The Sweet Caress (12 page)

‘Actually it was more truthful than witty.’

He laughed but it didn’t matter to Candia. Something had happened to her, sex with Rupert and now Pierre was no longer so thrilling to her. It had to do not with the sex but with the men, the way they used her rather than loved her. It was as if she had experienced that same thrilling sex
with a man as exciting as she would ever want, a man who had enveloped her with love. Was that just her imagination? A dream? Or could it have happened sometime during those lost years? Would she ever know?

She took the sponge from Pierre’s hands and asked him to hand her a robe. He held it for her as she put it on. She walked from the bathroom to the dressing room, and he followed her. He sat down and watched her dress. He found her attitude disturbing, yet he kept silent. When she had finished dressing and had made up her face, she turned to him and asked, ‘Where do we breakfast?’

‘In the dining room. Axel will probably be there. He did say we would meet at breakfast when I spoke to him yesterday.’

‘Well, I’m famished and you’re not dressed, so I’ll go down alone. See you soon,’ she said as she walked past him.

‘I have planned an even more interesting night for you tonight, chérie. It’s only just begun for us, we have a great deal to catch up on,’ he said.

She turned round to face him. ‘No, I don’t think so. I really meant it when I told you I had come back to lay a ghost. I have. It’s over for us. I think I knew that even when I called you yesterday morning on my way from Rupert’s. I just needed to face my devil, wrestle with him one more time. You’re dead for me, Pierre. You truly are a ghost but one that will never haunt me because I’ll never allow you to enslave me again,’ and she walked from the room.

Though she was cheered by truly having turned Pierre into an impotent ghost, she did feel emotionally fragile. By ridding herself of him once and for all she was also shedding a depraved sexual life. Sex without love and caring was no longer an option for her. Like millions upon millions of women, she would now be out there in search of love. That was something she had never done before and she had no idea how to deal with it. Yet somehow she
sensed that there was a man out there looking just as hard for her as she was for him.

As Candia descended the grand staircase she suddenly felt light-headed, as if she couldn’t quite co-ordinate her mind with her feet. She clung to the banister and shook her head to clear it, and it did. This had happened before, more than once, since she had been hit on the head in Central Park. She had been assured by Dr Twining that in time it would go away. When she entered the dining room she was suffering from a dull headache.

Sun streamed in through tall windows which gave a spectacular view of the sea and nothing else for as far as the eye could see, and she felt a surge of pure delight. The walls were covered in antique Chinese wallpaper: a still bright yellow background with street scenes in subtle colours and trees with exotic birds in them in a dull silver. She nearly clapped her hands with pleasure as she walked around admiring the paper with a knowing eye. The table and chairs were the best Chinese Chippendale and there were period console tables laden with magnificent silver. The table was set for eight people.

She was still looking at the wallpaper when she heard his voice for the first time. ‘Hello,’ he said.

It was only one word but she liked the sound of his voice, it had kindness in it. She turned round to face him. ‘Hello,’ she answered and rubbed her forehead with a sigh.

‘You are the first woman to show such appreciation of my wallpaper. I’m besotted with it myself. My name is Axel Winwood, by the way,’ he told her as he crossed the room to her.

‘It came from a mandarin’s palace on the outskirts of Nanking,’ said Candia. ‘It was painted in seventeen fifty-two for the mandarin’s favourite concubine who was mysteriously found drowned in a well. I bought it more than ten years ago from a dealer who had hidden it for forty years before he brought it out of China. I can tell you when
and where you bought it, even how much you paid for it. I often wondered what had happened to my Nanking wallpaper. It’s a treasure and many congratulations for what you have done with it. I’m Candia Van Buren,’ and she shook his hand. There was a chemistry between them that they both appreciated.

The butler and a maid brought in covered silver dishes containing scrambled eggs and sausages, bacon, chicken livers, pancakes drenched in butter and maple syrup, hash brown potatoes and corn meal biscuits, brioche, large flat mushrooms deep-fried in batter, and a large silver pot of coffee, and one of tea. As they arranged things on the serving tables, Axel and Candia walked round the room together studying the details of the wallpaper, he asking questions, Candia furnishing the answers. Then quite suddenly she seemed to lose her balance. Axel saw it and reached out to steady her.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

She liked the concern in his voice. ‘I think I need some breakfast.’

