A Scent of Magic Read online

  “Why did he kill himself?”

  Nick was surprised that she didn’t want to know more about his title, as most others did. And that she addressed his father’s death so directly. Most people avoided the uncomfortable subject of suicide. “He was an abominable businessman. He should never have tried to manage the House of Rutledge. But he did, and before he died, he’d nearly taken it into bankruptcy. He was a failure, at least in his eyes, and he couldn’t bear it.” Nick cleared his throat. “That’s what he said anyway, in the note he left my mother.”

  Silence stretched between them, broken at last by Simone’s soft voice. “I’m sorry, Nick. That must have been very difficult for you.”

  He shrugged and drained his drink. “People die. It was no worse than watching your father fall dead of a heart attack, I suppose,” he said, suddenly angry, not wanting her to be sorry for him. He didn’t deserve her kindness or understanding. He looked up to see tears brimming in her dark eyes.

  “Do you have to be so cruel?” she said.

  Damn. He’d done it again. In assuaging his own pain, he had hurt her. It seemed to be his demented proclivity. “Please. Forgive me,” he uttered.

  The waiter arrived with surprising promptness, served their drinks, and informed Nick that if they wished to have dinner, they should proceed to the dining room soon, as it was getting late.

  Nick was grateful for the interruption. Perhaps inside he could change the subject. Find out what she really wanted of him. He doubted it was the story of his father’s suicide that she’d come for. He stood and picked up his drink. “Shall we?” he said, motioning toward the door.

  Simone was irritated that the waiter had broken in on their conversation. For the first time in her life, she felt she was beginning to understand the real Nicholas Rutledge. And she wanted to know more. She wasn’t hungry. Dinner was just an annoyance, a ritual that provided them an impersonal social setting for this meeting. But Nick offered her no choice but to accompany him into the dining room.

  The enormous room glittered in ornate Georgian style, with heavy, intricately carved molding where the portrait-lined walls met the mural-decorated ceiling. It had been Lord Egremont’s ballroom, Nick told her as they were seated, and she could easily envision Lord Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb flirting and laughing in the golden light of the glimmering chandeliers.

  At the far end, a small ensemble played classical and popular music, and a few guests had taken to the dance floor. The staff was formally dressed, exceedingly British. It was Simone’s first brush with what she perceived must be England’s famed “upper crust.” Hadn’t Nick himself just told her he was a Lord or something?

  She ordered the lightest thing on the menu, a ladies’ filet steak in burgundy sauce, wondering how she could consume a bite, thinking that perhaps this whole idea had been a mistake. The way Nick kept looking at her made her distinctly uncomfortable. It was the same expression she remembered from years ago, a mixture of admiration and desire. Perhaps she should have worn something more modest. But she was crazy for this dress. It had caught her eye in Harrod’s, and she’d bought it on a whim, wondering if she would ever have a place to wear it.

  “You said on the phone that you needed to talk to me.” Nick’s voice jarred her back into the moment.

  “Yes. Yes, I do.” She fiddled with her earring. She picked up her drink. “We toasted earlier to honesty, and that’s what I hope we can maintain between us tonight.”

  He did not reply, just regarded her steadily. She must approach this carefully or she could blow the only chance she might have to accomplish her secondary mission, to learn if he, too, knew of the erotic perfume.

  “Why did you leave the House of Rutledge?” she asked, truly wanting to know, but also hoping the answer would lead to the history of his ancestors in general, and maybe from there to John and Mary Rose. She could tell from the way his eyes narrowed that he wasn’t expecting that question from her. Nor did he like it.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “It…it has to do with Antoine Dupuis,” she improvised, not sure where that answer came from.

  “What about him?”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “Only to serve his own interests. Why?”

  “I…I don’t know. He has been pleasant enough to me. He’s given me total creative freedom with my work. But there’s something about him…”

  “He’s a cold, calculating, self-absorbed, greedy little son-of-a-bitch, if you want my honest opinion.”

  Simone couldn’t help but laugh. “Is that all? I thought you might say something really bad about him.”

  “Why do you care what I think of him?”

  “You worked with him for ten years. Even though he’s been good to me so far, I’ve seen him be…uh, difficult, with others. I’m wondering how you managed to stay there so long.”

  Nick glowered and took a drink. “Birds of a feather, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I suppose I could think that,” Simone said, “but for some reason, I don’t.”

  He clearly disbelieved her. “I left,” he responded at last, “because as I said, I was tired of living a lie, the lie that the House of Rutledge still belonged to me. It didn’t. It hasn’t since Dupuis loaned me the money to salvage it from disaster ten years ago. He invested in the company, and I was part of the purchase,” he added bitterly, “although I was too stupid to understand until last year I was nothing more than his lackey. I finally couldn’t stand it anymore. I made a deal, if you can call it that, to turn over all my remaining interest in the House of Rutledge to him, in exchange for the Bombay perfumery and my freedom. I only completed,” he concluded grimly, “what my father began. I lost the House of Rutledge.”

