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It was late in the evening, and Jack was tinkling on the piano in Phryne’s parlour. It was a beautiful instrument, the finest he'd ever had the opportunity to play, and once he had finally worked up the courage to play it that first time he'd had a go on it most of the times he'd joined Phryne for a drink since. And once she'd returned from England the year before and they'd begun their romantic relationship, he could often be found at the piano for hours at a time, recapturing the love of making music he'd had in his youth, challenging himself with classical pieces he hadn't played in almost twenty years.
Tonight, though, after a three-course meal and onto his third whiskey, he was very much tinkling .
Phryne walked into the parlour and made her way over to him. Jack smiled up at her, but kept playing - he knew exactly how much she loved listening to him on the piano. She walked behind him to the window seat, trailing her hand across his shoulders as she went. Jack had shucked his jacket during dinner, and he could feel the heat of her palm through his shirt and waistcoat. He kept playing though - Phryne often tried to distract him from his music.
And it often worked.
Phryne sat herself down in the window, and watched him silently for a few moments, seemingly content to let him play without drawing too much of his attention to her. She was nursing a glass of red wine, but after a minute she knocked back what was left and put the glass down on the side table with a click .
“Jack - I need to speak with you about something,” she said, sounding uncharacteristically serious. Jack looked sideways at her, his hands still hovering over the keys, and saw that she looked like she was steeling herself for something.
She took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking…”
Dun dun DUUUN.
Phryne’s serious façade cracked at the sudden loud chords. She quickly got her smile under control, though, and glared at Jack, who smirked.
“Jack, I’m being serious,” she admonished.
Jack schooled his own expression into one of utmost seriousness, and started to play a slow funeral dirge.
Phryne couldn't contain her smile this time, and she rolled her eyes.
“Not quite that serious,” she said.
Jack immediately switched to the introduction to Three Little Maids from The Mikado.
Phryne started laughing “Jack!” She exclaimed, reaching out and snatching his hands off of the keys. Jack smirked again and swung his legs round so he was sitting sideways on the piano bench, facing her properly.
Phryne's smile faded, and she just looked at him for a long moment, running her thumbs over the back of his hands. She looked down.
“I’m not actually sure where to begin.”
Jack frowned, starting to regret his flippancy on the piano. “Is something wrong?”
Phryne shook her head quickly. “No, not - not really,” she said. She looked up at him again and must have seen the worry in his eyes, because she gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s nothing too awful, I promise.”
It might not be ‘too awful’, but Phryne was clearly nervous, and nervousness wasn't a state of being that Jack generally associated with her.
“You can tell me anything, you know that,” he said, squeezing her fingers.
“I do know that,” she said, smiling again. She took a deep breath. “Alright, well here it is.” She swallowed. “I want to be able to go to Firemen and Policemen's Ball with you,” she said quickly.
Jack blinked. “Is that it?” He asked bemusedly. “If you want to go we can - I didn’t think you cared, I haven’t been in years -”
“I want to go with you and not have to worry that your superiors are sneering at you and your men are laughing behind your back,” said Phryne.
Jack gaped at her for a moment, trying to order his thoughts before answering. “Alright, first of all, they’re not laughing, they’re crying with envy,” he said. “Second of all, I don’t care what they say or think. And thirdly - what on earth has brought this on?”
Phryne pursed her lips, and continued on, ignoring his questions. “I want us to be able to leave events together, instead of having to leave separately so our picture doesn't appear in the newspapers,” she said.
Jack shook his head slightly, still bemused by this sudden preoccupation with their public image. “We can do that,” he said. “I can handle what the commissioner-”
“I want you to be able to live here with me, instead of having to keep your house for appearances’ sake,” she said, gripping his hands like a vice.
Jack had a (naturally) high opinion of his deductive reasoning skills, but the conclusion he was rapidly drawing from Phryne’s words and demeanour seemed too extraordinary to accept. She couldn't possibly … could she?
“Phryne…”
“I just want us to be together , without having to think about it, or plan it, or… I just want this.”
“ Phryne ,” Jack said insistently, squeezing her hands back. She finally stopped talking and met his gaze fiercely, defiantly. Jack swallowed. “Are you... proposing to me?”
He waited for her to laugh at him, or snatch her hands back in shock, or look at him in disgust - but she just raised her chin slightly and kept looking at him.
“Yes,” she said.
Jack leaned back away from her, and their joint hands fell away from each other. He knew he was gaping, knew he must look like a fool, but he was reeling - this was a conversation that he’d never expected to have. Phryne Fisher wasn’t the marrying kind. He’d known it for as long as he’d known her, he’d known it when he fell in love with her, and had known it when they’d begun their romantic relationship. It was enough for him to know that he was her only lover, and she was certainly enough for him. No marriage could ever feel more secure or serious as the commitment he felt towards her. Did she not feel the same way? Or had he made her feel that he wasn’t secure? Did she think he didn’t trust her, or that she wasn’t enough just as she was?
Jack looked away, down at the piano keys, trying to work out what to say. He needed to understand - she needed to understand.
He looked back at her - her expression hadn’t changed, but Jack knew her well enough to see the slight tightening of tension around her eyes. He immediately held out a hand to her again, and she held it tightly with both of hers.
Jack took a deep breath and leaned forward again. “You know you don’t have to do that,” he said.
Phryne gave him a small smile. “I know,” she said.
“I’ve never expected us to get married, I would never want to force you into a position where you felt you needed to marry me,” he said seriously.
Phryne’s smile widened. “No one forces me into anything, Jack-”
“I don’t care what everyone thinks of us -” Jack said forcefully. He really didn’t, and he hated to think that she thought he was unhappy in any way.
