VI:
Jean carried her mending basket upstairs with the intent of tucking it away for the night: she'd added three more pairs of underwear, several more socks, and a shirt to the pile. Lucien came down the stairs and they met briefly on the landing, trading soft smiles.
He reached out and trailed his fingertips over her forearm, letting them come to rest upon her hand. She shifted the basket and took his hand briefly, just for a moment, squeezing it, hoping he understood that she wasn't putting him off indefinitely – just until later.
And then the moment was over and gone. He continued downstairs where Thomas was calling for him, and she continued upstairs to put away her things for later. She stowed her basket in the wardrobe and sat down on the edge of the bed, trying to catch her breath.
If Lucien could affect her so much with just a touch, what on earth was going to happen when they made love for the first time? It was a mildly terrifying notion to contemplate.
Jean buzzed around her room, tidying, putting away things she didn't want Lucien to see – her wedding portrait, her stockings which had just finished drying, other untidy bits and bobs – and then she paused to wonder if he would be the one to come to her, or if she would be so desperate that she would throw caution to the wind and sneak past the boys' rooms and into the safe harbor of Lucien's bed. That was another mildly terrifying thought.
She bit her lip and looked in her dresser for anything more alluring than plain pajamas, and came up with a white cotton nightgown with little sprigs of roses on it. That would have to do: she didn't have anything else. Maybe, if they continued their assignations, he would see fit to buy her something nicer, but until then…
But that was only if he didn't find her lacking, if he decided she was enough for him – if they were enough together to keep going, and… Oh, but she wanted to be enough. She wanted to live up to his every expectation and maybe even exceed one or two of them. She wanted, so badly, to be what he needed.
Because just loving someone wasn't enough.
She glanced at the clock, and, realizing the time, thought to hurry back downstairs to make sure the boys had their afternoon snack ready when they came home from school. Christopher was meant to prune the bushes along the drive before dinner, and Jack to weed in the back garden, and then after dinner, they had homework to do. But for a few minutes, she had fresh biscuits and cocoa ready for them – if she got a move on.
She stepped out into the corridor and Lucien came out of nowhere, threading his fingers with hers, pushing her back against the door. The kiss was soft, gentle, but burned like fire – intense and so full of desire that she longed to drag her into her room and lock them both inside away from the world until they were both sated of each other. "Lucien," Jean breathed against his lips, barely scolding him.
"So beautiful –"
"You can't just grab me and kiss me," she whispered.
"And why not?" he challenged softly.
"Because if you go off me…" Jean let the rest of the sentence hang in the air, unsaid. "Let's just keep us, you and me – our relationship – behind closed doors. We're no one else's business, Lucien."
He smiled and kissed her again, briefly. "All right," he said softly. "But that only gives me license to do so many more naughty things with you."
"Lucien Blake, you are awful," Jean hissed, nipping at his lower lip with her teeth.
"Jeanie, all I want to do is –"
"Lucien!" she interjected. "I really have to go – the boys will be home any moment, and I haven't even begun the cocoa for their snack."
"Jean –"
"Later," she promised breathlessly, pulling away and hoping the flush in her cheeks wouldn't give her away as she rushed down the stairs.
The house was still and quiet, the hour well past eleven. The Beazley boys had been in bed by nine-thirty, and Lucien's parents had retreated from the sitting room by ten, and Jean had been finishing up in the kitchen with their drinks glasses when they'd departed. Lucien found himself watching her briefly from the doorway before going upstairs, afraid that he would upset her if he spent too much time showing her an open amount of desire where others could possibly see it.
And he waited.
And waited.
He paced the length and breadth of his bedroom, his hands moving frantically apace. They should have decided where they were going to have this rendezvous and stuck to a plan; indecision was going to leave them in a position where neither one knew where they stood, and they were both alone in their rooms.
After another fifteen minutes of self-torture, he finally gave up what little vestiges of patience he seemingly possessed and threw on his silk dressing gown over his baggy cotton sleeping pants and tied it loosely at the waist. If anyone saw him up and about, they would assume he was going to the bathroom.
He went down the hall, avoiding the creaky spots on the floor and softly tapped on Jean's door. When she didn't answer on the first go, he rapped on the glass twice. She opened the door then, all but yanking him inside. "Are you trying to get caught?" Jean hissed.
"Were you going to come to my room?" he shot back.
"For your information, I was," she countered softly. "Just not yet."
He scowled and said, "Well… I was tired of waiting."
"You're going to have to learn to wait," she scolded, as though he was a child.
Lucien found himself smirking at her rather than actually being annoyed with her. "Do you know how sexy you are?" he asked, his voice low with gruff longing as he reached out to trace his fingers over the lace edging on the neckline of her nightdress.
"Lucien – be serious," she murmured.
"I am," he shot back. "I am madly, hopelessly in love with you, Jeanie."
