One year later…

Lucien paced back and forth across the room he used for an office, a small space hardly more than a cupboard and yet more than suitable for his purposes. It was the one place in his home safe from servants and the prying eyes of the revolving door of guests he hosted at the Army's behest. They had discovered rather early on that his university education and ear for languages could benefit them in their relationships with the locals, and he had been given the role of an emissary of sorts, afforded the opportunity to live in an upscale home away from his fellow soldiers on the understanding that in turn he would provide the information his commanding officers so dearly sought about the machinations of the world at large. War was coming, and everyone seemed to know it. Lucien's job, then, was to do whatever he could to ensure that when it did, Australia was in a position to protect her own interests, at home and abroad.

There were whispers, about his having taken a local girl into his bed, about the way she flounced through his house, the way she stood proudly beside him each time he opened his door to visiting dignitaries and the local elite, as if she were his equal. Lucien didn't particularly mind; Mei Lin made a fine hostess, and the private tutoring he received at her hands ranged from languages to local customs to the finer arts of love making, and he enjoyed every moment of it. Let the rabble gossip amongst themselves to their hearts' content, he thought, for she had made him a truly happy man, for the first time in a very long while. When he was with her, thoughts of his soulmate and her betrayal and his own uncertain fate faded from his mind, replaced by more immediate pleasures.

It would not do however, he knew, to keep her as a lover indefinitely. Being seen on the arm of a white soldier, a man to whom she was not married, had resulted in a certain loss of social status for Mei Lin, though she bore this indignity with good grace. She bore everything with good grace, did Mei Lin, kept her chin held high and her voice low and measured no matter what obstacle was thrown up before her, and Lucien loved her for it. That was the realization that had him pacing in his study, his hands anxiously turning over and over the small, sharp knife he was meant to be cleaning. He toyed with it, running his fingertips along the blade, tossing it into the air and catching it by the hilt over and over as he pondered what to do about his rather unusual circumstance. Somewhere out there was a woman whose every injury appeared tattooed upon his flesh, a woman set aside for him by God or fate or the cruel machinations of some force he could not fathom, a woman who had borne another man's child and remained as distant to him as the sun from the moon, and yet he loved Mei Lin. His soulmate tortured him; Mei Lin knit him back together. And faced with such a dichotomy in his heart, he was paralyzed with indecision. Were it not for the marks upon his skin he would have asked Mei Lin to marry him months before, to be his wife, to stand beside him for all the rest of his days, and he would have been glad of it. Yet he hesitated, for the sake of this woman he did not know, this woman who seemed to haunt his every step.

Lucien had never been one much constrained by propriety. In the past he had indulged in a fair number of dubious activities; he'd spent months playing drums in Berlin and drinking himself into a stupor, had taken nearly every girl he fancied to bed - at least until he discovered the existence of his mysterious beloved, and curbed his lascivious impulses - had imbibed a variety of substances considered dangerous and devilish by civilized society and developed a series of political sympathies considered damn near treasonous by his superiors. Yet he could not shake the feeling that in continuing his current relationship with Mei Lin, in denying her the comfort and stability that would be afforded an officer's wife, he was doing her a great disservice. She was not his soulmate, true enough, but his beloved had found another, and with each passing day Lucien became more and more convinced that regardless of the invisible ties that bound them one to the other he would never find her, or if he did, that she would never truly be his. Why, then, should he hesitate? She was happy, out there somewhere; there had been no marks of late, no sign of any great calamity, and Lucien desperately wanted a piece of that happiness for himself.

"Damn!" he swore loudly as the knife sliced through his thumb, deep and painful. He had been so lost in his own troubles he had lost focus on the danger at hand, and cut himself rather severely. The knife clattered to the floor and he spun on his heel, searching for something he could use to stem the sudden flow of blood, and as he did there came a gentle knock upon the door.

"Lucien?" Mei Lin called softly. She did not live with him permanently, but she was with him more often than not, fulfilling all the functions that would be expected of the lady of the house, tending to the day-to-day business of organizing the food, the cleaning, the staff, even the decor. Everywhere he went in this place he could sense the delicate touch of her hand, fancied he could smell her perfume on the air long after she'd gone. This house was as much hers as it was his, and even as he spun once more, preparing himself to face her chastisement for having injured himself in such a foolish way, he found his mind was made up. This was their place, not his, and Mei Lin deserved recognition and affection in spades for all that she had done to build it up alongside him.

