I told Bellairian that I had a number of ideas for fics, including one aboard ship, and that I couldn't decide which one, if any, to write. She told me she'd read any of them, so here's my first (but possibly not my last) offering set post-Symphony. For those who haven't read Symphony, Jack did indeed follow Phryne to England. They got engaged, solved a murder, and eventually set sail for Australia.

...

Notes on this fic: I've depicted life aboard a steam-ship as a first class passenger in the 1930s as accurately as I can, based on what I could google. If you notice any glaring mistakes, please let me know.

Update: I just rewatched 3.8 and finally realised that Phryne was wearing the swallow brooch when she left for England (in spite of it being mentioned in several fics written by more observant people). Blame it on a small telly and my limited observational skills. Now that I HAVE noticed it, I'm totally going back and editing it into 'Symphony'.


Seated on the floor of Jack's cabin, Phryne Fisher rifled systematically through the trunk of books her fiancé had brought with them from England. Hemingway, Sassoon, Graves, even Remarque: did Jack read such things in spite of his shellshock, she wondered, or because of it? Chesterton's The Everlasting Man, as well as the first volume of Wells and Huxley's The Science of Life. Trust Jack to see both sides of an argument. Several volumes of poetry, including the latest by both Yeats and Sassoon. But none of Phryne's personal favourites, nothing by Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers, let alone D. H. Lawrence. Not even good old Conan Doyle had made it into Jack's travelling library. They had been at sea for just over a week, and she'd already read everything she'd brought with her.

She heard the key in the lock and looked up as Jack entered, fresh from the ship's gymnasium. The sheen of sweat on his skin and the slight curl to his usually-brylcreemed hair made her heart skip a beat. He stopped when he saw her and raised an eyebrow.

"Breaking and entering again, are we?" he teased. "I distinctly remember locking the door on my way out."

"Just entering, Jack," she corrected, glancing meaningfully towards the door connecting their two cabins. She smiled proudly. "I'm trying to keep my criminal activities to a minimum these days. Now that I'm going to be married to a Detective Inspector." She tumbled the books on her lap carelessly to the floor and rose to sashay towards him. He smelt wonderful as well, she thought, fresh masculine musk overlying his aftershave.

"I'll let you know if I notice the difference," he told her as she ran her hand down his chest. "Phryne," he protested half-heartedly, "I need a shower."

"I could help with that," she offered, making him chuckle.

"As tempting as the offer is, love, if we let ourselves get distracted we'll be later for supper. Again. And I for one am curious to see what the Queen of Sheba will be wearing tonight."

She pouted playfully, withdrawing her hand. "Well, if you're more interested in what she's wearing than in what I'm... not wearing-"

He laughed then, and kissed her soundly before releasing her abruptly and moving swiftly past her towards his bathroom before he could change his mind. "Just make sure you pick those books up before you leave," he scolded, shutting the door firmly between them. She poked her tongue out at it, then put all the books except the Hemingway and the Wells/Huxley back in their trunk. He hadn't said she couldn't borrow them, after all.

...

The Queen of Sheba was the name Jack had bestowed, in a whisper that had had Phryne helpless with silent laughter, upon the Hungarian countess Sofia Arnay the first time they had seen her being shown to her seat in the first-class dining-room. Countess Arnay was about Jack's age and might have been beautiful had she not been caked in makeup. Her clothing and jewellery were as expensive and elaborate as Phryne's but whereas Phryne looked effortlessly elegant in her satins, silks and furs the Countess merely managed to look garish. The problem, Phryne considered, was that the Countess was utterly ignorant of Coco Chanel's excellent advice on the subject of 'less is more'.

Tonight was indeed a classic example: the Countess was dressed in gold lamé topped with a fur dyed in an alarming shade of pink which was exceeded in brightness only by her lipstick, and dripping with diamonds. Almost every finger sparkled, as well as her necklace and earrings, and she greeted the arrival of Phryne and Jack with a shriek of excitement.

