by Jill Jones
“I’ll give you one good guess,” Simone said, shooting him a knowing look.
Nick stared at her. “You don’t think…?”
“I know he used the perfume. All the time. But he must have had enough left to cross into the dreamworld one final time, with the intention never to come back.”
“The perfect escape,” Nick murmured, astounded and somewhat disappointed that the Frenchman’s destiny might not include a jail sentence after all. Then he remembered the other article he’d found, this one in the financial section, and he turned to the page. “Well, listen to what else is going on at Rutledge. ‘House of Rutledge Slated for Public Offering.’”
The story responded to the Dupuis scandal, with one of the Directors assuring investors that with Dupuis gone, things would be set straight within the company, and that the lucrative fragrance house would offer a prime investment potential on Fleet Street.
Nick laughed bitterly. “If my father could only see this. He was such a snob, he would never have dreamed of selling shares in a ‘Rutledge’ operation to commoners, even if it had given him the means to keep it afloat.” He shook his head. “I wish I’d been smart enough to go public, instead of selling out to Antoine Dupuis.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Simone completed Shamir’s perfume using the oil Nick had distilled from the mahja blossoms. She sniffed her final arrangement of scent, satisfied that it not only followed her father’s formula, but also harmonized with the heretofore missing ingredient. It was an exquisite fragrance, a truly grand parfum, and although it had a certain euphoric effect, enough to bring on a smile, it did not seem to be aphrodisiac in nature.
Carefully, she packaged two small bottles of it, all that she had made. Now, how to get Mr. Shamir to come for it?
It was Saturday, and she had the place to herself. “Entendez, s’il vous plaît,” she said aloud, grinning and holding up the bottles. “Your ‘master’s’ perfume is ready for you, Mr. Shamir, wherever you are. Please come for it soon so I can get on with my life.”
Before leaving the lab, she looked around and was glad this was not to be the place where she would create her grands parfums. It was too stark, too sterile. Mary Rose’s cottage would be perfect. Simone turned out the light and left, locking the door behind her.
She had Nick’s Triumph and started to get into the left-hand seat before she remembered she was in a British vehicle. She didn’t relish the drive home in traffic, even though it wasn’t far.
Cautiously, she pulled out into the street and used the technique that had brought her safely to the perfumery: she spoke aloud to herself as if she were teaching a student driver. “Stay in the left lane, stay in the left lane.” She glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed a black Mercedes behind her, following a little too closely. She tapped on her brakes, just enough to flash the tail lights without slowing down, and the trick worked. The car backed off, but it stayed behind her, following every turn. Simone grew uneasy. It seemed as if she was being tailed.
That’s ridiculous, she thought. Who would want to follow her? Could it possibly be Antoine Dupuis, not lost in the dreamworld after all and bent on some sort of sick revenge? Her alarm turned to terror when at last she reached Nick’s driveway and the black car followed her onto the gravel and parked behind the Triumph.
Heart racing, she locked both doors and sat behind the wheel, ready to lay on the horn to summon Nick if she had to. Then the door to the other car opened, and Simone’s fear turned to a hysterical laugh. Stepping into the afternoon heat, dressed in full bejeweled regalia, Shamir bowed low in her directions.
“Mon Dieu!” Simone murmured, swallowing her giggles at his affected attire. “He heard me.”
She unlocked her door and got out of the car, then retrieved her tote bag containing the items she had ready to give him.
“My father’s work is complete, Mr. Shamir,” she said, handing him the two bottles of perfume. “And along with these, I want to return to you the formula,” she handed him the manila folder, “and seven newly picked seeds to replace those you gave me that produced the flower we needed to make this.”
He accepted the items, especially the perfume, as if he were accepting the crown jewels. “My master will be eternally grateful,” he said, nodding his enshrouded head solemnly.
“Eternally?” Simone replied lightly. “Isn’t that a bit much for two bottles of perfume?”
