Right outside the bedroom, Jean stumbled over one of her cast off wedding shoes. Rather than picking it up, she kicked it aside, and felt a grim satisfaction for being that slack. She paused at the base of the stairs. Part of her wanted to make a furious retreat, but her bedroom wasn't upstairs anymore. Lucien had insisted that she move her things into his room in preparation for their wedding night. They'd only be here one day before leaving on their honeymoon, but he wanted to feel as though it was their room from the very first.

Going to the bathroom instead, Jean did a bit of a cleanup which only served to remind her of the topic that she was trying to ignore. She may be pregnant already. Hands shaking, she washed the tissues down the toilet. The clank of the pullchain jangled her nerves. Rising up on her toes, she examined herself in the mirror over the sink. Red patches on her breasts and neck; beard burns. Her lips swollen from kissing. She snapped her gown shut. She was too old for this. Being a wife didn't mean lazing about in bed, making love all day. Lucien should know that—but how would he? What did he know of the work of marriage?

During the wait for the arrangements for Mei Lin and Li to be put in place, Mei Lin had stayed in the bedroom beside Jean's. While Lucien had found many things with which to remain incredibly busy, the two women had spent a great deal of time together. The oddness of the situation didn't escape Jean.

"We're two different people now," Mei Lin had explained while they shared tea in the garden. "It's not even the war. Frankly, that's all which links us now."

"I'm just so very sorry," Jean murmured.

"Don't be. It's nothing that you've done. Or Lucien, for that matter." In her quiet manner, Mei Lin drank her tea and gazed slowly at the lush flowerbeds. "I could never live in this place, or be some small town doctor's wife—"

Jean protested: "It can be quite nice—"

Mei Lin just shook her head. "No. Not for me. By marrying me, Lucien knew that he wouldn't have to return. I was his convenient excuse." She gave one of her lovely smiles. "He never would have brought me or our children here to face this scorn—"

"He would have defended you—"

"But why live where you must be defended?"

Jean had no answer. Instead, she took the teapot inside to be refilled and to give herself a breather.

When she returned, Mei Lin held out her cup for it to be topped off. Jean poured automatically.

"My father was a prominent Singapore businessman. His house was full of servants. I did nothing for myself as a girl. I wouldn't have known how to make my own tea. Even after our marriage, our house had a staff enough that I only had to put my cup out like that—" She sipped. "I was the wife of a military officer, not a country doctor. My obligations and entertainments were very different than what would be expected of me here."

"But surely love overcomes that," Jean protested.

"The strength of love is vastly overrated." Mei Lin's cup clanked against the saucer. "It's fragile. Ours shattered, was beaten and broken. You would not try to glue this cup back together if I dropped it. Even if you did, you would always know where the cracks were. You'd not use it again, would you?"

Jean could only shake her head. "I'm so sorry," she repeated.

The two women ate small sandwiches in silence, then Mei Lin spoke again: "I get up every morning and my first thought is, will I kill myself today?"

Jean started in shock. "No!" she cried out but Mei Lin ignored her distress. She was in her own place.

"So far, I've said no. But everything I do is an effort." She took Jean's hand lightly, barely a touch at all. "When Lucien opened his door, I almost didn't know him. The face was the same, but his eyes...That was not my wicked boy, my dashing officer, my lover...it was a stranger, and yet it was familiar. The next time I looked in the mirror, I saw the same eyes." The grip tightened on Jean's fingers. "I can't help him, Jean. I need to take care of myself. There's nothing left for him. And bless him, he can't take care of me. To look into my eyes everyday, it would kill him eventually.

"The woman I was then was for that life. He is his full dress uniform and me in a satin bias cut gown. The cocktails flowing. The gay parties, the lovely wife always laughing—I haven't truly laughed since before the war. I'm not angry about it, I'm not sad, I just am. Perhaps we could have fallen in love with these new selves, but he was already in love with you. He's a very loyal man, I assume that you've come to see."

Choking on her words, Jean said, "I keep saying that I'm sorry. But I can't think of anything else to say. I've held his loyalty to you with such regard all these years. Of course I would step aside for it when you returned. And now it turns out I'm the only one who felt that she was being unfaithful to that marriage?"