"I'm fine," he responded sheepishly. In the absence of a bandage he made do with cradling his thumb in the crook of his elbow, the blood seeping through to stain his starched white shirt. He shuffled across the room and opened the door to face her. Though his thumb was throbbing and he knew he was in for a bit of good-natured teasing, he could not help but grin at her, a wide, radiant smile that must have looked quite mad, given the state of him. He had made up his mind, and that certainty had blessed him with a boundless sense of joy.

"What have you done?" she asked, raising her eyebrow at him incredulously, even as she reached for his hand. "Oh, Lucien," she sighed, upon seeing the damage. "Come on. Let's clean you up."

She led him down the corridor, her tiny fingers wrapped around his wrist, and he followed along, docile as a chastised puppy in her wake. "I can't leave you alone for five minutes, can I?" she teased him gently as they reached his room. With all the bustling efficiency of a nurse she deposited him on the side of the bed and went to fetch his medical bag, returning to him at once and tutting over the state of him. For his part Lucien could only watch her, entranced by each of her sinuous, graceful movements, his mind racing with visions of their life together, of all that they could be, once they were wed.

"Let's get that shirt off you," she said, fussing over the state of his ruined shirt and muttering about what the servants would think when they saw the bloodstains.

Lucien just grinned and did as he was bid.

As he watched she took his hand in her own, the contrast between the two of them stark and undeniable and endlessly appealing. Her skin was soft and smooth and unblemished, her fingers small and fine and delicately made; his own hands were crisscrossed with thick veins and the silvery white remnants of old scars, roughened with callouses from his Army training despite the relative luxury of his current posting, his fingers longer, wider, thicker than her own, and infinitely less attractive to his own eye. Mei Lin had a pianist's hands, and he had delighted in teaching her, watching as her skill in that medium quickly outstripped his own. The house was full of music, much to his delight, and for a moment he was nearly bowled over by a sudden desire to take her in his arms and dance her round and round the room until they collapsed into bed and into one another. His mind had dashed ahead of his mouth, however, and he knew that before they celebrated their engagement, he would have to actually propose to her.

"Mei Lin, I've been thinking," he started, his voice failing him as he watched her tenderly clean his wound, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she concentrated.

When he did not continue she hummed softly, inquisitively, and he steeled himself, praying that her answer would be the one he sought.

"Marry me," he blurted out.

Damn. It wasn't quite the charming, eloquent proposal he'd intended, and as he watched a wry grin stretched across his lover's face. She did not pause in her ministrations, holding his hand aloft in her left while with her right she prepared to begin stitching his wound back together. The cut was deep, and Lucien could not help but feel a sudden wave of pride, that she had retained all that he had taught her, that she knew without asking what was needed in this moment. That pride was not enough to banish his fear, however, and he waited with bated breath for her answer.

"You know I have no soulmate, Lucien," she told him softly as she worked. "Why would you tie yourself to me, when there is a woman waiting out there for you, and you know for a fact that I'm not her?"

"She's made her choice," Lucien answered, trying to calm the feverish calculations of his mind, to speak slowly and from the heart. "I think it's time I made my own. Why should I be a slave to something I don't even understand? I love you, Mei Lin. You make me happy, and I like to think I make you rather happy, too. You have no soulmate, and my soulmate has chosen another. Why shouldn't we be together? Why shouldn't we make one another happy, for as long as we possibly can?"

"And what happens when you finally meet her, Lucien?" Mei Lin countered. He winced, half from the sting of her words, and half from the sting of the needle she was using to stitch him up.

"You will be my wife, Mei Lin. You will have me, body and soul, and we will have built a life together. I will not abandon you, not for anyone or anything."

"Says the soldier," she chided him lightly.

She was right, he knew; he could not promise that he would never abandon her, not when the Army owned him, when he knew as well as she that he could be sent anywhere at any time with no recourse.

