A Scent of Magic Page 17

  They stood before one another, their bodies not touching, and yet she felt him. Felt all of him, surrounding her, within her, a part of her. She raised her eyes to his, and their gazes locked. Their hands met, palms touching, lightly, ever so lightly.

  Blood pounded in her ears. Every rational part of her screamed out to run from him, to escape while she still could. He was a practiced seducer, and she was apparently still unable to overcome his spell. Yet she stood transfixed, not daring to breathe, watching as his head lowered, waiting for the longed-for taste of his lips against her own. It should not be so. Could not be. Except in her dreams.

  But when his lips met hers, the universe shifted, and she knew this was no dream. His touch was light, magical. She felt the caress of his breath against her face, smelled the fragrance of his skin. His scent swept her instantly back to that summer’s night long ago, and she leaned into his embrace, for a moment suspending time and tide and all the terrible events that stood between them. They were just Nick and Simone. Man. Woman. In love.

  And then it was over. Simone felt Nick’s muscles tense where her hands lay on his upper arms. Her own body responded in kind, and she straightened abruptly and stepped away. Whatever had overcome them?

  “I…I have to go,” she stammered, backing over the loose dirt of the encircled garden, almost tripping on one of the outlining rocks.

  He stood in the center, still as a statue, and stared at her awkward retreat with unreadable eyes. Then he, too, seemed to come out of the trance. She saw him take a step backward and raise his hands, palms out, in front of his chest, as if to prevent him from getting close to her again. “Go,” he rasped. “Just go.”

  Much later, Nick stared unseeing out the window of his room at Brierley Hall, trying to sort out what had happened between him and Simone in Mary Rose’s garden. When he’d stepped into the circle of rocks, he’d felt irresistibly drawn to the center, toward Simone, and he could swear when he entered the inner circle he had been overcome by some magical enchantment. He had no other explanation for what he’d done.

  Nick picked up the crumbling volume he’d discovered that afternoon in the niche in the wall. The Charms and Spells of Mary Rose Hatcher. He’d concluded earlier from what he’d read in these pages that Mary Rose must have indeed been a witch, at least in a sense. But he did not believe in magic or divination or witches or spells. And yet, as the sun had set and twilight descended, he had taken Simone Lefevre into his arms as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And astoundingly, she had come to him. Willingly. Had she been under an enchantment as well?

  He knew Simone Lefevre hated him with every ounce of her being. And he was suspicious of every move she made.

  What had come over them?

  His throat tightened as he recalled the feel of her in his arms, the taste of her lips, the scent of her body. He ached for her from the depth of his very being. If they had been under some magical enchantment, he sighed, he wished he could live forever under that spell. For in those brief moments, he had known happiness the likes of which he’d experienced only fleetingly, in the dreams. He despaired that it had ended so quickly, that they had so suddenly regained their senses and hastily and with great mutual embarrassment departed in different directions.

  But they had parted, and likely she was struggling to make some sense of the inexplicable interlude as well. He glanced at the book. Did Simone know anything about magic?

  Nick gave a short, doubtful laugh and forced his attention to the book. It had been barely twelve hours since he’d come across this slender, aged notebook that held a secret that could very possibly change his life. He still found it hard to believe that he’d discovered the place where it had been hidden away for over a century and a half.

  He opened the book carefully. The pages were handwritten, decorated with clever designs and illustrations. On them, in the same strong yet feminine penmanship he recognized from his uncle’s packet of letters, Mary Rose Hatcher had recorded recipes, set down descriptions of wild plants and herbs and their uses, even made note of the progress of certain of her patients she was treating with different tonics and other medicinals.

  But what had fascinated Nick immediately was the inclusion of spells and enchantments among the entries. There before his eyes was proof that the family legend that Mary Rose had been a witch was true.

  He turned to a page that had caught his attention earlier. There was a drawing of a five-pointed star within a circle, accompanied by a paragraph on how to invoke a sacred space. On other pages were instructions for creating dolls—Mary Rose called them poppets. They were made of corn husks, and she apparently used them to symbolize real people in her magical rituals. This reminded Nick of an old horror movie about voodoo dolls, and he shivered in spite of himself.

  Absently, he turned to the back of the book, hoping for something less ominous, and he was surprised at what he found. Pressed between the pages were specimens of various blossoms, probably plucked from Mary Rose’s garden…a damask rose, a daffodil, a sprig of lavender. And there, collected with the rest, was a paper-thin skeleton of a blossom he was certain he’d never seen anywhere else before. It was trumpet-shaped, about four inches in length, and although faded, it looked to have once been red. Beneath it was written, “Mahja.”

  Nick’s pulse began to pound against his temples in excitement. Mahja. This was it! According to one of the letters he’d found in the old trunk, this was the flower from which Mary Rose had extracted the mysterious and erotic perfume oil. With trembling fingers, Nick eased the blossom gently from between the pages and laid it across the palm of his hand. He nodded and grinned to himself. So this was the elusive mahja.

