The Sweet Caress (9 page)

‘Yes, why not? We can afford to be generous with so much happiness going for us.’

They did ask her and before she could make more than one excuse, Luke had signalled for the maître d’ to transfer her meal to their table.

The sheriff had had a hard day filled with bad news for several local people, but Luke and Jessica’s joy was infectious. Bridget caught it and immediately left her work problems behind. They were a couple whom it was always a joy to be around – sparkling intelligence, Jessica always intriguing, Luke masculinity at its best, beautiful people from their souls outward. Bridget had known they were having quite a serious sexual affair but tonight was different; it was as if they were airborne on love.

They had a marvellous evening, filled with laughter. Jessica reminisced about her first year in Newbampton and her many and varied odd jobs, and was more open and amusing than Bridget had ever credited she could be. And Luke and Jessica were in turn amused by stories from Bridget about her climb up the policeman’s ladder. Cissie passed by their table with the amorous Harold who Jessica had learned from Cissie was a tiger in bed and a pussycat out of it. He was clearly besotted by Cissie who kept him on a short lead and pretended she didn’t mind that he had declared he would never marry her or anyone else, or that he was a male nurse at the hospital and not a doctor. Jessica stopped them and asked them to join their table for a glass of champagne.

‘A celebration?’ asked Harold.

‘A good guess, Harold,’ answered Luke.

‘It’s a stroke of luck seeing you, Cissie, and you, Bridget, dining here this evening,’ said Jessica. ‘I was going to have to track you down tomorrow morning to ask you as the first two friends I made in Newbampton to stand with me when I take Luke to be my lawful wedded husband.’

‘No! How fabulous. I can’t believe it! What am I saying, of course I can believe it,’ said Cissie breathlessly. ‘I knew when he bought you the St Laurent evening dress with the spider web jacket that he was madly in love with you. Come into my web, said the spider to the fly, and you did, Jess. Yes, of course. When, where, how? What will you wear?’

Bridget had no idea what to say. All sorts of things milled round in her head. Can Jessica marry Luke? What if she is already married? Bridget had known for months that Jessica and Luke had all but forgotten the condition she claimed to have. She
was
Jessica, she believed it, and he wanted her as whatever she wanted to be. Had a passionate love affair clouded their minds as to what they were getting themselves into? Bridget could not kill the moment for them so she followed Cissie as she went round the table and kissed them both. For a second when she gazed into Luke’s eyes she saw that he sensed her concerns, they were the same as his. After she kissed him, he placed his index finger over her lips, his way of telling her to please remain silent, and smiled as he handed her a glass of champagne.

After several glasses of the vintage wine, it was Cissie who said to the merry guests, ‘Oh, Jessica, what if you already have a husband? A husband and married to Luke? That would make you a bigamist.’

‘Not to worry, dear Cissie. I may have lost my memory but not my mind. I have never been married. I have never loved any man as I love Luke. If I had ever been married, I promise you I would know even with my memory gone.’

‘But it is possible,’ insisted Cissie.

‘Anything is possible but it’s best to remember I have never been Jessica Johnson before and so I could never have had a husband. I will marry as Jessica Johnson.’

‘And if your memory should return and you are married, what then?’ asked Harold.

Luke stepped in and took over. ‘Then we will deal with whatever choices have to be made. Nothing is going to stop us.’

Bridget knew Luke meant what he said, which in turn meant she would not only have to be a witness to the marriage of two people desperately in love, she would have to help them as well. Her mind kept tripping over the work it would take to arrange papers to enable Jessica to marry Luke.

Cissie was about to raise yet another question when Bridget, who was sitting next to her, placed a hand on her arm and said, ‘Oh, Cissie, do shut up. You take care of our dresses and leave the problems that
might
arise to me. And don’t even think of putting me in pink. You know how I detest pink. Now, that bottle looks empty to me, Luke. Are you going to do something about it or shall I?’

The engagement party was the last to leave the dining rooms. They retreated, at Bridget’s request, by police car – all of them were too full of alcohol to drive – to Rose Cottage where they drank and sang and danced to Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart love songs played by Bridget on the grand piano.

