The Perfumer's Secret (15 page)

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Authors: Fiona McIntosh

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He smiled tightly. ‘Thank you, and once again, I ask for your forgiveness. I’m behaving ungraciously.’

‘You’re behaving like my twin brother, actually. Felix finds humour in everything, even grim situations.’

‘I like the sound of him.’

‘You’d get on well. But there are times, when you’re dabbling in people’s lives, that amusing yourselves is inappropriate.’

His gaze darkened and his forehead creased with concern. ‘Sometimes, Fleurette, humour is used as a defence rather than an attack.’

I nodded, knew Felix often reverted to making fun because it was easier than confronting reality. ‘However, this is my life, Sébastien, and I do feel under attack.’

‘I had to protect you.’

‘So you said in your letter.’

Now our most awkward pause since we met stretched tautly between us.

He pulled himself to his feet with a soft groan and a cough. ‘I’ll take your leave, Fleurette. I’m so sorry but I couldn’t let it sit a moment longer. I’m just glad I got to you before . . .’

I stood as well. ‘But now you’ve handed the burden to me. All of that bleak truth is mine to bear.’

‘He will want an heir.’

I closed my eyes and breathed out. ‘You brought the letters?’

‘You surely don’t plan to —’

‘I most certainly do. Dark claims are besmirching my father’s name and you’re asking me to annul my marriage. I have only third-party words. I imagine you didn’t come unarmed without the proof you claimed.’

‘I have the letters.’

‘Good. And how do you come by letters that surely belonged to my father?’

‘I suspect he kept them out of sentiment.’

I noted he was careful about his wording, obviously not wishing to suggest that my father carried a flame for his mother long after their parting.

‘And then due to that same sentiment he returned them, for her to make the decision about destroying them.’

‘Then I require them.’ I matched his gaze as directly as his fixed mine. ‘I will not tamper with them in any way. I want to see my father’s handwriting, hear his voice in my mind as I read his words to your mother. That’s fair, surely, given the damage your news brings?’

‘It is fair but it will hurt you more.’

‘How can I be hurt any further than learning that my mother killed herself? She chose death over life with her children. And how can I possibly be more upset than learning the father I worship lived a lie?’

‘He didn’t —’

‘He did, Sébastien. He knew Aimery was his son. And now I know why whenever the topic arose I had an ally in my father. For as long as he was alive, he wouldn’t tolerate the notion of marriage between our families when all others except me agreed it made perfect sense to heal old wounds, bring two grand families together and protect our region’s wealth. I thought it was connected with our rivalry – historical bad blood of business. Now I know it is genuinely about bad blood.’

I hadn’t seen the satchel that he limped over to now. He’d set it down on a far table before I’d walked into the morning room. He undid it and lifted out a large envelope. ‘These are your father’s letters. There are only three. The last was sent after your mother was buried.’ He handed the envelope to me. ‘I’ve also included the one from your mother to mine.’

I swallowed. ‘I will return them, of course.’

‘They are your proof. Your way out of the marriage.’

I straightened, feigning a smile. ‘You must stay here while in Grasse.’

‘Perhaps it’s best if I don’t. My only aim in lying to my army superiors was to reach you before Aimery had leave. I shall head back into —’

‘I won’t hear of it, Sébastien. You’re our guest . . . you’re a De Lasset; you have every right to stay in your family’s home. I won’t hear of you staying anywhere else.’ I moved to the fireplace and drew on the embroidered fabric that would ring for service at the back of the house. ‘I know Madame Mouflard will be delighted to make up a room for you.’ I walked over to him and kissed him gently on both cheeks, helplessly enjoying the bristly feel of his beard pushing through against my skin. ‘Good day, Sébastien, and will you excuse me, please? I feel a headache coming on.’

11

Before I read the letters, I smelled them. Yes, it was odd, but I am a woman of perfume. Every aroma, while not an object in itself, has provenance because it originates from the solid, the real. Thus smells have their stories to tell me and ‘tasting’ them is my way of seeing the world in the first instance. I only look after I have derived my uncommon perspective.

