back from the War, I decided that I would turn my father's business of thuggery into a legitimate business."

He sipped his tea and took a bite of his sandwich, looking at the horses assembled at the fence. "I'm a businessman, Mary Crawley. Simple as that."