Three weeks later, everyone had settled into new, if uncomfortable, ways of coping with the situation.

Jean quickly found work in a local hotel, cleaning and making beds. It was dull but undemanding, and she was grateful to have something to fill the hours during the day. The work tired her enough to let her sleep, and she looked forward to going back to Christopher and Ruby's house to play with her granddaughter every evening.

She tried very hard not to think about Lucien at all. It was impossible of course, but she hoped in time it would get easier. The late evenings were the worst, when she alone with her own thoughts. She asked herself many times if it would have mattered so very much if she had stayed.

At night she lay in bed and blamed herself for what she wrote in her letter. She knew it had been sensible to ask him not to contact her, but if she were really honest, she hadn't believed he would do it. Her heart ached at the thought that maybe he just didn't care enough to take the risk and talk to her anyway. But she knew she was being unreasonable - he had done exactly what she asked.

In the meantime Lucien was establishing some sort of tentative relationship with Mei Lin. She had refused to talk about how she came to be in Australia, and this still worried Lucien, but she had settled into the house and was coping with the new way of life.

Mei Lin often talked about the years when they had lived together in Singapore, but rarely talked about the more painful years she had spent since in China. Lucien told her everything he could remember of his visit to see Li, and Mei Lin wrote to her, hoping to be able to visit her perhaps in the future.

Neither of them ever mentioned Jean. Mei Lin commented rather acidly, just once, on Lucien sleeping in her room, but she had decided it wasn't worth insisting he shared a room with her. That would come in time, perhaps.

As for Lucien, he tried to keep busy and distracted during the day, and indulged in his own thoughts about Jean when he was alone in her bed at night.

He may not have talked about Jean with Mei Lin, but she was certainly not forgotten. He turned over in his mind many plans for getting her to come back, but didn't know how to start to persuade her without phoning her, or writing to her. He didn't know how to break the silence between them.

He had found a rare photo of Jean, taken one day in the garden, and he kept this on the bedside table in her room, where he could see it when he woke. Far from trying to forget Jean, he was trying to keep his hopes for her alive.

Charlie was shocked at how quickly everything had changed. Lucien seemed to him to have accepted the new situation, and this really angered Charlie. If he had been in Lucien's shoes, he would have done everything he could to get Jean back, but Lucien seemed almost passive. And he hated the way Mei Lin had somehow slipped into Jean's place. Charlie was even considering finding new lodgings.

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The turning point came when Rose saw Mei Lin arguing with Derek Alderton in the Botanic Gardens. Rapidly taking some photos, she found she wasn't as surprised as she expected. There was always something odd about Mei Lin's reappearance, and so she took the photos to Charlie.

"What do you think I should do with them? Surely Dr Blake should see them? She obviously knows the Major." Rose was full of questions, but Charlie didn't know any of the answers.

"Jean would know what to do." he replied, rather despondently. "But Mrs Blake obviously has something to hide. The Doc can't ignore these. I suppose we'll have to show them to him."

As Lucien seemed to be living with his head in the sand, this was not a task that would be easy.

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"Bloody Derek Alderton!"

Lucien's reaction was mostly frustration. Why couldn't Mei Lin have told him from the beginning that Derek was involved? It certainly explained how she had got out of the refugee camp, but he was no clearer as to what Derek hoped to achieve.

Lucien sighed and took another mouthful of his whisky. "Thank you, anyway," he said to Rose and Charlie. "I'd rather you didn't say anything about this to anyone. I'll need to speak to Mei Lin."

That conversation turned out to be long and difficult, but as night fell they had reached a new understanding. Derek's obsession with persuading Lucien to rejoin the service was behind it all; blackmailing Mei Lin, threatening Li, manipulating Lucien. And Jean was just collateral damage as far as Derek was concerned. That was the final straw for Lucien.

He could not remember ever being so furious before, but at least he knew what he had to do now.

He would persuade Alderton to give up all idea of recruiting him, and then he would go and find Jean. He had to hope she would come home when she understood. Mei Lin had already made it clear to him she didn't expect him to live with her again; that was just part of Derek's plan, and something she had been forced into against her will.