As dawn rose over the town, still and quiet apart from the police car driving the sheriff, Cissie and Harold home, Jessica and Luke crawled into the four-poster bed in her room. Happy but exhausted, she fell at once into a deep sleep in Luke’s arms.

They were married three weeks later in a private ceremony in the judge’s chambers at the courthouse while an early blizzard swirled snow through the town. Jessica was dressed in a long, ivory crepe de Chine gown cut on the bias and with a short train. On her head she wore a wide-brimmed ermine hat with a band of white moth orchids round the crown. Luke was dressed in a white tie, a white piqué waistcoat and black tail coat. At the ceremony were Bridget in a claret-coloured gown of silk velvet, a hat of matching satin with a short veil, and Cissie dressed in a plum silk taffeta suit with long skirt and a short, tight-fitting jacket cut to the waist. Luke’s witnesses were his two best friends in grey silk cravats and tail coats who were meeting the bride for the first time. The reception was to be at Rose Cottage, all arranged by Jessica, with every detail kept secret to surprise Luke.

Cissie cried during the ceremony. Bridget threw rose
petals after it. The party left the courthouse in two sleighs pulled by pairs of white horses, their silver bells ringing, and raced through the nearly deserted streets and the wind and snow. Jessica was wrapped in a long white ermine coat and Luke in a new black dress coat with a velvet collar, a fur rug covering their knees. They kept gazing with wonder and happiness at each other. Even Bridget felt compelled to shed a tear or two.

The reception invitations sent out to Luke’s family and friends stated that the occasion was to celebrate his marriage. The ones Jessica sent to a few people who had been kind to her read only that she was having open house and they were welcome to come and join in a celebration.

The sleighs arrived one behind the other in front of Rose Cottage which was aglow with light. Luke had eyes only for Jessica. He was very much aware that ever since the night she had asked to marry him, they had existed in the most private, most intimate relationship that either of them had ever experienced. Until that moment when he helped her from the sleigh, he had not thought about the life they would now live among friends, family and colleagues. He pulled her into his arms, raised her chin with his gloved hand and, gazing into her eyes, said, ‘Thank you for taking me on.’

She grabbed his hand and laughingly told him, ‘I never knew I could be so happy.’ She pulled him through the swirling wind and snow up the path to the house and through the front door.

Some people were already there and as the couple stepped into the hall a cloud of rose petals showered them. There seemed to Luke to be dozens of petite, very pretty Chinese girls in bright yellow, long, tight, traditional silk dresses that women in China always used to wear. Clusters of yellow orchids adorned their black hair, neatly pulled back. They took the wedding party’s hats and coats and one of the girls fussed with the rose-cut diamond crescents pinned in Jessica’s hair.

The house was exactly as it always looked except that the dining-room table was covered with silver, jade, and period porcelain filled with succulent Chinese dishes served by four chefs. Four more chefs in the kitchen produced new dishes as required. All through the ground floor of the house were small, white, damask covered tables and lacquered bamboo chairs set amidst the furniture. Vases of white tulips, lilac, and Casablanca lilies adorned every surface, and hundreds of ivory coloured candles rose from silver or crystal candlesticks to light the rooms.

‘A Chinese wedding banquet,’ said Jessica proudly. ‘I thought you would like it.’

‘It’s like everything you do, a surprise and splendid.’ He was thrilled, just as he was excited by everything she brought into their relationship.

She kissed him. ‘And now comes the hard part. It’s time for me to meet your family and friends and face the questions you loved me too much to ask. Fortunately, I won’t have to answer them; ladies with no memories do at least manage to keep their privacy without even having to try.’

Luke caught the twinkle in Jessica’s eyes. She was telling him in an oblique way, ‘I’m keeping my secrets even now.’ He raised her hands and kissed her fingers and then her lips.

Luke stopped one of the serving girls carrying a silver tray of champagne flutes and took two. He handed one to Jessica and touching the rim of his glass to hers, he toasted his bride with, ‘You and I will always live for the here and the now. We have no need to linger in the past. Here’s to us, and the present, for all the days of our lives, Jessica.’

