Continued thanks to Aussie for help. Who knew that they spell mustache differently down under?
Lucien opened the door on his childhood very slowly. He wasn't surprised that it was changed. Was anything the same for him anymore? The cover was different on his bed, and all his boyhood momentos were swept away, even the framed photograph of he and his mother at the lakeside which had sat on the bedside table.
"Someone's been sleeping in my bed," he grumbled.
He slowly paced the room, touching those things that were the same. The bronze vase lamp with the mica shade. His small desk with the knife scars on the surface, carved as he was bored beyond reason while studying the hours prescribed by his father. He was surprised at the lack of dust or musty smell. His father had mentioned his wonderful housekeeper in his letters. This must be her work.
Jean noticed that the door to one of the spare bedrooms was open. But when she reached in to pull it shut, she saw someone was in the room. Not Danny, popped in for an afternoon kip, but a wider set of shoulders and a shaggy head of hair. Not giving herself time to think, she snatched down the cricket bat which hung on the wall.
The intruder whirled, raising his fists. Jean lifted the bat above her head.
"Who're you?"
"What do you want?"
Both talked at once in a jumble over each other.
Face to face, Jean didn't find this man anymore reassuring. Sunburnt waves of sandy hair fell over his brow and he had a bushy, speckled beard and thick moustache. Blue eyes blazed at her.
"Who are you?" he repeated.
Exasperated, she barked, "And who are you?"
"This is my house."
"This is Doctor Blake's house," she said, furious.
A flash of a smile under the moustache. "I'm Doctor Blake."
"You're the son?"
He looked around the room. "I was."
She lowered the bat. "We were expecting you." It sounded like an accusation.
He unfurled his fists and held out his hands. "Here I am." He looked her over from head to toe and she fought the urge to cross her arms over her chest.
"And you are?" he prompted.
"Mrs Beazley, the housekeeper."
His eyebrows disappeared under his mop of curls. "You can't be."
"Well, I am." He may not know her, but she wouldn't have recognised Lucien Blake looking as rough as he did. She should offer him a cup of tea but instead, she wanted to whack him with the cricket bat.
"My father mentioned you often in his letters, but I was imagining someone more...that is, less..." He may have been blushing, but it was hard to tell with his beard.
She raised her chin defiantly but decided to ignore his...whatever his meaning was. Whether it was an insult or compliment, she couldn't tell. "Well I am," she repeated.
She looked around for a case. "Do you have your things? I'll put fresh sheets on the bed."
Lucien shrugged. "I won't be sleeping here much. I'll be at the hospital. Just stopped in to drop off my bag. It's downstairs."
She forced herself to be cordial. "I'll make you some tea then."
"I said that I won't be here often," he said, an edge to his voice. "I'll be going."
She rehung the bat and stepped back through the door. "Right then," she said sharply. "Please give your father my regards and let him know that I'll be along shortly."
He started to pass her.
"You are going to change?" she prompted.
He looked down at his clothing; baggy, frayed canvas trousers and a leather bomber jacket over an open-necked sports shirt, a pair of RM Williams boots on his feet. "All my things are the same, so I suppose these will have to suit." With that, he strode down the corridor, leaving her fuming.
oxo
Jean had been visiting Dr Blake daily at the hospital but today she was reluctant. His son hadn't come back to the house, so perhaps he was still there. But when she peeked into Thomas's room, he was alone and slumbering. She took the chair beside his bed and his eyelids eventually fluttered open.
"Jean," he said with his usually deep voice weak, and tears pricked to her eyes.
"Hello there." She fussed with his blanket, making sure it was tucked in close. He was often cold, even with the wall heater belching hot steam near his bed.
"Lucien," the old man murmured, peering around with his bleary gaze.
"I haven't seen him." She couldn't keep the tartness from her tone. "He was here?" Even as she asked, she noticed the dusty leather jacket hanging on the wall. He shouldn't have brought something so dirty into his father's room; surely as a doctor, he knew that—
"Yes." Dr Blake's short answer didn't seem to be because of his illness.
