6 June 1959
"How about that, eh?" Matthew said, reclining further into the recesses of the armchair in Lucien's parlor, a glass of Lucien's good whiskey cradled in his hand. "Baby in a brothel. And business didn't stop for a second."
"According to Mrs. Beazley it isn't the first time," Lucien answered, taking a long sip from his own glass.
"No, I don't suppose it is. What is she going to do now? The mother?"
"Jean thinks she'll stay put for a few weeks, and then she'll go interstate. Apparently Mrs. Beazley has contacts in Queensland who might be able to find work for a young lady keen to make a new start."
"Oh, Jean does, does she?" Matthew put a certain emphasis on her name, Jean, and when Lucien looked up he found his old friend frowning at him disapprovingly. Too late Lucien realized what he'd done; he'd spoken of her too familiarly, with too much affection, and Matthew had recognized it at once.
"Well, yes," Lucien answered, somewhat lamely.
"Blake -" There was a undeniable note of warning in his voice, and Lucien cut him off immediately; he didn't fancy being chastised in his own home for the crime of being friends with a woman.
"Really, Matthew, there's nothing untoward-"
"Nothing untoward about a police surgeon turning up in the local brothel several nights a week? Taking calls from the madam at the station? Calling her by her Christian name? You're already on thin ice, Blake. You've been playing it fast and loose since you got here, and you haven't made many friends. I wouldn't be surprised if Bill Hobart is keeping a record of every time he sees you pull out that flask you think I don't know about. You ought to be more careful."
"Or what? Really, Matthew, what exactly is going to happen? What are you so worried about?"
It was not in Lucien's nature to worry about his own reputation, or to spend even a moment considering how his actions might appear to others. It never had been, really; artifice and prestige were Thomas Blake's remit, not Lucien's. Lucien knew that he had done absolutely nothing wrong - legally or morally - and Matthew's fatalism where Jean was concerned left him feeling waspish and defensive. Why should he have to spell it out, defend himself against unfounded accusations? Why wouldn't Matthew just leave him be?
"I don't know, that's what worries me," Matthew answered grimly. "You've insulted Patrick Tyneman more times than any sensible man would-"
"Yes, well, Patrick can go-"
"And you ruined Keith Morrisey's campaign for city council, and you got on the wrong side of those Army blokes on Anzac Day, and -"
"All right, so I've...rubbed a few people the wrong way. Do you really think that my job is in jeopardy, Matthey?"
It was a troubling thought. Yes, there had been more than a few sticky cases in the months since Lucien had arrived in Ballarat - the Anzac Day fiasco having been the worst of all of them, as far as he was concerned - but he had not previously considered, not even for a moment, that he might lose his position with the police.
"You've made enemies with long arms. There's rumblings coming from Melbourne about your suitability for this position. And be honest, how many of your father's patients have moved their business to another surgery since you came home?"
A dozen, at least, Lucien realized, though he did not give voice to that particular thought. More than a few, but not so many as to undo him - yet. Could Patrick Tyneman, or Keith Morrisey, or Derek bloody Alderton really hate him enough to wage war against him? And if they did, could they really cost him his position as police surgeon, and turn all his patients away? Oh, the Blake family money would not run out for a good many years yet, but without the income from his two careers Lucien would be hard pressed to continue paying the private investigator who was currently searching for Li on the other side of the world. That was the whole reason he had decided to stay in this place; it was comfortable, and the position afforded him the opportunity to invest more fully in the hunt for his missing child. The thought that he could lose it all - his new home, the satisfying work of police surgeon, the chance to find Li - was deeply unsettling. As far as Lucien was concerned he had not done anything to merit such treatment, but then the Lucien Blakes and the Patrick Tynemans of the world rarely saw eye to eye.
"I'm not trying to be difficult," Lucien said slowly. "The girls need medical care. What am I supposed to do? Ignore them? That girl last night, was I just supposed to let her give birth alone because of what she does for a living?"
"I don't disagree with you, Lucien, you know that," Matthew answered heavily. "I'm just asking you to be more careful. No one knew your father was handling the girls' medical care because he was careful. You can do the same."
Be careful, Lucien. People had been saying those words to him all his life. Be careful, be quiet, be still, be more refined, be less preposterous. Until now, Lucien had not been careful at all, not where the pub was concerned; he had, more than once, gone round to the Lock and Key after dark to sit and share a cup of tea with Mrs. Beazley. He had laughed with her, smiled at her, helped her to clean, to unload her deliveries, had tried, in his own way, to become her friend. He had visited the pub more often than was wise, and had so far only seen to one patient, one patient who would soon be moving on. The course of wisdom, he knew, would be to only visit the Lock and Key during daylight hours, only when it was a matter of the girls' health, and never again venture there for the sole purpose of seeing Mrs. Beazley.
