The Sweet Caress (14 page)

The way she moved, her reactions to his caresses and kissing, his thrusting, spurred him on. Her body, the way she loved come, his, hers, theirs, the manner in which she handled him with her hands, her lips, and her ability to enjoy taking him whole deep into her throat drove him over the edge of sexual desire and into uncontrollable lust, as he had only ever allowed himself to dream about. He took possession of her in every imaginable way. She fulfilled his every sexual fantasy and he enjoyed her more than any
woman he had ever had. He understood how much she truly adored men, enjoyed the power of being able to give them the same pleasures she sought for herself. She had turned herself over to the god of lust and he loved her the more for her ability to do so.

For Candia, the sex with Axel was sublime. It was as adventurous and thrilling as she could have wished for. It was fierce and tender, outrageous at times and governed by love, caring, desire to satisfy on levels other than sexual.

Eventually they rested in each other’s arms, replete. Her mind was empty of thought, drifting. Suddenly another window to the past opened. For a brief moment she saw a man dressed in white walking through an orchard in full bloom. She wanted to call to him, tell him where she was, but she had no voice. It was so fleeting a vision and she was so drowsy, she could not cling on to it. It vanished and she slipped into a deep sleep.

Axel remained in Juan-les-Pins for several days, surrounded by his usual entourage of media people. He fitted his work round his wooing of Candia, and for a workaholic that was a tremendous sacrifice. After their first night together as lovers, they conducted their intimate life in the Contessa’s Temple, Candia having refused to move in with Axel. On the night before he was to leave for a three-week business trip to the Far East, they had dinner at La Terrasse and then returned to the Temple.

The place was never left in darkness because of the animals and when they entered the dogs leapt and pranced around them, the cockatoo flew off his perch to land on top of one of the baroque mirrors, and Pegasus, the miniature horse, clip clopped across the marble floor and swished his tail in greeting, his diamond collar sparkling in the lamplight.

‘This is an insane way to live,’ commented Axel above the noise of barking dogs, a screaming cockatoo, and a neighing horse smaller than a Great Dane, but he had to
laugh at the display of animal delight that someone had come home.

‘Eccentric, darling, eccentric, not insane,’ corrected Candia.

‘I can’t cope with this when all I want to do is make love to you,’ he told her.

‘You don’t have to. Come with me.’ And taking him by the hand she led him to the bedroom.

‘I’ll grant you this about the Temple, it has the most romantic bedroom in Juan-les-Pins, if not the Riviera,’ he said as Candia went round the room with a long, slim taper, lighting dozens of candles to make love by.

In the early hours of the morning Axel declared himself head over heels in love. Candia made him the happiest he could ever remember being when she told him, ‘I love you too, Axel.’

‘How much? Enough to marry me and make an honest man of me?’

‘Enough to think about it,’ she told him.

It was early in February when Luke heard Candia’s voice for the first time since she had disappeared from Newbampton. He was calm, collected, had not for one minute lost his faith that Candia and he were made for each other and no one else. His certainty that she would come back to him of her own free will gave him strength to do anything, accept anything, if it brought that day closer. He never thought it would be easy to keep silent about their being husband and wife, but the moment he heard her voice, he realised how hard it was actually going to be.

‘Hello. Is this Miss Candia Van Buren?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she answered.

‘My name is Dr Luke Greenfield, I’m a colleague of Dr Twining. I believe you’ve been expecting a call from me.’

‘Oh, yes, of course. He asked me if I would help find you a place to stay for the next few months. I believe you’re here to write something rather important for the medical world
and mankind in general. Where are you staying at the moment?’

‘La Terrasse. Will you join me for lunch?’

He noticed that she hesitated before answering. ‘You are very close to where I live. Ask for the Temple, the taxi driver will know where to take you.’

He wanted to say, ‘And lunch?’ but knew better than to force anything. ‘When would you like me to come?’ he asked.

‘Come now and we can talk about what you’re looking for.’

‘Are you sure I’m not imposing?’ he asked politely.