"Phryne, darling, what do you think?" She waved her fingers around as though she were playing an invisible piano, presumably in the style of Liszt. "A gift from a gentleman whose name I shall not mention for fear of scandal, but wealthy, very wealthy. Ah, to have such admirers." And she cast a sideways glance at Jack. He returned it with a direct but carefully neutral gaze of his own until she looked away, discomforted by his apparent lack of discomfort.

"Personally I've always been rather wary of men who feel the need to lavish extravagant gifts on a woman," Phryne responded archly. "I feel it rather implies that they have nothing else to offer. Or something to compensate for."

The Countess raked Phryne with an assessing look. She was wearing a dress of deep jade green which set off her eyes and subtly emphasised the sway of her hips when she moved, and apart from her engagement ring her jewellery consisted of a single long string of jet beads with a matching bangle and drop earrings, plus a black-and-green brooch in her hair. She looked, Jack thought, like a fashion plate standing beside a child who had played dress-up with an indiscriminate selection of her mother's clothing, makeup and accessories.

The Captain chose that moment to enter, sending them all to their seats. Jack pulled out Phryne's chair, brushing her arms with his fingers as he pushed it in before taking his place alongside her.

"Compensating, Miss Fisher?" he asked in a voice low enough to be covered by the general chatter and clatter which accompanied the serving of the first course.

She arched an eyebrow at him. "For their behaviour, usually," she clarified. "That was always Father's strategy, anyway."

"But he never quite managed to make up for pawning that brooch?" He smiled tenderly at her. "I've never forgotten seeing it pinned to your scarf the day you left."

"Never," Phryne responded firmly, then sighed, her expression softening. "I don't think I took it off until I could lock it away in my jewellery box in England" she paused briefly. "Silly of my to be superstitious, I suppose, but I was travelling with my father, and I remember feeling utterly convinced that if I set it down, even for a moment, I'd somehow lose it. I even slept with it under my pillow. It was a promise: a promise I'd come home, just like a swallow returning to her nest. And to you as well."

She was not usually so sentimental, Jack thought, as he covered his reaction to her words and gave her a moment to compose herself by accepting and tasting wine and soup. But Phryne's worldliness seemed at times almost to become an odd form of naiveté. When it came to close relationships with men she was accustomed to only two things: domineering, violent behaviour; or men who were interested only in having fun and didn't much care about anything else, including her. Things which Rosie had simply assumed about him – that he would take care of her, that he would be faithful to her, that he would never strike or otherwise harm her, that she could trust him – Phryne had come to understand only slowly, over time. And there were still times when he caught a look of wonder or surprise in her eyes over some trivial forgiveness or small gesture of understanding or affection on his part that made him wonder what on Earth she had been expecting in that moment... and not certain he wanted to know.

...

Jack always prepared for bed in his own cabin, and Phryne in hers. She considered it unnecessary but she knew, as the young maid hung her dress and gathered clothing to be laundered before leaving her to her ablutions, that Jack would be changing into his pyjamas and pulling back the covers of his bed, conscientiously lying down, pulling up the sheets and tossing and turning for a few minutes until it bore at least the impression of having been occupied for the night. Only then, with appearances safely maintained, would he don his dressing gown and slippers and slip through the connecting door into her cabin. Sure enough, she heard him enter behind her as she was brushing her hair.

He shook his head fondly at the sight of Phryne with her head bent forward and her slick bob turned to disarray as she assiduously counted off brush-strokes. Twenty-five from back to front with her head almost touching her knees, then twenty-five front to tips, still with her head forward, then up and a shake before another twenty strokes returned her hair to its customary neatness. She claimed that it was a French beauty trick taught to her by Veronique which shook out the dust and relaxed the strands, improving the lustre and health of the hair. He was not one to argue with a woman over her beauty regime, no matter how outlandish. He was just thankful that she didn't indulge in Rosie's regular habit of slathering her face in a thick layer of cold cream before retiring for the night. Phryne claimed that only over-burdened the skin, potentially leaving it in worse condition, not better, and that it was better to apply a much thinner layer of lotion with swift upward strokes, to counter the effects of gravity. Again, he considered it wisest not to argue.