"You don't have to flatter me to get me into bed, Lucien," she whispered, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him lightly on the lips. Her fingers played lightly with the sash of his dressing gown, and he found himself suddenly cold at the idea of taking it off and exposing all of his scars to her.
"Jean, I – I –"
She loosened the sash so the robe fell open, then she embraced him, running her hands up his back beneath the silk. Her fingers stuttered over the ropes and ropes of scar tissue, and her voice became a soft gasp. "Oh, my sweet boy, what happened to you?" Jean asked.
He knew they were a shock; every day, seeing the roadmap of angry webbing across his body, some scars barely healed from their infliction over a year before, still startled him. For her, it would be horrifyingly jarring, to the point that she would call him something so strange; her maternal instincts warring with her desires and lust, vying with horror.
"Jean… not now," he whispered.
"Do they hurt?" she asked anxiously. "Am I going to hurt you, Lucien?"
"No," he insisted softly. "No, Jeanie – you're not going to hurt me." He stroked her cheek gently with his thumb and kissed her tenderly. "Should we turn off the light so you don't have to see them?"
"Will that make you feel better?" she asked, a single tear rolling down her cheek.
He hesitated for a beat, a single moment, and she took that as an answer to the affirmative. She extracted herself from his embrace and went to her bedside to turn off the two lamps, crawling up onto the bed, giving him a good view of her bum as she did.
Lucien shrugged out of his robe and left it on the floor; normally, he was neater than that and at least draped it over the wingback chair he had in his room, but he wasn't in his room, was he? He joined Jean up on the bed, watching her eyes glitter in the darkness as their hands found each other's again. "You know I was in a POW camp," he said softly.
"Yes," she whispered.
"I… may not be able to talk about it, Jeanie. But I want you to know… you will never hurt me." He lifted her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles and sighing sadly.
"Not like them, you mean," she whispered. "I would never," Jean swore earnestly, pulling him to her for a hungry kiss. "Never, Lucien," she promised, breathless.
"I know," he rasped, tears pricking at his eyes.
She did something that surprised him then; she began to touch him, and not as a comfort. Not to soothe him, or to reassure him, but with intent: Jean still wanted him. She knew he was broken, and she still was choosing to be with him. Her fingertips ghosted over his chest with feather-light strokes, almost tickling, but raising gooseflesh in their wake. He shivered and rolled them both over, earning a startled chuckle from her before she kissed him again.
As much as she chose him, he had chosen her, and he was glad to lose himself in the soft warmth of her body, the harsh, quiet gasps of her darkest pleasures made manifest as she came undone. And in the aftermath, he held her close, and prayed to a god he no longer believed in that she would let him come to her bed again; for in the stillness of the night, in her arms, he might finally find some semblance of peace.
Jean burrowed deeper into his side, shifting her leg over his. Lucien hummed softly in appreciation and mumbled, "You okay over there?"
"Fine," she whispered. "But you can't stay."
He tensed, and she ran her fingers over his pectorals. "Jeanie, I can stay a little longer."
"Not much longer," she murmured. "You've already had a kip and a cuddle and – and…"
"I love you so much, Jean," he whispered, his hand moving to the small of her back, holding her close. "My offer still stands."
"What offer?" she asked.
"The one I made before I went to Scotland." He breathed deeply. "You only need say yes, Jeanie. I'll sort everything else."
"Lucien, I – we – we can't. I can't," she stammered softly.
"Marry me," he whispered.
"You're mad."
"I'm in love."
He was rash, impulsive, everything she wasn't – despite her having jumped into bed with him and taken him on a ride. He scared her, still, in ways she couldn't articulate, and he hadn't been able to tell her about the raised welts all over his back: a horror show she was terrified to see in the light of day.
But she had loved him for so very long that she was far more terrified to lose him. And to lose him to another woman (which had already happened once) might be her undoing.
"Lucien, shouldn't we think about this for a little bit?"
"Well, it will take time to arrange everything regardless, but –"
She hesitated, then exhaled roughly. "All right. I'll marry you. But no one needs know. Not until we're ready to tell them."
"That's very fair," he said quietly. "I just… I don't want you to believe that I want to sleep with you, Jean, for all the wrong reasons. I want everything with you. I want us to be a family – you, me, your boys. I want the house, the car in the drive, biscuits and tea and a pie for dinner… But, most of all, I want to go to bed every night with you and wake up every morning to see your beautiful face. And I've wanted that for longer than I should admit."
"I want everything with you, too," she whispered, kissing his chest. A deep sigh escaped her lips and she closed her eyes. "You need to go to bed in your own bed before someone catches you."
"I don't want to leave you."
"You have to," she whispered. "We aren't married… yet."
He grumbled and kissed the top of her head, moving around until he was out of her arms and out from under the covers, looking for his clothes in the dark. "Tomorrow night –"
She smiled softly. "I don't think I could sleep without at least a cuddle," she murmured.
