Chapter 7
Two days had passed since Healer Kirk had seen her and as Jane opened her eyes, she found she felt much better than she had the day before. Though still weaker than she was used to feeling, she found when she got up the world was not spinning and her head was not banging.
Delighted by this turn of events, she managed to get out of bed. She knew she was meant to stay there for longer than she had yet but she had always sworn Kirk was a miracle worker and he had proved her right once more.
Showering before she did anything else she felt the hot water work out some of the knots in her back and she found herself smiling a little to herself, her usual good mood to some degree restored.
Though she knew they were meant to be going out and doing things about Paris that holiday, she could not yet say she felt up for leaving the villa. But now she was back on her feet, at least she might convince the lads to go and have some fun. There was no need for all four of them to be house bound while she was in this state. It wasn't fair on them.
Before they knew it, they were going to be back in September and Lucius was going to have to be taking Draco back to the station so he might catch the train back to school. Why did she have to get ill when he was home she thought to herself. It was one of the only times of year they were all able to be together. How she longed for the old days...
She did not want to wreck summer.
Though she knew she was not hungry, she none the less made her way down to breakfast when she was dressed. Maybe she would at least manage some toast. She felt as if she had been on her own for days and she missed her boys when she was not with them. She was not a solitary creature by nature.
Besides, she knew she was going to have work to do. Even when they were at the villa, she was still housekeeper and she was going to have to go about that day to make sure everything was clean and they had enough food for all the nights they were there. She wondered if they were going to dine out one night while they were there.
They were bound too. They always did. She'd check with Lucius.
She had been about to sneak in to breakfast to surprise them all when her cover was blown by a delighted Max.
It was only to obvious he had missed her.
It had to be hard for him, didn't it? She had given him her undivided attention most of the time since she had got him and then Draco had got home and she had been much more concerned with her human child than her four legged one (and she knew she was always going to be the case when the apple of her eye was around). Then she had got ill and she had paid him no attention in days, not really. Lucius she knew had not wanted him to come in and disturb her. She had heard him trying to sneak in once to twice before being told sternly to get back downstairs.
"Did you miss me sweetheart?" She said as she picked him up and cuddled the pup close.
She knew she had missed him too. They were constant companions after all.
"Oh, you are such a rascal, Max," she said as she cuddle him close and smiled. She had taken him to his heart in no time at all and she missed their walks when she had been in bed. More than anything the pup kept her on her toes. Still, it was not as if she got a moments peace from her human family was it?
Wondering her way through the dining room, she could not say she was surprised by the fact they had chosen to have breakfast outside that day. The Malfoy's may be a pale lot, but she had learnt long ago they were still sun worshippers when it came to France.
They just burnt like bacon when they were in the sun.
"Morning," she said as she stepped out of the doors.
"Jane!" said Draco as he got up to give her a hug, so relieved was he to see her looking so much more like the women who had raised him.
"Hello my darling," she said as she place Max on the floor, kissed is forehead and held him tight. Oh she did missed him when he was away.
"How do feel?" said Lucius as he observed her. She was still pale to his eyes but her smile made up for it. "You know, Kirk said you were meant to be in bed today."
"Well, the potion he gave me makes me feel quite restored. Not one hundred percent, I grant you but well enough to be up and tending to my duty's about the house today." She said as Severus poured her a cup of tea.
"No duties today Jane. You rest." Severus told her as he poured her a cup of tea.
"You're not even meant to be out of bed!" Lucius protested again. What didn't she understand about the word 'rest;?
She knew she was going to be able to get on with her work when they were out of her hair and so if Lucius was going to be happier to think she would put her feet up for the day, then she was going to let him. What the eyes didn't see couldn't hurt the heart.
The truth was she felt she had been in bed to long already and she was an active person. She had never been one for sitting still even when she had been a child and Severus never remembered her lounging in one of the comfortable chairs of the common room in the one year he had been her head of house.
"Well, all the same it's good to see you so much more like your normal self," said Severus as Max jumped on to his mistress's lap, nearly falling off the other side before she put her hand out to steady him. It was only to clear to them all that she was paying far too much attention to them for his liking.
"Well, I am a little tired still but, yes, I feel a lot more like me." she said as she sat back in her chair. "So what are the three of you doing today?"
"Looking after you," Lucius shrugged.
"No, the three of you should go and do something with the time we have got. I really am doing a lot better. Go out, enjoy yourselves!"
"Well, if you insist... we could go to city and have a bit of a look around – I mean just go and get some air," said Lucius, knowing she would feel guilty if they did not go and do something with the day. His son looked in despair at the thought of having to leave her so soon after she had recovered.
"But we can do that when Jane is better," protested Draco but she shook her head.
"No, my darling, you are to go and have some fun and that is an order," she said as she sat back and ruffled Max's head who settled down in contentment on her lap.
"But -"
"No buts, Draco."