‘No. Come along,’ she answered.

When Candia put the phone down she became suddenly pensive and massaged her forehead. Her headache had not come back, it was more that she felt confused. She never asked strangers to the Temple. The few friends who felt free to call on her had soon stopped when they realised she preferred not to entertain in the Contessa’s Temple. Instead she would invite them to Belle Rives or La Terrasse for lunch or dinner. She simply could not understand what had induced her to invite Dr Greenfield, except that there was something about his voice that had been warm and seductive, something she felt close to, and it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to ask him to the Temple.

She sensed the moment she saw him that he was a very special kind of man: the handsome good looks, the figure, the way he carried himself, the passionate, intelligent eyes. As he stepped into the Temple the menagerie swarmed around him. She saw immediately how enchanted he was by both the animals and the Temple, just as she had been. He went on his knees to examine and stroke Pegasus, the cockatoo landed on his shoulder and left a stain before removing himself to Luke’s head. One of the two Russian wolfhounds tried to push himself between Pegasus and Luke, the other sat and begged for food. The four
greyhounds tried to climb his back, pulled at his sleeve, nibbled his trousers. The noise was kennel thunder.

He glanced across at Candia and the two of them burst into laughter. He rose from his knees and asked above the din. ‘Don’t they ever break anything?’

‘Don’t even think it! But to my knowledge, no, they never have.’

‘It’s like … like an upmarket and very chic Noah’s Ark.’

‘The Contessa Andreana Braga Volpe’s ark. I rent it, complete with half a staff and a full zoo. And you haven’t seen or heard the canaries yet. Dozens and dozens of them live in the Canary Tree near her bedroom window.’

With that, Candia opened the door and shooed all the four-legged creatures out, leaving the door ajar so they might return when they wanted to. Then she turned to Luke and smiled.

‘I don’t know whether to clean the stain Epicurus left on your shoulder or offer you a coffee first. Better give me your coat anyway,’ she suggested.

‘The coffee, I think,’ he told her.

He had from the moment he entered the Temple tried not to look directly into her eyes but now that the ice had been broken between them, he did. Luke thought his heart would break, it was so filled with love for her. Jessica? Candia? What did the name matter? She was every inch the same woman, the woman he had fallen in love with, waited for, and who had in her own time come to love him as much as he loved her.

He handed her his coat and still smiling over his initiation into the Temple, she walked away. When she returned she was carrying a silver tray with a coffee service on it. He had not heard her enter the room and continued walking around, looking at the many and varied objects. She stopped to watch him from the doorway. For a fleeting moment her mind played a trick on her and she saw him as an old friend. Then reality closed in on her, and she saw him for
what he was, an extraordinarily attractive stranger who needed help to find somewhere to stay.

She placed the tray on a table. He helped her by making more room for it and they gazed into each other’s eyes across the tray. ‘On the phone, earlier, I hesitated, not because I didn’t want to lunch with you but because, strangely, I wanted you to come and see the Temple. I say strangely, because I almost never invite people here. Yet it seemed the most natural thing in the world that you should come. The Temple likes you and you clearly appreciate the eccentricity of this place and my living here. Now, you take it black no sugar,’ she told him while handing him a cup of the coffee.

His heart beat faster with hope. She had remembered something about him from the past. He prayed that more reminders from the past might follow, and soon. Robert Twining had said that seeing him might jog her memory but not to make a fuss about it. She needed to come round to actively putting the pieces together herself, with no prompting.

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘Quite a good guess, don’t you think?’ She was making small talk, something they had never done with each other.

‘Yes,’ he told her.

‘Where are you from in the States?’

‘Massachusetts,’ he answered. There was not a flicker of recognition from her about his coming from that state but he did not give in to disappointment.

‘Juan-les-Pins seems an odd place to choose to hide away for work on your paper. May I call you Luke?’

‘Yes, please do. It’s not such a strange choice, Juan-les-Pins in winter. I’ve been here at this time once before, many years ago, and thought it charming, full of life, extraordinarily beautiful and very glamorous. Doctors sometime need the flash and dash of a luxurious life. I intend to write in the morning and explore the area in the afternoons. What made you settle here?’

