16 June 1959

As he drove slowly home Lucien's mind was pleasantly empty of everything save for Jean. The way she had looked, naked and flushed and arched beneath him, the terrible sorrow in her voice as she told him what had become of her husband, the tender trust she had shown to him, the gentle way she'd kissed his cheek; she filled his mind completely, with no room for anything else. After just one evening, one too-brief hour, she had become so dear to him that all the rest of the world seemed to have faded into nothingness. There were so many questions he still longed to ask her; where had her husband served? Had he and Lucien once stood upon the same blood-soaked piece of dirt? Had he by chance been one of the thousands of starving brother-in-arms Lucien had lived with cheek-by-jowl for the long years of his incarceration in Selarang? And what of her boys; had young Christopher gone off to university, and made a life for himself, the way his mother had always dreamed? And when, oh, when would he see her again?

He would see her again, of that he had no doubt. Sarah and her baby no longer required daily visits from their doctor, but surely one or another of the girls might have need of him, and soon. Even if they didn't, he had found his way to the Lock and Key on his own often enough, and there was nothing stopping him going back there just to see her, to arrange another quiet hour spent in her company. If the price remained the same he would pay it; it was a grievous sum, for one hour's pleasure, and he could not carry on in that fashion indefinitely, but Thomas Blake had left his son quite well off indeed, and Lucien would not miss another hundred pounds. Not if Jean was to be his reward, Jean who was so lovely, who was so sad, whose heart seemed to know his own already.

An unpleasant surprise was waiting for him at home, however, for as he pulled in the drive he found a Ballarat police car already parked in his usual space. It would be Matthew, no doubt, but what reason there could be for this visit Lucien could not say. It was not so very late; he had overstayed his hour by more than a few minutes, but it was not yet gone 7:00. Funny, that; it felt to him almost as if a lifetime had passed, while he was lying warm and content in Jean's bed. As if everything had changed, and he no longer recognized the world around him.

Even more unsettling, Lucien found as he stepped out of his own car, was that Matthew was not loitering on the steps, or waiting behind the wheel of his car. There was no sign of him at all, and when Lucien tried his front door he found it unlocked. That was curious indeed; no one else had a key to his home save for old Mrs. Penny, and she had long since left for the day.

"Matthew?" Lucien called as he walked through the door, hung his hat upon the peg, his ruined vest still balled up in his fist.

"Kitchen!" Matthew called back.

That answered that, at least; it did not seem as if Lucien had been burgled. He followed the sound of Matthew's voice to the kitchen, and found him sitting at the table, a half-eaten plate of food and a half-drunk glass of whiskey in front of him.

"I believe that's my dinner," Lucien said, gesturing towards the plate. It was only then that he remembered the vest he carried, and he dropped it to the floor, kicking it out of the way and going to join Matthew at the table.

"There's enough to go around," Matthew grumbled. "Besides, it didn't look like you were going to be here to eat it. Are you in the habit of running off with your front door unlocked?"

"No, actually," Lucien answered honestly. Matthew had left an empty glass by his usual place, and the whiskey bottle was close at hand, and so Lucien reached out and poured himself a healthy measure.

"You must have been in quite a hurry, then."

"Matthew-"

"I'd ask you where you've been, but I don't think I'll like the answer."

Lucien didn't think so, either. It had been less than a fortnight since Matthew had delivered his warning, implored Lucien to be careful, and yet Lucien had just gone and done exactly what he'd promised he wouldn't. Sleeping with Jean - and paying a king's ransom for the pleasure - most certainly did not qualify as careful.

"I wasn't expecting company," Lucien said, dodging the issue rather artfully, he thought. Matthew's frown told him otherwise.

"I wasn't expecting my police surgeon to go gallivanting off without telling anyone where you'd gone. I even sent one of the lads down the Lock and Key to look for you, but he said you weren't in the dining room, and all the girls swore they'd never seen you."

He hadn't been in the dining room, of course, and none of the girls had seen him, save the one who'd let him at the beginning, and she might well have been otherwise occupied when Matthew's constable called round. It wasn't a lie, exactly, but that didn't make Lucien feel any better about it.

"Of course, I didn't tell him to go knocking on doors upstairs."

"Not that I'm not happy to see you, Matthew, but to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?"

Lucien's response was not as measured as he intended it to be; in truth, Matthew's presence had rattled him, left him feeling uneasy in his own home and a bit guilty about how he'd spent his evening, all the joy and hope that Jean's touch had brought him slowly dissipating beneath a cloud of worry.

"There's been a murder," Matthew told him grimly. "I had hoped my police surgeon might be able to spare a few minutes to come have a look at the body."

Lucien lifted his whiskey glass to his lips, and drained it in one long pull.

"Let's go then," he said when he was finished, and that was that.


When his hour was done Jean walked Lucien out of the Lock and Key, bid him a fond farewell at the back door and then locked it behind him before returning to her rooms for a bath. It was a luxury afforded to the lady of the house, the private bathroom she did not have to share with anyone else, and Jean was grateful for it as she sank herself into the steaming water and sighed, a bit sadly.

Lucien had been...wonderful, in every possible regard. He had been gentle when she needed him to be, powerful when she wanted him to be, had been honest and warm and simply...wonderful. And he wanted to see her again, and she wanted that, too, wanted another hour when they could lie together, familiar with one another, when they could laugh together, when she could let her fingertips dance across the scars that scored his back and hear his secrets, as he'd heard her own. She wanted to know those secrets, the meaning of those scars, what he'd meant when he told her he did not know where his daughter was. There was so much she did not know about this man, and yet she cared for him, already, far more than was wise for a woman in her position.

