by Jill Jones
My dearest Simone,
Since the night I held you in my arms once again, I have been unable to think of anything else. I have loved you from the moment I laid eyes upon you those many years ago, and I love you still, with all my heart and soul.
I have found it nearly impossible at times to live with myself for what I did to you then. I have no excuse for my actions, other than I was young, foolish, and desperate enough to listen to the counsel of the wrong party. I blame no one but myself for the entire incident. I knew in my heart it was wrong, but I was in too deeply—at least so I thought at the time—not to carry through on the plot.
Grief has turned my heart to stone ever since. Not a day has passed that I haven’t thought of you and wished to God I could somehow return to that time and change what happened. But of course that can never be. I can only hope that somehow, someway, you can find it in your heart to forgive me.
I do not know how, if ever, I can make up for what I did, but I offer you this gift as a symbol of the love I still carry for you in every cell of my being. It is the flower of a plant that I have found growing near the mandala garden behind the cottage. You said you wished to create les grands parfums, and I believe you have been seeking this elusive beauty the same as I. It will, I am certain, provide you with an ingredient that can be found in no other perfume, a scent that could almost be called magical. These flowers are growing in profusion in Mary Rose’s garden and are ready for harvest immediately. Take them, they are yours.
Godspeed in your endeavors, although I wish you were creating this divine fragrance for your own company rather than for a man for whom I can have no respect. The House of Rutledge, however, will provide all that you need to launch your premiere fragrance, and I am gratified that even though I am no longer associated with the firm, my family name can in some way be of benefit to you.
With all my love,
Nick
“That bitch!” Dupuis snarled, wadding the note viciously and stuffing it into the other pocket. Even though that fool Rutledge had given over the ingredient that had apparently been missing in Simone’s perfume, he couldn’t stand it that they had obviously been intimate. She would answer for this. They both would! He pounded on the door. “Open this door, you conniving little whore!” There was no sound on the other side. Realizing he’d forgotten the key to the flat, Dupuis kicked over the vase in a rage, sending a dark stain of water across the deep red carpet.
He slammed his palms against the door until they hurt, but either she was not at home or not receiving visitors. Obviously, Nick had left his pathetic little love offering without having seen her either. What were they up to? When had they been together? The thought of Nick and Simone together, as lovers, almost drove him insane. But then, it had been he who suggested that she seduce Nick and find out what he knew about the perfume.
He just found it difficult to imagine that she’d actually done it.
But obviously she had gone to Nick, and who had seduced whom was immaterial. The plan had backfired on him. Nick wanted her back. Which proved Dupuis’s suspicion that Nick had fallen in love with her in the past and that she’d obviously fallen for him. Would she fall for him again? Dupuis hoped she was smarter than that. But love did funny things to people. Made them do stupid things. Like give away formulas to important, expensive fine fragrances.
Had Simone given Nick her research? Had they together come up with the real thing, while she’d lied straight-faced to him, denying any progress on the perfume?
“I’ll kill them both…”
He picked up the dripping vase and all its nodding red blossoms and strode back down the hall to the elevator.
Simone’s last visit to the House of Rutledge was carried off without a hitch. She entered through the back door, using her key, unobserved by the receptionist. The door to Dupuis’s office was closed. She hurried up the back stairway and with unruffled aplomb, pulled off her mini-heist in the perfume lab. She not only helped herself to enough ethyl alcohol to achieve her ends in Esther’s kitchen, she also pilfered the ingredients she needed to make Shamir’s perfume. She only wished she knew where Dupuis kept the bottle of Mary Rose’s perfume so she could reclaim her property.
Consider us even, she thought, slipping her letter of resignation under Dupuis’s door, deciding not to charge the old lecher for the ruined blouse after all.
Kew Gardens was her next stop. When she showed him the specimen she’d brought from Esther’s garden, Dr. Thomas Wheatley confirmed her fears. “This plant shows every evidence of being as hallucinatory as its cousins,” he told her. “I’ll have to report its existence to the authorities, just as I would if it were marijuana. They’ll want me to explain where I got this specimen.”
