by Jill Jones
As shaken as he’d been to see her again under such unexpected circumstances, in a way, Nick felt sorry for Simone. Did she have any idea what she was getting into in going to work for Dupuis? Did she have any suspicion of his shady background, his unscrupulous character? He doubted it. Nick was certain that Dupuis had blamed the theft of her father’s formulas entirely on him.
Although he respected the irony, Nick failed to find any humor in the fact that if Simone was indeed a talented perfumer, she was now in a position to exact revenge on him if she so chose, a revenge would be financed by the very man who had orchestrated the whole sordid plot to begin with.
Nick decided to stop off at his house and change his clothes before returning to clean up the mess at the office. After successfully avoiding disaster from his reckless driving in the heavy midday traffic of London, he wheeled the Triumph into the protection of his driveway and knew instantly something was wrong. The front door stood open a few inches, its black paint scraped, the wood gouged. What the hell? First his office, now his home…
His heart pounding, Nick reached for the heavy lug wrench he kept beneath the passenger seat. Was the intruder still inside? A part of him wished it so, because he was angry enough at the moment to bash his head in. He pushed the door open cautiously with the tool, keeping his body against the outside wall of the house in case the burglar might have a gun. The door thumped against the inner wall. Nick heard nothing stir within. He peered around the corner and into the darkened house, aware that his breath was coming in short rasps.
He crouched down and dashed into the hallway, shutting the door behind him and taking cover behind the large armoire that stood in the entry. Still no sound revealed the presence of a trespasser. With courage born of anger and outrage, Nick stepped quietly down the hall and into the study, not surprised to see that his bookshelves were in disarray, the drawers of the desk plundered, the room in general a mess from someone’s search through his personal belongings. His rage increased. Who the hell was doing this to him? And why? Had Dupuis faced him calmly during their earlier encounter, enjoying the knowledge that Nick’s house was being torn apart even as they spoke? The idea nearly drove him mad. Then another terrible thought struck him.
The trunk! Was Dupuis after the contents of the trunk? How could he even know about it? But a quick search revealed that although someone had opened it, rifled through the letters and probably also scanned the diary, nothing appeared to be missing from among his ancestor’s treasures. Thank God he’d had the good sense to place the vial of perfume securely in his bank vault. Nick frowned, thoroughly perplexed.
Upstairs, the scene was much the same in the small guest room that also served as his junk room. But oddly, nothing was amiss in his own bedroom. His closet retained the impeccable order in which he kept it. His drawers were unopened, his nightstands untouched.
Nick returned to the junk room and stared at the mess, totally confounded. What was Dupuis after? He started to straighten things, then decided he’d better call the police first. He still had the card of the detective who had investigated the break-in at the office, and he dialed the number absently, his mind preoccupied, searching its very nether reaches to think of what Dupuis might possibly be seeking.
Two hours later, the police had come and gone, the report had been duly filed, and Nick was left alone again to clean up the mess. He started in the upstairs room. The contents of the old boxes that contained his “jumble collection,” as he called it, had been dumped on the floor, and he began to sift through the useless but nostalgic memorabilia they had contained. Old photos. Articles he’d clipped during his years at Harrow and Cambridge. The newspapers that carried the reports of his father’s suicide. Those, he decided, wadding them in his fist, could go into the rubbish.
Under the newspapers were several manila folders, all of them empty, their contents used long ago to create the Royalty line. He looked at the labels. Katherina. Diana. Grace. Ivanna. Evita. Each the name of the woman for whom Jean René Lefevre had created his great perfumes. Some he had designed decades ago, others were more modern.
Nick recalled with a grimace having helped Jean René label these very folders after he’d convinced the aging perfumer to write down his formulas instead of carrying them in his head. Like a good apprentice, Nick, or rather “Nat,” had offered to help get him organized and had served as an eager scribe. Just part of the web of deceit he had wrought upon the old man. Nick felt the familiar sickening regret all over again.
