Lovely Day for a Picnic
Lucien was walking home one afternoon and, on a whim, decided to cut through the park. Normally he knew better. He knew that walking through the park would inevitably lead to some form of distraction, delaying his return. There always seemed to be something happening, something to see, something to ponder.
And of course, today was no different. He crossed onto a path by the trees and, upon turning the corner, stumbled upon a couple of teenagers kissing passionately. They were leaned against a tree on a blanket with a picnic basket beside them.
He wouldn't have bothered them except that they'd stupidly put their blanket in the middle of the path. Not wanting to walk through the muddy grass, he awkwardly cleared his throat. "Pardon me…"
The young couple broke apart and both got very nervous. The girl's eyes went wide upon seeing him. "Dr. Blake!"
Lucien sighed, recognizing the daughter of one of Jean's sewing circle friends. "Barbara Saunders, shouldn't you be in school?"
The young man, who Lucien recognized as Dennis Jeffrey, one of his patients, scrambled to stand up and explained, "It's our anniversary, see, so we played hooky. It was just for today. Please don't tell our parents!"
"No, I won't tell anyone. But I won't lie if anyone asks. And it might behoove you to keep your picnic out of the main path so you're less likely to be spotted," Lucien advised.
"It's muddy," Barbara pointed out.
"We should have found a dry patch. You're right, Doc. Sorry."
"Well it's nearly three, so school's almost out anyway. If you don't mind, I'll be on my way and leave you both to it." Lucien gave them a polite nod and stepped over the blanket to continue his walk home.
But by the time Lucien did reach the house, he had come up with an idea of his own, inspired by his slight detour through the park.
"Jean, what's my appointment book look like for tomorrow?" he asked, greeting her with a kiss on the cheek.
"You know, I do write things down in an actual appointment book for you. You could look at it yourself," she pointed out, giving him a look to let him know that he should do just that. Lucien immediately went into his study, and Jean followed. "You see? Right there. All perfectly legible."
He flipped to tomorrow's date and found that the entire day was blank. "There's nothing written here."
"Then I suppose that means you haven't got any appointments."
Lucien looked up at her, curious as to what he could have done to earn such sass. "Right. Thank you," he said simply.
Jean gave a nod and left to go to the kitchen to start dinner.
For the rest of the afternoon, Lucien remained in his study. He kept the door open in order to hear what might be going on in the rest of the house, but the only sounds were of Jean in the kitchen.
Eventually, Mattie came home. "Are you hiding?" she asked, poking her head into his study.
"I think so, yes. Mattie, do you know of any reason Jean might be annoyed with me?"
Mattie paused for a moment to think. "I don't think so. There isn't any sort of occasion you forgot, is there? Or perhaps you did something insensitive without realizing it?"
Lucien appreciated Mattie's tactful approach. It was mostly common knowledge that he and Jean were romantically involved, but they all did their best to keep it quiet. Jean was still a bit uneasy about working and living in the same house as the man courting her and how that might look to everyone in town. Mattie and Charlie especially did a good job of turning a very blind eye.
"Hang on, you did come home for lunch today like she asked, right? She said at breakfast you had to be here to meet with the painter to approve of colors for the outside of the house," Mattie recalled from the conversation she'd sat in on at breakfast.
His eyes went wide. "Oh no, I completely forgot. Oh, no wonder she's cross with me!"
"I think I'll go read in my room until dinner," she said pointedly.
Mattie made herself scarce, and Lucien went straight into the kitchen. "Jean, I'm so sorry I didn't come home at lunch."
"Oh Mattie reminded you, did she?"
"Yes. And I apologize for not remembering without her prompting. You did tell me to write it down, and I didn't."
Jean pursed her lips, trying to decide whether or not to accept his apology this easily. He hadn't ignored her out of any malicious intent, of course, but she did have every right to be annoyed at him. She decided to take a deep breath and calmly explain the situation. "We agreed that the house needed to be repainted. And I made the appointment with the painter and I'll take care of everything like I said I would, but Lucien, you must see that I can't make all the decisions. I waited with the painter for almost an hour for you to come, and eventually I had to send him away because I couldn't tell him what color paint!"