‘Oh, is that all? You come and take this chair next to me. Olivier will serve us.’

Axel was quite used to beautiful women, they chased after him all the time. His wife had been a beauty, his four daughters were stunningly attractive. But there was something special about Candia Van Buren’s beauty that at once excited his interest. It was somehow exotic, incredibly sensuous, and he saw in her a vibrant and clever human being who liked to play with life on a grand scale. She had, too, a certain independence of spirit that he found appealing. Who was she? Where did she come from? What was she doing in his house?

He watched while she was served her breakfast and was delighted when she said, ‘Axel Winwood, if you had not spoken and I had not heard that slight southern drawl in your voice, this breakfast would have told me you are as
red, white and blue as the American flag.’

‘And proud of it, you forgot to add that,’ he suggested.

‘Yes, I suppose I did,’ she said with a smile and then she attacked her breakfast.

Candia was obviously ravenous, thought Axel, but she did not gulp her food; on the contrary, she savoured every mouthful and ate with grace and elegance. Even while eating she was seductive, full of charm. Second helpings and several cups of coffee were consumed by them both before Candia sat back and relaxed in her chair.

‘This is not an apology but I would like you to know I am not usually so greedy at the table. My excuse is that I have had nothing to eat since breakfast yesterday.’

‘I think I would like proof of that. Will you let me take you to lunch?’ he asked.

Candia hesitated for only a minute before she accepted his invitation but in that minute Axel felt as if he was experiencing a thousand deaths. It wasn’t often that he felt such immediate attraction to a woman; he had forgotten how thrilling it could be. He was forty-six years old but he felt young and had once more a sense of youthful love.

‘Candia, I can’t help but wonder how you happen to be breakfasting with me.’

‘I came to see Pierre yesterday afternoon.’

Axel visibly paled. He obviously knew about Pierre’s way with women and had for some reason not expected her to be one of them.

‘Another explanation that is not an apology. I came to bury Caesar not to kneel at his feet. Pierre and I go back fifteen years but no longer a single step forward,’ she told him.

‘You owe me no explanation.’

‘I feel I do if we are still to have lunch together.’

The colour seemed to come back into his face. He rose from his chair and pulled it closer to Candia’s. ‘Where would you like me to take you to lunch?’

‘Surprise me.’

Several people entered the dining room, friends and colleagues who had flown in with Axel this morning. He introduced them to Candia. They were all American media people, young, computer-age whiz kids who spoke a language she could hardly understand. But she drew them to her like a magnet and they sat down at her end of the table and were charmed by her interest in their, to her, alien world.

Axel was constantly distracted by her presence. He kept his eyes on her most of the time. At first he thought the way she kept rubbing her temple was an unconscious habit, in the same way that he rubbed his chin when he was concentrating. Then he realised that wasn’t the case at all. He rose from his chair, excused himself to the others at the table and taking her gently by the elbow succeeded in extracting her from her admirers.

On the way from the room he asked, ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine except for this dull headache, it seems to be lingering this morning. Usually it comes, stays for just a short time and is gone.’

They sat together on a settee in the hall. ‘Does it happen often?’ he asked.

‘Less and less, these days. You mustn’t be concerned about it. The doctors assure me it will disappear one day. It started after I was attacked in Central Park. I was bashed on the head and robbed. I was concussed rather badly. As well as my handbag I lost four years of my life, and I must say that’s more painful than any of my other injuries.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘When I regained consciousness I had a partial memory loss. I had no idea what I was doing in New York. My mind wiped out four years of my life. It seems that a severe shock can do that. They say the memory can come back, not all at once but in bits and pieces until the mind is able to take it all in. Or something like that. I don’t much like talking about it, Axel.’

‘Then we won’t talk about it. But I do feel concerned about your headache.’

