Author's Note: It's been a very long time, but I'm back. A huge thank you to all the people who have continued to read and review my fics - you have no idea how much I appreciate seeing your kind words appear in my mailbox.
As always, very special thanks go to FoxFireside - I will forever be grateful to MFMM and the MFMM fandom for bringing such a wonderful friend into my life.

Part One: Prelude

ARRIVED SAFELY. LETTER FOLLOWS. YOURS.

Jack smiled, although the weight that had settled in his chest as he drove away from the airfield a week before was still there. She had made good time, he thought, and, more to the point, she had made it at all, travelling half-way across the world in something he struggled to think of as anything other than a flying death-trap. Because if anyone could achieve such a feat, it was his Phryne.

His.
He re-read the telegram, his gaze drawn irresistibly to that last word. She could have signed it 'Phryne'. Or 'P.F.' Or given a lengthier farewell: it wasn't as though she were unable to afford a more loquacious message. No, her choice of words had to be deliberate, and he smiled just a little more broadly, although it still wrung his heart. She had signed herself 'yours' because she had decided – at long last – that she was indeed his, and had employed the economy of the telegram to her advantage in telling him so. He wondered what her promised letter might say, and how long he might have to wait for it. Several months, perhaps. It was not as if a letter could travel by aeroplane, or be transmitted through the wires like a telegram. But there was no reason he couldn't write to her before then. He folded the message carefully and placed it in his breast pocket, alongside the picture of her that he had taken to carrying there. He would write to her tonight, when he got home.

...

Phryne had lasted three days at Norfolk House before removing herself to her flat in London. Had Jack been with her, she thought, he probably would have dragged her away on the very first morning, when breakfast had ended with her almost throwing a pot of marmalade at her father.

It had started innocuously enough, as it usually did, with her mother attempting to make polite conversation.

"Now darling, I hear all kinds of alarming stories from your aunt, but have you managed to meet any suitable young men during your time back in Melbourne?"

"No dear, because she's managed to settle on an entirely unsuitable one," her father responded before she could think of a single word to say.

"Father..." Her tone was low, warning. She thought she had already made it clear on the journey home that the subject of Jack Robinson was entirely off-limits.

As he always did, her father ignored her. "She's managed to fall head-over-heels for some stiff-necked policeman who follows her around like a puppy dog."

"Oh, Phryne." Her mother looked, as she so often did, disappointed. "Not that Detective Inspector Robinson that your aunt keeps mentioning? He's hardly a suitable match. You'll be a baroness one day, you have your future to think of. A dalliance here or there is one thing, but it really is time that you settled down, and not with some colonial thief-taker."

"That 'colonial thief-taker' saved father's life, and mine, not to mention bringing Janey's killer to justice." Phryne's tone had been acid.

"Darling, that doesn't entitle him to-"

"It entitles him to your gratitude, if nothing else, and a little respect."

Her mother looked baffled. "Respect? For a-"

"For a decent, honourable, hardworking man. Not that you'd recognise one of those if you tripped over him in the street."

"How dare you talk about your father like that?"

"Phryne, don't speak to your mother like that."

"Or what? You'll lock me in the cupboard until I rethink my ways? I don't give a damn about the barony, and Jack's a better man than you'll ever be. And as for you," she turned to her mother, "I don't know what Aunt Prudence has told you, and I don't care. If it wasn't for you finally choosing now to threaten to leave father, I'd still be living happily in Australia, rather than being here trying to solve your problems!"

"Don't you dare raise your voice to your mother!"

"Don't you dare try to tell me who I can and cannot fall in love with!"

"Young lady, as long as you are under my roof-"

"I can assure you I have no intention of remaining here any longer than is absolutely necessary!"

"Leave this table, right now!"

And she had grabbed the marmalade and been all set to throw it at him when she had seemed to hear Jack's voice sounding slightly desperate in her ear: "Miss Fisher, please!" And so she had slammed the jar back down on the table, turned on her heel, and stormed from the room. It had not be an auspicious start.

...

Nonetheless they had persevered because they all, her father, her mother, and she herself, realised that the future of the Barony of Richmond-Upon-Thames, and the estate, and everyone who depended upon the estate for their living, rested upon the decisions they made next.

"No."

"But Phryne, the gentleman who sold me those shares promised me they'd triple in value within the next twelve months."

"I don't care what he promised you, those shares are so speculative you'd probably be better off burying the money in the garden and hoping it produces a money-tree! Wool. Wheat. Meat. Beer. No matter what the economy does, people will always need food to eat and clothes to wear. And somewhere to live, but God knows you don't need any more land. Don't you have someone to advise you? Well?" she prompted, after a moment's uneasy silence.

"Well... Yes, I did. But he was like you, always banging on about risk. He was never interested in going after the big rewards."

"That's because those 'big rewards' always come with an even bigger risk. Honestly, father, you haven't changed at all: once a gambler, always a gambler. Could you please, just for once, for mother's sake if nothing else, try to understand the necessity of taking a more cautious approach."

"Well, what do you suggest?"

"Give me authority to act on your behalf. Let me go to London and tidy up this mess: get you out of all these high-risk investments before anything can go too drastically wrong, and find a new financial advisor to look after your interests in the future. And then promise me that you'll actually listen to him. And don't borrow any more money!"

Perhaps, after all, it was just as well that Jack hadn't been there to drag her away because after several more rows, including one in which her father slapped her across the face, she got her own way, and when she did finally depart for London she left with every financial document a very thorough search of the manor could produce and her father's written authority to act as his agent. And a split lip that would take several days to heal and which she rather wished Jack had been there to witness.

...

Dearest Jack

As promised, here is my letter, no doubt the first of many. I wish more than anything that you really would come after me, but I do understand that in asking that I asked far too much. So I shall ask this of you instead: wait for me. Wait for me, Jack, because I have every intention of coming home to you. You have never been just another artist, another dancer, another lover to me. I love you dearly, and if I have one regret in all our time together it is that I have given you ample cause to doubt that.

At first glance, my father's financial situation appears complicated, but less dire than I feared. With luck I should be able to resolve matters here within a few months, and then rest assured that I shall be winging my way homeward.

Yours with all my heart,
Phryne