Deciding to ask nothing more, she offered Thomas some scones from her basket, keeping an eye out for the sister to come and scold them.
They had a cosy chat. Dr Blake was a pillar of the community but he did love a bit of gossip, and Jean was his best source. They didn't notice the door opening. Jean jumped in her chair as Lucien Blake was suddenly standing behind her.
"Where'd you come from?" she asked, breathless.
"Sorry," Lucien said.
"You've been gone some time," Thomas noted.
Lucien looked petulant. "Had a cuppa, that's all."
Jean could smell freshly smoked cigarette on him. Thomas Blake thought cigarette smoking a common, dirty habit. He was a pipe smoker. She pursed her mouth. Lucien cocked an eyebrow; he must have read her mind. She looked away.
"I should be off," she said briskly.
Thomas snagged her hand and gave it a squeeze. "Must you?" he asked weakly.
She could feel rather than see Lucien's pointed interest. She eased her fingers free gently from Thomas's hand and lay it on his bed. "I must stop at the shops before getting home."
"Lucien can escort you," Thomas insisted. "You'll need to be stock the larder with this big chap to feed."
Jean wouldn't look at Lucien. "No, really—"
"Of course, father," Lucien said stiffly, pulling himself up tall.
Jean saw no way out of this. She had to turn sideways to slide by Lucien, and still brushed against him. He smelled like dust, stale alcohol, and those cigarettes. He was looking down at her, his expression unreadable. She bolted through the door. He followed, easily keeping up with her hurried strides.
When it was clear that he wasn't leaving her side, she asked, "How long will you be with us?"
"Us?" There was a challenge in his tone that she didn't understand.
"Here in Ballarat," she explained.
For a moment, he looked lost. Finally he replied, "My father isn't well."
"He just needs rest after his heart attack," Jean said.
Lucien started to speak but then closed his mouth.
"It was very good of you to come. Your father has wanted you to for...well, as long as I've worked for him."
"Really," Lucien drawled.
"Yes. You're his only child—"
"You wouldn't know it mattered to him from the way that he's pushed me away all my life."
She stopped by the fountain in the hospital courtyard, hoping the babbling water would block out Lucien's indignant tone which was drawing the attention of others. She had to defend her friend. "Your estrangement has hurt him deeply—"
"You don't know him, not truly," spit out Lucien. He looked her up and down once more and she gripped her hands to keep from giving him a pop in the nose. "I'm sure that he shows you another side, though," he sneered.
What he was insinuating sank in. "I think that I can manage the shopping on my own," she said, barely able to speak with fury. Spinning on her heel, she stormed away, and he did not follow.
Lucien had another smoke before returning to his father's hospital room. Here only one day and he felt trapped already. His distaste for his old home town was perfectly symbolised by the housekeeper's judgmental gaze and prim-set mouth. With her fine figure and sparkling eyes, this woman shouldn't be locked up in a dark old house, taking out her bitter disappointments on the likes of him. He inhaled smoke, savouring the burn.
So what was she doing as his father's housekeeper anyway? Years of reading his father's periodic letters that had found him at the closest embassy had led Lucien to believe that his father was half in love with this Mrs Beazeley. In Lucien's own mind, he'd imagined some sweet older lady, plump and generous with the custard tarts after supper. Not a woman young enough to be Thomas's daughter, with a dancer's swing to her hips—
Lucien tossed the cigarette away, gaining an outraged look from a gardener. He strode off before he could be scolded.
The wall clock ticked slowly. His father's breathing rasped in counter-beat. His legs crossed, Lucien's foot jiggled, swinging impatiently. But he didn't know what he was waiting for.
He had to move, to run, to go somewhere. He needed a drink. His flask was in his jacket hanging by the door. He rose.
"You leaving?" Thomas as, rousting from his half-sleep.
"I thought that I should speak to your doctor."
