I don't know what possessed me. Let's just call it the fanfic demons and leave it at that.

Age of Reason
by ScintillatingTart

I:

If there was one thing that Jean Beazley could not abide, it was cowardice – be it in herself, or in others. So for her hands to be shaking quite so much as she reached for the telephone to dial was quite intolerable. The number was unfamiliar, being a Queensland operator and a party line, but once it was placed, she could only wait. "Hello, Anna? It's Jean… Beazley. Jean Beazley. From Ballarat."

"Jean? Darling –"

"Thomas Blake died yesterday," Jean continued, not allowing the endearments to find purchase. "I was wondering if… if you might find time in your schedule to come for the funeral. He was really quite fond of you, Anna, and was rather devastated when you left." She wound the phone cord around her fingers, licking her lips, nibbling on them nervously, unwilling to share her own feelings on the matter. "I've asked his son if you might stay here, and he has no objections."

Anna laughed then, the sound harsh. "Does he know?"

"Anna," Jean sighed, "will you come?"

"For Thomas."

"Thank you; just tell me what train you'll be on and I'll fetch you from the station," Jean promised.

"Oh, I'll just get a taxi – no need for you to put yourself out. After all… you never made a promise you couldn't break, darling," Anna said with a breezy dismissal as the line went dead.

Jean swallowed hard and rested the receiver back into its cradle, frowning. It had been seven years since she had watched Anna walk away, seven years since she had made a promise to herself that it would be for the best to let her lover go. And then she had been alone again with only old Dr. Blake to keep her company.

Until he had faltered, and then Lucien Blake had arrived with his devil may care attitude and his high flying ways, and she found herself torn between wanting to knock him around the ears and snog him senseless – and Jean had a sneaking suspicion that neither would be effective in bringing him to heel.

But what did that matter when she had to face her past? When her loneliness and despair had driven her to seek the comfort of another woman's embrace? There had been a time when her heart had almost healed from its loss, thanks to Anna's gentle dearness, only to be torn to shreds again when she had walked away in search of new adventures.

And still… Jean wondered if she was still the same woman who needed, so desperately, the touch of her lover's soul even now. Or if she had finally broken free of the spell of illusion that had bound them together at the time. Did she need anyone at all, really? Could she endure a life alone?

"Do you want a drink, Mrs. Beazley?"

Jean shook herself and turned to face her employer. "Maybe tea, Dr. Blake," she said softly. "Would you like a cup while I'm making one?"

"Might as well," he said. "But I was offering something a fair bit stronger."

She smiled slightly; of course he was. His vices were very often on display: a temper, quick to ignite, and a penchant for drink that began early in the day and didn't finish till well past darkness. She didn't mind the odd drink herself, but not to the indulgent excesses he practically bathed in, and her temper – while quick – was also waspish, rather than explosive.

"Anna Martin is coming for the funeral," she said.

"I don't know who that is," he replied, following her into the kitchen. "Come to think of it, I don't know half of my father's friends."

Jean put water into the kettle and settled it onto the auger. Once the burner was ignited, she sighed. "Anna was his practice nurse when I started as housekeeper," she said. "She lodged in – we were very close. It devastated your father when she left: he thought the world of her." She fiddled with a teacup and a saucer, frowning. "She didn't want to stay in Ballarat forever."

"Unlike you."

"This is my home," Jean said simply.

"There's a whole big world out there, Mrs. Beazley."

She looked at him with alarm, as if he had read her mind and found her thoughts severely lacking. "Well, Dr. Blake, some of us don't have the money or ambition to give up everything to go find ourselves in that great big world," she snapped.

"Mrs. Beazley –"

"Jean," she countered. "Your father called me Jean."

He hesitated a moment, then brought his hands up in placating surrender. "Jean, you mistake my meaning. I only meant that… there's far more to life than being shut up in this house, cooking and cleaning for my father – or me. And that you should go live a better life than this."

She stared at him for the longest time, then laughed. "Are you firing me?"

"No –"

"Oh, thank god," she exhaled. "It isn't exactly as if I have anywhere to go."

