24 January 1960
"Do you want to talk about it?" Lucien asked her softly.
Beyond the curtains of his bedroom window the sun had begun to rise, and they had risen with it; Jean had left the sanctuary of his bed first, slipped off to the loo and freshened herself up, and when she'd returned he'd shuffled off himself, scratching at his chest like some great rangy bear. Now they rested, content, together, safe beneath his heavy duvet, far from the terrors that had receded with the night, banished by the coming of the dawn.
Did she want to talk about it? Jean wasn't sure. A part of her longed to tell him, to share with him everything that had transpired from the moment Derek Alderton walked through her door the night before, to tell him every thought and every feeling she'd had from then until now. A part of her wanted to tell him how dreadful she felt, dirty and used and guilty, so horribly guilty, for inflicting such violence upon that man, no matter how callous and cruel he might have been. But likewise there was a part of her that longed to run, to hide from it all, to curl herself into his arms and pretend it had been no more than a dream. It would have been selfish in a way, she thought, to keep the truth to herself. It was the sort of thing she might have done if Lucien were no more than a customer, if he were not privy to the inner workings of her heart, but she had opened her arms to him, in every way, and she felt it would be wrong to shut him out now, no matter how she might long to. After all, Derek had been his friend, once, and Lucien cared for her, and on account of both of those things she felt he deserved the truth.
"It all happened so quickly," she whispered into the fading darkness around them. Lucien was behind her, his arm heavy at her waist, his beard soft at the back of her neck, and as she spoke she felt him tense. Her story had begun, however, and she knew that she must see it through; perhaps it would be easier, she thought, to speak if she could not see his face. She hoped it would be.
"Maureen rang for you. She told me later the calls wouldn't go through."
"Danny told us," Lucien answered her. "It seems Sergeant Hannam cut the phone line before he broke into my house."
"Before he what?" Jean demanded, suddenly terrified, but Lucien soothed her with a gentle kiss against her neck.
"It'll be my turn to explain later," he said. "Tell me what happened next."
"All right," Jean said, filing all her many questions away for later. "When you didn't answer, Maureen rang for Danny. I was talking to the Major, and he made it very clear he wouldn't take no for an answer. There were too many people in the pub, and I was worried he might hurt someone. I remembered what you said, about taking him upstairs, so...so I did."
"Oh, my darling," Lucien breathed, his voice low and sad. Jean reached for him then, wound their fingers together and held their joined hands close against her stomach. They had once had a mighty row over the very suggestion of Jean taking Derek upstairs, but in hindsight she could see what she had been blind to in the moment; she had only been reaching for an excuse to leave him, and in the end she'd had no choice but to do as he'd suggested.
"You were right. It was the best way to protect everyone. I thought I could stall him, when we got upstairs, but he was...rather insistent. And that's when I remembered Christopher's pistol."
Though she had never particularly cared for guns Jean had spent her formative years on farms outside of town, and she had long since learned how to handle them properly, and safely. There had been no need for a rifle in town, but that pistol she had kept, not because she needed a weapon, but because it had belonged to him, because Christopher had once held it in his hands, and even now, so long after the warmth of his touch had faded from it, that small reminder of him had been a comfort. And, it seemed, might well have saved her life.
"I changed my clothes. I thought it would buy us some time, and I thought it would help convince the Major that I meant to go through with it. I put on my robe, and I put the pistol in the pocket." And left the robe untied, in the hopes that her bare skin might have been enough to distract the Major from the weight of the pistol in her pocket. "And then I went back out to face him. I thought you were going to come through the door any moment, but nothing I said seemed to slow him down. He...he put his hands on me." His hands had only settled on her hips beneath her robe but above her nightdress, and that one touch enough had been enough to turn her stomach. "I must have flinched. He could see how much I loathed him. And he hit me."
One sharp strike across her face with an open palm. That was all it had taken, for Jean's resolve to shatter. Despite the nature of her business she had never before gone to bed with a violent man, and the Major's behavior had been so appalling she'd felt she had no other choice.
"That's when I pulled the gun. He went mad when he saw it. It was so fast, Lucien, he...he pulled his gun, and he came at me again, and I just...I panicked, Lucien. I wasn't even really aiming at him. His hand must have been raised, that must be how I...well. At any rate it was enough to knock him down, and then Maureen came in. She took his gun, and then Paul was there to help us. We used the tie from my robe to bind his hands. And we decided to wait for you outside."
