A Scent of Magic Read online

  Money.

  He would, he decided, smoothing back his graying sideburns, bide his time with Simone Lefevre. Give her a chance to settle into her new position. Give her the benefit of the doubt concerning her talent as a perfumer. He would court her, not overtly or personally, but corporately. He would approach her at arm’s-length, keep things strictly to the business, until she trusted him and lowered those lovely defenses.

  He smiled to his image in the mirror. It was a safe and appealing strategy. He would not risk appearing the fool, and yet from a relatively intimate vantage point, he could admire her sensual beauty without exposing his true feelings. He had already made a practice of dropping in on her at work, and he decided he would continue to do so, to let her get used to his presence.

  The perfume lab was located upstairs in a large area that was sealed like a clean room in an attempt to prevent the riot of scent at play there from escaping into the rest of the building. Antoine wondered how anyone could concentrate among the intensely aromatic surroundings. He could not remain long in the perfumery. It gave him a headache.

  He entered the room and stifled a sneeze as a virtual cacophony of scents assailed him. He found Simone where he’d expected, perched on a chair in front of the computerized equipment used in modern-day perfumery. He hesitated before approaching her, allowing his eyes to feast for a moment on the young woman’s allure. Even in the white lab coat, she exuded an innate sexuality. Her hair spilled down her back in rich, dark waves, forming a tantalizing contrast to the severity of the uniform, the clean lines of which could not hide the curve of her hips, the gentle slope of her shoulders. Ah, quelle jolie jeune femme, he sighed. What a beautiful young woman.

  Now, if only she proved to have the talent he sought in a master perfumer…

  …and if he could win her trust…

  …and then win her affection…

  He would have it all. The House of Rutledge. The woman. The power. The prestige.

  It was a challenge. But he would have it.

  He would have it all.

  “Bonjour, mademoiselle,” he said, coming to stand directly behind her. She jumped as if she’d been doused with a bucket of water and whirled the swivel chair around to face him. He was astounded to see she wore a filter over her nose. Mon Dieu! What kind of perfumer covers her nose, even in this aroma-laden environment? Most “noses” claimed that their olfactory senses became accustomed to the sensory overload that they simply did not smell the scents mingling in their immediate environment. His earlier doubts came screaming back.

  “Oh, good morning,” she replied, hastily removing the white mask. She turned back to the computer table and with a single swipe, covered with a piece of heavy plastic a syringe, a small vial, her notes, everything that lay on the surface. “You startled me,” she added, turning again to face him. “I get so engrossed in my work, I’m afraid I lose track of everything else. Is there something I can do for you?”

  Her face was very pale, her eyes strained, her demeanor intense and nervous. She acted almost…guilty. Curious, Dupuis watched her closely, but he remained casual, moving to the edge of the console and leaning against it.

  “Pardon, Miss Lefevre,” he said with thick charm, “I did not mean to frighten you.”

  “Yes, uh, yes, thank you,” she replied, pushing the rolling chair away from him and standing, brushing imagined wrinkles from her black silk trousers.

  God, but he loved the way she dressed. Hip. French. Daring. Sexy without knowing it. Today beneath the lab coat she wore a tightly-fitting long-sleeved shirt in a bright geometric techno print. Two buttons were unfastened at the neck, a fashion statement, nothing more, and yet he perceived a subtle invitation there. He swallowed over the unexpected desire that seemed suddenly lodged in his throat.

  At the same moment, a scent made its way through the myriad smells that permeated the room and traveled up his nose. A lovely scent, unlike anything he had ever smelled. So she was working on something! And from its delectable aroma, he knew instantly he had been wrong to doubt her talent as a perfumer. But suddenly he realized with a start that something else was going on here…

  He seemed to be experiencing some kind of physiological reaction to the scent. His pulse began to pound in his temples. His skin tingled. And incredibly, he felt himself growing…hard! He felt younger, vibrant, more alive than he had only moments before.

  He regarded Simone with open astonishment. “Qu’est-ce que c’est? What is this?”

  Chapter Twelve

  “What is what?” Simone was alarmed by the expression that had suddenly come over Dupuis’s face. It was the unmistakable look of the predatory male. She’d seen it on the men who had sometimes come on to her both at the university and the occasional times she’d visited a bar with friends in New Orleans. The look that clearly indicated a sexual advance was on its way.

  It hadn’t been there when she first turned to face him. In that instant, she had perceived he was all business, checking up on her the way he had since she joined the company three weeks before. At first it had annoyed her, these little drop-in visits of his. But she’d become accustomed to them, and she figured he had the right to keep an eye on her, at least in the beginning.

  The problem was she did not want him to learn anything about the project in front of her, the search that was driving her crazy. Until she discovered the identity of the floral essence, and if it was unavailable from nature, came up with a synthesized version of it for use in her grand parfum, she wanted no one to know about it. She herself was unsure of its safety, and for that reason, and to avoid the pleasurable but disturbing sexual arousal it caused in her, she had begun wearing a face mask during her analytical work at the computer. She also kept her materials covered in plastic so no one else would be exposed. She couldn’t imagine a perfume being dangerous, but she wanted to take precautions all the same.