He furrowed his brow. "Why not? I don't care what color the house is. I don't really care if it gets repainted at all."
She clenched her jaw in annoyance. After all, anger and frustration were much easier to deal with than hurt and anxiety. "It's still your house. I'm just the housekeeper. It isn't up to me what color to paint the house or to rearrange furniture or decorate rooms. I don't even decide what flowers to plant in the garden!"
"You don't? But the garden and the sunroom are yours."
Jean shifted nervously. "I take care of the plants that are already there. And I brought the aloe from my farm and planted it with your father's permission. Everything else, I just replant if it dies. And the pots in the sunroom…I don't add anything new. I grow what's always been in those pots and shift them around."
And Lucien finally understood. "Are you really telling me that you don't consider any of this house to be yours?"
"I'm just the housekeeper," she mumbled quietly.
He couldn't resist taking her hands in his and squeezing them comfortingly. "Jean, you are not just the housekeeper. I don't think you ever were just the housekeeper before, and you certainly aren't now. This house is as much yours as it is mine. It should be, anyway. Because nothing about this would be a home if it weren't for you. This is your home, Jean. So from now on, I want you to change anything you don't like. I'm not too attached to most things. And it will be more of a home to me to know that more of you is imbedded within it."
She swallowed the lump in her throat and told him, "I still need you to tell the painter the color. Because even if I do choose, no one will take the housekeeper seriously for a decision like that."
Lucien smiled softly. Always the practical one, that Jean Beazley. "As you wish." He lifted her hands up to his lips and pressed a kiss to each one of them. "And now that we've gotten that figured out, I hope you'll be able to join me for lunch tomorrow."
"When you're home, we usually have lunch together," she pointed out, unsure of what he was getting at.
"I think we should go out."
"We can't!"
"Of course we can. If you'd be so kind to pack a picnic lunch, we can go to the park together to eat."
Her expression softened into a happy smile. "Oh. Well, yes, I suppose that would be alright."
"I saw a couple having a picnic today, and it made me realize that I would very much like to sit on a blanket in the grass with you."
"That does sound rather nice."
"Besides, you look very beautiful in the sunshine. And this time we won't be on a case, so we can find somewhere a bit more secluded."
"Are you going to have me put my arms around your neck again?" she asked, recalling the last time they'd gone to the park together.
"Oh I certainly will. Though this time not for a case. This time I think I'll have you kiss me."
Jean's grin was bright as she stood on her tiptoes to give him a kiss right there in the kitchen. "I think a picnic lunch and a little cuddle sounds absolutely wonderful."
The front door opened as Charlie arrived home just in time for dinner. Jean quickly wiped her lipstick off Lucien's face with her thumb before going back to the meal she'd been preparing. Lucien went back to his study and wrote a note to remind him to speak to a solicitor about having Jean's name added to the deed to the house.
The next day, Jean did her morning chores as quickly as she could so she had enough time to put the picnic lunch together. Lucien helped out, allowing an assembly line for the sandwiches. She sliced the bread and spread mustard, and he loaded up a bit of cheese, leftover sliced chicken from the previous night's dinner, and assorted veg. Jean wrapped everything up and packed it in the basket along with the blanket she'd taken from the linen closet for the occasion.
At last, they were off. Lucien carried the basket in one hand, leaving the other free for her to take his arm as they walked.
"Not very sunny today, is it?" Jean noted, frowning at the dark gray clouds.
"No, it isn't. Bit of a shame. Maybe the sun will find its way to us before lunch is over," Lucien said optimistically.
"And if it doesn't, maybe we'll just have to do this again," Jean replied.
Lucien's grin took over his whole face. It was wonderful to think that he and Jean could do this every week, if they wanted.
Their luck was not to match their enthusiasm, however. Before they even reached the park, raindrops began to fall. Lucien tried to stay upbeat, commenting that perhaps it would stop in a minute. But it just rained harder. Within about two minutes, it was pouring. Jean insisted they go home right away, lest they catch their death getting soaked to the bone.