  He held the pressed blossom to his nose, but the eons had stolen away its scent. No matter. Surely now that he had an actual specimen, Dr. Wheatley at Kew Gardens would be able to identify it from its shape and form. He would give it a modern, recognizable British name, and Nick could move forward with the development of his perfume. He’d drive out to the Gardens first thing Monday morning, before even going into work.

  Nervous excitement shot through his body. He was close, so close, to the critical discovery. But with his usual self-discipline, he reined in his high hopes. It was too early to get excited. And besides, there was still the question of whether or not Simone had somehow discovered the essence as well.

  If she had the perfume oil, Nick wondered if she also knew the real identity of the mahja plant. Had her nose been better than his? Had she already identified the mysterious scent, either from smelling it, or by using the high tech tools available at the House of Rutledge?

  At the thought, his spirits came crashing down, for if she had learned the secret to the perfume, Nick was certain he’d already lost the race to create it first. He drew in a deep breath. Should he even pursue it further? Wouldn’t it be smarter to invest his limited resources into something less dramatic but financially more sensible, like another line of bath and body products?

  But as he eyed the exotic blossom on his palm, he knew that a line of bath and body products wouldn’t do it for him. He needed a sizzling, dramatic perfume. And he would not abandon his hopes for the future on the basis of his own misguided, paranoid presumptions. He had no proof that Simone knew about the perfume. Maybe she’d been telling the truth that she’d come to the garden to see its unique shape and the shimmering rocks that outlined it. Maybe her reservation at the cottage had been coincidental.

  Nick frowned, his paranoia returning. It concerned him that Simone had called the garden a mandala. Exactly how Mary Rose had described it in her little book. That, he thought, was just a little too coincidental for comfort.

  The train ride back into London seemed interminable. Simone knew intellectually that it was taking the same time as it had to come to the country, but now instead of pleasant expectations of a visit with a friend, she was left alone with thoughts too scary to contemplate.

  Thoughts about Nick Rutledge, and what had hap
pened in the center of the mandala garden. Thoughts about how her body, her heart, her entire being had felt at last fully alive when he held her in his arms and she opened to his kiss.

  She wasn’t supposed to feel like that.

  Staring unseeing at the quaint villages and bucolic scenery passing before her eyes, her mind could behold only the look in Nick’s eyes, and the pain that was reflected there. Always before, her hatred of him had precluded any consideration of the circumstances of his life. She had assumed, after learning he was the heir to the House of Rutledge, that he was wealthy, and the thought of being betrayed not only by a heartless thief but also a rich one had added to her outrage.

  But during this visit, Esther had told her that Nick’s parents, both of whom were no longer living, had been instead part of the impoverished aristocracy found often in British society these days, and that he had inherited nothing but the derelict property of Brierley Hall. That explained why he had sold the valuable antiques and put the cottage out for rent.

  But she knew it wasn’t the despair of penury that she’d seen in his face. It had been a look of loneliness, of regret, of torment, a look so sad that it had struck a chord in her own wounded heart.

  Simone shook her head. It had been none of the above, she told herself irritably. It was just her imagination bedeviling her. Her imagination—and her misplaced desire. She was being a fatuous fool again. Falling for his seductions. Again. Nicholas Rutledge, impoverished or not, was still a master seducer, a traitor. And he still wanted something from her.

  Was it the perfume oil?

  She let her mind toy with that a while. Suppose he knew about the essence. Perhaps, as she’d suggested to Esther, he’d come across it when he was disposing of the contents of the cottage. If he’d sampled it, Simone had no doubt that he would immediately recognize its importance as a potential component in a highly marketable fragrance. But suppose he was having no better luck than she in determining the origin of the oil, whose unusual combination of molecules had to be what was responsible for creating the remarkable erotic effects on the human body.

  What are you doing here? He’d pressed her for an answer over and over in the garden. Did he suspect she was there because he knew the fragrance had originated there? How could he? And yet, she had to admit, if she were him, she would be highly suspicious of her repeated visits to the cottage, especially if he thought something valuable was hidden there.

  She thought about the niche in the wall, the empty niche, and decided that if anything valuable had been hidden away there, Nick had found it. It rankled. She’d been so close. Well, there was nothing for it but to keep trying by trial and error to recreate the perfume by synthesis.

  She caught the tube from the train terminal, and covered the few blocks from the underground station to the company’s flat quickly, suddenly eager to resume her research again. Knowing that Nick was likely on the same trail added urgency to her quest.

  At first she was unaware that anything was amiss. The apartment appeared to be just as she’d left it. Until she went into her bedroom and glanced at the fake wooden surface of the inexpensive nightstand.

  The vials were missing.

  The small bottle into which she had decanted the last of the essential oil from the crystal container, and the bottle that held the remnants of Esther’s supply simply weren’t where she’d placed them before leaving for Redford.

  Simone sank onto the bed. Think! she screamed silently at herself. Am I mistaken? Did I hide them someplace else? Panic rose hot and bitter at the back in her throat. How could she have so carelessly mislaid something so important? Her heart thudding, she forced herself to undertake a methodical search for the missing containers, for in them was the essence that could very well secure her future. Bathroom drawers. Kitchen drawers and cabinets. Closet shelves. Beneath the bed. Even in the refrigerator.