Oh. Simone had never considered that might happen. She did not want to get the man in trouble, but neither did she relish the idea of the narc squad descending on poor Esther, tromping down her garden and ripping out the plants, maybe arresting the old woman in the process.
“Is that really necessary? I mean, I’m not into drugs or anything. And I can assure you that I will personally destroy them upon my return to where they are growing.”
“Destroy them? But they are already so rare…”
“Maybe only in the West,” she offered, recalling the swami-like appearance of the man who’d given her the seeds. “I..I think maybe the seeds from which those plants grew came from India or Nepal, one of those places. Maybe the species is not as near extinction as you might imagine.” She flashed him her most alluring smile. “What if I promise to destroy all but one bush, which I’ll send to you anonymously? That way, you can remain totally legal and still have the specimen to study. And I will protect the woman in whose garden these are growing but who knows nothing about the nature of the plant, from involvement. Agreed?” She stuck out her hand as if he had agreed, and reflexively, he shook it.
“I…uh…well, it’s highly irregular, you see, but, well…I suppose as long as there’s no harm done.”
“Very well, then,” Simone said, and took her leave before he had time to change his mind. “Thank you.”
She hurried to the underground station, now eager to get back to the flat and pack what was left of her things, and then…
And then what?
She stood on the platform, looking into the black tunnel where soon with a whoosh the train would emerge. Suddenly, her life seemed as black as that tunnel. Where was she going with it now?
To Esther’s? Yes, for a few days. Then, she supposed, feeling a dark depression wash over her, she supposed she’d just go on home.
The subway arrived and she stepped aboard, oblivious to the others around her, obsessed suddenly with the thought of home, and the notion depressed her even more. Where was home? New Orleans? She grimaced to consider returning there. Your home in Provence? she thought wistfully, recalling the travel poster. But her home was no longer there either.
Home. The last time she could remember feeling the comfort and security she associated with “home” was when she’d been in Nick’s arms, in Nick’s bed. With Nick a part of her. That was home—in truth, the only home she wanted.
But it was a home she could never have.
Unless…
A startling idea suddenly occurred to her, and by the time she reached her station, a plan began to form in her mind. She wasn’t sure it would work, or that if she succeeded, she would find what she so desperately longed for. But given what she considered to be her limited options for “returning home,” the plan beguiled her despite her reservations. As she hurried down the walk toward the ugly little flat, she put all else from her mind. It was, she decided firmly, at least worth a try.
Unlocking the front door, Simone noticed a dark spot on the hallway carpet and knelt to touch it. It was soaking wet. Rushing inside, she fully expected to find her pipes had burst or something. But all appeared to be in good order. No plumbing problems, no overflowed tub. She stepped outside her door again, thinking she mu
st have imagined the puddle. But the carpet was thoroughly wet. Odd, she thought. But what did she care anyway? Where she was going, none of this would matter anymore.
If she could get there. And stay there.
Like a person preparing for an extended vacation, Simone bustled around the flat, collecting everything that belonged to her into her large suitcase. She stripped off her dress and packed it away, sweat and all. The only thing left was the bottle of perfume on the bedside table.
Then she took a refreshing shower, drank a glass of cool water, and walked naked into the bedroom. She turned back the bed, smoothed the sheets, and sat down. With reverence, she lifted the lid from the vial and inhaled a brief whiff. Instantly, she felt the familiar warmth of sexual arousal begin to suffuse her body, and she smiled.
Esther, a bona fide witch, had told her that what happened in a person’s life was a direct result of what that persons intends and believes. Well, Simone intended to go home, to the only place where she believed she had a chance of being with Nick again—if he would only return to her there, in the perfume-induced dreams.