Upon reaching the house, Lucien put the basket on the porch out of the rain and took the blanket from Jean, tossing it aside.
"What on earth are you doing?" she asked, wiping rain from her eyes.
"If I can't kiss you in the sunny park, I'd like to kiss you in the rain." And without any further explanation, he did just that.
Jean fell weak in his arms, overcome by the sheer passion of his kiss. She began to shiver, due equally to the rain and his ardor.
"Perhaps this was better in theory rather than practice," Lucien wondered, finally pulling away.
She blinked the rain out of her eyes. "Perhaps. Though I won't complain until we both catch cold and spend all of tomorrow sneezing miserably."
He laughed and quickly took out his keys to unlock the front door.
"Get out of those clothes and bring them to the washroom, please," Jean told him, as soon as they went inside. She hurried off to her room to get out of her wet things.
But Lucien had other ideas. He refused to be thwarted by a bit of rain. The first thing he did was start a fire in the parlor. There was a blanket on one of the armchairs that he spread on the floor in front of the fireplace and placed the picnic basket on it. He discovered that the rain hadn't actually gotten into the basket too much; the food remained perfectly edible.
"Lucien?" Jean called.
"Just a minute!" he shouted back. Lucien quickly went to his room to change out of his sopping wet clothes.
They both arrived back in the parlor at almost the same time, each in their dressing gowns. Jean noticed the scene he'd prepared. "What's all this?" she asked, smiling.
"We were going to have a picnic. The food's still fine. And if we can't have the park, we may as well sit right here," he said, gesturing to the blanket.
Jean sat down as modestly as she could manage. "I feel like some sort of drowned animal," she commented, pushing her dripping hair out of her face.
"I can't say I've ever seen a drowned animal, but I will say you look very pretty." He sat down beside her and leaned in for a soft kiss. "Very pretty," he whispered on her lips.
She blinked, suddenly feeling quite light-headed, completely unrelated to her hunger. "We'll just eat then, shall we?"
Lucien sat back, giving a proper, comfortable distance between them. He passed out the sandwiches. They ate while watching the fire and making conversation. They brainstormed ideas for what color to paint the house. Lucien had grown accustomed to the yellowish tan with dark brown trim but was open to Jean's suggestions. They eventually decided on perhaps a medium brown with a red-brown trim, agreeing to see what samples the painter had available for them to choose from. Lucien also asked her what things she'd like to change about the various rooms of the house. Jean suggested that perhaps there was a bit of clutter in the number of lamps and side tables. Lucien looked around and found that he quite agreed with her. They'd get rid of some of the superfluous items soon.
Jean noticed that the fire was doing a good job of drying their wet hair. Hers look awful, she was certain, but she smirked upon seeing Lucien's. "Your hair's starting to curl," she noted.
He reached up to pat his unruly head of hair. "Yes, it does that. It's quite a mess."
"I like it." She leaned over so she could run her fingers through it.
Lucien took the opportunity to start kissing her again, which she happily allowed. She wrapped her arms around his neck. They leaned back to a supine position. The picnic was ignored as they lay on the blanket by the fire, locked in their passionate embrace.
A while later, Charlie came home for a late lunch. The rain had delayed things at the station, so he wasn't able to get away when he normally would. Thanks to the cloud cover, there was no natural light from the windows. The house was dark, save for a flickering light coming from the parlor. He went to investigate and found the most unusual sight.
Jean was lying on the floor beside a crackling fire. She was asleep in her dressing gown, curled up on her side. Lucien lay beside her, similarly asleep in his own dressing gown. Charlie watched for a moment as Lucien reached his hand over and unconsciously stroked her hair. She turned at his touch and nuzzled into his chest.
It was then that Charlie decided that perhaps it would be better for him to brave the rain and drive to the café on High Street to grab a bite to eat. He backed out of the room and left the house as quietly as he could manage, smiling at the sweet scene he'd witnessed and glad his intrusion hadn't interrupted them.