  Her search led to the end table, next to the sofa, where she usually deposited her handbag and any other personal belongings upon entering the apartment. Of course, she’d taken her handbag with her to Redford, but it seemed like something else had been on that table when she’d left on Friday evening…

  The manila file containing the formula Shamir had given her. It had been there when she left. She was certain of it. Unless she had absentmindedly put it wherever she’d put the perfume vials and they were missing together.

  Simone resisted the urge to scream. Instead, she called upon that trusted emotion that had seen her through so much—anger. She did not think she had mislaid anything. Somebody must have broken into the flat and taken them. But who? For once, she couldn’t blame Nick. She knew where he’d been over the weekend, although, she supposed, he could have hired someone to do it.

  She thought of the tall, dark-skinned swami whom she suspected had broken into Nick’s own house or office and taken the incomplete formula. But why would he want to steal it from her? He’d just given it to her.

  Nothing made sense.

  She went to the window and stared into the summer street below. Nothing made sense at all. Not this theft, if it was a theft and not her own carelessness. Certainly not her misplaced sympathy, as brief as it had been, for Nick Rutledge. Or the ease with which she had let him break the long-standing siege she’d held around her emotions. She shook her head, laughing to keep from exploding with anger and frustration. No. None of it made sense. Not even being here, in this cramped, impersonal apartment, working for a company in England, rather than in France or the United States, the two places she’d called home. Maybe she was losing her mind.

  But what would she be doing if she wasn’t doing this? She closed her eyes and felt an emotional pain that slashed through her so deeply she could feel it in her fingertips. Here she was, twenty-seven years old, without a life, without friends, without a lover, except in the dreams she now feared might be eroding her sanity. She knew it was foolish of her, but she allowed herself to remember briefly how, just for a moment, all those “withouts” had disappeared in the warmth of Nick’s embrace. For a magic moment, suspended between daylight and darkness, between yesterday and tomorrow, she had found the sense of home, of belonging, that had eluded her since she had left France.

  That was what she’d rather be doing.

  She would rather be with someone, not Nick of course, but a man who would take away her loneliness, someone with whom she could share her life, who she could trust and love and respect, and who would feel the same toward her. Simone exhaled a tired sigh and looked out the window again. Was there such a someone out there for her? It seemed not, for every time she’d met a man in the past few years, she’d backed off, her fear of betrayal too great to allow anyone too close.

  In short, she was her own worst enemy. And until she got over her fear, she supposed she’d be stuck just as she was—alone. At least she had a good job, she reminded herself, even if she didn’t particularly like her boss. At the House of Rutledge, she had the chance to become what she’d always wanted to be, a truly great perfumer. She picked up her handbag and headed for the door, seeking yet another meal alone in a restaurant.

  Maybe she would have to be content with that—being a truly great perfumer, even if it she lived alone the rest of her years.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was almost a relief, after weeks of struggle, not to have to fight it out again today with Mary Rose’s perfume. Her samples having been stolen, Simone had nothing with which to work. She stood before the console, fingering the myriad little bottles, wondering what she would do now…and where in hell those two vials and the folder with Shamir’s formula had gone. She’d turned her apartment upside down upon her return from dinner the night before, searching until she was satisfied that they simply were not there. She had not yet decided whether to call the police, but she felt foolish reporting the theft of a perfume. Unless a person was in the industry and understood the espionage factor that made perfumers tight-lipped and paranoid, no one would take her seriously.

  So
she’d decided to bide her time and see what unfolded. The robber might reveal himself if she didn’t press the issue. Isn’t that what great detectives counted on sometimes? The ego of the thief and his subconscious wish to be caught. But did this thief wish to be caught? Or was he a more pragmatic burglar, one who also knew about the perfume and who had decided to make it his own? Since Simone knew of it, as did Esther and probably Nick, she reckoned others might have learned about it and its “interesting” effects. She would wait and see, for in truth, there was nothing else she could do about it.

  The phone on her desk buzzed, and she noted the intercom light glowed red. “Hello. This is Simone.”

  “Ah, good morning, my dear.” Antoine Dupuis’s voice was just short of intimate. “Did you have a good weekend?”

  “It was okay,” she said, fingering a strand of hair. Was it just because he was her boss that the man made her so nervous?

  “I called at the apartment to see if you needed anything, but no one was home.”

  “I…I spent the weekend in the country.”

  There was a long pause, then, “Are you busy, or could you come to my office for a few minutes?”

  “I’ll be right down.” What could he want of her? Perhaps she was about to get fired. After all, she hadn’t produced anything since she’d been at the House of Rutledge. But surely he’d give her more of a chance than a mere three weeks.

  Dupuis rose from the chair behind the massive desk when she entered the room and indicated for her to take a seat on the opposite side. Then he sat down again. She gave him a curious glance, and it was then she saw the vials. They sat on his desk, atop the manila folder.

  Her eyes widened. “Where…did you get those?” She tried to control her shock by speaking in an even tone, but she her cheeks burned.

  Dupuis gestured and shrugged his shoulders and gave her a calculated smile. “I told you I stopped by your flat.”