OK, a bit more happy stuff to cheer us all up. As always, these are not my characters. Thank you for the lovely reviews!
Three days before the wedding, Jean was hanging washing on the line when she heard the crunch of car wheels on the gravel driveway. She hurried round the side of the house in time to see Mattie getting out of a taxi and looking appraisingly at the familiar house in front of her. Catching sight of Jean, Mattie ran and hugged her, holding on as if for dear life. "Oh Jean, you look so well!" she said, standing back and looking at her properly. "Love suits you, obviously. And look at that ring! It's gorgeous."
Jean blushed a little and took Mattie's case from her. "You look lovely too. I hope the couple of days spent with your parents have helped you recover from the journey? Now, you must tell me all about London, and what you've seen, and how your parents are. Come in, I want to know all about it."
Over a pot of tea, Mattie told Jean about some of the places she'd visited in London, and a couple of stories about new friends made in the hospital. She told her about the nurses' home, and how it was nothing like as homely as living with Jean and Lucien in Ballarat. Jean told her a little about Matthew's recovery, and Rose, and Frank Carlyle, but mostly Jean just wanted to hear Mattie's news.
When the tea had been finished, Jean took Mattie back to her old room. "We've put you in here for now, all the rooms are being rearranged but we thought you'd like to be back in your old familiar room," Jean explained. Lucien and Jean had decided that once they were married they would use his mother's old studio as their bedroom, rather than one of them moving in with the other. The studio was a large, light room with plenty of space for all their things, and it felt like a fresh start.
The studio was slowly being furnished and rearranged to make a bedroom, and Mattie and Jean spent much of the afternoon sorting through and moving some of Jean's clothes and books into the new room. After a while, Mattie asked about Jean's wedding dress, and Jean rather nervously showed Mattie the dress and jacket she had made. Fortunately Mattie loved it, and made her try it on, even finding the right shoes and rearranging Jean's hair to suit her. Jean surprised herself by enjoying this attention, it almost felt like two girls playing dressing up, and the age gap between the two women seemed to fall away as they laughed together.
By the time Lucien and Charlie came home, the women had prepared dinner and were setting the table.
"Mattie, it's lovely to see you!" grinned Lucien, but he went first to Jean, holding her from behind as she stood at the stove cooking, whispering something in her ear that made her blush, then he kissed her gently on the lips as she turned round.
Mattie had watched this display of affection with surprise and joy. She had been so used to their restrained touches of affection that seeing them love each other openly was rather odd, but in a lovely way.
Lucien then turned to Mattie, hugging her and then holding her at arms' length, taking all of her in, and nodding in satisfaction. "London suits you, you must tell me all about it over dinner." As they sat down to eat and Charlie joined them, Jean was struck by how right this all felt, the four of them together around her table, making a family by choice. She caught Lucien's eye and it seemed to her he was thinking the same; Mattie and Charlie were like the children they might have had if their lives had taken a different path.
They all lingered over the dinner table, catching up on news and enjoying the familiar routine. "Mattie, you know there will always be a room for you here if you want it," said Lucien. Mattie nodded, and a tear started to blur her vision, but she knew she wasn't ready to come back yet.
Mattie went to bed not long afterwards, still rather jet-lagged, and Charlie started to watch something on the television, so Lucien and Jean went into the studio, sitting on the old leather couch under the window. His arm went round her shoulders and he pulled her close. Her hand rested on his leg and he groaned a little in appreciation.
The room was starting to change around them. The walls and mantelpiece were still full of his mother's paintings, but there was now a large wardrobe filled with their clothes, and Jean's dressing table stood in the corner. Their new bed was made up ready and the fire was lit as the evening was turning chilly.
Not for the first time, Jean looked at the bed with some apprehension. She was a mature, sensible woman, but she had been feeling increasingly concerned about how this would all work out once they were married. She had only ever slept with Christopher, and that was now a long time in the past, and she had no idea how she was going to react to being intimate with someone else. Kissing and cuddling was one thing, but going to bed with Lucien was something else entirely. She knew she wanted to, but the thought made her nervous.
Lucien, of course, had noticed this worrying, and guessed what she was concerned about. "It will be fine, I promise," he said softly. He kissed her gently, then with more urgency, teasing her lip with his tongue and running his hand up her side until he felt the softness of her breast under his fingers. Jean responded without thinking about it, playing with the hair at the back of his neck and parting her lips to let him in. Her other hand slipped under his shirt to touch his side, and up towards his chest, before he broke away from the kiss.
"You see, it will be fine," he reassured her, "but if you like we could practise now?" he continued with an enquiring eyebrow.
"Lucien!" she scolded him. "The whole town may think I'm your mistress, but they have always been wrong, and I'm not going to change that now. We can wait three more days, surely?"
"Yes, of course," he agreed. "Just kiss me goodnight." Shortly afterwards Jean left to go to her own room, leaving Lucien to finish his whisky alone, but thoroughly content.