The Song of the Siren by Philippa Carr Read Free Book Online

then Beau’s disappearance must have meant that he would be talked of even more.
    So it was only natural that this elegant Mistress Pilkington would have heard of the matter and be interested when she came to see a house which belonged to the heiress in the case.
    I opened the door and went into the house. I stood for a moment looking up at the gallery. It was so quiet. I found myself listening.
    I should be rid of these fancies when Mistress Pilkington was installed here with her family. I expected I should be asked to call. It would all be so different then.
    That was what I wanted. I had done the right thing.
    I walked up the staircase and turned into the minstrels’ gallery. Something was different there. Oh yes, one of the stools had been moved forward and there was an impression on it as though someone had recently sat there.
    Of course, Mistress Pilkington had been here. Then I smelt the scent. It was unmistakable.
    It gave me a shock and set my heart hammering against my side.
    It was that smell of musk. It brought back Beau so clearly. I could
    see his face, hear his voice. He had told me that he liked the scent
    because of its strength. He was interested in perfumes; he distilled
    them himself. Musk was the erotic perfume, he said. It was often
    added to others to give them a touch of the erotic. It was the
    aphrodisiac perfume. “Do you know, Carlotta, that it is absorbed by
    everything that comes near it. It stimulates desire. It is the love
    perfume.”
    That was how he talked, and the strong odour of the musk smell brought him back more clearly than anything could.
    My mood changed at once. If I thought I had escaped from the spell he had laid on me I was mistaken. He was back as strong as ever.
    For the first few seconds I was so overcome by my emotion that I did not ask myself why I should smell this in the minstrels’ gallery. I just stood there with the longing to see him again so strongly with me that I could think of nothing else.
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    Then I thought to myself: But how did it come here? Someone has been here, someone so scented with musk that it remains after he or she has left.
    Mistress Pilkington. Of course. But I had not noticed she was using musk when I had shown her round the house and I could not have failed to notice if she had. I recalled there was a delicate perfume clinging to her. It was of violets as far as I remembered.
    She had the key. That was the answer. Why was I standing here in this dazed fashion?
    There was a perfectly logical explanation. Beau was not the only person who had used musk to scent his linen. There was quite a fashion among the fastidious gentlemen of the Court. It had come in with the Restoration. Beau said there were so many evil smells in London, and all over the country, for that matter, that a man must do something to prevent their assaulting his nostrils.
    I must not be foolish and fanciful.
    I would leave at once. There was no point in going through the house. I was too upset.
    No matter what explanation I could offer, the scent had conjured up too vivid a picture of him. I wanted to get away.
    And then suddenly I saw it glinting on one of the floorboards. I stooped and picked it up. It was a button. A very unusual button, gold, and very delicately engraved.
    I had seen that button before. It had been on a coat of claretcoloured velvet. I had admired the buttons very much. Beau had said: “I had them especially made for me by my goldsmith. Always remember, Carlotta, that it is the finishing touches to the garment which give it quality. Now these buttons make this coat unique.”
    And here ... lying on the floor of the minstrels’ gallery was one of those buttons.
    Surely it could mean only one thing. Beau had been here.
    “Beau,” I whispered, half expecting him to materialize beside me.
    There was nothing but the silence of the house. I turned the button over in my hand.
    It was real. This was no hallucination. It was as real as the scent which hung about