“I know darling,” said Phryne, reaching out to brush his hair back from his forehead and then sliding her hand down to cup his cheek. Jack’s closed his eyes briefly and turned his head slightly to brush his lips against her palm. Her touch usually calmed him, but right then all he could feel was a rising panic. He didn’t understand what he’d done.
“I couldn’t live with myself if you ever felt trapped with me,” he said quietly.
“This is what I’m trying to tell you Jack,” Phryne said, letting go of his hand so she could bring her other hand up to his frame his face and force him to look at her. She was smiling. “I don’t feel trapped with you. I never have and honestly I don’t see how I ever could.”
Jack raised his hands to gently encircle her wrists, and she slid her hands down his neck to rest against his chest. “Every time I've thought of marriage in the past, it's felt like a cage,” she said. “It doesn't feel like that with you.”
Jack swallowed, unable to look away from her eyes. He still felt confused, and blindsided, but the panic was subsiding.
“I'm not saying I don't think the idea of marriage has its flaws, and honestly if we lived in another time and place I might be content to stay unmarried,” she said. Her fingers slid under his waistcoat and she tugged slightly on the material. “But I want to live with you. I want to attend events with you and not have to worry about the damage to your reputation and your career - I know you don't care, but I do. I want the world to know that you're mine, and I'm happy for them to know that I'm yours.” She took a deep breath and leaned closer to him.
“Because I am,” she said softly. “I want this forever, so yes. I'm proposing. And if you don’t want to marry me for whatever reason I will respect that, but please don’t say no because you think that’s what I secretly want. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t serious about wanting this.” She sat back slightly and loosened her hold on his waistcoat, smoothing the material carefully before pulling her hands away and looking up at him with a nervous smile. “So what do you say?”
A nervous smile . Phryne Fisher was not only proposing to him, she was nervous about it. Jack wanted to laugh, and he clenched his jaw to stop himself, fighting to keep his smile under control. His heart felt like it was going to burst out of his chest. He really hadn’t minded about not getting married, but - well, he couldn’t deny that he hadn’t idly daydreamed about calling her his wife in weaker moments… even so, he would never have presumed… and even now, it felt like this was all some joke, or a test. But Phryne wouldn’t do that to him, she would never toy with his feelings like that. She was serious.
Phryne Fisher wanted him to marry her.
Jack wasn’t sure that a simple ‘yes’ was quite enough to accurately convey his feelings, and he felt his playful feelings from earlier returning.
Raising an eyebrow at Phryne, Jack slowly turned himself back round on the piano stool to face the piano again. He placed his hands on the keys. “I believe that it's customary for a person to get down on one knee when they propose,” he said with a smirk.
Phryne’s mouth dropped open slightly, before she pursed her lips to try and hide her smile. Jack deliberately turned away to look down at his hands, and started to play.
He heard Phryne huff as she recognised Mendelssohn’s wedding march and he had to bite his lip to stop himself from laughing out loud. He saw her moving out of the corner of his eye, and then felt her hand land on his thigh. He looked down at the hand and then up her arm, and saw that she had just about managed to kneel down in the tiny space between the window seat and the piano stool. He stopped playing and looked down at her expectantly.
Phryne gave him a glare that was completely ruined by the smile she kept trying to bite back, and then squared her shoulders. “Jack Robinson, would you do me the honour of-”
He couldn’t let her go any further before he delved his hands into her hair, cupping the back of her head and tipping her face up to kiss her hungrily. She laughed as his lips met hers and he swallowed the sound, moving a hand down to her back and helping her up from her knee. It was awkward, since there wasn’t much room and he refused to stop kissing her, and he was bent at an odd angle from how he sat on the piano bench - Phryne ended up practically falling into his lap, and there was a corresponding crash of keys from the piano.
They gave it up at the sound of the loud discordant notes, laughing against each other’s lips. Jack shifted back on the stool to give her more room and Phryne settled herself properly on his lap, one hand on his shoulder and the other stroking his cheek, tracing the lines of his ridiculous grin.
She grinned back at him. “I’m going to take that as a yes,” she said cheekily.
Jack pressed his forehead against hers. “Of course it’s a yes,” he said softly. Phryne darted forward and kissed him again briefly before pulling back to gaze happily at him. Jack stared back at her for a long moment before shaking his head, feeling rather dazed.
He felt that he was allowed to be dazed - he’d just been proposed to, after all.
He cleared his throat. “So do I get an engagement ring?” He joked.
Phryne smirked, raising an eyebrow at him as she leant back slightly to reach a hand into the pocket of the long satin cardigan she wore. When she brought her hand back up she was holding a small, square, black velvet box. Jack stared at it for a moment before looking back up at Phryne, who was looking absurdly pleased with herself. “Really?” He said incredulously.
Phryne gave him a mischievous smile before prising open the box. He saw a flash of diamond as it opened, but it wasn’t a ring - it was a silver tie pin, adorned with a tiny swallow in flight, studded with minute chips of diamond. The shape of the swallow matched the pin he’d given her exactly.
Jack’s hands tightened around Phryne’s waist, and he had to blink against the sudden tears in his eyes.
“I thought this might be more appropriate,” Phryne said softly.
Jack swallowed down the lump in his throat and looked up at Phryne. Her eyes were shining.
“I really cannot express how much I love you,” he said.
Phryne smiled softly and wrapped her arms around his neck, resting her forehead against his. “Well you’ve got the rest of our lives to keep trying,” she said teasingly.
Jack tightened his grip on her and pulled her closer. “I had that anyway.”
THE END