His eyes twinkled. “I suspect you have learned something of the power of the mahja,” he said with the enigmatic smile to which she’d become accustomed. “It has enabled my master, and myself, to live longer than any others on earth.”
“Who is your master, and how old is he?” Simone felt she’d earned some answers from this strange man.
“My master is a holy man who has lived for over two hundred years in a monastery at the foot of the Himalayas. He is also my uncle. Once the monks of his order raised a plant called the mahja and from it concocted a liniment which, rubbed into the skin, greatly extended life. But in the middle of the last century, some seeds were stolen, after which the bushes would no longer grow.”
“I see,” said Simone, although she did not believe a word he was saying. His storytelling, however, was as rich as his dress. The jewels on the red coat glittered when he moved.
He continued, “Several decades ago, the supply of liniment oil was so depleted that the monks began to add other oils to it to extend it, those in the formula I presented to your father. But even that was not sufficient, and at last, they sent me into the world to find more of it. That is when I came to your father. His reputation for knowing how to extract plant essences reached even into my far country.”
“But he didn’t have the mahja plant, so he couldn’t make the perfume,” Simone said, sorting out as much truth from the fiction as she could. “Where did you get the seeds you gave me?”
“Long ago, I was the servant of the one who stole the seeds from the monastery. He was a foreigner, who sought to use the mahja for his own gain. Alas, he misused it, not understanding its power, and he vanished from the earth. I was accused of murdering my employer, and I ran away to the protection of the monastery.” He gave her a soft smile. “I owe my life, many, many years of it, to the monks. Their need for the oil is great, for without it they will die.
“After I once located you and heard that your father had failed to synthesize the essence, I returned to the city where my foreign master once lived, to the place where his house once stood. It has been torn down, and the area is now deserted, as water there has become scarce. However, upon walking the grounds, I came upon five bushes, growing in a row. My heart was overjoyed, for I believed them to be the mahja plant. The flowers had turned to seeds, and I harvested them all.”
Simone wanted to call Nick to come and hear this tale, but she was afraid if she did, Shamir would vanish without finishing his remarkable story. Instead, she questioned the tall man. “Why didn’t you just take the seeds back to the monastery and plant them there and make the liniment like they used to?”
“I did plant some there, but still they would not grow. That’s when I brought them to you. Time, for once, was of the essence for my master. Henceforth, I believe we can survive by harvesting the flowers of the plants that grow in the old place, but I needed these,” he held up the two bottles proudly, the crusader accomplishing his quest, “to sustain us until then. And now, I must go.” He bowed until his turban disturbed the pebbles in the drive. “My gratitude, Mademoiselle Lefevre.”
As Simone watched in amazement, Shamir uncorked one of the bottles, inhaled deeply of the perfume, and was gone. Vanished, literally, into thin air.
The driver of the Mercedes jumped out of the car. “Damn that fellow,” he screamed, running around the car, looking beneath it. “He’s done it t’ me again.”
“What’s wrong?” Simone asked calmly, as if it made all the sense in the world to have witnessed the vaporization of a human being.
“Th�
�� bloke’s hired my car twice now, and both times he’s left me without paying th’ fare.” He opened the back door and searched the upholstery where Shamir had sat. “That’s what I thought,” he said in disgust, holding up a green rhinestone. “That’s what ‘e left behind last time. Th’ bugger’s nuts if ‘e thinks this is some kind of pay.”
Simone watched in bemusement as the driver got back behind the wheel, mumbling curses beneath his breath. When the driveway was empty, Simone stared at the spot where Shamir had vanished. She wasn’t surprised to see a red rhinestone shimmering there on the pebbles.
Nick thought he heard a commotion in the drive, but he was on the telephone with his estate agent so he didn’t investigate. Several minutes passed, and he decided he’d been mistaken, until Simone came bursting into the house. “Get off the phone, allons! Quickly!” she said, her face flushed and her eyes bright.