Both women had laughed, but tears glistened in their eyes. Jean had learned what a strong woman that Mei Lin was when she could not be desueded from leaving for Hong Kong. Although Jean accepted that, she was glad they would be visiting Mei Lin and Li and her family during their wedding trip. She needed to know that they were doing well.

That flamed her anger again. How could Lucien think that Jean wouldn't accept any responsibilities that God chose for them? Although what wasn't really his question, was it? Did she want a baby? Rather than answer the question, she turned away from the mirror and snapped off the bathroom light.

Jean entered the kitchen, empty but for the ice bucket with its melted ice and champagne sitting on the table. She filled a glass at the sink, drinking thirstily before putting on the kettle for a cup of tea. She heard the bedroom door open but Lucien didn't join her; he was just a shadow passing through the hall on the way to the toilet.

Lucien's first night in the house had ended with him passed out in his father's bed. The second day, he'd roamed like a great golden cat, a bottle loosely grasped in his hand, but he didn't drink in Jean's sight. Jean had forced herself to go about her usual tasks, cleaning, then some bookkeeping for the practice, before it was finally four o'clock and she could start supper. Smoothing her hands down her apron to still their shaking, she sought him out, slumped on the bench in his father's office, leafing aimlessly through medical journals.

"Did you want anything in particular?"

He looked up blearily. "What?"

"For supper."

He waved his hand. "I'll find something later."

They needed to start as they intended to go. "I am the housekeeper," Jean told him. "One of my duties is to prepare meals."

He continued to stare at her. "Don't bother."

"I'll slice some bread and cheese. There's a cold sausage in the icebox. I'll heat it up." She felt as though she were offering a scrap in her outstretched hand to that shivering dog. Just as the dog would, Lucien turned his shaggy head away.

"Come on then," she said briskly, but he remained rooted to the bench. She headed to the kitchen anyway and started preparing the simple meal, and finally heard hesitant steps following.

"Ta," he mumbled when she put the plate down before him.

"You're welcome."

She'd felt such a flush of victory in that moment but it was short-lived. He insisted on washing his own plate and fork, then had disappeared into the dim office. As she finished cleaning up, she heard the front door open then close and he was gone. When she checked the office, the scotch bottle was missing. She'd eventually gone to bed after locking the doors for the night. Her sleep was undisturbed, and in the morning, there was no sign of him anywhere. Apparently the dog wasn't housebroken yet.

She heard music coming from the studio; the phonograph had a jazz record playing. Might as well face him. She'd been childish to flee as soon as she felt that uncomfortable twist at her gut. He always found a way to tear back the curtain and blaze sunlight into her inner thoughts. Which irritated her considering how much he had lived in darkness when he'd first returned to Ballarat.

Carrying her cup of tea, she drifting into the room. Naked but for his new dressing gown, Lucien was bent at the fireplace, encouraging a fire that he'd started. He hadn't combed his hair, and the tufts of wayward curls made her fingers tingle, wanting to run through them. But she lingered in the doorway, indecisive. He glanced over his shoulder.

"Come get warm. I'll leave."

He sounded so defeated that she shook her head. "Would you like some tea?"

He sat in one of the chairs, hands on his thighs as though readying for execution. "No, thank you," he said formally. She noticed that he already had a drink; a glass of scotch was on the table beside him. So it turned out that making love to her wouldn't stop him from drinking.

She sat on the sofa at the far end from him. Nervously, she sipped her tea and extended her feet to warm them on the fire. Out of bed away from his toasty body, she was cold.

"I was out of order—"

"I suppose we should have talked about this before the wedding—"

They spoke over each other. She allowed him to go first.

"I'm a doctor. I should have thought about this before...but honestly—" He flashed that wicked dimpled smile of his. "Ever since you accepted my proposal, I've been more focused on the act and not the consequences."

She tried to keep from smiling back and failed. He oozed out of his chair to sit on the other end of the sofa. She stopped his progress by saying: "Really? I wouldn't have known."

He was astonished.

"I thought perhaps you'd gone off me," she admitted.