Simone inhaled deeply of the essence. She opened her palm and let the fragrant liquid flow into her hand, where she used it like a massage oil, rubbing it into her breasts, her belly, along her upper thighs, down her arms, over her face, through her hair. She lay back on the bed, her sensitive nose nearly overcome with the scent.
“It is the essence of my desire,” she whispered drowsily into the afternoon heat, imitating the quaint phrase that Mary Rose had used, “that this perfume take me forever into the realm of my dreams and reunite me there with my beloved Nick for all time.”
If it had worked for John and Mary Rose, she thought as consciousness faded, perhaps it could work for her…
Nick heard the commotion, but before he could reach the outside office, Antoine Dupuis burst into the laboratory, his face nearly purple from fury. “Where is she?” he bellowed. “Where is that bitch?”
Instinctive adrenaline surged through Nick. Simone must have done something royally wrong to piss him off this bad. He bit the inside of his cheeks to keep from smiling. “Exactly which bitch were you looking for, Dupuis?”
“Don’t get smart with me, you insipid has-been aristocrat. I know you and the French slut have been shacking up together, so don’t try to play innocent with me. Where is she?”
“The ‘French slut’ told me she does not want to see you again, Dupuis,” he said, making it up just to watch the man’s reactions. To his surprise, he saw Dupuis’s face grow pale, and a guilty look shifted into his eyes. What was going on here? Nick was seized suddenly with cold apprehension. Why would he come here, screaming like a madman, looking for his own master perfumer? “Why would she say something like that?” he pressed, all of his senses alert.
“Tell her she’s fired,” the Frenchman growled, evading the question. “And tell her if that perfume shows up with your label on it, I’ll…I’ll kill both of you.”
He was gone before Nick could stop him. Nick stood in the door, scratching his head, wondering what the intrusion had been all about. Clearly, he and Simone had had some kind of blow-up, something to do with a perfume.
His stomach knotted. Could it be the perfume Dupuis was referring to? Mary Rose’s magical, sensual aphrodisiac? He’d bet his life on it. And he’d bet Dupuis knew all about its sexual magic. Why else would he behave so irrationally?
Nick surmised that Dupuis thought Simone had discovered the formula, and that she’d betrayed him and brought it to Bombay Fragrances. But surely Dupuis would know better than that. Simone must have told him how she hated Nicholas Rutledge. He could envision the little slimebag’s face, all benevolent and understanding when she’d told him how Nick had so brutally betrayed her. He could hear him attesting to his own innocence, and offering his sympathy.
It made him want to throw up.
The whole thing made him very uneasy. Why had Dupuis blanched so suddenly when Nick intimated that Simone did not wish to see him? Had he done something to her? Hurt her?
Oh, my God.
He went into his office and grabbed his car keys. He had not thought Simone was at home earlier, so he hadn’t even knocked. Had she been hiding behind that door after all, nursing bruises, terrified that Dupuis would come after her again? His imagination was running wild, he knew, but he had to go there. He had to know that she was safe.
Nick parked illegally, half the Triumph overhanging the curb. The doorman yelled at him to move it, but Nick didn’t hear him. He ran up the four flights of stairs instead of using the elevator, and he was breathless by the time he got to her door.
“Simone!” He pounded on the door with his fists, then tried the lock, which held firm. “Simone!”
Down the hallway, the elevator doors whished open, and an icy calm Antoine Dupuis stepped out. “I knew you two were in it together,” he said, reaching into both pockets, coming up with a key out of one and a snub-nosed pistol in the other. “I forgot this earlier,” he said, waving the key, “but it does save wear and tear on the hands.”
“You have no reason to threaten me with a gun, Dupuis,” Nick growled. “I’m not in anything with Simone.”
“Oh, no?” The Frenchman scowled at him and brought another item out of his pocket, a paper wadded into a ball. “Sounds to me from this pathetic schoolboy’s note that you are in love with her.”