I smelled first my father’s letters. These were written on his signature mauve-blue paper and I knew before I raised the envelope to my nose that I should smell violets. It was a curious choice for a man to scent his stationery with such a delicate fragrance but I had been raised with it, and never thought to question that feminine note that clung to his salon as a delicate counterbalance to the tobacco he inhaled. I had always presumed he chose it because of his mother’s scent – her name was Violette. And I don’t doubt the origination now but I found myself questioning whether the scent had come to mean something precious between the two of them.

Could I still smell it on the paper? I sniffed deeply, fancifully reaching for that private commune with the man I thought I knew, the one man I had trusted as being entirely without guile. Perhaps only someone with our family’s heightened awareness of smell could find it after years of dwindling potency and deterioration from handling. But there it was . . . tender, slightly powdery, a hint of sweet virtue that made mockery of what my father and Marguerite were sharing. Above all, as I closed my eyes once again and inhaled even deeper so the breath ran over my tongue and down my throat, I smelled that hidden note of melancholy. Was there a sadder fragrance than violets? I doubted it. To stand in a field of violets was to smell the promise of sorrows – a wistful sweetness that was as gentle as a kiss, but was nonetheless mournful. To me the scent of violets, if I could encapsulate it in a word, was forlorn.

I opened the letters and I read.

Words – powerful ones of infatuation as much as love – entered the slipstream of my thoughts and because of who I was I knew I would never forget them. My father, the most precious teacher and guide in my life – a giant in my mind – was reduced to a simpering shadow. It shouldn’t have been this way, I suppose, but reading his words of affection to Marguerite somehow reduced him, and I felt an increasing sense of appall and desertion. I wanted to look up to him, not have this helpless adoration for a stranger lessen his stature.

Mostly, I hated that he had loved her. Childish, selfish it may be, but I felt it as a personal betrayal, as though his fondness for her stole from what should have been available only for us.

Marguerite, of course, was desperately in love. I had no doubt about that. While my father’s few scented letters were built on fond placations and soothing reassurances, hers were lovelorn and pulsing with the trauma of her lacklustre marriage and finally the physical separation from being able to glimpse my father after her banishment: ‘
I would gladly live with the pain of seeing you with Flora than not at all
.’

In earlier letters she spoke tenderly of Aimery, moments of resemblance to my father, and then later how the love for her estranged son made her feel still so very connected to her love for my father, even though a sea separated them by then. She expressed her fears for how she might raise the forthcoming baby, due in just days at that time. I was surprised how convinced she was that this child was a girl. Perhaps she willed it in order that her brutal husband would feel less interest in his offspring. In all the letters she didn’t mention her shame at their behaviour, or how her family reacted. It was as though she was living in a bubble of her affection for Victor Delacroix and only he, she and Aimery mattered.

She surmised . . . 
and he will grow up a De Lasset and sadly with a cruel model of a father to follow. Arnaud will teach him to be proud, vain, ruthless. These are not qualities I cherish and I pray that blood may override those who nurture him for I know there is not a vicious bone in your body.

By comparison, my father, whose gentle, playful voice I heard all too clearly through his responding letters, seemed to avoid discussing Aimery – certainly in the letters I had before me. I flicked back through the one I was holding to check the date and, yes, it was written almost directly after the birth of Henri. So, by that time Victor Delacroix had not only moved on from his bachelor days to find new love in the arms of my mother but he now had a legitimate child . . . a son . . . the all-important heir to the throne. His new chieftain-in-waiting had arrived to usurp all other affections . . . even those for his illegitimate child and the bleats of love from another woman. She no longer had the same impact, not with the glow of Flora St John shining around him. I had so little recollection of our mother but if she was as pretty in reality as the few photographs and the portraits in the villa of her attest, then my father must have been entirely seduced . . . mesmerised, in fact. That would account for . . . what was it? Not flippancy, but I sensed him distancing himself from Marguerite. And perhaps it wasn’t deliberate but he was a married man and a happily married family man at the time. Meanwhile, Marguerite was wallowing in a lost love, a past love that no longer existed, not from my father’s perspective anyway, it appeared. In her mind it was still so vital but I suspected that my father was steadfastly and deliberately moving on and away from her, perhaps hoping her letters would dry up.