Why had he saved these? Frowning, he dashed them in the trash pile alongside the suicide reports.
Chapter Eleven
Three weeks passed, and with each day Nick’s frustration mounted. He had tried everything he could think of to learn about the plant described in the old papers. He’d contacted a horticultural expert at Kew Gardens, called on a scholar who was an expert on mystical sects in India, sought reference to the plant in the library, even gone on-line to try to discover its contemporary name. But the mahja had remained elusive. No one had ever heard of such a plant.
Nick knew that at one time it had existed. He held the proof in his hand:
June 1847
My dearest John,
Summer has arrived this year with a lushness that is rare even in our lovely shire. The weather has produced a passion of color in the garden. Every seed I have planted there has sprung to life, blossoming fuller and more beautiful than any time I can ever remember. Perhaps it is because every seed was sown with thoughts of you, of our love, and my firm belief that we will one day be reunited.
I received your packet which was transmitted by our friend in the village, and immediately planted the seeds which you sent. Not knowing the species or requirements of the mahja, as you call it, I kept them in the greenhouse which I have fashioned on the north side of the garden wall to protect my seedlings during the winter. You wrote that this plant could not be cultivated outside a certain region of India, but to my delight, the seedlings sprang eagerly from the soil. I transplanted them alongside one wall of the garden where they get ample sunshine, and they have rewarded me by blooming rapidly and in profusion. The showy blossoms come only at night, however, and they are fragile and short-lived. Even so, I managed to derive from them an essence, a lovely perfume, and before sending you the enclosed specimen, I cast a spell over it, meant to bind us together for all time. I know you do not believe in my magic, but thoughts are powerful things, and my spells are cast with powerful thoughts. I urge you to invoke the power of this magic, my love. You need only place a few drops of this lovely essence upon your pillow each night and dream of me. Promise me you will, and somehow, some way, we will fulfill our love despite the obstacles that have been set against us.
Forever yours,
Mary Rose
Nick let out a long breath and shook his head. Had they pronounced it mah’-ja? Mah-ja’? Had they even got the name right in their own time, or had his ancestor misheard the name to begin with? Or had the wily monks given him a phony name all along? He wished Mary Rose had sketched the showy blossoms, but there was no such artwork in any of her letters to help him solve the mystery.
Laying the letter aside on the smooth surface of his desk, he drummed his fingers impatiently. He must break the secret of the mahja. He needed that essential oil, now, in large quantities. Because he knew it was his ticket back into the mainstream of the fragrance market. Hopefully to its forefront.
His sense of urgency bordered on panic. Dupuis would move quickly to capitalize on Simone’s famous name. If indeed Simone were anywhere nearly as talented as her father, Dupuis would be a fool not to shift the focus of the House of Rutledge from bath and body products, and move into the more upscale and lucrative arena of fine perfumes.
And Antoine Dupuis was no fool.
With the financial clout of the House of Rutledge, he could easily out-promote Nick’s first creation, no matter how fantastic it might be.
Nick leaned back in his chair and con
sidered his one advantage in being a one-man company. He did not have to answer to anyone but himself. There was no corporate bureaucracy to deal with, no financial backers he had to please. That thought gave him some small satisfaction. He could move quickly, while the House of Rutledge might have to lumber on for weeks in pursuit of progress.
If he only knew what to move quickly upon. Would that blasted shipment from Bombay never arrive? Included in it was some rather beat-up equipment, but perhaps it would be sufficient to learn the identity of the mahja. If it was not, he would have no choice but to take a chance and make arrangements to dissect the fragrance using someone else’s more sophisticated equipment, perhaps at a university somewhere. Although in doing so he risked exposure of his secret, he did not want to expend any of his limited funds at the moment to purchase a lot of expensive high tech computerized equipment. However, Nick hoped going elsewhere would not be necessary, for he sincerely believed that he might be on the verge of a breakthrough in the science of perfumery, and he didn’t want anyone to have an inkling of what he was about.