"You are. I know it's not good." Thomas waved his hand, signalling Lucien to sit again. "It's not just a heart attack, son. It's congestive heart failure. I'd suspected as much for two years now—"
"But were ignoring it?"
"There's no cure," Thomas stated.
Lucien sat.
"I'm glad that you came, son."
"Of course, sir."
"Not in my mind. Frankly, I was surprised. And shocked—that beard! If your mother could see you—"
Lucien's mouth twitched with irritation under his thick moustache. "Yes. A great surprise on the face of her little boy."
"Lucie..."
"I should speak to your doctor." He rose again.
"I'm dying."
Lucien sat, feeling foolish.
"I'd hoped, when you returned to Australia last year, that you'd intended to come home."
The familiar reproach. Lucien took a deep breath to keep his tone from being harsh. "I needed to earn money, father, after leaving the service. The firm running the Mary Kathleen mine pays well. The work is interesting. Monitoring the effects of uranium mining along with general practice. There's nothing for me here."
"I still don't understand why you stayed in the Army after the war. Such an odd thing for a surgeon to be doing—"
"I was regular army, not drafted," Lucien said tartly. "I wouldn't be allowed to leave just because I'd spent three years being tortured. Back to work; right-O!"
His father fixed him with a sharp look. "I had the impression your motives were something besides duty."
Lucien had had one exchange with his father about his marriage, in a series of letters which had led to further estrangement. He knew that his father had always hoped that he would return to Ballarat someday, but with a Chinese wife, Thomas had deemed that impossible. It was out of spitefulness that he'd mailed photographs of his family to Thomas, not an attempt at reconciliation. Here is my beautiful wife and daughter that you will never know. He'd been right on that. Singapore had been under siege not long afterwards. He wondered sometimes if Thomas had ever sent a letter in reply. He didn't ask now.
"It was useful," Lucien acknowledged. Place to place, he'd travelled the Orient on assignment, and in each city, he questioned other survivors, refugees, ex-patriots far-flung across the region, to see if anyone had seen or heard anything of his family's fate. Nothing. Over ten years, and nothing. Then the Army had said that he was no longer fit for his duties and had discharged him. Bastards...it didn't matter how much he drank, he still got their filthy work done—
"Lucien!"
He must have spoken aloud. "Sorry, father."
"I want to go home, son."
"What—to the house?"
"Yes."
"But you need the care—"
"My son is a physician, you may remember. Arrange it." Thomas looked around the room with discontent. "Despite being a doctor myself, I despise hospitals."
Lucien rose one more time. "Yes, sir."
After dealing with the incredulous hospital administrators, he headed for the closest pub. He ordered his first pot and ignored the stares and whispers around him. Fobbed off the pubician's pointed questions with vague responses. He wasn't much of a beer drinker, but it was doing the job. His limbs lost their tension, his neck loosened. He could finally put his back to the entrance without watching over his shoulder. He did need to take a piss. In the gents, he had to prop an arm on the wall to stay upright over the trough. This made him laugh until nearly crying. He felt good for the first time since stepping off the bus from Melbourne.
Outside the first pub, he saw another establishment at the other end of the block. There he ordered whisky, straight up. A couple glasses later, and a bar patron finally got up courage to confront him. "New to town, are you?" he asked.
Lucien looked at him blearily. "What?"
"Are you a miner?"
"Yes, in a manner of speaking." Lucien smiled to himself.
"Struck it rich?"
Lucien lost his sense of humour. "No, coming up nothing but dust," he said, slapping his payment on the bar and leaving.
On the street, he spotted a bottle shop. Best to stock up, as his father had suggested. The larder was surely bare of any scotch whisky.
Lucien was coming out with his arms full of bags when he barrelled right into another man. The short, stout man wheeled about, trying to keep his balance. The sight struck Lucien as ridiculous and he barked a laugh.
"You bloody drunk!" the man sputtered, grasping a light pole to keep upright.
Lucien made sure none of his bags were in danger of dropping. "That I am," he said gravely. Then laughed outright.
