The Perfume Collector(55)

‘Mon Péché ?’

‘My Sin. Really, a very modern formula and unique for its time. Still one of my personal favourites. She completely withdrew from the perfume world after that. However, she did have an apprentice – a young man.’ He caught her eye. ‘Eventually he opened his own boutique near Saint-Germain.’

‘Andre Valmont?’ she guessed.

‘Exactly.’ He sighed. ‘I wonder what they were working on. I would have loved to have smelled it. Madame Zed had a very unique palate. Somewhat abrasive, challenging. But ultimately quite elegant. As for Valmont,’ he paused, searching for the right words, ‘he was nothing short of a genius. His library of accords and absolutes, the complexity and variation of his formulations, were nothing short of astounding.’

‘Did you know him?’

He shook his head. ‘Sadly, no. But I went to his shop once, shortly after my arrival in Paris. I shall never forget it. If Guerlain is a cathedral, Valmont’s shop was a pantheon, a pagan shrine to everything possible – nothing edited, nothing denied. Floor-to-ceiling shelves, glittering mirrors, lush fabrics. It was tiny, exclusive, terribly chic. There was a woman, perhaps the most extraordinary creature I’ve ever seen, who presided over the whole thing. You could not, for love nor money, get an appointment with Valmont himself. But this apparition would sit with you, talking, bringing down one bottle after another until you were drunk with scent!’

‘Why didn’t he open up again after the war?’

He face grew sombre. ‘Andre Valmont was Jewish. He did not survive the war, madame.’

‘Oh,’ she frowned.

‘He was not a conventional perfumer,’ he added. ‘And he died very young. Who knows what creations he might have made in another ten or twenty years? It’s a terrible loss to the profession.’

Grace held out her hand. ‘Thank you, for your considerable time and expertise.’

He shook her hand. ‘My pleasure, Madame Munroe. Let me know if you discover anything more. I am, and always will be, an admirer of his work.’

Grace headed out of the tranquillity of the boutique and on to the bustling pavement of the Champs-Élysées.

The sky was bright, the air balmy and mild.

She raised her wrist and inhaled.

And suddenly she was back in time again, on that late November afternoon, dense with mist and fog, standing on the ridge beyond the garden gate.

She could see her mother coming out of the house, waving eagerly to her to come in. And her father hurrying up the path that ran along the side of the house, head down, distracted. He was carrying something – notes – walking away. He wasn’t coming in to tea.

A sick, painful longing filled her entire chest.

That was one of the last times she ever saw him alive.





New York, 1927

Miss Waverley was miraculously made. She had gleaming mahogany hair, cut into a sharp, sleek bob and eyes that were the colour of dark chocolate – huge doe eyes framed by black lashes. Her skin was ivory and her proportions amazing; a thin tapered waist, high full breasts, shapely legs. She walked with such casual sensuality that it was impossible not to stare at her. And she was a woman who was used to being stared at.

Miss Waverley was well known at the Hotel. She was a regular guest, although not a paying customer herself. She just appeared, rather as an intriguing footnote to the travel arrangements of some of their wealthier male clients. They would request an adjoining room to their own suite or sometimes, if discretion were a serious consideration, another suite on the next floor up. During the time that they visited, Miss Waverley adorned the Hotel like a rare, exquisite flower, only occasionally accompanying her benefactor out in public. She never rose before 11 a.m., at which time she had a standing order for strong coffee, a bowl of ice cubes and lemon slices, and half a grapefruit. No one knew what she did with the ice. Half an hour later, no matter what the day, a hairdresser, masseuse and manicurist arrived to attend to her in her room. She emerged, two hours later, a shimmering apparition of dewy youth, as graceful and artlessly arranged as a field of wild flowers.

She had a smooth, low voice and a naughty, shocking sense of humour. Laughter followed in her wake; she collected admirers, both male and female, simply walking across the lobby. She had a certain knack for including everyone in her own private jokes, bending in conspiratorially to say something wickedly off-colour to one of the old stone-faced dowagers waiting for a cab. The next moment, they’d both be giggling uncontrollably and Miss Waverley would be offering to have her chauffeur take the old dear wherever she was meant to be going.