In the end, the boys did go out for the day as Jane wished and she got on with the accounts though she was told off for doing so when they got in. Draco made it clear he had found no joy in the day. Joining the men for dinner, she managed bred and butter as well as tomato soup.
When she was done, she went out to sit on the balcony. She took a book but didn't open it as she knew she wouldn't. Try as she may, reading bored her. Besides, as ever the view stole her attention away. It was such a favourite with them when they were away and she was noticing it more and more with every time they came.
There was something about being with the ones you loved at the end of the day watching the sun go down, she thought to herself. If you hadn't had it then there was no way you could know what you were missing but now she had had it, she did not want to miss it for anything in the world.
Sev seemed to have a different opinion that night though and did not come out. Draco soon said he was going for a shower and so she was left with just Lucius for company. Not that she minded.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"A lot better than I did. I think I am going to be ready to really get on with this holiday tomorrow."
"I am glad. The rest of us could have no fun if you weren't," he said to her with a faint and only half playful smile. She heard in his voice he had found the day as pleasurable as Draco had.
She did not know when they had fallen into this companionable stage of their relationship. And in part, she guessed she liked it. But it did have a way of making a relatively young girl feel old.
"Next week we are all going to have fun," She declared as she looked out on to the gardens. She wondered where she would have ended up had she not applied to be Draco's governess. God forbid that had happened because as much as she complained, she would never be without them. Not now. She couldn't be.
And the lord only knew what would have become of them without her. She wasn't so modest as to deny she had been the glue that held them together at times.
"I spoke to Healer Kirk before he left."
"Did you now? About me I take it," she questioned with a soft sigh, knowing whatever he came out with next she was not going to like it.
"Who else would see him in this house?"
"I trust him completely. He has always worked for me and he has made me better again now!" she said with a slight smirk. With Lucius, it was his way or the high way.
"He told me Jane," he said to her suddenly. He had been waiting all day to talk to her about her dad. He did not know if he should even bring it up. He knew he had put Kirk in a difficult position when he had made tell him what he knew but she had been so ill.
And now he knew, he could not ignore it.
"What did he tell you?"
"About your father."
Suddenly, once more, she seemed tired and old. She was pale and she had the saddest expression he had ever seen her wear on her face. He did not wish to trigger a relapse...
"Well, he should not have done that – it was a long time ago. And it sounds as if you know what there is to know," She shrugged her shoulder but even as she did so he saw her eyes well up with tears.
"He died in the war?"
She nodded, as if moving her head was painful. "Last Sunday of it. Got caught in the cross fire," she said as a tear dripped on to her cheek. He knew her throat probably felt tight and as she spook she lost the confidence he was used to seeing her with and begun to rock back and forth like a little child. She looked so lost. "I never found out who killed him. Could have been someone from either side. Just got his body back. And mum was never the same. I was eighteen years old."
She looked at her hands before she looked up at him defiantly. "Do you know what he said to me when the war broke out? He said 'Jane, love, you just remember this; If you don't look for trouble then it is never going to come to you. You just look after you and yours and you are always going to be ok.'" She laughed bitterly at the memory. "But it came to the all of us both the same." she said to him. "Trouble came to our door. He was a good man – a kind, sweet, gentle man, my dad. Wouldn't hurt a fly."
"I had no idea."
"It was not as if I could tell you when I was grieving. You were my employer then, you were not my friend and I was not part of your family." She reminded him. She did not know why he had had to bring it up. "It wasn't fitting that you did know."
Reaching out for her hand, he took it in his own and squeezed it.
"Do you see why I got so scared now? The thought of another A- Auror coming to the door to tell me what had happened to you or god forbid, D-draco is more than I can take now. This was not the plan you know - to stay with you both so long," she laughed. She would have her life no other way. And he knew it.
"What was the plan then?"
"Well, let me put it to you this way; I should have been a long time married by now," and then there was an obvious sadness in her voice. "I should be a mummy by now. Two little boys and two little girls," but then she shook her head. "Don't get the wrong idea Lucius. I am grateful to you both for the life you have given me and I never didn't want to be here. You and Draco are my life!"
"I know that Jane," he nodded, squeezing her hand again. He guessed part of him had always known what she had just said. That her life plan had never been to become permanently attached to a widower and his son.
But somehow when he had had heard it was the truth for sure, he had felt sad. Sad for her. Sad for him. And sad for his son. They had all been displaced. None of them had lived the lives they were meant too. Each of them had been knocked off track the night Draco had been born.
"And your mother?" he asked tentatively, almost scared of the response.
"Never forgave me for finding the first way out of home life. I saw the add that Draco needed a governess. I'd loved kids ever since I was one myself. Thought, 'yeah, I have nothing left to lose – I might as well go for the interview'. And then you gave me the job. My life begun that day Lucius, my real ... of course, I lived with her at first but we were never the same," she said as she sighed. She had not told him anything of her life before them since she had got to him and suddenly now she had started talking she could not shut up. But he did not want her to it seemed. "Dad was the glue that held us together apparently. She's my mum – and I love her. But we don't talk a lot. Not now."