  Simone heard the immense pain behind his words and saw it on his face. “You made a business decision,” she offered, but she sensed he saw it more as a personal defeat than a business decision. He had failed, just as his father had failed. Could preserving their family heritage be so important to these people that they would commit suicide if they failed? That they would steal so as not to fail? The man sitting across from her did not seem that spineless. She wondered suddenly if the Frenchman had been lying about his involvement in the theft of her father’s formulas.

  “Did Dupuis put you up to it?” she asked abruptly, unaware that her line of thought had drifted so far.

  Nick frowned, perplexed. “What? The trade of the businesses?”

  “No,” Simone replied, dropping her gaze from his face to the pattern she traced on the snowy linen tablecloth with a long, highly polished scarlet fingernail. “Did he put you up to…what you did in Grasse.”

  She heard him let out a long, heavy sigh, and looking up again into his eyes, he seemed suddenly older than his years. “Yes,” he admitted at last. “It was Dupuis’s idea, but I was stupid enough to go along with it. Look, Simone,” he said, taking her hand. “I know it won’t make up for what you lost, and it may seem lame after all this time, but…I’m…sorry.” He squeezed her fingers tightly and nervously rubbed at the skin of her knuckles. “I’m truly sorry. I was so wrong. What I did was not about you, or your father. It was a crass, misguided last-ditch effort to salvage the House of Rutledge.”

  His words shocked and appalled her. So restoring his family heritage had been more important to Nick than ethics or morals. More important than her, or the love she had thought they shared. Simone’s heart thundered, and her face burned. At last, she had an explanation, an apology even. But it only served to heighten her distress. How could he have so callously used her the way he did? After he’d said he loved her…after he had made love to her…

  She withdrew her hand. “And now you’ve given it up after all.” Her words came out cold, unforgiving in spite of his apology. But she wasn’t about to forgive. Somehow the fact that in the long run he’d given up the House of Rutledge made his crimes against her and her family that much worse, the theft that much more futile.

  A surge of
new anger refocused her thoughts on the other reason she’d called Nick. The perfume oil. She must learn if he knew about it, for in it lay her chance for revenge. Could she get him to tell her about his precious ancestors? About Mary Rose?

  “Giving up the House of Rutledge must have been difficult,” she said, wishing she could conceal her scorn. “The firm has been in your family for a long time. Wasn’t one of your ancestors the founder?”

  He cocked his head and gave her a pained smile. “You really know how to pour salt into a wound, don’t you?”

  Simone winced at her own callousness and relented a little. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m merely curious about your obsession with holding onto a losing proposition. Companies change hands all the time. I don’t understand why it was so important to you that you would stoop to Dupuis’s demands. Why didn’t you just sell him the company outright, or close it down?”

  Nick’s face darkened. “I don’t suppose you gave it a moment’s thought when La Maison Lefevre went out of business,” he bit back acidly.

  She glared at him, red hot fury burning her cheeks while an icy grief encircled her heart. How dare he? But in that instant, a veil seemed to lift, and suddenly she understood. She understood because his grief was the same as hers. They’d lost the same things—a father, a family business, a heritage. But she wasn’t about to let him off the hook just because she understood.

  He, after all, had caused her losses.

  “We had no choice,” she returned with contempt. “I was too young to take over the business when Papa died. There was no other perfumer of my father’s talent. Maman decided she’d rather close the perfumery than have it become second rate, as we were both certain it would under another perfumer.”

  Nick swirled the liquid in his glass, and his expression grew distant. “We all have choices,” he said at last, seemingly impervious to her anger. “You chose to let the business die along with your father. Perhaps that was smarter than what I chose—indenture to the likes of Dupuis.”

  “The House of Rutledge lives on,” Simone pointed out, pain slicing through her. “La Maison Lefevre does not.”

  Nick stared across the expanse of white linen at the woman whose pain was obviously still raw, even after a decade. Why in the hell had she called him? She’d said she wanted to talk, but he was beginning to think it was to attack him. He decided to side-step the bait he perceived in her last comment and fell silent, waiting to see where she’d take the debate next. She did have a point, however, one he’d never considered before. In a way, he had saved the House of Rutledge, even though he no longer owned it. The idea gave him some small measure of comfort.

  Their plates were served, and the waiter poured the wine Nick had selected. An awkward silence descended between them, broken only by an occasional trivial comment and the sound of knives and forks clanking against heavy china as they ate. Tension tied a knot in Nick’s stomach, but he pretended that nothing, not her words, nor her presence, affected him out of the ordinary.

  “I didn’t think I was hungry,” Simone said at last, finishing her meal, “but that was delicious.”

  “The chef here is French. The food is usually excellent.”

  “I noticed you ordered French wine as well,” she said, a smile lighting up her face at last. “That was very thoughtful. It was excellent, although I probably should not have had wine on top of the gin.”

  Nick caught himself just in time before he let slip some comment about being spoiled to French wine after living in Grasse. “I’m glad you liked it.”

  Could nothing between them ever be normal?