Of course Lucien knew the rest; Lucien and Danny and Matthew had come screaming into view just as Jean and her friends walked out of the pub, and so there was no need for further explanation. Her tale was through, in one sense; she had divulged every detail of their encounter. What she had not said, the truth that stuck in her throat, was how wretched she felt. She had danced so close to calamity; what if she had reacted differently to his touch? What if she had not thought to retrieve Christopher's pistol? Had she really shot a man? Though she had intended only to scare him, had only acted on instinct, she had inflicted grievous pain on another person for the first time in her entire life, and she felt...horrible, really, felt as if her very body must have stunk of shame and violence.
"I'm so sorry, my darling," Lucien whispered in a broken little voice. "You should never have had to face this. What Derek did…it's unconscionable."
What had he done? Jean asked herself now. Threatened her family, yes, but never in overt terms. Tried to buy the use of her body, but he was hardly the first. Struck her, yes, but was one strike with an open palm worth a bullet?
"You should know," Lucien continued. "He meant to kill you."
Just like that everything changed; Jean had known he meant to use her, but that he intended to kill her had never even occurred her. She had been afraid, yes, but she had not known that her death had in truth been his goal. Unable to bear the thought of it she rolled in Lucien's arms, and he wrapped himself around her at once, crushed her against his chest and whispered his apologies into her hair.
"I'm so sorry," he said again. "It's all because of me that you were ever in danger in the first place. I brought this down on you and I can hardly bear the thought of it. You are...you are so wonderful, Jean, in every possible regard, and I've been a bloody fool."
"No," Jean whispered harshly, her lips brushing against his neck as he spoke. "You didn't ask for this, Lucien. No more than I did."
"He was my friend." Lucien's voice broke on that word friend, and Jean slipped her hands beneath his vest, flattened her palms against his scars and held him closer still. The thought that that man, that terrible man who had come to her home seeking to kill her, seeking to enact whatever horror he could upon Lucien for reasons Jean did not entirely understand, the thought that he had once been Lucien's friend, and spurned that friendship, turned their bonds of brotherhood into hate and violence, burned through her hot as fire. There was no one kinder, braver, gentler than her Lucien, Lucien who had looked at her and seen not a whore, not a madam, not a criminal or another desperate creature only deserving of pity but her, Lucien who had danced with her, kissed her, wooed her with flowers and letters and tender words, Lucien who tried so hard to be a good man; there was no one less deserving of such horror, she thought. And his sweet, gentle heart, reckless and impulsive as it might have been, would suffer this grief for the rest of his life, she knew. She could hear in his voice how he blamed himself, how he could not reconcile the man who had once been his friend with the man who had struck Jean's face, and she wished, oh how she wished there were some words she could say to offer him comfort, but none came to her. Her fingers pressed against the spiderweb of scars that laced his back, feeling the remnant of that pain he would carry with him for all the rest of his days, knowing that the same man who had threatened her life had also once nursed Lucien through those most grievous of injuries. How could a man hold such brilliant light and such terrible darkness within himself?
We all do, Jean thought.
"What he's done doesn't erase everything that came before," Jean said slowly. "He was a friend to you, once. You can treasure those memories. Even knowing what became of him. The war...the war changed us all, Lucien."
"Yes," he sighed, and his breath ruffled her hair when he spoke. "I wish...I wish sometimes…"
What? She wondered as his strength seemed to fail him, as he left his thoughts unspoken. Did he wish sometimes that he had died long before, that his body had been buried amongst his friends, that he had not lived to see the world he had fought for? Did he wish sometimes that it had never happened at all, that they, all of them, could have been spared such devastation? Jean knew what it was, to wish for such things. She had wished for them herself. But no amount of wishing could take away the sting of the past, and she was determined to move forward, not to remain trapped by grief.
"It cannot be undone, Lucien. We survived, you and I. We're still here. And I...I love you, Lucien. I do."
And she did; oh, but she did. That love had been growing in her chest almost from the moment that they met, and it was only now, when she had come so close to losing that love, that she found the courage to face it. That love would change everything, she knew. There was no place in her business for love, but for the first time since the day she'd arrived at the Lock and Key Jean was ready, finally, to put love first. To choose love, and set aside everything else for its sake. She would take that love in both hands, and run like hell for the horizon, had chosen, now, to set out for a new adventure, with Lucien by her side.
At her quiet confession he shifted above her, looked down on her with eyes full of wonder, and a tiny door deep within her heart seemed to close, then, locking away her shame and her guilt, and leaving behind only love. They were still here, after everything. The threat to their lives was gone, and the future stretched out before them, beautiful and full of promise.
"I love you, my darling," he whispered, one of his broad hands reaching for her face, his palm warm against her cheek.
"Show me, then," she whispered.
And so he did.