"Do you remember we're speaking with the Chaplain tomorrow?" he asked, as he slipped into bed and lifted the covers so that she could slide in alongside him.

"Of course." She narrowed her eyes at him. "You remember what we agreed about vows of obedience, don't you?"

He sighed. "Phryne, even if you hadn't made that stipulation, I would consider it pointless to ask you to make a promise that you would inevitably feel compelled to break almost immediately."

She smiled and kissed him. "Good. Just so long as we both know where we stand."

...

There were few duties aboard ship, Chaplain Colin Walters thought, that were more pleasant than conducting a wedding. True, baptisms accompanied the joy of birth, but babies were unpredictable creatures, prone to crying or, worse, vomiting without warning and without remedy. Celebrating the Lord's Supper was always a privilege, hearing confessions ranged from the boring to the amusing to the outright terrifying, and nothing would ever make conducting a funeral enjoyable. But a wedding, now that was something to be savoured.

The couple who sat before him were older than many that he had wed, but younger than others. They held hands but did not giggle. They had a closed, assessing look that he recognised: they were not religious, and had Views on certain aspects of the various traditional wedding services. That was fine. He'd rather compromise on a few nonessentials to see a couple formally bound and blessed as man and wife than leave them living in sin (and he'd heard enough shipboard confessions to know just how inventive some of those sins could be – what was it about life aboard ship, he wondered, that lowered people's inhibitions so thoroughly?).

"So," he began. "You want to be married?"

The pair nodded. "That's right," the Inspector affirmed.

"Well then, let's begin. Do you know of any reason in law – and we are subject to British law aboard this ship – which would prevent you from being legally wed? You are both of age? Unmarried?"

The two exchanged a look. "I'm divorced," the Inspector stated briefly, with a slightly challenging tilt to his jaw.

Colin nodded. Irregularities were not unknown in the world of shipboard marriages, and at least they were being honest about it. "An impediment if you are seeking a religious ceremony," he acknowledged. "But as a ship's chaplain I am authorised to conduct a registry service, and in the eyes of the law a divorce is no impediment to that. Would that be acceptable to you both?"

Jack glanced anxiously at Phryne, but she was smiling and seemed, if anything, pleased. "That would be absolutely fine."

"In that case, I take it you do have proof of your divorce?"

The Inspector nodded again. "I do."

"Then there should be no problem." He raised an eyebrow and couldn't help but add, "you do realise that you could simply have omitted to mention it, and I would have been none the wiser?"

"I hope you're not implying that I should be marrying a man who is less than honest?" Miss Fisher remarked. Her tone was light, but not without bite. Yes, this one definitely had Views.

The chaplain inclined his head in acknowledgement. "Of course not. And you are both aware that marriage is a solemn estate, not to be entered into lightly?"

"Of course." He got the impression that Miss Fisher was becoming impatient.

"Well, in that case I'll need to see your passports and proof of the Inspector's divorce. Then I can notify the captain and publish the banns."

"Excellent," Miss Fisher now sounded pleased as she produced her passport from her handbag. The Inspector removed his passport and a folded document from his breast pocket, and they both slid their paperwork across the desk. The chaplain examined them and carefully copied the relevant details onto the form in front of him, then slid them back.

"Thank you. Now, at this stage, that's all-"

"We do have one request," the Inspector broke in, "regarding the vows. We would prefer that Miss Fisher not be required to swear any vows of obedience."

Miss Fisher's smile indicated that she was in complete agreement with her fiancé on that point, and Colin nodded. Ah yes, Views.

"The civil ceremony is short, and easily adapted. That won't be a problem."

"In that case," Phryne smiled at Jack, "perhaps we can make some time to go ring-shopping in Port Said."

Jack smiled back, and there was something in the look that was passing between the two that made Colin blink. He'd had this conversation with a lot of couples in his time but seldom had he seen the kind of love that was contained in that brief exchange. "That sounds like an excellent idea," the Inspector replied. Rising, he nodded to the chaplain and offered his hand to his fiancée, who rose elegantly beside him. "Chaplain."

Colin nodded back. "Inspector, Miss Fisher. I wish you all the very best."