The shorter man pulled himself up as tall as he could go. "I will have you arrested."
As if by magic, a uniformed policeman came striding down the street. "What's this all about?" he bellowed.
Lucien looked the copper up and down. He'd seen this sort plenty of times. Belligerent, eyes a bit too close together, mouth in a permanent cruel twist. Likely got out of active duty with some minor injury, or got some soft posting guarding the brig in Melbourne. Lucien stopped laughing.
"This person, this drunkard—"
"Stop calling me that," Lucien said coldly.
"Hobart, this boozer knocked me down in the street!"
"Now, Mr Tyneman, no worries, we'll get this settled."
"Tyneman?" Lucien squinted at the two men. "Not Patty—"
"That's Patrick Tyneman to you—" blustered Hobart.
"That's Mr Tyneman," Patrick seethed.
"You're all grown up," Lucien noted. "But I suppose neither of us are boys any longer."
"And who are you?" sneered Patrick.
Lucien was suddenly very tired and disinterested in continuing this conversation. He shouldered past Tyneman. "It's Lucien Blake."
"Say!" Hobart barked, grabbing his arm. "Hold up."
Lucien turned quickly out of the copper's hand. "Get off," he said, his voice low and cold. Hobart started to protest but Lucien's steel glare seemed to stop him.
"Mr Tyneman?" he asked Patrick, "should I take him in?"
Patrick appeared shocked. "Lucien—It can't be."
"Why not?"
"Have you been to see your father?"
"Of course. Why else would I come back to this place?"
"Ballarat is a fine city—"
Understanding dawned. "You never left, did you? Just a small man in a small town." Lucien started to walk off.
It was the copper who protested, "Hey, wait a minute!" while Patrick sputtered.
Lucien was half a block away when Patrick found his voice. "Your father must be so ashamed!" he yelled. Lucien didn't turn back.
The long walk home sobered him up a bit. When he got into the house, he was thirsty again. Fumbling around in the kitchen, he found a glass and cracked the seal on the first bottle of scotch. He was also hungry and rooted around in the icebox, discovering a piece of cold chicken and a jar of pickles. He fished them out with his fingers and ate the chicken straight from the bowl. All washed down with a few glasses and he was feeling much better. Perhaps a kip was in order—
"Dr Blake!" came a terrible voice from behind him.
He wheeled to stand so quickly that Jean screamed. The bowl crashed to the floor, shattering, with the chicken bones scattering. "Don't come up on me from behind," he hissed out, gripping the chair as hard as he could to keep from grabbing her.
She took a big step back. She was gasping in terror and it shamed him. Then when she crossed her arms tightly, he realised that he had been staring at her chest to note her rapid breathing and he was even more deeply mortified.
"I'm sorry," he said carefully, holding his hands up, and was pleased to see that they weren't shaking. "I just can't...please be careful coming up behind me. Usually I'll sense you coming, but I fear that I am—" He wavered on his feet. "A bit tired right at the moment."
Equally careful, she said, "Would you like me to make up your bed, Dr Blake?" Stooping, she began to clean up the mess. He should help her, but feared bending over in his current state.
A bed. His childhood bed. He was exhausted, but he couldn't face it. "No..." He wandered out of kitchen. The door stood open to his parents' bedroom. He looked at the bed, hanging off the doorjamb. Afternoons as a very small boy, when his mother would invite him to nap with her. She did seem to nap a great deal, he remembered...
He staggered into the room and fell on the bed. His feet felt so heavy...Someone was lifting them, one, then the other. His boots were slipping off his feet, and something warm and soft nestled under his chin. The door creaked shut and darkness blissfully closed in on him.
Caught up in his memories, Lucien hadn't truly slept. Jean had though. He had been watching, enjoying this new intimacy. The fluttering of her eyelashes as she dreamed—he hoped they were happy dreams.
She sighed, then grumbled—perhaps not pleasant after all?