‘A number of circumstances but mostly because I need a long holiday and a great deal of rest. I’m recuperating from … oh, never mind all that. It’s you we want to talk about. You must promise to tell me all about yourself over lunch. Well, enough to give me an idea of how and where you want to live. Let me go and change into something more suited for lunch at La Terrasse. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

As she was leaving the room, Candia looked over her shoulder and asked him, ‘Oh, by the way, do you speak French?’

‘Yes, but rather badly,’ he answered, remembering one night in Rose Cottage when Candia had told him so.

‘Oh, well, we’ll have to work on that while you’re here. The French are snobs about bad French. I speak Mandarin, but then you know that.’

Luke could see that what she had just said did not even register with her. It was quite obvious to him from his knowledge of cases like Candia’s that her unconscious was speaking. She was unaware of what she had said because her conscious mind would not allow her to listen. It was all much better than Luke had expected it to be. He was with her, she had never let him go.

When she returned, he had one of the greyhounds in his lap and was brushing the Russian wolfhound who had carried her brush over to him in her mouth. One of her party tricks. Candia watched Luke for several minutes, delighted by the domestic scene. She had the most extraordinary desire to go and sit on his lap too, to have him take her to his heart as he had the menagerie. Who was this man who was drawing her to him without making the least effort?

Walking towards him, she remarked, ‘Doctor, I think your patients must adore you. You quite obviously have a bedside manner that seduces instantly. Should I be on my guard?’

Luke put Hiradotou, the greyhound, down on the floor
and stepped round Apollo the wolfhound. He was for a few seconds unable to speak, so taken was he with how beautiful Candia looked in a cream-coloured astrakhan belted trench coat. The lamb’s fur could not have been more flattering to her blonde hair and dark eyes. The tight, soft curls beckoned him to go to her and caress her arm, tell her how lovely she looked. He was helpless to do other.

She didn’t seem to mind, never pulled back. He gained control of himself again and nonchalantly adjusted the wide lapels of her coat. ‘I suppose most every man you meet has his head turned by you. You look lovely.’

She did a charming curtsey and told him, ‘A few, Luke, but you flatter me. It’s not as many as you might think. Now, did you come here by taxi?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘We’ll take my car then,’ Candia said.

It was only when he climbed into the seat next to her that she noticed she had forgotten to clean the cockatoo’s stain on Luke’s coat. ‘How embarrassing going to La Terrasse with bird turd on your shoulder. I
have
let the side down forgetting to clean your coat.’

She was teasing him, and she was clearly no more concerned about the impression they would make entering the chic hotel than he was. Her attitude and outlook were exactly as he had known them and loved her for. To be near her and see her again and know that nothing had changed was everything to him. She was still the same woman he had fallen in love with and that made him the happiest of men.

Candia’s automobile was a white two-seater Jaguar which she had purchased in Nice to use as a runaround while she was on the Riviera. She tied a white silk scarf round her hair and as she put the car into gear she looked at Luke and said, ‘You mustn’t be nervous about my driving, it’s fast but safe.’ But then he already knew that.

They lunched on oysters and all sorts of shellfish from
the sea they had a view of. They drank superb white wine and finished their meal with small pots of hot chocolate soufflé drenched in cream. All through the meal Candia asked questions. She had an insatiable curiosity about Luke.

First she asked him about his work, what sort of doctor he was. He told her, always looking into her eyes, hoping he might see some recognition in them. There was none. Then she asked about the paper he was here to write and was fascinated to learn that he would be a visiting consultant at the hospital in Nice. When he told her he had been given the use of a laboratory in the hospital, she began to understand that he was a doctor of some renown. And that seemed somehow to register in her mind because she said, ‘Dr Luke Greenfield, I think I might have heard that name. Nobel Prize material comes to mind. Am I mistaken?’

‘That’s not for me to say. And now maybe it’s you who is flattering me.’