He wasn't quite what she'd been expecting, somehow, though now that she had been given the opportunity to look upon Lucien Blake in the flesh, she could not say what exactly it was she had been expecting. Just not this, this handsome man with his chiseled jaw and close-cropped beard, his fine tailored suit and his soft, erudite way of speaking. He reminded Jean rather forcefully of Thomas in that regard, his gentility and his proud bearing, but somehow Jean had always imagined that - given how hard the younger Blake had tried to distance himself from the elder - Lucien would have been the exact opposite of his father in every way. His appearance in the corridor outside his father's bedroom had thrown her, had left her reeling and out of sorts, and as she tried to find some semblance of normalcy in the midst of the sudden chaos of her morning, she kicked herself for having struck him. How could she have done that? she asked herself as she poured his tea and tried not to burn his breakfast. Yes, he had surprised her, and yes, she had never reacted well to strange men putting their hands upon her person, but she had struck her employer's son in the face the very first time she'd met him.
Perhaps if she had been less distressed, less befuddled by the morning's turn of events, she might have noticed that the heat in her cheek was not solely caused by the rush of blood in her veins, the sudden flush of embarrassment that overcame her when she realized whose face she'd slapped. Perhaps if she'd been paying more attention she might have noticed the way Lucien rubbed absently at his biceps as if they pained him, in precisely the same spot where Jean's own arms were smarting from the ferocity of his grip. As it was she took no notice of it, really, and set off at once to repair the somewhat damaged state of affairs between herself and Lucien Blake.
Things only seemed to get worse, however; first he asked after her husband, and she was forced to confess to her state of widowhood less than ten minutes after meeting this man for the first time. It never got any easier, telling people that her husband had died, that she still mourned for him, that she lived alone without a love of her own. And somehow it was particularly difficult to speak those words to Lucien Blake; she tried not to delve too deeply into her own heart, tried not to give a name to the emotions that filled her when she looked at him. It had been fourteen years since Christopher's death, fourteen long years of endless loneliness for Jean, but in all that time she had hardly spared a glance for another man. There had not been a single one handsome enough, kind enough to turn her head, not when her heart was consumed with grief for Christopher and worry for her nameless soulmate. But now, oh, now she had found a singularly distracting man, and for the first time in a very long time she found her heart racing at his proximity. He was tall and broad and strong and gentle, and so wildly inappropriate a match as to make any interest she might harbor for him utterly laughable. And so she endeavored not to speak to him more than she needed, and chided herself, reminding herself of her soulmate, that dear, broken man hidden from her in some far corner of the globe, that man who needed her, far more than Lucien Blake did. He was nothing more than a passing temptation, she was sure.
"You will eat with me, won't you?" Lucien asked her as she plated up his breakfast and passed it off to him.
Jean stopped short, frying pan clutched in one hand and her own empty plate in the other. So far she had been operating more or less by instinct, setting the places at the table just as she would have done any morning when the doctor was well; if she were to continue on as normal, she would, in fact, have to share a meal with Lucien Blake.
"If you don't mind?" she forced herself to ask. His question made it sound rather as if he was expecting her to join him, but she had to confirm it just the same; she hardly knew the man, hardly knew what he would expect from his father's housekeeper, and she keenly felt the need to comport herself appropriately in his presence.
"I insist," he said, a kindly twinkle in his eye, and Jean spun away from him at once, desperately trying to banish the vision of those blue eyes from her line of sight. It was too late, of course, for now that he had smiled at her, she found she only wanted to see that smile again.
Jean made her way back to the table, setting her plate down and folding herself primly into the chair at Lucien's right hand. The newspaper lay forgotten on the table and half his breakfast was gone already; it would seem all his travels had given him an appetite. He was watching her from the corner of his eye, she noted; he would not look directly at her, but still she could feel his attention settling upon her shoulders, and a shiver ran down her spine at the thought. If only he would just speak, just say something, anything to dispel the rising tide of tension that swirled and eddied around their feet, but he remained silent, and with each passing moment Jean felt more keenly the need to assert control over the situation. There were so many things she wanted to ask him - where he'd served, if he had a family, why on earth he had been so cruel and refused to make amends with his father until it was too late, just for starters - but she knew that it was not her place to go making accusations over the breakfast table, and so she settled instead upon a safer path.
"How was your journey?" she asked, following her question with a long sip of tea.
"Uneventful," he responded, leaning towards her and away in the same instant, as if he were uncertain just how much attention he ought to pay her. "Though there have been quite a few surprises, now that I'm here," he added.