"All the more reason for us to marry," he said. "As my wife, you will be cared for, looked after no matter what happens to me. This house will truly be yours. As I will be yours."

Mei Lin sighed as she finished her work, carefully setting aside her needle and reaching out to cradle his face in her hands. She really was quite short; even seated upon the bed he was taller than she, and she was gazing up at him now, her eyes wide and searching and somehow sad.

"Are you sure this what you want, Lucien?" she asked him, her gaze locked upon his own. He reached up and wrapped his hands around her wrists, holding on to whatever piece of her he could reach.

"It is," he said simply. "You are what I want. Marry me, Mei Lin."

Her shoulders sagged slightly.

"I will," came her answer.


As he did most every morning, Christopher turned to his wife, sleeping peacefully beside him, and let his gaze roam over her, taking in every exquisite inch of her body. Sleepless nights and work around the farm had resulted in the rather rapid loss of the pregnancy weight she'd carried; the biddies in town had whispered, about how thin she was, but Christopher didn't care. She could be skinny as a post or fat as a whale, and he would love her, regardless. She was still the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, made all the more lovely by all the days she'd spent caring for their child. Her hips were wider, her breasts rounder, her face fuller than they had been before, and he rejoiced in it, in these signs that she had borne their son inside her, despite the flatness of her belly. His morning examination of her was not entirely a result of his adoration of her, however; he was looking, as he did every morning before she woke, for the marks of her beloved upon her skin.

This system had served him well so far; over the year since young Christopher's birth, he had found more than one damning mark upon her skin, but each time he had found it first, had been able to replicate those marks upon himself before she noticed and avoid drawing her suspicion. Each time she discovered a mark upon her hand or her shoulder or her thigh she had looked to him and found the same, and chided him for his carelessness even as she smiled at him, delighted by this evidence of their regard for one another. Each time it happened, his heart sank further in his chest, but he was determined to do whatever it took to keep her with him.

The other side of the coin, of course, was that he had become vigilant in his own work, doing his best to avoid injury out on the farm and, when the inevitable happened, to hide his wounds from his wife, so that she would not question why they were not mirrored on her skin. It was a delicate dance, and each day his fear mounted, certain that he could not continue in this way indefinitely. It was exhausting, but having begun this charade he could see no other alternative. He had chosen his path, and he knew that he must follow it, to whatever end.

His initial exploration of her on this particular morning revealed a long, silvery cut wrapping around her right thumb. Christopher sighed, grumbling to himself, and slipped out of bed, snatching up the little knife he kept in the drawer of his bedside table. This was the worst part about mornings, as far as he was concerned, but he had nowhere to air his grievances, and so nursed his bitter pain deep in his heart, where no one else could see.

In the bathroom he sliced his thumb, standing over the sink, careful to replicate the exact shape and placement of his wife's mark. He was careful not to cut too deep; he couldn't bear the pain, and he didn't want to waste any more time than he had to standing around bleeding. As soon as the deed was done he wrapped his thumb in a hand towel, and stood still as a statue, listening for any sign that his wife was waking and concocting a story in his mind to explain away this laceration. That was always the easy part; farming was dangerous work, and there were a million different ways he could injure himself on any given day. At least it would appear that wherever Jean's beloved was he was not a great risk-taker; his wounds were small and few and far between, and Christopher forced himself to be grateful for this meager blessing, even as he feared that the day might soon come when a wound too grievous to be explained would appear and tear apart the life he had built for his family.

Finally his hand stopped bleeding and he made his way back to his bed, stopping along the hall to check in on his sleeping son. They had moved young Christopher into his own room shortly after his first birthday, letting him sleep in a little bed tucked into the corner. The farmhouse only had the two bedrooms, and as Christopher smiled at his sleeping child this morning, he found himself seriously considering making an addition. He loved being a father, loved playing with his son, loved watching Jean cradling their boy in her arms, but young Christopher was growing up. It might be nice, he thought, to expand their little family. Somewhere in the corner of his heart a bitter little voice whispered that he only wanted another child to strengthen the bond between himself and Jean, to ensure that when she did eventually discover the existence of her soulmate - a dreadful fate he knew was all but inevitable - her life would be too inextricably linked to his own for her to abandon him. He silenced that voice with thoughts of young Christopher playing with a little brother or sister, thoughts of a house full of the laughter of children, a life with less pain. It was a dream, and one he wanted so badly he felt he could weep from sheer desperation.