It would have been wise, but Lucien knew in his heart he would not be able to stay away. Jean was lovely, utterly lovely, kind and compassionate, possessed of a clever wit that intrigued him. And there was so much he still wanted to know about her, so many questions he'd yet to find the answer to. What had become of her husband? How had she come to own the Lock and Key, and what kept her in that business? What secrets did she carry, what memories from her own days as one of the girls?
And why, why did looking at her make his heart race? Why did the sound of her voice calm his chaotic thoughts? Why was it that every time he had a question, it was Jean he wanted to bring it to, Jean whose quiet wisdom he longed for? Those nights he had gone to the pub, sat beside her at that corner booth sipping tea out of her pretty painted cups, those nights had been a balm to his weary soul. Each time he had sought her out when the dark and the quiet stillness of his own home grew too much to bear, and each time she had been there, waiting for him, beautiful and gentle, a friend he could speak to openly, earnestly, a heart that seemed to understand his own.
As he sat there with Matthew, brooding on the subject of his future, and his reputation, and the cruel hand of fate, he thought of her, this woman who had landed in the midst of his life with all the force of a lightning strike. Ballarat had been boring, and cold, before he met her. There had been little of interest to him, only the need to find his daughter keeping him in place. But now, now there was Jean. He thought of Jean, as she had been the night before, thought of the capable, practical way she had assisted in the baby's birth, thought of how beautiful she had looked, how warm, how serene she had been, with that child in her arms. She had been a wife, once, had been a mother, once, had known love and loss, had not always existed within the cold world of the brothel. Seeing her with the baby had been like catching a glimpse of another woman entirely, the woman she had been before, and Lucien was desperate to see her again.
Was it so wrong, he wondered, that he should want to know her, that he should want to spend time with her? She was a fascinating sort of woman, and even Matthew seemed to respect her. Was it so wrong that he should think her beautiful? It was no more than a thought, nothing he intended to act on, the knowledge of her beauty with him always but not compelling him to catastrophe. It was not her beauty that sent him across town to sit beside her - or at least not only that. You couldn't afford me, she'd told him once, and how that thought had festered, spreading like a virus through the depths of his mind. What would it cost him, to have her? His job, his reputation, his belief in his own morality? Yes, she was beautiful, and yes sometimes when they talked his gaze would drift to her soft lips, her delicate hands, and yes sometimes she would smile at him and his heart would give a great leap in his chest. But no, he did not want to pay her for a tumble, no he did not want to roll her beneath him knowing she was only there because of the money he had given her, no, he did not want to wonder if her smiles were genuine, or only given in exchange for payment. But he could, if ever that wanting changed, for everything in the Lock and Key, even its inestimable madam, had its price. Whether that was a price he was willing to pay he did not yet know.
He did not yet know if one night the lonesomeness would grow too heavy to bear, did not know if one day her beauty would drive him to madness, did not know if one day, one day soon perhaps, curiosity would get the better of him. There was a delicious sort of tension in his chest when he was with her, a sense of temptation hanging in the air. There was more to discover about her, more she could show him, but a handful of shillings would not be sufficient to buy him answers to those questions. Sitting next to her in the warm glow of the pub the potential - the could be - the sense that he need only speak the words, and change everything between them for good, nearly intoxicated him. He was playing with fire, and he knew it, but Lucien Blake had lived his whole life with one hand held over the flame, testing his own limits.
So far he had restrained himself. So far he had not crossed the line, no matter how tempted he might have been. No doubt Matthew did not trust him to maintain decorum for much longer. Truth be told, Lucien didn't entirely trust himself.
"You're too quiet," Matthew grumbled. "It's making me nervous."
"I will try to be more careful," Lucien answered. It was a lie, but he felt he owed Matthew that much. He could try, could try to visit her less in the evenings, could try to restrain himself a bit more, could try to avoid the tantalizing question of what if that swirled through his mind when she was near. He could try, but he made no guarantees as to the potential success of such a venture.
"Please," Matthew said, his expression somewhat pained. "Mrs. Beazley's a good woman, you and I both know that, but it's dangerous to get too close to someone like her."
It was dangerous, Lucien understood that very well, but he had always had a passion for dangerous pursuits.
