As always., these are not my characters. This is set at the end of the revival meeting Lucien and Jean went to in S2E2.
"Why don't you, and your woman, just piss off?" McArthur spat the words at Lucien.
Words spoken with venom, intended to wound, but they missed their mark. Outwardly neither Lucien nor Jean reacted; they behaved exactly as they always did.
She smoothed his shirt and adjusted his tie. He guided her out with his arm on her back. Just their normal familiarity, the gestures of friends, even if perhaps they were in a little deeper than they had realised.
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In the car on the way home, Jean thought back to the insult and squirmed a little at the memory of the words. She didn't really care what the preacher thought of her, and she knew the words were said deliberately to belittle her. Anyway, this was hardly the first time they had been mistaken for a couple.
No, her embarrassment was that in her heart, she suspected she really was his woman. She was starting to shape her life around him. She worried when he drank too much, when he didn't eat properly, when he cried out in the night. Sometimes she lay awake listening to his nightmares and her heart ached for him.
Maybe it had started with that brooch, but somewhere along the line, she had begun to think of him differently, and to care about what he thought of her. She had kept the letter he wrote when he left for China, tucking it away, treasuring it because of the affection behind it. She glanced at him fondly and their eyes met for a moment.
She found him frustrating, difficult and contrary, but he credited her with intelligence, and he talked to her, really talked. She knew he had told no one else what had happened with his daughter.
His woman. Maybe she was. The thought made her smile to herself.
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As he drove home, Lucien was thinking over the same words as Jean, and also wondering if they were true. Since Joy's death he knew he had relied on Jean more. Not just for the practical help she gave, but for her company, her encouragement, her affection.
Because he knew there was affection there, for both of them, but he wasn't sure yet how deep it ran. She was the most important woman in his life, the steady centre he returned to time and again for her advice or opinion.
He knew he had started to notice her as a woman, too. He liked the way she'd grown her hair while he was away, and he secretly wanted to touch those curls with his fingertips. He had developed a fondness for her in her blue coat she was wearing now, because it matched her eyes, rather than the more practical brown one.
He thought about how nearly he let her go in the beginning, when he came within moments of telling her he didn't need a housekeeper and she would be better working at the Royal Cross. He knew he wouldn't find it so easy to manage without her now, and that had nothing to do with the housework she did.
She did far more than that, she made their house a home for him, and for Mattie. As she had started to mother Mattie a little, he wondered if she had started to 'wife' him. The thought did not horrify him as much as he might have expected. He smiled at her and caught her eye.
Hmm, his woman. Maybe she was. He hoped so.