Sometime later…

"Good afternoon, Jean, Lucien."

Jean turned her head to see Mrs. Clasby walking by on the high street. It was a bright, sunny day, and Jean had to shield her eyes from the glare. "Hello, Agnes."

"You're looking so much better, Jean. I'm glad the doctor has done his work on you," Agnes noted.

"He has indeed," Jean answered, trying not to blush.

"I'm only glad I arrived when I did and was able to help," Lucien commented.

Agnes gave a short nod. "It's all worked out then."

Jean flexed her left hand where it rested in the crook of Lucien's arm, her engagement ring sparkling in the sunlight. "It has."

The three parted, Jean and Lucien continuing their walk and Agnes heading home. It was such a joy and privilege to take these walks. Every afternoon, they tried to get out of the house and wander Ballarat. Lucien was still learning his way around and getting reintroduced to people. It had been quite a chore, actually, concocting a tale that could be plausible to people. Agnes had helped with that. Jean had been looking so sickly, it was not difficult to convince Ballarat that she had taken ill after the old Doctor Blake had passed. Slightly harder to explain was that Lucien Blake, believed to be long dead, had turned up and found his father's housekeeper in need of a doctor and had then used his physician skills to care for her and bring her back to proper health. It was less difficult to then add in that they had fallen in love through all that and were now engaged to be married.

But after all she had endured over the last year or so, Jean could not give a whit what other people thought. Let them whisper and imagine whatever they wanted. Jean hadn't needed any of them in a very long time. She had Lucien, and he was whole and real and with her now. That was all that mattered.

Of course, as he had tried to point out to her before, he was not the only thing she should have in her life. And he wasn't. He encouraged her to rejoin the community, now that she was well—or so everyone thought. She started volunteering at Sacred Heart again. She went back to her sewing circle. She had Evelyn Toohey over for tea about once every other week or so.

And in Jean rejoining the world, Lucien had been able to do so, too. He was reopening his father's shuttered medical practice. Agnes Clasby was his first patient, and she had been able to bully quite a few others into going to see the younger Doctor Blake. Lucien was also considering taking up the role of police surgeon from Chief Superintendent Matthew Lawson, which Jean thought would be a fine idea. Lucien insisted that he did not want to take anything on until after the wedding and after their honeymoon, and Jean couldn't help but agree with that.

They were only a week or so away from the wedding now. Lucien had arranged for a huge honeymoon trip for them both. Jean would actually be the one paying, since she was the one who had inherited the not insubstantial fortune left by Thomas Blake. But Lucien would be working when they got back, and they'd be able to live just fine. Still, she could not wait to see the great cities of Europe with Lucien. She who had never been anywhere and he who had not been outside the studio in fifteen years. A fine pair of travelers they made.

But when they did eventually come back after their journey, they would be returning to a house that had become a happy home for them both. The old studio had been properly converted into a bedroom suite for them now, and it would be their marital bed just as soon as they said their vows.

Jean had been wary about that idea when Lucien had proposed it. "I wouldn't think you'd want to go back up there ever again," she said when he first suggested using the studio for their room.

Lucien had sipped his tea, leaning back in his chair at the kitchen table. "Well not in the same way," he explained. "But it was the place where I met you, my darling. The place where we fell in love and first started our life together, such that it was. And Agnes was the one who pointed out that it was the room that had always been the place where I was safest. It still is. It was a haven for the both of us, and I think it might be nice to have it be our haven for the rest of our lives."

Well, Jean could hardly disagree with that. They'd been tirelessly moving furniture and packing up Jean's things in her current bedroom and turning the studio into the perfect bedroom for them to share.

"Oh Jean, what about that one?"

Her thoughts were interrupted when Lucien stopped in front of the window of one of the lady's shops. He'd been trying to convince her to buy a nice travel suit for when they left on their trip. She had insisted that she had made some very nice clothes for herself and it was an unnecessary extravagance for her to buy something. Still, he wouldn't relent. Jean knew it was because he'd not ever been able to do much of anything for her, and he was trying to make up for lost time in romancing her and spoiling her. Not that she'd let him.

But Jean looked at the outfit he pointed to, and she found herself wavering. It was a beautiful bright turquoise and she had to admit it was beautiful.

"Well…"

"Come on, let's try it," he insisted.

Jean laughed, allowing him to lead her into the shop. The both of them were so wrapped up in their joy that they did not notice the way passersby looked at them. No one in Ballarat had ever seen two people so full of life. Oh, how little they knew.

THE END