And then the one I dreaded came to hand in the small pile that had been bound with ribbon. I caught my breath. Different handwriting this time, different paper, dated more than two years after Felix and I were born.

By the time you read this, Marguerite, I will be dead and I accuse you now as my murderer. Oh, your hand may not have slain me but my blood shall be on your hands all the same.

It was an assault of words. The beautiful, fragile woman whom I had been taught to accept as my mother had poured out enough scathing wrath to surely make even Arnaud De Lasset proud if he’d been privy to it. Who needed to offer bruising blows when you could rain down sentences of such blunt force? I read her letter through the blur of tears, her looping handwriting trembling before me as my eyes watered. Essentially she told Sébastien’s mother that she was not strong enough to bear the pain of the deceit of the two people she loved most in the world.

I have seen my precious Felix and Fleurette into healthy infancy and I suspect now they will thrive as I surely wither. It is time to snuff the candle that has tried in vain to light my way through an overwhelming darkness. But I wish you this, treacherous Marguerite. I wish, unlike me, that you live long and miserably in the knowledge of the suffering you have caused.

It was vicious. I flung the letter aside, not wanting to feel the pages with their horrible sentiment against my skin. I felt unwittingly drawn into the hate, touched by the shame and the lies; I owned them now, forever to roam my memory. Aimery was still clueless but the ramifications for our marriage and my life were huge.

This time the bile rose with angry determination and I couldn’t stop its explosive rage.

__________

Feeling better for the purge, a bath and even a rest – fractious though it was – I emerged some hours later into the gardens. I needed air despite it being so chilled that the grass felt crusty underfoot. But I was rugged up against the elements and determined to feel a wind against my face, as if it could blow the demons from my mind.

There was a tension in the villa and I suspected the servants were watching me, wondering how the meeting with the prodigal son had gone. No one could know what terrible information he’d brought but word had surely run rampant around the household and I wouldn’t be surprised if the fires of gossip weren’t already being fanned around the town to outlying villages. The De Lasset family was too well known and important for news of the estranged son returning to the family home not to be causing excited gossip and providing the perfect subject for heated discussion over morning or afternoon coffee in other wealthy homes. I had no doubt many women were already reaching for their pen and paper to extend invitations for morning coffee to the newcomer in our midst – he would be intriguing, he would be a catch . . . he was male company, of which we were all in desperately short supply.

Right now I didn’t want anyone to be observing my mood or my expression so I walked as far from the house as the garden permitted until I was in a small walled herb patch where not much at all was growing. My companions were some scruffy-looking thyme, its friend a spiky rosemary, which appeared to be clinging on, and some toughened rocket.

Given the size of the estate I was surprised to see the object of the gossip leaning forlornly against the far wall. A thin shaft of dying sunlight lit him as though the angels in heaven had taken pity on his outcast status and bathed him in their warmth as no one else would. No doubt Aimery’s brother had gone in search of fresh air and isolation as well.

Despite his dejection and slouch, bandages and walking stick, he managed to look dashing, especially now, seemingly freshly bathed and out of his bedraggled uniform. His medical dressings made him appear heroic rather than beaten, while his downcast expression helped me to feel less inclined to blame him for the pain he’d brought with him – it was clear he was suffering much the same. I expected to see him smoking a cigarette but his good hand was plunged deep into a pocket.

He heard the gravel crunch beneath my tread and he looked up. There was so much grief in his gaze that I felt a surge of guilt and desire to make it right between us.

‘Fleurette. How are you?’

‘As you’d expect,’ I said evenly, approaching. ‘You look freshened, though. Is everything to your satisfaction?’