He traced his fingertip across her cheekbone and down to her lips that parted at his touch. She gave a heavier sigh.
"You awake?" he asked hopefully.
She cracked one eyelid open. "Oh, it's you." She sounded slightly confused.
He wasn't amused. The corner of her mouth quirked. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she gave him a reassuring peck. "Yes, it's you."
He was still serious. "Did I frighten you?"
"Silly boy, I was just teasing you."
"No, I mean when I first crawled out from under my rock and came into this house. Drunken lout, dirtying up your kitchen, growling at you—"
She put her fingers to his lips. "You concerned me. Like I said, a wild dog." Her arms tightened around his neck and he didn't like how flat her voice became when she said, "And I was used to looking out for myself. No, you didn't scare me."
He pulled her close, trying to give her some of his strength. "Bravest woman I've ever known. That's why I love you."
"Silly," she called him, but her smile was bright in the dim room.
Her open, easy joy aroused him. He pushed down the blanket. "Let's have a look at you then," he said, business-like.
She half hissed, half giggled at the chill and arched toward his warmth. But he was intent on taking his time now that the first blinding need had been sated. When his mouth settled on one of her nipples, his beard stroked her tender skin, soft as down, but then prickled as he circled her breast, his lips and teeth equally gentle and and rough. She fell back to the mattress in a stupor of pleasure. She could barely lift her hands to run her fingers through his hair, down his neck, along his shoulders. Everything had slowed, matching the gentle ticks of the bedside clock.
Then his hand slid between her legs.
Her surprised gasp sounded very loud in their quiet bedroom and he immediately stopped everything. Embarrassed, she couldn't even look at him but quickly murmured, "It's alright, it's fine, it's...good," her face burning red. It had happened so wonderfully fast the first time, and she hadn't had a moment to think, only to feel. Now she simply had too much time.
When they had officially announced their engagement, Jean made arrangements to move in with her friend Margie until the wedding. She'd thought it would be some peace until the whirl that marriage with Lucien Blake would surely be. Instead, her usually level-headed friend revealed a previously unspoken interest in Jean's betrothed and his past.
"Are you nervous, Jean?"
"About what?"
"Well...measuring up, that is."
"It will be a change, that's sure. To go from housekeeper to doctor's wife—"
"Not that." Margie had fussed about poured out tea and left Jean waiting impatiently. "I mean...well, he was married to one of those sort of women, not refined like."
Jean was shocked. "I spent quite a bit of time with Mei Lin, and she was extremely refined."
"But she can never truly be," Margie explained patiently. "Those Orientals, they will do things that no respectable white woman would dream of doing—"
"Things?" Jean was truly confused.
Margie looked about her kitchen, making sure none of her children were within earshot. "Like in the Kama Sutra."
"That's from India, not China."
"It's all the same, isn't it? Those people aren't like us. And Lucien's obviously got a taste for that sort of thing. If I were you, well, I'd be worried, that's all I'm saying."
Jean had changed the subject, and would never think of her friend in the same way again. But a seed of doubt had been planted. It was forgotten in that first furious encounter, yet now with his hands, his mouth, moving achingly slowly in ways that she'd never been touched...
But she trusted him. Grasping his forearm, she encouraged him on. "It's fine, really fine," she stuttered.
His fingers sank into her warmth, and after the first adjustment to invasion, she gripped his wrist, not to stop him, but to assure him. "Really," she breathed in his ear.
His thumb stroked and circled, making her breathing speed up to match his ministrations. Her confidence fled again and she buried her face in the crook of his neck, hiding her tears. He'd worry that he was hurting her, but that was the last thing that she felt. Surely he wouldn't understand.
She had come across a book in his office one day, an illustrated version of the Kama Sutra. Curious at the title, she flipped it open. Colorful explicit drawings leapt off the page. She slammed it shut immediately. She would not be cowed though. There was an impressionable young woman in the house, Mattie. She stormed into the lounge where Lucien was reading the afternoon paper, and tossed it before him.
