Daylight

It was a day like any other. Mattie was off on her district nursing rounds. Charlie was on duty at the police station. Lucien was seeing a patient in the surgery. Jean was in the kitchen washing up after breakfast. Everything was completely normal in the Blake house. For the moment, anyway.

Jean knew it was only a matter of time before the telephone rang and it would be Matthew Lawson asking for Lucien to come see to a dead body. Then he'd be in the autopsy with Alice and be home whenever he was finished, and he and Charlie would discuss the case at the dinner table, and Mattie would ask her questions, and Jean would give her opinion when the moment warranted. But that was all normal in its way, too. And Jean would not have done anything to change it.

Still, stagnation seemed to slowly close its fist around her. The excitement brought from William Munro and his irrational hatred of Lucien was gone, now. Doug Ashby had died when Lucien had learned the truth of his mother's death. But now Matthew was back at his post and everything had returned to normal. Such that it was.

The torment of it all had nearly caused Jean to leave. She had been ready to tell everyone that she was moving to Adelaide to be with Christopher and Ruby and their new baby, Amelia. But then the army posted Christopher to Indonesia for two years, and as much as Jean may have wanted an easy escape from her current situation, going to a foreign country was not at all an option for her. Ruby was managing well with Amelia, now that she'd gotten over her colic, and Christopher's last letter had been a very optimistic one indeed. Jean was pleased for her son, of course, but it did leave her in a bit of an uncomfortable position.

"Jean, I've just sent Claire Hoskins on her way. Next time she calls, remind her that she's got to be regular with her insulin or she's going to continue to feel listless," Lucien said as he breezed through the kitchen.

"I'll be sure to tell her," she replied.

"Thank you," he answered.

He moved behind her to get a glass of water and placed his hand on the small of her back. Innocent enough, surely. But Lord in heaven, why did he persist with such things? Didn't he know how inappropriate it was to be so…physical?

"Now then, what are you doing today?"

Jean blinked a bit to return to reality. "I've got the sheets to wash, and this afternoon I thought I'd get a start on polishing the silver. I know you never want us to use it, but it's been sitting there for so long. Most of those pieces were your mother's, weren't they?"

Lucien nodded. He was leaning back on the counter beside her and sipping from the glass of water he'd poured. "I won't stop you, but you needn't go to the extra work."

"It's my job to keep the house, and tarnished silver reflects poorly on my abilities and on the propriety of the household," she said tartly.

He chuckled, putting his empty glass in the sink. "I appreciate your dedication, Jean. More than I can say." He gave her shoulder a slight squeeze and then left, saying behind him, "I'll be in the study finishing those patient notes and getting a jump on the inventory."

Jean smiled to herself and gave a little sigh. Perhaps this normalcy wasn't so much stagnation. Perhaps things did not need to progress in any particular direction. Perhaps everything was as it needed to be. The clamoring of her heart might never quiet, but she knew that if she did anything to stop Lucien Blake from behaving as he did toward her or, heaven forbit, if she were to leave his presence altogether, Jean knew she would miss it. She would miss this desperate yearning she felt toward him. She would miss the small crumbs of affection he gave her. And she would miss feeling this dangerous hope for the possibility of something more.

"I hate this country," Harry grumbled as they stepped off the bus.

"Don't be rude. We're here to do a job and it wouldn't hurt you to remember that we're visitors," Ruth chided, following behind him with her holdall.

"Here, let me take that for you," he offered.

"No, thank you," she said for the thousandth time. "You might also remember that I'm your secretary and it isn't your place to carry my bags. I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself."

Harry sighed with weariness. "I know very well what you're capable of, Ruth."

"We're in public," she hissed.

He rolled his eyes. "Yes, Miss Evershed."

"I'll go speak to the porter." Ruth hurried away from her boss, somewhat frantic to have a moment by herself. The journey from London to Australia had been a very long one indeed. Crammed together on an airplane and then a train and then a bus. It was more time than they'd spent in each other's company in quite some time. Torturous, really.

And despite Ruth's insistence that they were sent to do an important job, that Sir Harry Pearce had been chosen by the Prime Minister to liaise with the various commonwealth Security Services, she did know the truth. Harry was being punished. They couldn't give him the sack because he was too important and he knew too much. But they did not want to let him do anything too risky or anything that required too much of his somewhat faulty judgement. And it was just the icing on the proverbial cake that he had been allowed to make Ruth go with him.

One might have been confused by that allowance, as Harry had just been relieved of his suspension for trading military secrets—faulty military secrets, but secrets nonetheless—in exchange for Ruth's life. He had defended himself from the inquiry with an objective report of Ruth's merits as his secretary and her usefulness to the Service, but that had been a convenient excuse. Ruth had been kidnapped by Soviet operatives to manipulate Harry. Ruth had been kidnapped because, after six years working as his secretary, everyone seemed to know that Harry would burn down the world for her sake. And he nearly had. And she knew she would never forgive him for it.

And now they were sent to the very edge of the earth, to Australia, to attend some pointless meetings with Australian Intelligence for the sole purpose of punishing Harry and Ruth by saddling them together and flinging them off where they couldn't be in the way of anyone else. They had absolutely no choice in the matter, and after the week of travel and initial introductions at the capital, they had figured out that they could do nothing but ceaselessly snipe at each other.

Ruth spoke with the porter about having their bags delivered to the hotel where they'd been booked. She'd made all the arrangements herself. She was a secretary. That was her job.

"Everything taken care of?" Harry asked, striding purposefully towards her.

"Yes, our luggage will be delivered. The porter is calling a cab for us now," she answered.

He nodded. "That's good."

"I don't think people around here are going to like us very much," she pointed out. It had not escaped her that every Aussie they encountered seemed to narrow his or her eyes upon hearing an English accent.

"Well I don't like them much either. Bloody prison colony. We won't be here long, so it shouldn't matter whether or not they like us," he replied gruffly.

"That's not a productive attitude," she chided.

"I'm not feeling very productive. After the bollocking we got in Canberra, I'm not feeling too pleasantly predisposed to being in the middle of nowhere in Australia."

"The city is called Ballarat. It's an important military position. It's mostly a mining town but it's seen its fair share of interesting things," Ruth informed him.

"You researched it before we got here, didn't you?" His eyes shone with pride at her.

"Yes, of course I did," she answered in slight annoyance.

Harry had to chuckle. "Good girl, Ruth."

She turned to him with fire in her eyes. "What was that, sir?"

His expression soured again. "Apologies, Miss Evershed."

Ruth gave a curt nod, hoping he'd remember propriety for the remainder of their week-long stay in Ballarat. "Come on, the taxi's here," she said. She did not wait for him as she hurried toward the waiting car.