Nick started to lunge at him, wanting to choke the life out of him on the spot. Where had he come by that note? Had Simone given it to him, to taunt him somehow, or prove that she had access to the mahja flowers now? Or had he taken it from her? But he stopped when Dupuis raised the gun and pointed it into Nick’s face.
“I wouldn’t,” the shorter man warned. Then he leered at Nick. “Shall we see if the bitch in question is in residence?”
Dupuis returned the balled up note to his pocket and eased the key into the lock. The door opened, and Nick grimaced to think that this sleaze bag could have walked in on her any time he pleased. He bit his reply and preceded Dupuis into the apartment.
It appeared to be vacant. The sofa and table tops and chairs were empty of any sign that the place was occupied. The kitchen was clean, the countertops empty. In the fridge, there was only a half empty carton of orange juice and a few cookies in a crumpled up bag.
“Guess our bird has flown,” Dupuis said, his tone sounding not altogether disappointed. Maybe he hadn’t relished killing her after all.
Nick sniffed the air and followed a faint scent to the back of the flat, where its intensity increased until it became cloying. Dupuis smelled it, too, and followed Nick down the short hall. “What has she done with that perfume?” he ranted.
Turning the corner, Nick feared the worst, that he would come upon her, dead in bed, murdered or by her own hand.
But the bed was empty. The room was empty. He felt the sheets. They were still warm. “Simone? Are you here?” he called, then went to check the bathroom. But she was not there either. Her suitcase stood on a nearby chair, and when Nick checked, he found it packed, as if she were ready to leave.
“She’s probably gone out,” Dupuis grumbled, losing some of his earlier rage. He pulled off the top sheet and held it to his nose. “My God, that stuff makes me horny.”
Nick watched Dupuis lose concentration, visibly mellowing into a sexual fantasy right before his eyes, and in a flash, he kicked the gun from his hand and wrestled him to the floor.
“Get off me, you English bastard,” Dupuis yelled.
But Nick’s reply was a knee in his back. “What did you do to her, Dupuis?” he demanded, pulling the man’s short arms sharply behind him. Dupuis screamed in pain.
“Let me go!”
“What did you do?” Another jerk, another exclamation of pain.
“Nothing. She brought it all on, the whoring bitch. Twitching that tight little ass right in front of me, knowing all the while what that perfume does to a man.”
Nick couldn’t bear
it. With one chop remembered from a long-ago martial arts class, he cold-cocked Dupuis, whose body went limp beneath him.
Shaking, Nick eased himself up. He picked up the gun and stuck it in his own belt, then reached into one of Dupuis’s pockets and came up with Simone’s red shoe. From the other pocket he took the note.
“You sorry son of a bitch,” he snarled, unrolling the paper, recognizing his very private note.
Nick placed the red shoe on the suitcase and picked up the phone and dialed the number of the detectives who had been assigned to investigate his two burglaries. “This is Nicholas Rutledge,” he said. “Remember me? I’ve caught our thief. But I think now he should be charged also with attempted murder.”
Nick hung up the phone, his stomach wrenching. Where was Simone? She may have just gone out, as Dupuis said, to get some last minute thing for her travels. In which case, they were going to look very foolish to the police who should arrive at any moment.
Then Nick’s eye caught a glimpse of something under the bed, and he knelt to pick it up.
It was the amber vial that had held the perfume she’d stolen from him.
Empty.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Nick hastily jammed the perfume bottle into his pocket. He doubted the police would consider it a murder weapon, but Nick found it not impossible that it might be responsible for Simone’s disappearance.
He heard the police at the door and left Dupuis long enough to let them in. Nick explained as best he could what had happened, about Dupuis barging into the offices of Bombay Fragrances Ltd., threatening to kill both Nick and Simone. He told them about coming here to make sure Simone was safe and being attacked again by Dupuis, this time with a gun. By the time he was finished, he knew it would take the Frenchman some fast talking to get the charges of assault and battery, maybe even attempted murder, dropped.