"You must put this away." She folded her arms and glared down her nose at him.
He glanced at it. "It goes on the third shelf of the bookshelf by my desk," he said mildly.
"I mean away. If it must be in the house, it can be in your bedroom. In a locked drawer."
He smirked. "Jean—"
"Mattie—"
"Is a nurse. And a modern young woman. I'm sure none of this is any shock to her."
"I'm quite sure it is," Jean countered. "If you must have that sort of...entertainment, it can stay in your bedroom." She felt terribly uncomfortable thinking about sex, Lucien, and his bedroom all in the same moment.
"It's not entertainment—" He folded the newspaper and put it aside, and lifted the offending book. "If you must know, I use this when patients come to me with difficulties..." He sounded matter-of-fact but he couldn't meet her eye.
She couldn't stop herself from asking. "Difficulties?"
"In..." He tilted his head toward his bedroom. "I've found with stoic farmers and cattlemen, it's easier to just show him a picture rather than try to explain. For one thing, most of them don't even know the proper terms for sexual organs, and I refuse to use the words that they do know." He gave a delicate shudder.
"What?" she gasped in horror. "You're not!" She tossed her hands in the air. "So I shall be expecting a flood of cancelled appointments by outraged wives!"
"It was the wives who made the appointments for their husbands," he said smugly.
"Oh." Her chin went up. "I see." She had spun on her heel and the book was never discussed again. The gold-leaf letters on the spine seemed to glow at her from the shelf every time she dusted, but she never touched it.
Now, with his fingers caressing her in ways that she'd never been touched, she really wished that she'd looked at the book. He was obviously so much more knowledgeable than her. Surely he wanted her to do something to him.
His fingers, slick and warm from her heat, circled her nipple, tugging at it until she was sobbing. His mouth replaced his touch to soothe her exquisite pain. Her head swam at this sight, his tongue licking her breast clean.
"I'm sorry, Lucien."
He looked up at her, trying to focus. "About what?"
"I just don't know—I mean, I can't give you what you want?"
"What the hell?" he said, irritating her. Surely he could tell what she was upset about. And then he did, shocking her. He took her face in his hands. "You're here. I'm amazed that you're here. You...you make me very..." He smiled, captured of her shaking hand and brought it down between their bodies. "Very."
"Oh well, yes, I see," she said, sounding like a dithering old lady to her ears. She best get with it then—get a lay of the land, so to speak...And from his deep groan and how he attacked her breasts again, she took it that her exploration was successful. Weight and heat and length; she gave him a wicked little smile that got a grin in reply. "Very," she echoed.
Emboldened by her success, her fingers traced over to his flank. Her thumb found a scar's ridge and she felt him flinch under her touch. Instead of snatching her hand away though, she pressed her palm against his hip as though she could smooth the anxiety away. His breathing slowed. Her lips at his ear. "Nothing will hurt you again. Nothing. I'll make sure of that."
His mouth went to her shoulder, and she couldn't tell if he was sobbing or suckling at her skin when his teeth closed on her flesh. Thickly, he told her, "I want to believe you."
Finding her own sort of bravery, Jean met his gaze. It seemed that she could be enough for him just the way that she was. He rolled onto his back and pulled her atop him, cradling her easily in his arms. She swooped down, confidence growing, mouth finding mouth, her nails turning to his skin until he growled.
They did seem to be having a problem though, as she wanted to have as much of her naked skin touching his as possible, keeping his erection trapped between their bellies. He finally couldn't stand it any longer and lifted her to straddle him. This time her gasp was of a little girl high on a swing, and her hair swung around her face with that freedom. She took pity on him and rose on her knees, and their hands joined in positioning his entry. He flung his head back as she slid down his length, his jaw clenched, trying to keep from losing control.
"It's alright, Lucien." She held herself still and balanced her weight with her fingers splayed on his chest. "No need to hide from me."
He groaned with a laugh, "You're looking right at me."