"How could you—"

Visions of Mei Lin in her lovely gowns, her tall, handsome husband in his dress whites, strolling in gardens of tropical blooms under a summer moon like a couple in South Pacific. Instead of Jean cooking supper in her housecoat, scolding Lucien to come away from his work, to wash his hands and sit down to corned beef and mash. How could she ever compare?

When he took her hand, she was startled to realise that somehow he had moved to right beside her.

She raised her chin defiantly. "I assumed I'd at least get a quick kiss and a cuddle when I came by the house. But nothing." She didn't like the edge in her tone when she said this.

Though he just held her hand, he stroked the inside her wrist with his thumb. "If I started, I knew that I wouldn't be able to stop," he said, his voice deep.

She shrugged. "Everyone thought that we were doing this for years. Might as well have enjoyed ourselves."

Seeing the dawning on his face of what he could have had, forming a thought bubble over his head with bloody hell in block letters, gave her great satisfaction. Then his eyes narrowed as though she'd somehow challenged him to a dare.

His mouth was at her ear, the heat of his body searing her from shoulder to elbow. "Earlier, I didn't tell you what effect that you had on me."

"You liked my bum if I remember," she said, fighting to resist his pull.

"It had been so long since I'd been in the company of a lady," he said. "There were the years of the war with no women at all, then afterward...I was working. The women I'd been around weren't anything like you."

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, but was unbent.

"You were—are so overwhelming feminine. You smell of violets, you hum love songs under your breath, the swish of your slip under your skirt, watching you polish your nails in the evening, the moist air in the bathroom after you've bathed..."

"I never would have guessed," she said, stunned.

"I didn't want to embarrass you...or myself."

They both had suffered their pride for four years, she conceded. "That's a consideration," she mused. "What would people say if we came up pregnant! The way they talk about us now; I can't even imagine."

"Damn what people say," he grumbled. But he jumped on her remark. "So it's a possibility? I was afraid that I'd reminded you of some loss—"

She stopped him with: "I don't want to be one of your cases to solve, Lucien. The question was just a shock, that was all."

He held up his hands. "Understood."

After a moment though, she haltingly told her what had happened. "I married Christopher as soon as I left school, and fell pregnant on my wedding night, of all things. I thought I'd have the large family that seemed to be the lot of the other farmers' wives. Only town women could afford to do anything about it. Even though I didn't relish that sort of burden, I would have wanted at least one daughter, as much as I adore my boys."

"I loved watching you with Mattie," he said out of the dimness and she squeezed his fingers.

"But things...well, things happened. I had a tough time with Jack's birth...There were stitches and such," she said quickly. Even though Lucien was a doctor, he wasn't her doctor, and she didn't want him regarding her like a patient. "He was a colicky baby; I don't think I slept for a year. Christopher Senior was understanding, and we found other ways to...entertain ourselves." Now she was blushing furiously but she could feel Lucien smiling at her.

"Then the crops started to fail. We grew cabbages, turnips, beetroot at the time. Terrible root maggots swept through the area. Nothing could get rid of them. We nearly lost the farm. Christopher had to travel, finding work wherever he could. I went to work as well, cleaning house, cooking. Danny's mum Trisha could look after my boys along with her own. It was tough times. Christopher was away for months on end, and no more babies from the few times we were together.

"We finally had enough money to try and start anew with canola and lettuce, some beef cattle. But that meant laying out for new equipment, seed. Things were tight." She raised her chin, the assault on her pride still stinging after all these years.

"Oh, my love—"

She had started; she'd keep going. "I had a pregnancy and lost it, then another. I was worried enough to see Dr Blake. He told me that I wasn't getting enough nutrition, that I wouldn't hold a pregnancy. Then the war came. And that was that."

Lucien had put his arm around her shoulders, gripping her tightly. She hadn't noticed. He pressed his lips to her temple. "I'm so very sorry."

"What's done is done."

"Not for that. For never having asked about how you ended up...in these circumstances. The debt, losing the farm—" He was utterly sickened to think of Jean malnourished.

She rested her hand on his thigh. "What about you? Had you and Mei Lin wanted more?"

"Like you, the first pregnancy came quickly. But Mei Lin also had difficulties after Li's birth. We'd thought she was pregnant again when Singapore fell...I'm such a coward."

"Why so?"