The possibility that something in the chemistry of the mahja oil might actually enable the user to go beyond the illusions usually summoned by a scent into an actual physical experience was an outrageous, mind-boggling concept. Nick wasn’t even certain was at possible. The only similar phenomenon he could think of was the use of hallucinogenic drugs. Users of LSD often claimed to have “tripped” physically into other realms.
But from what he’d read of LSD and the like, he believed the dream journeys on which the mahja oil had taken him were even more physical in nature than those drug-induced “trips.”
He wondered, too, if his reaction to the perfume oil was an isolated response, or if others would have the same intensely sexual experiences? Eventually, he would have to experiment with the substance on others, providing of course that the oil of the mahja proved to be neither harmful nor illegal.
He’d contacted his friends in several of England’s most prestigious department stores, all of whom assured him they would help him gain distribution of his new line of perfumes. But they had no idea about the type of perfume he intended to introduce as his first product. He laughed to himself. What would those friends think if…when…they tried the stuff and were whisked away into an erotic dreamland where they could indulge safely and privately in every sexual fantasy of which they could ever conceive?
He could think of several who might not want to wake up.
Nick took the scenario further, to the investigations that were sure to follow. When the “morality squad” learned about the “love potion,” surely the perfume would be put to the scrutiny of those who were charged with protecting the citizenry from the decadent influences of the world…the drugs, the porn, the sin and smut that seemed to attract humankind. Would his perfume be outlawed?
Or, he thought more hopefully, perhaps its inherent sensuous nature would stir up free publicity and create a huge demand for it. A demand he would find difficult to fill, thereby driving the price skyward.
The shrill buzz of the intercom interrupted his reverie. “Mr. Rutledge, I have good news. The transport company just called. Your shipment from Bombay will be arriving at the docks within twenty-four hours.”
Nick’s heart leapt, but he growled an answer. “It’s about damned time.” Then he softened, wishing he hadn’t been so short with the long-suffering Brenda. “Thanks. If you’re finished with those letters, you can go home early if you’d like. We may be putting in some longer hours in the next few days.”
Nick wasn’t surprised she took him up on the offer. He turned off the intercom and reached for the ancient amber vial that almost matched the wood on his desk. Although he had been tempted, he had not removed the perfume oil from the bank vault until today. The police had come up with no conclusive evidence linking the Frenchman directly to the crimes, and Dupuis had made no more attempts to disrupt Nick’s new enterprise. Hopefully, that funny business was behind them. Perhaps Dupuis was not as threatened by Nick’s departure now that Simone Lefevre had brought her talent to his doorstep.
At any rate, Nick had succumbed to his temptation to take personal possession of the substance once again, and he spoke to it as if it were a living thing, his voice barely above a whisper, “A lot is riding on you,” he told it. “You’d better give up your secret, and you’d bloody well better do it soon!”
Antoine Dupuis had never expected the daughter of Jean René Lefevre to be so beautiful. Of course, he had never seen her, having remained scrupulously in the background in the theft he’d orchestrated ten years ago. But he wondered why Nick had never mentioned her, and how the young man had avoided falling in love with her then. Surely she had not changed so much in those years, although perhaps she had become, as young women often do, more maturely attractive.
If he’d been in Nick’s shoes…
The collar of his starched white shirt pressed into his fleshy neck, and he levered his tie loose with two fingers. These were not thoughts he should be entertaining about his new master perfumer. It was not important whether she looked like a goddess or a toad. What mattered was her nose.
And that goddess-shaped nose had Antoine Dupuis worried.