Nick made an excuse to the agent and rang off. “What’s the matter?” he asked, taking her by the shoulders, feeling her excitement beneath his fingertips. “Are you all right?”
Simone exploded with laughter. “Physically, I’m all right, but mentally, I think I’m going off my head, as you say here. You’re not going to believe this.” Breathless, she told him what had just taken place in his driveway—Shamir’s wild story about the monks and the liniment and the mahja bush and his foreign master’s disappearance, and with each word, Nick’s heart beat faster even as he felt the blood drain from his face.
Simone stopped at last and looked at him with concern. “What’s wrong, Nick? I mean, other than that your fiancée has become a raving lunatic?”
Nick’s knees were suddenly weak, and he needed to sit down. He took her hand and led her to the sofa in the front living room. “Simone,” he said, trying to gather his wits, “we’ve been so busy getting to know one another again, I haven’t had time to show you the items I found in that old trunk with the perfume.”
“What does that have to do with Shamir?”
Nick shook his head, feeling dazed. This whole episode with the perfume kept getting more and more curious. “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. I can’t explain. There’s something I want you to read. I’m almost finished here. Get your things together. We’re going to Brierley immediately.”
Simone unfolded her hand and held it out in front of him. Upon her palm lay a large red jewel. “He’s dropped another one.”
Nick stared at it, glimmering even in the diffused light. He’d seen a lot of jewels in his lifetime adorning the rich and famous at galas and balls he’d attended as the son of Lord and Lady Rutledge, before the disaster with his father. This looked like a ruby. A very large ruby. “Who dropped it? What are you talking about?”
“Shamir. It came from that Mardi Gras sort of coat he wears. It’s a rhinestone, I imagine. He’s left one behind every time he’s, uh, dropped in on me. I have three of them.” She laughed. “Guess he figures they’re a tip.”
“Let me see it.” Nick took the oval-shaped stone and turned it over between his fingers. “This is no rhinestone, sweetheart,” he told her, holding it up to the light. “Unless it’s a very good fake, it’s the biggest ruby I’ve ever seen.”
A light misty rain began to fall before they arrived at Brierley Hall, bringing a welcome relief from the heat. Nick carried in their bags and asked Simone to wait for him in the drawing room. She shivered in the gloom of the rainy afternoon, wishing it wasn’t summer so they could build a fire to cheer the somber old room. Instead, she turned on all the lights, but even that scarcely managed to dispel the shadows. Could she live in this place? Not without a lot of changes to brighten it up, she decided.
But, she thought, her spirits lifting, after learning of the incredible value of Shamir’s “gifts,” she knew she would have the money to do whatever she wanted, both here in the manor house as well as at Mary Rose’s cottage. Together, she and Nick would restore Brierley to its one-time splendor, and create a small but perfect perfumery.
After having had a taste of commercial perfuming, Simone realized why her father had never expanded his operation. He’d preferred to do it his way, and she would follow in his footsteps, creating exquisite all-natural, very expensive perfumes. Their very quality, Nick had told her, would create their own market.
Nick came into the room carrying a quaint, old-fashioned trunk which he placed on a table in the center of the room. Simone went to it and watched as he opened it. Even after the eons, a faint hint of an aroma filtered past her sensitive nose, a scent that she recognized instantly. “Le parfum,” she uttered.
“From the source,” Nick replied, reaching inside and bringing out the cameo necklace and fastening it around her neck. “I want you to have this,” he said, explaining his theory that it contained the entwined locks of the star-crossed lovers. Then he handed her a faded red book. “And this will tell you their whole story. It’s John Rutledge’s diary. Get started on it while I make some tea. I think water boils in a microwave.”
She laughed and fingered the cameo as she watched him leave the room, her heart full and open and joyous. How their lives had been transformed by the magical perfume!