Candia rose from the settee and swayed slightly.

‘And your balance,’ he added.

It was then, for the first time, that Candia realised how alone she had been these last months. She felt suddenly very weary, and it was not the weariness that can come from two consecutive nights of sexual debauchery. Her first thought was of Dr Twining. He had warned her that she was doing too much too soon. His London colleague had told her the same, but she seemed driven to get herself on her feet, to work again and get her life back. She needed time, they all said, rest and time, and no stress. But rest and time were her enemies because when she gave in to them she was tortured by the loss of those years. She wanted them back, to know what she had done with her life and with whom.

Then it happened, for a few moments a small window to the lost years opened and she saw an apple orchard, an old rope swing with a plank of wood for a seat, empty and hanging from a branch. It hung there in her memory for a few seconds and then it was gone.

Pierre appeared in the hall. ‘Ah, you’ve met,’ he said and went directly to Axel to shake his hand, then to Candia to kiss her. She took a step back to evade him. He covered the slight very well, made no issue of it. He asked Axel if he could have a word with him in private. Axel showed Candia to a pretty hothouse filled with blooming orchids, a pool of Japanese koi fish, and a pretty fountain, and then he disappeared with Pierre.

When he returned, he found Candia fast asleep on one of the chaise longues. It was after one o’clock when he returned again, this time to wake her and take her to St Paul de Vence for lunch. He sat on the edge of the chaise and took her hand in his and caressed it. She barely moved. Then he stroked her cheek several times. She opened her eyes.

‘Luke?’ she asked and then looked very puzzled. ‘No, it’s
Axel, isn’t it? Well, I wonder where that came from!’

‘I’ve come to take you to lunch,’ he said.

‘Lunch? How long have I been asleep?’

‘Well, we had breakfast at seven and it’s now just after one o’clock. How’s your headache?’ She was rubbing her temple again.

‘Nearly gone, thank heavens.’

‘I have a message for you from Pierre. He has departed. Left about an hour ago for Paris. He wanted me to tell you he was sorry to have to walk out on you but something really important has suddenly come up.’

Candia began to laugh. ‘It seems that the ego must always have the last word. Well, why not?’

‘I don’t quite understand,’ said Axel.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she told him, looking happier, sounding gay.

He waited while she changed her clothes and when she came down the stairs he was mesmerised by how lovely she looked. She had dressed in a light grey suit and a high-necked blouse of pearly grey silk organza with a ruffle round the neck. In her ears she was wearing the finest bright green jade earrings surrounded by diamonds and on her wrists jade and diamond bangles. Her high-heeled black lizard shoes clicked on the marble stairs and in her hand she carried a lizard handbag.

‘By god, you look great,’ he told her as he slipped his arm through hers.

‘I feel great. Axel, I’ve packed my case. If you would ask your man to bring it down, I would be grateful. I intend to leave tonight.’

‘That’s tonight. Let’s not think about it until after lunch.’

It was in St Paul de Vence in the middle of lunch that another window of the past opened for a second for Candia. This time she saw herself. She was wearing a glorious evening gown and over it a jacket woven of spider webs, and then it was gone. It unnerved her and interrupted the
fun she was having with Axel. He had bought her a bunch of violets from a vendor at the door of the restaurant. They played a guessing game over the wines he had chosen. He was amusing about his fame, and riveted to hear that she was the managing director of La Pyramide. The longer the lunch went on, the happier they seemed to be to have found each other. But the window to the past that had opened took her away from him.

Axel sensed something was very wrong and asked her about it. She told him what had happened, confided in him as she had not confided in anyone since her accident in New York. He seemed so easy to talk to. And talking to Axel made it effortless for her to come to a decision.

‘After lunch I think I would like to make a call to New York, to my doctor. Things are happening to me that I would like him to know about. Do you think you could arrange that for me?’

He did. They were shown to one of the handsome rooms round the restaurant’s pool and there she made her call. Axel was about to leave when she stopped him. ‘No need for you to go. In fact I would like you to stay.’