He sat there stunned for a moment. He wondered at what cost she had given up her own family to join his and now he knew.
"I am so sorry."
"I'm not," she said and she knew she sounded callous. "If I had been a better daughter, then I would have put on my mourning robes and stayed with her till the day she died. But the fact is when dad died; I hated the house I grew up in. Couldn't turn into a single room without his ghost being there with me. And it was a small place. And I had to get out." she shrugged. "Things might have been different had my grandfather not been who he was."
This was the part of her story he had known all along. The Greenwoods were not perhaps the oldest of families but the pureness of their blood had never been called into doubt. That had been part of the reason he had hired her. But they had been fabulously wealthy too – until Jane's grandfather ...
"He gambled everything away – everything my father should have had. Everything I should have had. There was no question of me having a decent dowry with the accounts as they were – and no chance of a love match with my face."
"We men are idiots at times. One of us at least should have been able to see past it."
She shook her head as she got up. It was obvious she was done spilling her guts; he had never known till that night just how guarded she had been since he had come under his roof.
She walked towards the edge of the balcony and pulled the wrap around she had been wearing close to her.
"Well, no one has and they are not going to now," she said to him lightly as if it was of no great consequence to her. But he could see in the way she stood, it was. She had wanted to be matriarch of her own family. What's more, she would have been a brilliant mother. "So now you have it; my sad little sob story. Don't be sad for me. I am an extraordinarily lucky person. Really, Lucius, I cannot complain with the lot that life has given me. Even if you are not mine by blood, I do think you and Draco are my family in every other way now. Severus too... And I would not change a hair on any of your heads."
"And we would not change a hair on yours. And as it is, I think we all like your face – very much," he said to her. They shared a knowing smile.
"I am glad I did end up here. When I was a little girl all I ever wanted was a big brother or a sister. It is nice to have one at last," she said as she leaned up and hugged him. Affection had never been part of the relationship. When she had first come to the manor, it had been so professional he had never given her the chance to show him the affection she had for him and even had he; Lucius did not think she would have given him any, nor would he have received it too kindly. Not then anyway. Besides, she had been far too concerned with the well being of his son.
"And I am glad to have a sister I can count on," he nodded. That night, he wrapped her in his arms tight. He had never been much good at not having a woman in his life and so to have one who considered herself a sister to him worked well. There were no complicated strings – it just meant they could be companions for one another without her being a threat to his late wife's memory.
He had to admit no matter how close she had got to him and his boy over the years, she had always been appropriate with it. Even though it was pretty much what she had been to Draco over the years, he had never felt her trying to be his mum. She hadn't had to try. That had just happened naturally because of the way his son had treated her over the years. Lucius did not think Jane had had a choice in it. Draco had chosen her as a surrogate really once he was old enough too. He knew who his mum was; but if he needed Jane there full time to be a maternal influence then that was and always had been fine by him. Jane, even then, knew her place. Behind Cissy...
"If it is worth anything, I am sorry I was not there for you at a time when you could have done with a friend," said Lucius to her as he held her close.
But she shook her head. "It is worth a lot indeed. But none of us could change the past, can we? What is done is done. We can only change what is to be."
The two of them had been quite relaxed when they heard someone clear there throat behind the two of them.
"Nice shower, my darling?" said Jane naturally to Draco as she stepped out of his father's arms and begun to pick up their empty drink glasses. It was time she thought about going in and she knew it. She had not been one hundred per cent that day and she was emotionally drained as well now.
But she knew it had been worth it and she glad she had told him. He had had to know at sometime. And she felt as if she was not carrying the burden all alone now.
"Come on Max," she said as she walked in to the house. Turning to Lucius, she sighed. "Thank you." Then, she and the puppy went in.
"What was that about?" asked Draco as he looked at his dad with raised eye brows.
"The past," sighed his father and as he looked at Draco he felt very old. He wondered if the boy was going to feel as old as he did when he got to his age. He did not want him to. But then sometimes he thought he had lived more than one life in his lifetime. "I want you to grow up in a world of peace son. I don't think that is going to happen now though. And I am beginning to fear there is only so much I am going to be able to do to protect you from the storm when it blows in."
It had never occurred to Draco that Lucius doubted himself as a means of protection for him. As a dad yes but he had always been so sure he knew the way to keep him safe that it made him unnerved. Malfoy's were not meant to doubt themselves.
Reaching out he put a hand on his dad's shoulder.
Holding his sons hand in his own, Lucius kissed it and blinked away the hot feeling he had in his eyes and wished for the millionth time that Narcissa was there to tell him to get a grip on himself and everything was going to be ok.
The world seemed a scary place to have a child in all of a sudden and that was what his son was. A child. Or at least, he would always be a child to him.
"Go to bed son."
It had been years since his dad had told him what time to go to bed when they were on holiday and Lucius' behaviour did worry Draco. Whatever he had been talking to Jane about it had had an effect on him that was all he did know.
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