"The whole time that she was here, I meant to ask...But she'd gone through so much. Had so much pain. I just couldn't hurt her again."

Remembering how astutely Mei Lin had known his motives, she gave his leg a squeeze. "I'd think that you'd want a son?" she said cautiously.

He laughed, but it was a harsh sound. "I'd have liked to be a father to my daughter, to be there for her first day of school, her first dance, to give her away at her marriage. All I've been is the bull in the breeding shed."

Shocked at his anger, she still leaned into him, understanding it.

He pulled her closer. "I will defer to you. If you want to let nature take its course, then so be it. But I won't ask for anything that you don't want—"

Of course he wouldn't. As far as they'd come, she still sensed that wild dog, shying away from her touch. She wrapped her arm across his belly and pulled him tight to her.

"Carol Marchant and her change of life baby," she said. "Ten years after the last of her first eight. She and Fred don't seem to know what to do with him. She tells me how Brian tires her out—"

"But look at Julia and Hank Spector. They're thrilled at their surprise baby after all those years married—" He chuckled in her ear. "Every chap gives Hank guff in the pub about finally throwing a triple twenty."

Jean rolled her eyes. "She dresses Sam like a little prince, treats him like her baby doll. I wouldn't want that—" Then she remembered the pictures of a young Lucien Blake in all his ridiculous velvet suits and patent leather boots and decided to stop there.

Lucien stroked the fine hairs at her temple and fell silent as well. He didn't give voice to the other stories he knew. The Childs' change of life mongoloid baby, sent off to live the rest of his life in a home. The other women who'd begged him end their pregnancies, that one more baby which couldn't be afforded or cared for. And why didn't he mention this? Instead, he said: "So you're off the idea?"

She couldn't tell if he was relieved or disappointed. Knowing Lucien, he probably felt both emotions. She lifted one shoulder in half a shrug. "I'll need to think about it some more."

He kissed her neck lightly. "You don't have to make up your mind right this minute. We can just...how did you say it? Entertain ourselves for the time being. We can always pick up some preventative measures in Melbourne before leaving for our honeymoon."

She pursed her mouth in mock outrage. "You do seem to have a one track mind."

"I am a bridegroom who's been married for—" He squinted at the clock. "For not even twelve hours. You bet I've got one thing on my mind."

She noticed something missing from the picture shelf over the fireplace. "Lucien! Where's the portrait of Agnes?"

He rose to fuss with the fire without answering.

"You finally gave it to Patrick? But why—"

"I was going through more paperwork of father's," he said, his back still to her. "I found his bank book from the time of the painting's purchase by Patrick's father. Only there was no deposit. I asked Patrick for a cancelled cheque to prove that it had been paid for. He couldn't produce it."

"I thought that he'd given in a bit too easily over the painting remaining with you."

"He believed that I'd treat him with more respect if he seemed to be manamous."

"But...you didn't sell it to him now! He will destroy your mother's work to get at the painting he really wants."

"I asked Agnes and she agreed it would be what my mother would have done for us."

"That's how you're paying for the honeymoon?" Jean fell back in the sofa's cushions. "Oh, Lucien, we should have saved the money for something practical. The roof will need replacing soon enough—"

"My mother would have wanted us to do something special and romantic. Not pay for a new roof." He turned to face her, his hands on his hips, looking very manly and stubborn.

Jean could only shake her head. Yes, mother and son were two of a kind. Their first serious row as a couple had been about the honeymoon. He's presented her with the purchased tickets for a ocean liner to Southampton, where they'd travel to London and Edinburgh to see his old haunts, as well as visit Mattie who hadn't been able to attend the wedding. Then across the Channel to tour the continent, visiting some of his familiar places and to discover new ones. After that, to board another ship in Marseilles to go through the Suez Canal and back around to Hong Kong, saving the most emotionally fraught place for last. After getting over her shock, Jean had fought him tooth and nail. Yes, they could certainly visit Mei Lin and Li, now living with family in Hong Kong, and assure that they were settled and comfortable. But the extravagance! Who would care for his practice if they were gone for months? Cover the police surgeon duties?

