The Book of Lost Fragrances

Sixty-four

MONDAY, MAY 30, 2:00 P.M.

The room was bright and sunny, filled with furniture, books and artwork from the house on Rue des Saints-Pères. Her father sat in a leather chair by the window; Claire sat beside him.

Jac was surprised by how lovely the small apartment was. How beautiful and green the view was. How sweet the air smelled and how peaceful her father appeared.

He’d turned to see who’d come in. Studied her as if he were trying to place her. But couldn’t. There was no recognition in his eyes.

“Hello,” Claire said softly. “It’s good of you to come. Is Robbie here?”

“Outside. In the car.”

“I’ll go say hello and give you some time with your father.”

Jac almost stopped her. She didn’t know if she wanted to be alone with him.

She sat down in the chair Claire had vacated. Her father wasn’t as frail as she’d expected. He still looked like himself. He didn’t look lost-even if he was lost to her. But she was used to that. Since her mother died, he hadn’t been able to deal with her. A therapist had suggested she reminded him too much of the woman he hadn’t been able to protect and keep safe. Jac didn’t care what the reason was. The facts hurt too much.

“I’m Jac, Father,” she said.

“Jac?” He said it as if he’d never heard the name. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember people that well anymore. How do we know each other?”

Jac opened her pocketbook. Took out the small package and unwrapped it. She’d told Robbie what she planned to do. He’d agreed. They’d examined the scroll. Everything her brother needed to enable him to work on the scent was written there-including the names of the ingredients. A quick internet search had pointed out the greatest problem. One of the main ingredients was extinct. Cleopatra’s ancient persimmon fields had been so valuable the Egyptians had burned them to the ground rather than let the Romans profit from them. A group of botanists was currently working in the desert in the area where the fields had been, hoping to one day find ancient seeds and regrow the plant. Perhaps if they did, Robbie could recreate the scent. He’d sniffed the jar she’d found over and over, but it only gave him a headache.

An olfactory trigger to psychotic episodes or a memory tool? Robbie couldn’t help her unearth the truth. She called Malachai and asked him if everyone could be regressed.

“No,” he’d said with so much sadness in his voice that she could hear it over the phone. “Why are you asking?”

She hadn’t told him the truth. He’d only want the jar, and she and Robbie had decided that it wasn’t theirs to give away. It belonged to someone else. Even if it meant selling Rouge and Noir. It wasn’t a sacrifice, Robbie had told her. It was the past, and they had the present to take care of.

Jac knelt by her father’s chair. Looked into his face. Searched his eyes. Hoped he could hear her.

“You found this, didn’t you?” she asked.

He looked down at what she was holding.

Recognizing it, he nodded his head. “Yes. In the organ. Where it was hidden.”

“Robbie and I want you to have it.”

He took it from her. Bent his head toward it. Inhaled deeply.

When he raised his head, he looked right at Jac. His blue eyes smiling.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“For what?”

“I didn’t keep you very safe, did I?”

She wasn’t sure what he meant. When he took her to the doctors in Paris? When he sent her to Blixer Rath?

“What do you mean?”

“I should have realized that you were still in love with Giles. Not arranged for you to marry another. If I had listened to your mother, you never would have run away to the convent. Never been tortured… They said you drowned…” A tear escaped his eye and ran down his cheek.

He took her hand, clasped it in his, lifted it to his mouth and kissed it.

“It was my job to keep my daughter safe. I failed.”

“No, Papa,” Jac said, knowing somehow that this was what Marie-Genevieve had called her father. “No, Papa, you didn’t fail. See? I am safe. I am. They tried to drown me, but I survived. Married. I had children, Papa.”

“Married Giles?”

“No. Someone else. We named our oldest daughter after Maman.”

He smiled down at her, remembering things that everyone else but the two of them had long, long ago forgotten.

And then she buried her head in his lap, and while she wept, he stroked her hair, and she did what Robbie had said she would do one day. She forgave her father.