Simone had been at the House of Rutledge for three weeks, and even though he conceded that it was a relatively short time, considering she was having to relocate from another continent as well as settle into her new job, Dupuis had hoped she would produce at least one fragrance over which management could become excited. The company’s morale needed a boost. Since Nick’s departure, the place had suffered from an inexplicable congregate depression, as if their leader had defected, leaving them helpless. Dupuis detested the idea that Nick had commanded so much respect, but he knew the young Rutledge heir had been popular with everyone but himself, and he did not take it personally that the entire staff had so openly expressed their regret at losing the talented perfumer. They would get over it. In the meantime, he had come up with a brilliant replacement in Simone.
Or so he had thought.
Although fragrances had always contributed a substantial percentage to the bottom line for the House of Rutledge, since Dupuis had been there the company had focused on producing economy priced scents for the mass market, such as the Royalty line, as well as moderately priced bath and body products and cosmetics. But when Simone had expressed her strong desire to create instead the grands parfums, as she called them, Dupuis saw in an instant the potential of allowing the daughter of the world renowned Jean René Lefevre to take the staid old firm into a more upscale market.
Fine perfumes were the glamour end of the fragrance business, a highly lucrative end, and Dupuis had given Simone carte blanche to create fragrances so fine they would command the respect of the entire world.
But he had yet to see, or smell, any such perfumes. In fact, he’d not seen any results at all, any evidence of the great talent she supposedly possessed.
Maybe he’d been too hasty in hiring her, he mused, standing at the tall multi-paned window that overlooked a small garden behind the building, watching the shadows of late afternoon deepen into evening. Maybe he should have given her the battery of tests one normally demanded of a new perfumer. Maybe her friends at the Institute had rigged the exam results.
Mais non. That was ridiculous. Certainly, she must have the innate talent those tests indicated. Still, he had expected more from the daughter of Jean René Lefevre, even though it might be unfair to compare her fledgling attempts at perfumery to her father’s awesome reputation.
So far, however, even though she’d worked long hours in virtual isolation, concentrating at the console and the scientific equipment of modern day perfumery, Simone Lefevre had come up with nothing.
Nothing!
Be patient, he told himself, buffing his immaculately manicured nails with his handkerchief. She will produce. Still, her lack of some kind of dramatic, instant performance irritated him.
Was it that, he wondere
d suddenly, or was it her attitude? Was his disappointment in her due to a perceived lack of productivity or to her continuing aloofness toward him? Although always polite and professional when she was around him, she seemed too quiet, restrained, almost withdrawn. Why did she not like him? He could think of nothing he had done to offend her. Had Nick somehow managed to cause her to distrust him? Impossible. Other than Nick’s brief, nasty intrusion the day she was hired, Simone had not seen Nicholas Rutledge in ten years. And from what Dupuis had heard about her reaction to the theft, Rutledge was likely the last person on earth she would ever speak to again, much less take advice from.
Perhaps she didn’t trust men in general. After all, Nick had dealt her a heavy blow. Yes, that could be what was causing her to remain so reserved. It could be that she was wary of men, and her coolness was nothing personal against him, he thought, nodding. It could also be that she was having difficulty adjusting to surroundings that must remind her of the man who had so betrayed her. Dupuis considered that a moment, knowing he should feel some twinge of guilt in the matter. But he didn’t. It had been a business decision to send Nick after those formulas. Nothing more.
Dupuis turned away from the window, consciously examining his feelings toward Simone and acknowledging they were more complex than those of an employer toward an employee. He was attracted to her. Man to woman. It disturbed him. Antoine Dupuis had never let such emotions stand between him and good judgment. And yet he feared he now might now be in just such a position.
He went to a small cabinet across the room and opened the door to his personal closet. On the back of the door was an oval mirror framed in ornate gilded plaster. He peered at his reflection. Was he an old fool to think she could become attracted to him? Probably. He was a good twenty years older than she. Slightly balding. Not tall or broad of shoulder, but expensively dressed. His suits were handmade by the finest couturiers in France and Italy. His ties pure silk. His shoes Italian leather. He gave himself an appreciative smile. He might not be as tall or handsome as someone like Nick Rutledge. But he had the one thing that all women found attractive.