Then, taking the diary to a settee beside the brightest lamp, she nestled against the faded brocade and began her work. The brittle pages crackled as she opened the book. “For the eyes only of John Hamilton Rutledge. Do not trespass.”
“Are you sure we should go snooping into this?” she called after Nick.
“Too late. I’ve already been there. Read on.”
Simone did so, eagerly. Here at last was a glimpse into the lives of those remarkable, mystical lovers. But from the first page, it was a sad story, filled with the passion and despair of a lover cruelly torn from his beloved and so desperate to be reunited with her that he would risk everything, even his very life. John Rutledge’s words tugged at Simone’s heartstrings until she thought she would cry.
She read several pages, then suddenly came across an astonishing entry:
My young assistant, an Indian native, is witness to my torment, and he has been urging me to visit his relative who lives in a monastery high up in the mountains. He tells me the monks there concoct some kind of potion, an oil made from the blossoms of a so-called magical plant, that massaged into my skin will take away my pain and relieve the loneliness.
Simone let the book fall into her lap as Shamir’s story exploded in her mind. Monastery. An accusation that he’d murdered the man he served. A magical oil. It all fell into place. Nick returned with the tea tray, and Simone jumped off the couch. “This in incredible, Nick! Do you think Shamir was John Rutledge’s servant?”
Nick raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “I’m beginning to believe anything’s possible. Let me find another passage for you quickly,” he said, setting the tray on a table and taking the book from her. He flipped through a few pages. “Read this.”
Simone read aloud: “I have sown the seeds of the mahja plant outside the walls of the compound, in a row of five, as Mary Rose instructed. I cannot expect that they will grow, it is so confoundedly hot and dry in this place…
“Shamir told me he’d picked the seeds he gave me from five bushes that were growing in a row, where his foreign master once lived. My God, Nick, this is too much. Nobody can live for a hundred and fifty years.”
“John and Mary Rose believed they could live forever. Skip to the end,” he said, turning to the last entry in the book. Simone’s eyes watered and she sank back onto the seat as she read what the lovers, in their desperation, intended to do:
“The perfume of the mahja sent to me in the late summer by Mary Rose has indeed fulfilled the promise of the monks to alleviate our private suffering, as it has taken us in dreams into a world that knows no parting. In that place, there is no society to enforce its insipid rules against our marriage. There is no distance across land and sea dividing us. There is only us, and eternity. We have decided to enter that world, never to return to this one. It is a desperate experiment,
but one to which we are both committed as our only hope of being physically reunited. Will it be possible to step over the boundaries of our mortality and take with us our bodies as well as our will? Only one in all of the history of mankind has succeeded, and neither Mary Rose nor I would dare compare ourselves to Jesus Christ. Yet from repeated use of the perfume, we believe we have already on many occasions succeeded. This time, we intend to cross that boundary never to return to the mortal world again. Mary Rose has written specific instructions. Tonight is the night—
Simone closed the book gently and laid it on her lap, her eyes shimmering with tears. “If I’d read this before I came across the perfume, I would never have believed any of it. But having been to that dreamworld myself, I believe that John and Mary Rose were successful in their journey. I can actually believe that Shamir is a century and a half old. And,” she said, taking Nick’s hand and drawing him onto the settee beside her, “I know that the perfume has the power to heal, just as Esther described it to me.” She entwined her small fingers into his larger ones and gazed up at him. “All that anger, all that hurt and desire for revenge I held against you all those years.” She touched their two hands to the place on her breast above where her heart beat steadily. “It’s not there anymore.”
Nick drew her onto his lap and held her tightly as they leaned back against the soft cushions. “I’m so grateful to have you back in my life,” he whispered. “I can’t explain any of what has taken place, but because it brought you to me, the perfume has made me a whole man again.”
They lay together in tender silence. “What makes it work, Nick?” Simone asked at last. “Neither of us was able to recreate Mary Rose’s potion. Not fully. What was the magic of her perfume?”