  Probably not, he decided. But sitting across from her, studying the haunting beauty of her face, his reactions were entirely normal. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to hold her in his arms. He wanted somehow, as in his dreams, to bridge the chasm that lay between them.

  “Would you care to dance?” He saw the look of surprise in her eyes, followed by suspicion, and added quietly, “I promise I won’t bite.”

  She studied him for a long moment, then gave him a nod. “I promise I won’t either.”

  Nick led her to the dance floor, aware of the envious glances of the other men in the room. Her hand in his was cool, and she trembled slightly. As they began to dance, he held her at a distance. The ensemble played a classical waltz, and they danced together smoothly and easily, as if they’d been partners a long time and were accustomed to each other’s moves. The music shifted into a more recent melody, and Nick recognized it was being played for Simone.

  Lady in Red.

  Nick could not help himself. With a smile and a wink at the conductor, he pulled Simone against him. “I think this one’s for you,” he whispered.

  He felt the resistance melt away from her body. The tune seemed to hum itself from somewhere deep inside him, and he closed his eyes, resting his chin alongside her head and recalling the words in his mind.

  Surely this must be one of the dreams, he thought, except that he wasn’t asleep. Simone was real. Warm and supple in his arms. His heart thundered, and he wished the music would never end. The scent of passion flower and ylang-ylang, wild, fresh, and floral, assailed his senses from the depths of the dark, rich curls crushed by his cheek.

  Mixed with the perfume was another, more primal scent—the essence of the woman in his arms, a fragrance he had never forgotten.

  He felt the skin of her bare back against the palm of his hand, and he had to fight to control his urge to explore its softness fully. Instead, he pressed her closer against him and prayed that his overture would not ruin the moment. His other hand closed tightly over hers.

  A knot formed in his throat. Was there no way for him to restore the intimacy they had once shared? The passion between them he had so deplorably misused?

  Dreaming. He was dreaming again.

  The music ended, and he expected the magic of those moments to be lost as well, but to his utter surprise, Simone did not step away from him. Instead, she tilted her head upward, and when he looked into her eyes, he saw huge, unshed tears.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “I think I’d better go now,” she managed, blinking back the moisture that had sprung embarrassingly to her eyes. It had been a mistake to come here. And she’d made a serious mistake in dancing with Nick. She’d forgotten how his body felt moving next to hers. Her dress imposed almost nothing between them, and when he’d pressed her against him, her breasts remembered more than the feel of his chest against them, as it was now. They recalled the first time he had gazed upon them, upstairs in her room over the parfumerie in Grasse. How he had unbuttoned the front of her blouse, agonizingly slowly, one tiny pearl at a time.

  Her heart remembered how it had fluttered when he’d reached inside and cupped her youthful fullness in his hands. It was fluttering so even now. And the way her chest rose and fell rapidly as she breathed in both apprehension and anticipation. Wanting him. Afraid of him.

  Then.

  As now.

  “Don’t go,” he murmured, touching the hairline around one ear. Their locked gazes delivered between them an unspoken message that each clearly understood. A man and a woman, each wanting the other. Fiercely. Hungrily.

  She looked away first. “This is wrong, Nick. We both know it,” she said, then turned from him and retreated back to their table. She picked up her small handbag. ”Please, can you call me a taxi?”

  Nick took the bag from her and put it back on the table. “We can at least finish the wine.” Even though he clearly wanted her to stay, his reply sounded maddeningly cool and collected. What was wrong with the man? she thought irritably. Was he made of stone? Couldn’t he tell what he was doing to her?

  But she suspected he knew exactly what he was about, and that he’d turned the tables on her. She must be careful what she said to him.

  “I’ve had enough to drink tonight,” she told him.

  “Finishing the wine is just an excuse not to end the evening.”

 
“I…I shouldn’t have called you. I shouldn’t have come here…”

  He touched her chin and raised her head. “Then why did you?”

  Simone searched his face for a sign of his earlier cynicism. It wasn’t there. His eyes instead almost pleaded with her to assure him that she’d come to make peace. She wished her motivation could have been that guileless.

  “Because I wanted to see you. To talk. I never thought to do the dinner thing. Certainly not to go dancing. The whole thing has…gotten out of hand.”

  As had her emotions.

  “We haven’t talked enough.”

  “No. We haven’t. But I still think I should leave.”

  This time the hold his gaze had on hers refused to let go. He was silent for a long while, then he said, “Come home with me.”

  Simone’s heart leapt and hammered several beats in her throat before settling in place again. “You must be mad,” she whispered.

  “Mad about you,” he replied, his own voice barely audible. Then he took her hand. “Look, Simone, I know you may never be able to forgive what I did. But I’d hoped tonight I might have had a better chance to explain. Come to my house, just for a while. It’s quiet there. Private. Perhaps we can say the rest of the…difficult things that likely need to be said. You can yell at me if you want and nobody will stare at us.” He gave a short laugh. “You could kill me, and nobody would probably miss me for days.”

  Simone stared at him in amazement. Yes, she’d like to yell at him. And curse him, and demand some better answers of him. She probably would stop short of killing him, although more than once she’d wished him dead. But…