“Because I love it here.” His gaze met hers. “As you do, Catherine. I never knew how much I missed sharing how I felt about Vasaro until you came.”
She nodded, glowing with warmth. Vasaro and Philippe. She was learning new and wonderful things about both of them every day.
“Essence absolue.”Michel smiled triumphantly at Catherine across Monsieur Augustine’s small laboratory.
At Monsieur Augustine’s request Michel had fetched a jar of jasmine pomade from the cellar, warmed it in a covered dish, diluted it with recycled spirits, and stirred and washed the pomade. Then he had returned it to thecellar to cool, and when the alcohol separated from the oil of the pomade, he drained it into a tiny bottle. “Smell.” He thrust the bottle under her nose. “Perfume!”
The fragrance was pungent, acrid, no longer sweet. “That’s not perfume.”
“It’s the essence. Like Vasaro is the essence.” He filtered the perfumed alcohol through a gauze, then distilled it in a copper alembic over a slow flame. What remained was an even tinier quantity of light-colored liquid whose odor was even more incredibly strong and unpleasant.
“Terrible,” Catherine said, making a face.
“Ah, but wait.” Michel carefully poured a single drop into a crock containing a quart of alcohol and gently stirred it.
“Jasmine!” Suddenly the entire room was swimming with the scent of jasmine. Not just one flower, but an entire field of jasmine.
“You see, it’s a circle. The scent of the earth, the blossoms, the scent of the blossoms, the essence, the scent again.”
“With Vasaro as theessence absolue.”
Michel nodded. “And you don’t feel so sad about the maceration now that you know the scent is born again? The hurt only made it stronger than ever.” His worried gaze was on her face. “You understand, Catherine?”
She smiled. “I understand, Michel. Stronger than ever.” She affectionately watched him as he sealed the tiny vial and carried it carefully over to Monsieur Augustine’s long table to set it beside the other similar vials in readiness for the master perfumer.
The sea was deep blue today and the mountains looked so close Catherine felt she could reach out and scoop up a handful of the snow crowning them. She leaned back against a huge rock on the cliff and sighed with contentment. Beauty like this was alsoessence absolue, spreading in magical circles to touch everyone who gazed at it.
“Why did you stop going to the priest for lessons, Michel?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t like him.”
“Learning is good. You should have kept going to him anyway as long as Monsieur Philippe was willing to pay.”
“He kept saying I was a child of sin and my mother was a whore.”
Catherine felt a surge of anger. “You didn’t believe him?”
“No, I knew my mother was a flower picker and I have no more sin than anyone else. But it made me unhappy.”
She said impulsively, “Will you let me teach you? I’m not as wise as a priest but—”
“You’re much wiser, because you understand the flowers.” Michel thought for a moment before an eager smile lit his face. “It would help me to know how to write. Then I could put down the mixes for the perfumes and not have to rely on Monsieur Augustine. He’s a kind man but he thinks only of his own perfumes.”
“Tomorrow night come to the manor and we’ll begin.”
A flush of pleasure tinted Michel’s tanned cheeks. “You’re sure Monsieur Philippe will let you?”
“Why should he mind? He told me himself your nose would someday be valuable to Vasaro.”
He glanced away from her and said in a low voice, “He doesn’t like you to spend time with me, you know.”
“Nonsense.”
He shook his head. “He doesn’t like—” He was silent a moment and then continued. “I think he finds me…unpleasant.”
She stared at him in astonishment. “You’re mistaken.” Yet she had a sudden memory of Philippe’s expression of uneasiness that first morning he’d been discussing Michel. “Perhaps he needs to get to know you. Come to the house at six tomorrow evening.”
A radiant smile banished Michel’s frown. “Will you teach me to read the books on perfume in Monsieur Augustine’s cabinet?”