"Well, I see that as a failing on my father's part – you should have your own home, not be living under his roof…"

"He felt safer with me in the house," Jean argued forcefully. "Especially after Anna left. And after his heart attack. And if I hadn't been here, who knows how long he would have laid there after his stroke? So, no – don't you dare tell me Thomas failed me. I won't hear a word of it, Dr. Blake."

"Lucien."

"Dr. Blake," she said pointedly, drawing a line in the sand between them. "You may have your issues with your father, but I'll not have an unkind word spoken against him in my presence again. Do you understand?"

They were toe to toe, Jean drawn up to her full height, straight-backed and proud, full of righteous irritation and a touch of something that might have been arousal, had she allowed herself to dwell on it for more than a moment, and Lucien much more relaxed – his arms crossed over his chest and a lazy smirk on his lips as if he was nothing but amused by her show of bravado. It was yet another flash of a second where she wanted to throttle him and kiss him simultaneously, and the thought chilled her to the bone. He was clearly not for her; a hot mess of a man like that was definitely not one that she deserved in her bed or wanted to tame enough to shackle to her heart. But oh, when he looked at her like that…

"I understand perfectly, Jean," he drawled, that damnable smirk growing. "You and my father clearly had a… special… relationship."

She gasped and slapped him so hard that her hand ached with the force. "How dare you even think such a thing – for even a moment?" Jean choked out. "How dare you?"

"What am I meant to think?" he countered, reaching out to grab her wrist and restrain her from slapping him again. "Tell me the truth: were you having an affair with my father?"

"No!" Jean cried. Her voice sounded alien, wrong, the denial ringing in the kitchen like a hollow bell. The kettle began to shriek on the auger, and she yanked at his grasp, getting more annoyed when he didn't let go. "Dr. Blake – Lucien," she pleaded. "I didn't. I wouldn't. He was more like a father to me than my own father – I couldn't possibly."

"He loved you," Lucien said with cold calm.

"Not like that," Jean swore, "never like that." She swallowed hard, licked her lips, felt her heart thundering in her chest; if she could have turned tail and run, she would have. But she abhorred cowardice, and she would not be intimidated by a drunk with a predilection for showing off just how reckless he thought he could be.

A tiny smile quirked at the edge of his lips. "Good," he muttered. "Makes me feel much less of a cad for this."

He yanked on her wrist, pulling her into him, and then his lips were on hers for a scant moment – so briefly that she thought it almost hadn't happened at all. She squeaked in protest, then opened her mouth to an all-out assault that left her breathless and her senses reeling. Then he pulled away and released her, stalking away from her with heavy footsteps.

The teakettle shrieked relentlessly, and Jean pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead, breathing deeply as she turned off the burner and got the water. That was definitely not supposed to happen – she was not supposed to kiss Lucien Blake. She was not supposed to like kissing Lucien Blake. She was meant to be able to walk away in a few weeks when he inevitably moved on and went back to whatever little backwater he'd been working in before. It wasn't supposed to be messy and complicated, and she wasn't meant to actually like the boorish arse.

Her cup of tea was decidedly less than fortifying, and it did nothing to clarify the situation. If anything, it made her feel worse; she was sitting in the house of the man who had been her employer for twelve years, and she had just been snogging his son like… like…

Like she wanted him.

The quiet little voice in the back of her head taunted her with a soft cry of, And why shouldn't you want him? You're both adults. There's no harm in it.

It was the same little voice that had led to her living in the comfort of Anna's arms for four years. Of having shared her heart and sweetest secrets with someone other than her Christopher. It was the same little voice that had driven her to madness and lust and sinful betrayal of everything she had ever held dear.

Jean pushed her teacup away and closed her eyes, burying her face in her hands, wracked with sobs as she realized just how close to the sun she was flying.

And how perilously close to not caring she was.

How much she wanted to give in to her desires to run away. How much she wanted to give in to her desires to take what she longed for.

How hard it was to reason with herself and hold steady for just another moment.

TBC...