Jean felt a crimson blush stain her cheeks and so she ducked her head, too proud to let him see the mark of her discomfort upon her face. What must he think of her, she wondered, of the way she ran this house, of the way her nephew was allowed free reign to come and go as he pleased? Oh, Danny hadn't done anything wrong, and the doctor didn't seem too bothered by his sudden appearance and equally sudden departure, but still, she had grown accustomed to taking certain liberties in this house, and she dearly wished for that state of affairs to continue uninterrupted.
"I am sorry, Mrs. Beazley," he added, his good humor fading somewhat as he looked at her. "For what I said, before. I didn't know-"
"Of course you didn't," Jean interrupted him brusquely. As much as she appreciated his concern and his earnest apology, the last thing she wanted to do was discuss her husband's death with this handsome stranger. "You had no way of knowing. Please, don't apologize."
"Right," he said slowly. It was his turn to duck his head, to stare down morosely at his teacup.
"And you should call me Jean," she added on impulse. "Your father usually does. Did." Ordinarily Jean wasn't the sort of woman to swear, but she very nearly did in that moment, so frustrated was she by the way neither one of them could seem to speak without putting their foot right in it. The last thing he needed was a reminder of the inevitability of his father's demise, the fact that the old man could not speak, could not rise from his bed. The man hadn't even finished his breakfast, and yet already Jean had raised the specter of death at the table.
But Lucien Blake was a doctor, and a soldier, and he and death were very old friends. He seemed utterly unphased by her comment, raising his gaze slowly to her face and smiling at her softly as he did. "Then I will. Jean."
As soon as he was finished eating Jean whisked his plate away from him, regardless of the fact that she'd barely touched her own food. He wanted to protest, but he held himself back, sensing that perhaps it would be best to simply let her be, to let her carry on in her accustomed fashion and not rock the boat, as it were.
"I'll just let him know you're here," Jean said breathlessly, wiping her hands on her apron before bustling off down the hall to his father's room. It was not until that precise moment that Lucien realized his father was in fact inside the house; until that point, he assumed the old man had been in hospital. Now, however, as he dawdled along in her wake, not wanting to rush her but likewise not wanting to linger too long alone in this house that seemed to sigh with sorrow at every turn, he could not help but wonder at that. Jean had kept Thomas at home, no doubt looking after him with the same care and dedication she had so far shown his son, and somehow he couldn't fathom it, that his father should inspire such loyalty in her. What had the old man done, he asked himself, that she should be so beholden to him, so willing to forgo her own comfort in favor of caring for him? It didn't add up in his mind; Jean was kind and considerate, and Thomas had always been cold and aloof. Could it be, he wondered as he loitered there in the corridor, that his father had changed, had become a more tolerable man? It didn't bear thinking about somehow; Lucien didn't want to imagine what could have made his father kind, when his own son was not enough to inspire such change in him.
At long last Jean appeared, and beckoned him into the room.
"Thomas," she said softly, trailing along behind Lucien as he crossed to his father's bedside. "Lucien is here."
Lucien's breath caught in his throat, as he gazed down at the shell of a man his father had become. Small and pale, Thomas was lying propped up against a pile of pillows, wearing a dark blue shirt and his trademark mustache, though his mouth was slack and his arms hung limply by his sides. There were more flowers here; a lopsided little red begonia sat on the bedside table, and the sun streamed in merrily through the windows, and he could not help but thinking they were mocking him somehow, the sunshine and the flower, so full of joy when this room was so full of grief. His father's eyes watched him, their stuttering progress and the fluttering of his chest as he breathed the only indications that the old man still lived at all. For almost his entire life Lucien had borne such enmity for this man, had cursed him, had ignored him, had nursed the wounds Thomas Blake's disregard had rent in his heart in quiet isolation, but now he found he felt only pity, and a boundless sort of regret. There was so very much to say, and so very little time left in which to say it.
Perhaps he had been quiet too long; Jean reached out and squeezed his shoulder gently, guiding him towards the little chair by his father's bed. "I'll be in the kitchen," she told him softly, and then she was gone, the warmth of her voice and the faint scent of her perfume lingering on the air in her wake. Part of Lucien desperately wanted to call out to her, to stop her, to bring her back into this room to support him while he faced down his demons, but he knew better, and so he let her go. He followed her instructions, and sat down beside his father.
"Hello, dad," he said, choking just a little on the word dad. Thomas did not speak, could not speak, but there was a desperation in his eyes Lucien recognized all too well, for he felt it in the depths of his own heart.