When she leaned forward, his groan deepened. She understood his agony; she felt it herself. He filled her, a pulse beating between them. She found air to speak. "Not what I mean."
"You're my brave girl."
"Girl," she said with a snort and gave him a kiss.
She was there, all around him, holding him tight in every way. He wrapped his arm about her waist and cupped her bottom with his palm. They moved tentatively at first, but his hands set her pace. He kept his pelvis pressed to hers, grinding against her clit and he saw her eyes spark and brighten. Was he the first to ever do this to her? He hoped so with a primal need. There was confusion as to what was happening to her, then she didn't care, she dared to let him carry her on and up. He changed the angle of his thrusts and she began to shudder, an almost frantic fear in her gaze.
"I've got you, I've got you," he promised, as if he'd captured a fluttering butterfly in his hands.
"Lucien, I—" Fear was gone, only wonder was left. He held her as the tremors passed through her body, He was entranced at the sight of her, to see her so new and different in ecstasy, and yet so his true heart Jean.
She settled on his chest, frantically kissing his moist skin, breathing in his scent. Coming back into her body, she became aware that Lucien was still hard, buried deep in her. Now she was doubly mortified. She was a complete amatuer and couldn't even keep up her part. She scrambled off, apologising.
He followed her across the bed, laughing. "Hey, where'd you go?"
She gave him an unsure smile. "Just right here—" But she didn't come back to him.
Now she made him nervous. "Nothing to worry about. I'll just..." He glanced around the room. "That is, perhaps I can—" He waved his hand aimlessly.
Finding determination, she grabbed his fingers and tugged him over to her. "Come 'ere," she said, low and sultry in a way which countered any of his uncertainty. He happily crawled into the cradle of her legs, and she rose to meet him, peppering his neck with kisses. He grinned down at her. He could do this all night long, the sleek strength of her thighs in his hands, the drum of her heels on his backside, the curve of her breasts swinging with his thrusts. Then a jolt low in his gut, and the grief of loss, he wanted to sob like a petulant child whose toy was snatched from his greedy hands. Instead, he could only say her name over and over, poetry and platitudes gone.
She held him tightly when he tumbled down beside her. Her own body was still tingling and unbound. She could be generous, continuing to kiss his heated skin, smoothing down over his limbs. Surely now he'd sleep—
He finally caught his breath. "I think that we don't need to pack as many books for the honeymoon."
She couldn't understand how he was capable of coherent thought, let alone putting whole sentences together afterward. She obviously needed to make a greater effort to exhaust him. "What?" she mumbled.
"On the ship, I was certain that I'd get at least four novels read between Melbourne and Cape Town. But now I can see that we'll be occupied in other ways—" He nuzzled her neck and she patted his broad chest as a sort of weak agreement. "Locked up in our cabin, ordering room service in—"
"Silly man," she murmured, closing her eyes. "What will the steward think of us, old enough to be his parents, behaving in such a way?"
He laughed, and smoothed back her hair to kiss her forehead, then asked: "Jean, are you still menstruating?"
She cracked one eye open. "Excuse me?"
Lucien didn't hear the edge in her tone. "You know. Your monthlys."
"Yes, I know."
"It's just that, speaking of being parents at our age, we should do something about preventing pregnancy. I've got some Johnnies in the surgery, but it would have been better to have had you fitted for a diaphragm."
Her eyes snapped open. "Excuse me?" she repeated, the warning now a flashing red light.
Warming on the topic, Lucien didn't see his fate hanging in the balance. "The odds aren't great, but it's still a possibility of course, unless there was something which prevents it—that is, you and Christopher only had the two offspring—"
Jean went bolt upright, then swung her legs out of the bed.
It dawned on Lucien that he'd put his foot in it somehow. "Jean, darling?"
Her lovely negligee hung on the back of the bedroom door. She yanked the robe off the hanger and jerked it on.
"Jean?" Lucien leapt from the bed. She slammed the door on his face.
~ end chapter two