  But she’d been careless, and she knew from his reaction Dupuis had caught a sniff of it. In one respect, this proved it was dangerous, and powerful, because he now stood before her, obviously horny as a school boy. He hadn’t been when he’d entered the room.

  It had to be the perfume.

  “That scent,” he murmured, taking a step toward her. “It…it is the most beautiful fragrance I have ever known.”

  Simone backed away from him and began protectively buttoning her lab coat. “It’s…just something I have been working on. But I’m not ready…” Her eyes widened as he reached to pull back the plastic. “No!” She rushed to place her body between him and the perfume. The last thing she needed was for her boss to truly fall under its spell and get out of line.

  Crossing her arms in front of her, she took on her father’s attitude, behavior that bordered on arrogance. She, like Jean René, was an artist and must be allowed creative freedom. The trick had worked for Papa, and her father’s clients had always respected his wishes and demands, because he was, after all, the master. Simone hoped it would work for her as well. She pulled herself to her full five-foot, six inches, almost as tall as the Frenchman. “S’il vous plaît,” she said sternly. “I must insist that I be allowed to work in privacy until I am ready to introduce my fragrances. If you wish me to remain as your master perfumer, it is imperative that I work in my own way, alone.” She stared him in the eye and didn’t blink.

  In his eyes she read a series of conflicting emotions. Desire, clearly, dimmed by her brusque and resolute insistence on having her way. Then she saw curiosity, a flicker of thoughtfulness, and finally, the glitter of greed.

  “Oui,” he said at last, his professional demeanor returning. “But of course. Every great perfumer must have his…uh, excuse me, her space. I apologize for interrupting your work, mademoiselle.”

  With that, he gave her a slight bow, turned and left the room. Simone sagged into the chair again. She glanced at the tools of her trade visible through the clear plastic that enshrouded them, wondering what, if any, secrets they would eventually reveal. Th
ere was no longer any doubt in her mind that the essence created by Esther’s craft ancestor Mary Rose was more than evocative, more than sensual, more even than just a perfume. She knew it had had the same effect on Antoine Dupuis as it had on her, and she forgave him his temporary lust. She, too, had fallen victim to the lure of the scent, and it had only been through her determination to end the dream encounters with Nick that she had avoided letting it become a habit.

  A habit-forming perfume. Hmmmm. That would be profitable, she thought with a wry smile. And she supposed a fragrance that brought about intensely sexual dreams was fine, too. It might make an unhappy world a little brighter.

  But a scent that created instant sexual arousal frightened her. That, she decided, could definitely be dangerous. There were a lot of sexually-repressed nuts out there. Would the use of her perfume turn them into perverts? Rapists? Libertines? On the other hand, maybe some of those repressed sorts could use a good dose of healthy sexuality, she thought, smiling. Maybe her grand parfum would be one that would free people, especially the puritanical Americans, from some of their ridiculous inhibitions concerning their bodies.

  Simone looked at her watch, surprised to see that the day had fled. She stood and stretched away the hours she’d sat hunched at the highly sophisticated computerized equipment with software that should have made her search for and reconstruction of the chemical makeup of the perfume easy. Using this advanced technology, she had been able to discern the molecular structure of the essence, but she had not been successful in replicating it. She had come close, but nothing had smelled exactly like Mary Rose’s perfume.

  Or performed like it.

  This kind of chemical trial and error was a time-consuming process that could also be expensive, and she sensed Dupuis was getting impatient with her lack of productivity.

  How long would he allow her to continue her experimentation before he demanded she move on to something else, she wondered, gathering up her materials, turning out the lights and stepping into the upstairs hallway? She was becoming frustrated herself. Maybe she ought to give up on it. Why was she so obsessed with recreating the perfume anyway?

  Summer evening sunlight slanted through the windows on the upstairs landing, casting a dusky, caramelized glow down the stairs. She descended to the back hallway, noting that no one else was around. Apparently the others had already left for the day. She’d been given instructions on how to lock up if she worked late. Her footsteps echoed on the hardwood floors as she approached the front entrance, and her keys echoed a loud jingle when she withdrew them from her handbag.

  The front parlor was in shadow, the only illumination at the entrance coming from the recessed lighting in the center hallway. Simone was almost to the door when a motion at the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she turned with a gasp as a man stepped from the shadows into the lighted foyer.

  A tall man. Dressed in a splendid, opulent and completely ludicrous red coat that literally dripped with rhinestones.

  “Good evening, Mademoiselle Lefevre,” he greeted her, bowing so low his turban touched the floor. She stared at him in astonishment. It was the man who had come to her aunt’s perfumery in New Orleans. She reached to remember his name, but it wouldn’t come.

  “Mr…uh…”

  “Shamir,” he reminded her gently, a benign smile on his lips.

  Simone knew she ought to be afraid, but for some reason, she was not. The man did not appear to wish her any harm. He was just some kind of nut case, she decided, wishing she could make the perfume his master had paid her father for long ago and get him out of her life.