He paused and turned to her in the darkness, a look of quiet disbelief on his face. "Jean, I would be glad to have a cuddle with you every night – but I was thinking more of…"
"A passionate tumble in your bed?" she suggested.
"Yes, perhaps."
"I would like that, too," she agreed.
He came over and gave her a tender kiss, then whispered, "You are the most precious thing to me in this life."
"Go get some sleep," she whispered, blushing.
"I love you."
"I love you, too, Lucien."
He kissed her one more time, then left her alone in the quiet stillness of the night to wonder what the hell she was thinking. And if she had gone completely barking mad.
Genevieve was reading, her glasses perched on the very tip of her nose, looking a bit comical as she turned the pages of her novel. Jean was working on her mending, the sewing needle darting in and out of the fabric at a frantic pace. Lucien, for what it was worth, was writing letters to his old Army mates – those who had survived the war, that was. All in all, it was a pleasant way to spend a morning.
That was, until Genevieve said, "Lucien, mon cher, you remember Kitty Grafton?"
"Vaguely," he said, frowning. A vague recollection of a short chubby girl with freckles and braided pigtails from primary school was about all he had.
"She has recently come home from Canberra," Genevieve continued, "and was discharged from her Army service. I told her that you would take her to the Colonist's for a drink for old time's sake."
Lucien sighed. "Maman, you really mustn't try so hard to find me a romantic partner," he said gently. "When the time is right, I will find my own."
"When will the time be right?" Genevieve countered. "Your wife is gone."
"Mrs. Blake," Jean said sharply, "Lucien needs time."
"Jean, Lucien needs a wife," Genevieve sighed forlornly. "He is far too wild – my wild boy."
"Maman," Lucien sighed, rolling his eyes, "I am not wild – I have done nothing wild since I've come home."
"Ow!" Jean yelped, clearly having pricked herself despite her thimble. She met his gaze, challenging his assertion, knowing that the night before, they had made love with an intensity that had surprised them and had ended their tryst engaged to be married – because he could do nothing in half measures when it came to his dearest Jeanie.
"Are you all right, chérie?" Genevieve asked worriedly from across the way.
"Yes, I'm fine," Jean muttered. "I'm always fine, Mrs. Blake." She smiled less than reassuringly at Lucien, then went back to work.
"Well, you should take the poor girl out for a drink anyway," Genevieve said with a sigh. "It will get you out of the house – you should be working, making friends… not moping around here all day long."
"And what if I wanted to take Jean out for a drink?" Lucien challenged.
Genevieve raised an eyebrow. "Why? We have drinks here."
Her faultless logic made him flinch. "Maman – Jean is an eligible widow, and I am an eligible widower…"
"Jean is not for you," Genevieve scolded harshly. "Silly wild boy, chasing the help. I won't have it."
Jean sighed. "It's fine – Lucien, you should go," she said gently. "We can always have our drink and chat in the evening." She stared at him, holding intense eye contact with him.
He nodded and smiled just a little. "Yes… of course, Jeanie," he said softly. "Can we do that this evening?"
"I'm afraid I have plans tonight," she said evenly. "But tomorrow."
"Good," he said, clapping. "Maman, you should arrange this… drink… for the day after tomorrow."
Genevieve sighed. "Lucien, you need to be working –"
"I will," he promised. "I just need a bit longer to rest. My next visit with the spinal specialist in Melbourne is in a month's time, and then, hopefully, I'll be cleared to do more things." In truth, he hadn't told his mother about the injuries that had prompted his medical discharge from the Army, and he had only alluded to them to Jean – nothing specific. The Japanese had done a number on him, and he was still healing from the worst of the spinal trauma one slow day at a time. He had had emergency surgery immediately upon release from Changi, and that was the only reason he was alive now.
"Well, so long as you do," Genevieve sighed. "Jean… I should like a cup of tea."
"Of course, let me go make it," Jean said. "Lucien, do you want anything?"
So, so many things. "Just a cup of tea will be fine, Jean," he said. And since when did his mother not want him chasing after Jean's skirts, anyway?
He had a sudden sneaking suspicion that Jean was going to be set up for dinners much like he was being set up for drinks – and if so, he was going to have to do a damn sight better about keeping calm.
Because if any man lay a finger on her… he wouldn't be responsible for his actions.
Jean brought the tea into the sitting room and poured Genevieve's first, then made Lucien his perfect cup, and handed it to him with a tiny smile on her lips. It was all he could do not to blow their cover and pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless – but he resisted.
After all… the commitments they made in their bedrooms in the dead of night were just as holy as any legal matrimonial vows, and he already considered her his wife in all but name. And she had requested they keep their relationship quiet for the time being. So he would do just that.
Because he would do anything to please her.
TBC...