They drank and then Jessica slipped her arm through her husband’s and walked with him over to the fireplace, politely but distantly acknowledging the congratulations of the guests. Once in front of the fire, she threw her glass into the hearth where it smashed, the pieces glistening in the flames. Luke did the same.

They smiled at each other and Luke said, ‘At Jewish weddings the groom usually stamps on the glass, but this is far better, a little pagan but so are we, my heart.’

They kissed once more and then Jessica turned to face her guests.

Nothing much changed in their day to day lives except that they were happier than either of them had ever hoped to be. They were devoted to each other and committed as husband and wife yet they each had a life of their own, which made what they shared all the richer, all the more passionate. They worked hard and played hard and lived well between their two houses. They travelled to far-away places: pony trekking in Tibet, a medical conference in India, visits to the remote islands of Japan, the Galápagos Islands. Gone were the days when Jessica refused to leave Newbampton.

Jessica was generous to the town with some of the profits of her investments. She replaced the church bells and donated a stained-glass window designed by Miro in Wesson College’s church in memory of her mother. She created a nursery and school in the children’s wing of the hospital. It was all done anonymously, though everyone guessed who was behind the gifts. Jessica managed their two houses and entertained for Luke enthusiastically when she had to but mostly they continued to live a very private and extraordinarily intimate life, more so even than when they had been mere lovers.

They lived as they had vowed they would, for the moment, never looking back at where they had been or speculating about where they were going. The more Luke’s medical fame spread, the more Jessica receded into the background of his public life. Consequently, when she did make an appearance, his colleagues were bowled over by her exotic, sensuous beauty.

There was no doubt that she was an asset to Luke’s career.
She had a grace and intelligence that impressed the hierarchy in the medical profession. But though medicine took up the greater part of Luke’s life, at the end of the day he went home to Jessica and all else was left locked outside. Their love and passion for each other completed them. They needed nothing else, wanted nothing else to detract from it.

As Candia Van Buren, Jessica had spent much of her life studying fine art and dealing in it; as Mrs Luke Greenfield, she never bought anything for herself or Luke or their houses. Neither did Luke. They felt they had everything, more than their share of riches. If Luke gave her gifts it was flowers, chocolates, a piece of jewellery, a book. She bought him trees for the orchard, something for his laboratory, a gift for some needy cause, or a surprise holiday somewhere.

‘It’s hard to believe that in a matter of weeks we will have been married three years,’ said Jessica one bright, cold morning. She and Luke were walking through a wood along the river, arms round each other. All around them were the sounds of woodland life: birdsong, the rustling of leaves on the trees, the scampering of small animals through the undergrowth, the river slapping against rocks and mud embankments. Finally they sat down on a small promontory of granite high above the river. They kissed and Luke caressed Jessica’s hair.

‘Tell me you’ve been as happy as I have, Luke.’

‘Happier, but you know that,’ Luke told her.

‘I like to hear you say it. It makes it more real for me, makes me feel less selfish about having so much love.’

‘I want to buy you something special for this anniversary,’ Luke said.

‘I have everything I want,’ she told him.

‘Then let’s just call it the frosting on top of the cake. The cherry on top of the swirl of whipped cream on top of the sweet life.’

Jessica began to laugh. ‘Something extravagant and classically beautiful. Something for us both. I’ll pay for half
of it and that will make it our gift to each other. What do you think?’

‘A great idea.’

They toyed with a beach house on Martha’s Vineyard, a yacht somewhere along the Connecticut shoreline, a trip to Java or India. But neither of them felt inspired by any of their ideas.

Then one evening as Jessica drove up to the entrance of the hospital in her second-hand dark blue Volkswagen, Luke knew at once what their gift to each other should be.

He slipped into the seat next to Jessica, leaned across and kissed her. ‘A classic car, that’s what I would like for my third anniversary. A great Mercedes touring car that we can use for motoring holidays and you can have as your very own runaround instead of this old banger.’

‘Oh, I can’t sell this! But a classic car for us to tootle around in? Long rides into the country, elegant picnics, tours across America, trips to France and Italy. Yes, a great idea. Two middle-aged lovers in an elegant old car, what fun!’