  “Mr. Shamir, I find it a little surprising that you are here. How did you know where to find me?”

  A twinkle lit his dark brown eyes. “It is not difficult for me to find anything, or anyone,” he replied enigmatically. “Please, do not be afraid. I have come to return something to you.” With that, he moved his arms from where they had rested behind his back and handed her a manila folder.

  She reached for it, confounded by Shamir’s presence and curious as to what he might be returning to her. The tab on the folder was marked “Project X” in a handwriting that seemed vaguely familiar. She opened the file, her fingers trembling slightly. Squinting to read in the dim light, she saw that it was a formula for a perfume.

  “What is this? And where did you get it?” she asked.

  “It is the missing formula for my master’s perfume. Where I got it is not important. I simply request that you finish the perfume,” he said, bowing his head slightly, “now that I have provided this formula for you.”

  Simone’s eyes widened as she suddenly comprehended the implications of Shamir’s return of the formula. This file must have been among the rest of the materials that had been stolen from her father that night. Still in the possession of Nick Rutledge? Simone thought of the afternoon Nick had barged into Antoine’s office, accusing him of trespassing, and she was certain now that Dupuis’s surprise had been genuine, his innocence in any theft beyond doubt.

  She glanced at the formula again. The ingredients listed were nothing extraordinary, a blend of primarily Oriental scents that should give the perfume an exotic Far Eastern personality with a slightly leathery green undertone. Patchouli. Sandalwood. Myrrh and its cousin opoponax. Ylang-ylang. Cinnamon. Oak moss.

  But at the bottom, in a handwriting different from the rest, in a style she recognized immediately as her father’s, she saw inscribed a large question mark and a notation in French that something was missing, an ingredient that Jean René had wished the client to supply him, but which might have to be recreated synthetically. Simone smiled briefly, knowing how her father deplored the use of synthetics in his perfumes. It did not surprise her that he’d requested the client to come up with the missing ingredient. But apparently, the client never had, and her father had died before the perfume could be completed.

  “This is as useless to me as it was to my father,” she told the tall man. “It appears that there is an ingredient missing, one that must have been critical to the perfume that he was unable to find, or synthesize.”

  “That is true, mademoiselle,” Shamir replied.

  “I have no idea what it could be,” she explained. “I cannot make this for you, unless you can give me the missing ingredient, or at least some clue to what it is.”

  Again, the strange smile. “You are closer than you know,” he replied with benevolent patience, “but I have brought you something that will perhaps serve to hasten the process.” With that, he took her hand, opened it palm up, and dropped into it seven small seeds that lay like black pearls against her fair skin. “I am not certain,” he told her, “but I have reason to believe the plant from which these seeds came might give you what is missing in my master’s formula.”

  Simone looked down, studying the seeds for a long moment. “I…I don’t know,” she said, wishing the man had not tracked her down, wishing he would go away and leave her alone. He was obviously not in his right mind, dressed as he was and obsessed as he appeared to be about his master’s perfume. How could she gracefully disengage herself from his presence, and from her father’s obligation he obviously intended for her to fulfill? “I don’t have anywhere to grow these. I don’t know what they are, or what they need in the way of cultivation. I…” She lifted her eyes, hoping Shamir would understand.

  But when she looked up, no one was in the room.

  Thoroughly frightened and dismayed, Simone turned on all the lights in the front of the building and searched for the man who called himself Shamir, but he was nowhere to be found. She could not explain his sudden disappearance, but she did not doubt that he had been there only a moment before. The proof of his visit was in her hands.

  Seven seeds and the formula for a perfume he’d somehow managed to procure, probably by theft.

  It was too much. Surely she must be losing her mind. Maybe it was the frustration of the project she’d been working on. Or the long hours she was spending i
n the lab. Or the stress of it all combined…new surroundings, new job. Running into Nick Rutledge after all this time. The strain must be taking its toll, she decided, but even so…where did the seeds and the formula come from, if not from the man who now seemingly had vanished into thin air?

  Simone had never paid much attention to magic, but she guessed that Shamir must be some kind of stage magician who had a very effective disappearing act. Every sensible part of her said to ignore him and his request, that he was mentally unbalanced, maybe even dangerous. She looked again at the seeds. They were small and black, like beads, and she did not recognize them.

  What kind of plant produced these seeds? She shrugged and slipped them into her pocket. She reached to turn the lights off when she noticed a glimmer on the floor. She knelt and picked up a red rhinestone, similar to the one that had fallen from Shamir’s coat in New Orleans. The man needed a seamstress, she decided, placing the bit of heavy plastic in her pocket alongside the seeds. His ridiculous bejeweled coat was raining away its glory.

  Simone returned to the corporate flat owned by the House of Rutledge that she had been loaned until she could find a place of her own. It was modern and sterile, rather like a hotel room, and its very utility made her long for the cozy room above Tantie Camille’s shop. Homesickness washed over her, and she plopped onto the bed, a lump forming in her throat.