‘More than I could hope for. Your maid, Jeanne, demanded my uniform for cleaning.’ He tugged at the suit jacket he wore. ‘I have no idea where these clothes came from. Are they Aimery’s?’

I shook my head. ‘Aimery’s shorter and bulkier than you. These are my brother’s . . . Felix’s. I hope it wasn’t presumptuous?’

‘Not at all. I’m extremely grateful. But I will wear my uniform as soon as it’s laundered.’

‘It may have to go through the process a few times,’ I quipped. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Sore.’

‘Can we get you something for the pain?’

He grinned.

‘Did I say something to amuse?’

Sébastien gestured at a bench nearby. ‘Shall we?’

I didn’t want to be seated but I obliged. I preferred to extend every courtesy while retaining control. He sat at a respectful distance.

‘Did I mention I was a chemist?’ He said this in a tone of irony because we both knew he had. I relinquished with a grin. ‘I can take care of my pain. I only wish I could take care of yours. Did you read them?’

I nodded this time; words clogged in my throat.

‘I would like to have spared you.’

‘You tried.’

‘I should have tried harder.’

I let out a deep sigh. ‘What am I going to do?’

He surprised me by covering my hand and there was something poignant about his injured hand, trying unsuccessfully to squeeze mine through his bandages in an effort to console. I noticed his fingertips poking out from the top made him appear all the more damaged.

‘Your fingers look blue,’ I remarked.

‘I had no idea how cold it gets here. I thought we Brits were hardy enough.’

I gave a snort.

‘You’ve come out in just a shawl, though, like you possess some sort of inner endurance. Meanwhile I shiver like a weakling.’

‘Sébastien, you were released to convalesce from a serious injury. I am healthy, you’re far from it. Let me take care of you,’ I offered, surprising myself with how easily the suggestion came.

His dark eyes, which I now realised were not truly green but the stormiest of greys, like a restless sea in winter, had lost their amusement. ‘You can take me anywhere you please,’ he said, his voice gritty.

There was so much earnest intensity in his gaze I had to look away. ‘Well,’ I began, affecting a jolly tone to cover how disconcerted I suddenly felt. A thrill of unexpected pleasure flashed through me, and then exploded deep in my belly like one of the showers of colourful fireworks that Aimery had organised on our wedding day. In my surprise at the sensation I lost whatever words were coming. Annoyingly Sébastien didn’t fill the gap as I searched for what to say next – if anything, he seemed to understand my sudden discomfort. He let me suffer in silence.

‘Let’s begin by finding you a proper overcoat and planning some healing soups,’ I finally offered. ‘My father always maintained that a chicken broth has magical healing properties,’ I added, inwardly appalled at my babble.

He chuckled, sensing my tumbling emotions. ‘Listen, Fleurette, I’m here for you. I’m not going to let you face this alone.’

‘Thank you.’ I meant it. ‘But I don’t really see how you can help.’

‘I won’t let him bully you.’

‘Perhaps you shouldn’t presume . . .’

‘He’s grown up walking in the footsteps of my father. Anyone who beats a pregnant woman is a bully . . . and that’s putting it mildly.’ He held a hand up. ‘I’m not for one moment condoning my mother’s behaviour. I’m ashamed of her, although let’s keep in perspective that both of our villains were unmarried when their liaison occurred. Their error was in not owning up to it.’

‘And the fornication?’ I sounded like such a prude but my mother killed herself over this. I felt I had a right to feel affronted – and prudish!

He fixed me with the wintry sea gaze again. ‘That’s a harsh word. I’m sure neither of our parents saw their helpless attraction in that light.’

‘They were wrong. Look at the pain they’ve caused, surging down a quarter of a century to hurt all of us.’

‘I’m sure if they could have known the repercussions, they would have spared you.’

He was so calm and generous to all in this melodrama that he only made me angrier.

‘What is your point, Sébastien?’ I snipped, removing my hand abruptly from beneath the rough feel of his dressing and felt ashamed at his flinch. I’d hurt him but he made no sound.

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