THE HUNT

Disclaimer: I own nada.

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Chapter Twenty Two

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"Did you catch the fox?" Jane bombarded Phryne as she walked through the door.

"Well, hello to you too," Phryne laughed, grabbing the girl up in a quick hug. Who would have thought she would miss the girl so much? For somebody who was so set against having children she loved this one entirely. "I'm sorry to disappoint, but cousin Guy was shot whilst we were out hunting and everybody rather forgot about the fox."

"That's okay Miss," Jane sighed, though was obviously disappointed. Phryne, who was dead set against hunting foxes for sport, wondered if she could get her hands on one for Jane, then crossed it from her mind. No, she just could not justify it to herself.

"Any messages for me?" she asked.

Mr Butler delivered them into her hands. She sat down with them in the parlor whilst Mr B went off to make up a cocktail. No doubt his lady would want one. Perhaps he would make one for Dorothy as well. She looked rather shaken after the ride in the car. No, she wouldn't accept it, he thought with a sigh, sherry it would be for her.

"I'll just go unpack your things Miss," Dot said, still shaky on her feet from driving far too fast and being cursed at in language she had never even heard before.

Phryne made a noise that suggested she had heard and approved whilst she looked over her messages. A few from old friends, a few from people whom she had never met wanting her to help solve some mystery for them, and one from Mac that rather stood out. Urgent, it read.

"Mr Butler," Phryne asked when he returned with the drink she hadn't asked for but desperately needed, "when did this message from Mac come?"

"Yesterday Miss. I suggested she call you at the Everwood estate but she informed me it was not quite that urgent. She said she would not mind at all waiting for you to return home."

"Would you call her now and suggest we meet for tea at the Independent Ladies club?"

"Of course Miss."

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Mac informed her that the use of the word 'urgent' by her butler had been a slight exaggeration, though Phryne knew Mr B better than to believe he had exaggerated. There must have been something in Mac's tone when she had called to suggest the reason for her call was pressing. Whatever it had been, it was gone by the time they sat for dinner in the ladies club. The two drank whiskey and soda, with a slice of lemon, and talked about Mac's issue, which really was not her own. When Phryne returned to her home later that evening she had a new case with which to start on in the morning.

Phryne swung through the door and nearly ran into Dot. "The Detective-Inspector is waiting for you," she was informed. Dot's lips were pressed together and her eyes dropped to the ground in a way that was Dot's version of a wink. Phryne passed the girl her coat and went in search of her guest.

Jack stood with his back to the fire, a position customary of gentlemen. Phryne wondered if he would find the comment that he looked like a gentleman complimentary and decided he would likely feel indifferent about it. Jack Robinson, she mused, was a man often indifferent about things unless he felt strongly enough not to be. And in those matters where he was not indifferent Phryne had found him to be a really rather passionate man, although well disguised by his no-nonsense tone and clean-cut suits. He really was quite handsome, Phryne observed, standing there in her parlor with the fire at his back, looking all too like the gentlemen her Aunt P wished she would marry.

"Jack," she smiled, "what a pleasant surprise."

"I thought I would come to tell you that Mr Campbell is locked up in a cage that he is unlikely to ever get free of other than to walk to the hangman's noose."

"A pleasant thought," Phryne murmured sarcastically, but she smiled nonetheless. "A drink?"

"Sounds marvelous," Jack agreed. He wasn't saying something that he wished to, but Phryne judged he would tell her when he was ready. They sat and drank whiskey, provided by Mr B without having been asked, and waited.

"It was the war."

Phryne had an inkling that he was speaking about his nightmare, but not being sure, waited for him to elaborate.

"My dream this morning, it was the war. I was back there. I was…" he trailed off.

"You don't have to-"

"I do," Jack said softly before Phryne could convince him otherwise. He'd gone too long not talking about it. "I've never spoken to anybody about it."

Phryne, recognizing his need, sipped her drink and allowed Jack quiet and time with which he could string his thoughts together. She saw the pain in him and ached.

"It was at the Somme," he began quietly. With his words it were as if Phryne were transported there. She could see, as Jack described them, the falling bodies of men taken before their time. The smell of gas and blood was as strong as it had been when she stood on those fields herself. She could hear the rain of shells that deafened. Absently, she ran a finger over her own scar, hidden by her hair, where shrapnel had only just missed depriving her of the rest of her years. She could still see the blood, feel its warmth as it dripped down her face. Jack told the sad story of a bloke he'd been deployed with, the husband of one of his wife's pregnant friends, who had been standing right beside him when a bullet denied a child her father. He told of finding a German soldier who had nearly made it over no man's land, crawling not because he was trying to hide but because his leg had been blown off, of putting his gun against the boy's – he really was no older than a child – head and taking his life for that of his friend's.

When he trailed off again, Phryne went to him, kneeling and taking his hands in her's. She looked up into his eyes and said nothing.

Was it any wonder, he mused, that he was in love with this woman? He doubted any other female could have understood, his wife certainly wouldn't have. Wasn't that why he'd never told her? But then again, not many females had experienced the war for themselves. He longed to tell Phryne that he loved her, but didn't. Instead, he said, attempting to be lighthearted, "that's one thing crossed off the list of things we need to talk about."

"One of many," Phryne said softly, leaning down to kiss the hands she held in hers, the hands that had pulled the trigger ending another's life. She wanted to tell him that such things happened in war, that his actions that day did not make him a bad man, but knew he didn't need to be told, so she left the subject behind. "Do you want to start on the rest of them now?"

"Not quite yet," Jack told her. He was, he concluded, entirely happy not knowing where he stood with Phryne. Though the realization did cause him some shock. He loved her, but he would love her even if he had not spent multiple nights now in her company. The sex, he thought, only complicated matters, but not in a way that made it necessary to be avoided. He knew she didn't want commitment, or even a relationship of any romantic kind past that of being lovers, but he felt if only they did not discuss it, perhaps he could convince himself it was not true, convince himself that she might actually feel the same way about him as he did her. Wishful thinking, he told himself, but sitting in her parlor, her hands in his, he decided there was nothing wrong with a little wishful thinking.

When Phryne went to return to her seat, he did not release her hands. She stood over him with a crease in her brow, an indication of her confusion. Jack wondered how many men had managed to confuse the Hon. Miss Phryne Fisher and decided he must have been one of only few in that regard. He tugged her lightly until she came to sit on his lap. He smiled and she smiled back, genuinely, not in her usual wicked way. "Kiss me, Miss Fisher?" he asked.

Her wicked smile returned. "Gladly."

THE END

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