He had had an answer for everything. Jean deserved the trip after a lifetime in Ballarat. He should get away and take a proper holiday. Mattie, near engaged to a London surgeon, wouldn't return to Australia any time soon and desperately wanted to see her surrogate parents. Lucien wanted Jean to meet his daughter and granddaughter. A bright young doctor from the hospital was happy to look after the general practice. And of all things, Matthew had suggested that Alice come out of the depths of the morgue to attend at the crime scenes.

Lucien was relentless. Finally realising that she was going to have to let this go, Jean had, but it had been a lead weight at the back of her mind, the great expense keeping her from truly looking forward to the trip.

But at hearing this news, she launched herself into his arms. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked.

"I wanted to surprise you," he said, confused.

She bit back her frustration. He'd actually made her more angry by not telling her the secret. Welcome to marriage, Lucien Blake. But before she could lecture him on this, she ran her hand across the lovely new dressing gown that was her gift to the groom. Would she ever confess that his Chinese gown always made her feel uncomfortable, as a symbol of this radically different life which could take him away from her at any time? Not likely.

She tugged the gown open. "I'm hoping that you're sated enough to give me a chance to get a look at what I've got myself into," she said, feeling quite wicked.

He grinned. "What's the show in some old bloke's body?"

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "You're fishing for a compliment."

He laughed, but let the gown drop. The flickering fire cast shadows across his limbs and wide shoulders and frustratingly clothed his modesty. She could see a few faint scars across his chest but he didn't flinch when she traced them and followed with kisses. He had washed up in the bathroom, and smelled of sandalwood with just a tinge of his carbolic soap from work. She ran her thumbs down his spine as her lips peppered his chest. When she reached the swell of his buttocks, she took two great handfuls and squeezed, giggling at his growl. She felt the twitch of his rising erection against her belly.

"Lucien," she gasped. "When will you run out of steam?"

He took at that as an invitation and slid his hands under her satin gown to do his own exploration. "It's been a very long time," he confessed. "The boiler is full to bursting."

A question that had been on her mind: "A very long time?"

He cupped her face and kissed the corner of her mouth. "No, I didn't sleep with Joy."

She dropped her gaze. "It's not my business—"

"But you wanted to know?"

Her fingertips made swirling patterns on his flanks but she didn't reply to his questioning tone.

He should let it drop... "She did offer."

"And you told Patrick that you wanted to in front of everyone at the Colonial Club." Jean moved back to the couch and pulled her gown tightly closed.

Still naked, he came to kneel before her. "Yes, I did. But every time I considered going to Melbourne, really doing it, I found myself asking, what would Jean think of me?"

"I had no claims to you." Keeping her gaze steadfastly on anything but his imploring face, she stared at the artist's jointed figure model on the shelf. It seemed to be dancing with happiness.

"Yes, you did. Even though neither of us quite knew what to do about it."

Tears shimmered in her eyes. "I just wanted you to be happy. If being with her had made you happy—"

"It just would have been sex, Jean. Just sex."

"Plenty of men can be a good husband and have sex with other women." She wasn't sure what she was asking but it felt very important.

"Not me."

"But Mei Lin said—"

"That was before we were married. And I suppose if I'd know that she'd slept with my friend, I may not have pursued her. Those sort of things will tend to end in messes...Which it did."

She hated seeing the self-loathing on his face. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulled him into a kiss. He seemed to take that as a signal that the conversation was over and swept her gown open. Pulling free from her mouth, he started kissing down her body, ignoring her grumble of displeasure at the loss of the kiss. He supported his weight over her as he eased her back to recline. Seeing the abrasions on her skin from his beard, he stayed whisper-soft, his tongue lapping at the burns, palming her breasts as lightly as soap bubbles.

He was killing her. She arched off the cushions, moaning with agony, her fingers tugging at his short hair ineffectually. Her pelvis found purchase on his belly and she rolled against the solid surface.

Seeming to ignore her need, he kept moving down her body. His tongue slipped around her belly button as his fingertips tickled at the backs of her knees. She giggled and gasped and grumbled at him.

"No worries," he mumbled, nipping at her hipbone. "I've got this."

His bloody arrogance—she slapped his arm. But then he raised her leg and draped it over his shoulder, and she felt a cool rush of air before his head descended between her legs. Giving a yelp of shock, she wiggled away.

