They sat together on the love-seat, Jack angled into the corner and Phryne reclined against his chest, each with a drink in hand. Always before the distance they had kept between them had felt unnatural, a necessary but unpleasant boundary that had prevented them from truly relaxing together. Now for the first time, helped by the liquor and the exhaustion that was now gnawing at both of them, they could both be completely at their ease.
Phryne trailed the fingers of her free hand along the arm wrapped around her, and felt Jack press a kiss to the side of her head in response. After a long and trying two days, she was finally warm and comfortable, and her aching body melted gratefully into his.
Jack felt Phryne progressively relaxing against him, and removed her half-finished drink from her increasingly slack fingers just before she loosed it completely. He set it on the table alongside his own empty glass, and pressed another gentle kiss to her hair.
"Perhaps you should go to bed?" he suggested.
"Are you trying to seduce me?" she teased.
To her surprise, he placed his lips against her ear, close enough for her to feel the tantalising warmth of his breath, before whispering "not tonight."
She was distracted from formulating a response by the sudden shrill of the doorbell, and, a moment later, the sound of her aunt's imperious tones addressing Mr. Butler.
"Ugh, not tonight," she sighed.
Jack started to rise, but fell back when he realised that Phryne wasn't moving. Positioned as they were, he couldn't go anywhere unless she moved first.
"Perhaps we should adopt a less intimate position," he advised.
"You think this is intimate?" Phryne responded suggestively. "She's going to find out about us sooner or later, you know."
"I'd prefer later, and not with me pinned under you on the settee," he hissed, as Mr. Butler entered to announce the arrival.
"Yes, send her in," Phryne replied, still without moving, and a moment later Mrs. Prudence Stanley swept into the room.
Whatever she had been about to say died on her lips as she took in her niece's position and companion. The look she gave Jack reminded him of a proud housewife regarding an unwanted and filthy stray puppy brought home by one of her children. He could almost see her lips forming a command that Phryne take him back to wherever it was she had found him, and leave him there.
But Phryne wasn't a child, and was unlikely to give him up simply because her aunt said so. He met the older woman's gaze evenly, knowing that if he did not she would immediately identify him as the weak link in the relationship and use whatever means of persuasion were available to her in an attempt to convince him to end it.
"Aunt Prudence, how good of you to come," and now Phryne rose, languorously, to face her aunt.
"Oh my dear, did you really expect me to stay away?" Just for a moment, Mrs. Stanley's High Society facade cracked, and she regarded her niece with something that might almost have been affection.
"Of course not." Phryne clasped her aunt's hands.
"Such a terrible accident, my dear. But of course, I've told you before, those things are dangerous, and hardly suitable for a woman to drive. You should have had a man with you," this with an accusatory glance at Jack, who had also risen to stand quietly at Phryne's back. "But then, you're always so ridiculously stubborn about these things."
"Yes, aunt. It was a bit of rotten luck to lose the car." She paused artfully. "I don't suppose you happen to have my purse with you, by any chance?"
"Of course I do." The woman reached behind her, to where Mr. Butler was standing discreetly in the doorway, and he passed the bag across. Phryne at once sat down to rummage through it, provoking a sniff from her aunt.
"I can assure you, everything's still there. Even your gun," – she pronounced the word as another person might have said 'rat' – "although I notice you weren't carrying a handkerchief."
Jack forced his face to remain blank, suddenly very aware of the missing handkerchief still lying carefully folded in the breast pocket of his jacket. Phryne, however, appeared not to have heard.
"Thank you, aunt. I'm grateful to have them back in my possession."
"Very good." There was an awkward silence. "Well, I won't stay for tea, my dear. You still look more than a little peaky." She turned her gaze back to Jack. "You're hardly the suitor I would have chosen for her, but as you seem to be the only person capable of exercising any form of influence over her behaviour, I won't stand in your way." With that, she headed for the door.
Phryne and Jack remained motionless until they heard the front door close, then turned to one another.
"Did your aunt just give me her blessing?" Jack asked, surprised.
Phryne smiled. "In her own unique way."