Robert Walker - Blind Instinct

“Hold her hand still, so that I can stake it!” shouted another frustrated voice. The stake looked and felt hefty, larger than before. Somehow she felt it in her hand. One of them, teasing her, wanted her to know its weight. The voices of those around her, driving the stakes home now, through flesh and rending bone, suddenly had familiar and then absolutely recognizable voices which brought their features into clear focus. One was Copperwaite, the other Richard Sharpe.

She woke up screaming in the London Memorial Hospital to where she had been moved since the cave with the cross that rose so high there seemed no top to it. Her screams woke Richard who had been sitting the all-night vigil with her. Her hands were those of a mummy, both bandaged and wrapped. She felt no pain. She wiggled her toes, all to the good. She felt no blisters below her tongue. And she realized for the first time that not all her nightmares had come true.

“Jess, Jess, it's me, Richard. You've had a bad scare, I'm afraid, and God knows why. You're in hospital. They say you can walk out of here tomorrow.”

“Oh, Richard, it was… It was horrible.”He grabbed her up in his arms. “I well know. I was there.”She saw that his shoulder was in a sling and his forehead bandaged from his own wounds. “Cut my shoulder badly going through that grate and-”

“Dear God!”

“-and Luc Sante nearly took out my eye with a bullet, but I'm doing splendidly now, seeing and hearing from you. You were in shock when they brought you in, and I was a close second.”

“I walked blindly into his trap.”

“Never you mind that.”

“Never mind? I was so… He so charmed me!”

“Luc Sante charmed everyone. He could charm a snake.”

“Thanks, I think…”

“What you did, Jessica Coran, was to singlehandedly put an end to the Crucifier club. Well done, so says the papers and Boulte and the Queen.” He pointed to cards, letters, flowers filling the room.

“Well done? What well done? I acted foolishly and nearly got us both killed.”

“Survival, that's what. You survived. Strand and five others did not, six if you add the copycat killing.”

“That would have made me Luc Sante's seventh vicdm.”

He nodded. “I truly believe the old man thought you the prize ring, Jessica. You must have touched something in him as well. You can be fairly charming yourself, you know.”

“Shut up and kiss me, you Briton.”

He smiled, bent over, and passionately embraced and then kissed her. “God bless you, Jess.”

“And you, too, Richard, and you, too.”

October 10, 2000, Heathrow Airport,

Boarding Concorde Flight #414

5:09 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time

Jessica's parting with Richard Sharpe proved miles different from those times she and James Parry had parted. While parting with James had proven Shakespeare's “sweet sorrow” theme, there too had always been the element of guilt that James managed to leave her with, that she should feel guilty at leaving him, at not instantly changing over her life to box it all up to fit into his neat little world there in Hawaii. Richard would have none of that, and he didn't shed any tears, actual or metaphorical at her leaving, but rather said, “I will make it my business to visit America to see you, Jessie.” He'd taken to calling her Jessie James since the incident, and he had since shortened it to simply Jessie. “I won't let a pond as small as the Atlantic stand between us, not for long anyway.”

It made her smile, hearing him say such words in so matter a fact a tone, as if no obstacles existed between them, because Richard wouldn't allow obstacles.

“You have a place to stay-a warm bed-anytime you visit,” she assured him. “You've made my time here more valuable than any dme I've spent on the planet, Richard. I… I can honestly tell you now, I love you. I truly do.”

This caught him unaware, and he audibly gasped. “I had no idea. You hold your cards so close to your chest, as you Americans put it.”

“Hold on there, Inspector. You haven't said those words to me, either.”

“I hadn't dreamed you could feel so deeply for me. I thought our relations… relationship purely a matter of… you see, physical attraction.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“I mean… I guess, I mean to say, I hadn't considered a woman of your intelligence and beauty to be all that, well… interested in a dull sot like myself, an aging fellow to boot, and-”

“Older men intrigue me. You've lived a life, Richard. And you do have more to offer than anyone I've known, Colonel Sharpe.”

“Including Parry?”

She had told him all about her love affair with Parry, and he had been silent and understanding, and when she'd finished, he had told her all about his wife, Clarisa, and his two daughters, his eyes sparkling as usual when he spoke of the children.

Final boarding on the Concorde for America was called. She'd been given clearance to sit in the jump seat in the cockpit behind the pilot and copilot, and she felt extremely excited about the trip home, and nothing Richard said or did spoiled any of it. He remained focused on her the entire time of their parting, never once making her feel odd about leaving so soon, as she had decided, never once asking her to remain longer, but rather promising to see her sooner than she might like. They kissed a final, long, passionate kiss, embracing as lovers, the world falling away from around them, dissolving into oblivion for they lived, each and the other, in this moment alone. He whispered in her ear, “We're good together, you and I.”

“Yes, yes we are. I'll tell my shrink all about you,” she teased, “and I'll ring you up as soon as I get to a phone. I must admit, I'm anxious for home, my place.”

“I certainly understand that, but I rather doubt you'll be happy over there in the Colonies for long without me.”

She laughed and socked him with a petting punch to the cheek.

“And I wager that I will ring you up long before I hear from you,” he challenged.

“It's a wager I will take.”

He breathed a great breath, his chest heaving. “Off you go, now,” he quietly said, and she saw a moment's weakness flush over his features as he held her pair of bandaged hands in his.

“The bandages make my wounds look more severe than they are,” she told him. “I'm really in no pain, though I wish more feeling would return.”

He instantly controlled his emotions with a joke. “You jolly well better get more feeling back in those fingers. I want you, touch and all. Time you toddled off now, sweetheart.” He kissed her a final, lingering kiss good-bye.

And toddle she did, staggering a bit under the influence of his intoxicating taste. She parted with him in harmony and in romance. All the way to the airport, he had spoken of working diligently to breathe life into the flame of their newly kindled relationship. She believed he meant every word, but she feared the distance, knowing what distance had done to Parry and her.

Heathrow Airport bustled about her and Richard where he stood waving her off. All she saw remained him, his smile wide and caring, all the rest of reality had faded, blurred, moved about her in slow motion. She thought of what he'd said to her the night before, after they'd made love for what might well be the last dme. “I'm soon to retire,” he had told her, “and I have always thought that a retirement to America might not be a bad idea.” It had sounded like a fishing expedition, to see her reaction.