He rocked back on his heels. "I'm sorry—you haven't—"

She pushed her curls off her flushed face. "No, really, I was just...surprised," she said lamely. She had a vague idea of what he planned to do, but Christopher had never been that...entertaining.

His palms stroked at her thighs. She hadn't closed her legs. "Do you trust me?" he asked, his voice husky. He leaned in to kiss her gently, and she could feel that he was trembling with need.

"Of course." She patted his cheek awkwardly.

"I want to make you feel...good."

She rushed to say, "You do! You don't have to—" She waved her hand in the general direction of her lower half.

He returned to kissing her body, first along her collarbone, then to suckle her breasts. Catching his breath as he moved to one from the other, he told her, "But I want to."

Still stiff, she leaned back into the pillows. "Alright," she said, sounding a bit too bright. "If you insist." She was very grateful that she'd taken the chance to wash up.

His laugh was muffled on her belly. He carefully placed her leg back over his shoulder but this time started kissing her inner thighs, soft and slow. She forced herself to breathe in and out deeply, to the point that her head swam. The gold flecks on the ceiling started to slowly rotate and sparkle like stars. The first pass of his tongue was so light she wasn't sure if he'd really done it or it was her imagination. She grabbed one of his hands and clung to it as his lips found their target and he suckled, first gentle, then with more vigor, until her breaths became vocal. She chanted his name because she had no idea what to say.

"I'm right here," he gasped against her leg, panting himself. Before she could come back to her body, his fingers joined the exploration, and he slipped one, then another into her heat. Her head slammed back on the cushion and her hips rose to meet his caresses. Through her blurred vision, she saw the flash of his triumphant grin in the dimness, but before she could rebuke him, his head dipped back down. She was now swollen and tender, and all he had to do was give another pass with his tongue and she was undone.

Her heel drummed on his back, and she called his name again, this time a shout of joy. Her limbs jolted, then were alight, the fire's flames reflected on her sweaty skin. She collapsed, loose and sated. She could finally speak. "Lucien..."

His head rested on her thigh and he nosed against her hip. "Mmmm?"

"That was..." She had to find the right word...What was the right word?

"Entertaining?"

She tried to slap his shoulder but had no strength so it was a friendly pat. He grinned at her again.

"Ah, my knees," he groaned as he pushed himself up to stand.

She gazed up his sturdy body, dappled with firelight, to meet his gaze. "I could—" Reaching out lazily, she traced her fingertips along his hip's red scar and this time he didn't flinch. Swinging around to sit upright, she came face to face with his own urgent need. She gripped his length firmly until his head snapped back, sliding her fist up and down just slowly enough to make him groan. She knew men enjoyed this sort of thing, but the glisten of moisture at the tip reminded her of whispered conversations that women had, adding only vague, frightening tidbits to her frustratingly limited amount of sexual knowledge. Still, she was game for whatever Lucien wanted. "Or..." She licked her lips, being unknowingly provocative.

He gasped out, "I couldn't ask—" as she continued her caresses.

"Lucien," she scolded and glared up at him. He looked down at her, his fingertips ghosting along her cheekbones. She saw what he wanted. His gaze wasn't lustful, but held wistful yearning.

Leaning back in the couch cushions, she opened her arms and he came to her. Her legs went around his waist, pulling him deep. Eager, his arousal tight strung, he thrust with frantic strokes. He began to shudder, his strong limbs twitching. She was learning his responses now and she clung to him, ready to ride through his release.

He panted, "Jean, I can't—" He tried to slide free from her.

"Don't," she demanded breathlessly, "I want this," holding him tight as waves passed through his body.

When he collapsed beside her on the couch, he whispered, "Me too. I want one too."

Nestled securely between Lucien and the couch cushions, she laced her fingers with his before laying their twined hands on her lower belly. The fire had burned down to embers, and their bodies were bathed red. The stars were only faint pinpricks of light in the blackness above them. But she felt bright and glowing with the possibilities of their future. A child may not happen, but for both of them, hope was a risk that they were willing to take.

He nudged her. She glanced over and he was grinning at her. She tipped her forehead to press against his and smiled back. The ceremony had been half a day ago, but she felt as though their vows had just been blessed.

~ end Chapter 3