With those thoughts dancing through his mind he slipped back between the sheets, wrapping his wife in his arms and waking her with a gentle kiss pressed against her shoulder.

"Good morning," he murmured.

Jean hummed happily, her eyes still closed though she turned her face up to his in a silent plea for kisses. He chuckled as he indulged her, brushing his lips over her own until she was smiling.

"Good morning," she answered, stretching catlike beneath the sheets and drawing his attention and his arousal at once. One simple movement from her was all it took, all it had ever taken, for him to want her, though they had slowed down somewhat in the bedroom of late as they were both exhausted from the toils of their daily lives. That was a problem he hoped to remedy forthwith.

"He's still asleep," Christopher told her, pressing gentle kisses to her temple, her cheek, the tip of her nose. "Slept all the way through the night, and not a sound."

"Oh, thank God," Jean sighed, her eyes flickering open at last, gazing up at him fondly. "I was beginning to think I would be tired for the rest of my life."

Christopher laughed and rolled her under him, delighting in the little sound of shock that escaped her. On reflex her legs lifted up and locked around his hips, drawing him down against her and pulling hums of contentment from both of them. He liked her best like this, soft and sleepy and affectionate first thing in the morning, when everything between them was open and full of boundless possibility, before the drudgery of the world outside that room invaded their fragile haven and wounded them both.

"I've been thinking," he confessed, mapping the smooth column of her neck with tender kisses while she ran her hands across his back. "Could we...I mean, would you like...what do you think about having another?" he stumbled over his words, unable to articulate everything he felt when he considered the possibility of their having a second child, all the hope and all the fear that thought instilled in him.

"Another baby?" she asked him, canting her head back on the pillows so she could look into his eyes. He gazed down at her, utterly lost; her eyes were the second thing he'd noticed about her when they'd met all those many years before. The first thing he'd noticed was the challenging, tantalizing swing of her hips, but the second thing was those eyes, grey and clear and sharp as glass, eyes that held him, consumed him, devoured him whole and left him utterly enraptured by her.

"Well, yeah," he answered lamely.

Beneath him Jean huffed a little laugh, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she smiled. "It might be nice," she conceded. "A little friend for young Christopher," she mused, "someone he could play with, someone to keep him company."

"It's no good for kids to grow up without siblings," Christopher told her sagely, his hands wandering down her body as his arousal began to overtake his rational mind, the threads of their conversation slowly slipping away. "He needs to learn to share."

"Did you share with your brothers?" Jean asked him. It was meant playfully, he knew, but then the reality of what she'd asked him sank him, and her expression grew contrite. "Chris, I'm sorry, I didn't -"

"It's all right, love," he told her, stopping her apology with kisses. He didn't like to be reminded of his brothers, one in jail and the other gone off to Adelaide, both of them pricks who didn't hesitate to berate him for getting Jean in the family way before they were wed, didn't hesitate to tell him that he was useless and she deserved better than an uneducated dreamer who'd never succeeded at anything. "Maybe a little sister," he said, wanting to change the topic.

This too was a misstep; Jean's eyes grew misty and far away, and he knew where she had gone. Jean was certain she'd never have a daughter, that she would spend the rest of her life atoning for the sins of her youth, and Christopher was kicking himself for bringing it up.

"It would be nice, for young Christopher to have a little brother," Jean told him firmly, shaking her head as if to ward off the demons that haunted her, clearly forcing herself back into the moment. She brushed her toes against the backs of his calves and grinned when he shivered in her embrace. "And we could have fun trying," she added, a naughty glint in her eyes.

Yes, Christopher thought as he bowed his head to kiss her, as his hands set about divesting her of her nightgown; they would have rather a lot of fun trying, and maybe one day soon there would be another child romping merrily through their house, another reason for them to smile. Another link in the chain binding Jean to him forever.