Though the bath was warm, and comforting for long-forgotten muscles now aching from use, idleness did not come easily to Jean. The night was wearing on, and while Maureen had offered to keep watch until closing time Jean found, as the minutes passed, that she did not want to be alone, any more, did not want to fall asleep early with no one beside her. She did not want to let her thoughts run rampant, did not want to give one inch of ground to the worries that had begun to creep in.

What if, a little voice whispered to her in the stillness, what if he comes back, but he can't pay the price? What if he does not want to pay at all? What if he falls in love, as others more foolish than him have done, and makes a mess of everything?

Jean did not have answers for any of those questions, and so she stepped resolutely from the bath, and went to dress. Each garment became a layer of armor, a brick building a wall between Jean, who had met Lucien wearing so little, and Mrs. Beazley, who never went downstairs without stockings and pins in her hair. She took her time about it, making sure that no sign of Lucien remained upon her skin; the red mark of his mouth on her neck had faded somewhat, and the pub's dining room would be dim, but she buttoned her collar all the way up, just the same. When she was ready she gathered up her knitting, and made her way downstairs.

It was a Tuesday evening, getting on towards 8:00, and there were more than a few gentlemen lingering round the bar. The girls had each found a mark for themselves, and were circling their quarry like crows. Jean left them to it.

Maureen was sitting in Jean's usual booth, and it was there she went, waving to Elizabeth behind the bar and indicating she wanted a cup of tea on her way.

"It went all right, then?" Maureen asked as Jean settled onto the seat beside her.

Jean was silent for a moment, fishing her needles and yarn from the bag where she kept them, arranging everything in her lap. The blanket for Sarah's baby had been finished just in time, and so she had set out on a new project. It was to be a jumper, for Jack, perhaps, if he put in an appearance at Christmas. For the charity bin if he didn't.

Had it been all right? She wondered as she fussed with her knitting. In terms of simple pleasure Lucien had been exemplary; physically, she had enjoyed herself more than she could recall having done in years. Those strong hands of his, the way he had rolled her beneath him and taken her like a man possessed; that had been a great deal more than just all right. And after, after he had been soft, and sweet, and held her, and that had been better than all right, too.

"Christ," Maureen grumbled, no doubt interpreting the truth from Jean's long silence. "Mind your face or every man in here will know exactly what you've been up to."

Jean wanted to protest, but Elizabeth arrived then with her tea, and so she only smiled at the girl, and waited until she was out of earshot before answering in a more reasonable tone.

"Doctor Blake is very nice, and he paid well."

"What's rule number two, Mrs. Beazley?" Maureen asked her archly.

Jean did not answer, she did not need to. Rule number one was you can always say no, and rule number two was keep feelings out of it. There was no room for feelings in a business like this. That was how trouble started; a man took a shine to a particular girl, and took offense when she went to bed with another man, and started a brawl. And then Jean would have to deal with it, and try to keep the police away, for the moment a policeman who wasn't on her payroll stepped through that door her life, her livelihood, her freedom, and the safety of her girls would be in peril.

If a girl went moony over a customer it was just as bad, in a different way; she'd start to resent the work, and grow miserable in it, and if she could she would leave, and Jean would wish her well, but most of the time they couldn't, and they didn't, just stayed and spread their unhappiness like a disease through the ranks. The customers were by and large married men - a fact Jean had spent nearly twenty years trying to ignore - and even those who weren't came to the Lock and Key precisely because there were no strings attached. If a girl wanted strings, then those men would laugh, or stop coming altogether, and both were bad for business. He doesn't want to take you away, that was a hard truth Jean had murmured to more girls than she wanted to count, crying in her arms as they realized that whatever they felt the one they loved didn't, and would never, love them back. He's no different than all the rest.

Lucien is different, Jean thought then, but she recognized her own foolishness, and tried to stifle that particular voice.

"It's business," she said airily. "That's all."

"Business left a love bite on your neck," Maureen answered darkly. "Thought that wasn't allowed."

Of all the girls Maureen was Jean's favorite. Everybody knew it; Maureen had been there the longest, and Jean relied on her for everything. It was Maureen Jean was slowly coaching to take over the pub, when her own time was done. Jean was forty-four, nowhere near as old as Mrs. Harker had been when she'd stepped aside, but even so she did not want to be in this business forever. She wanted to see more of her boys, and neither of them had stepped foot in this place in years, nor would again, she knew, no matter how she might long for it. Young Christopher was married, and inclined towards starting a family, and Jean very much wanted to get to know her grandchildren, one day. She'd been setting money aside for years, building her savings in hope of one day leaving the Lock and Key far behind, and living out her days on her own terms, answering to no one. When that time came, Maureen was the one she wanted to hand the keys to. Maureen was steady, and sober, and she did not tolerate foolishness. She had a good head on her shoulders, and the men liked her sharp wit. Jean liked it, too, most of the time, and most of the time she was grateful that Maureen possessed not one single ounce of romanticism, but just now she wished that wasn't the case. Maureen had never felt the wild call of love, the warmth of it, the comfort of it; Maureen laughed at the very idea, and Maureen would never understand.

"Or are the rules different for you?"

"If you won't be civil, Maureen, I may just go back upstairs."

The threat did the trick; no doubt the girl was a bit bored, having sat alone for so long, and eager for company.

"All right," she said. "All right. Just...if there's going to be changes around here you will tell me, won't you?"

"No changes," Jean promised, taking a sip of her tea. "Now tell me, how has it been?"

It was enough to turn the conversation in a different direction, and so they passed the time together, talking quietly while Maureen sipped slowly at her lukewarm beer and Jean's knitting needles flashed in the dim lights overhead. Everything was for sale in the Lock and Key, and everything that could be bought was purchased that night, save for the one thing no man could buy with money. For now, Jean's heart remained her own.