Just Take My Heart - Mary Higgins Clark [46]
But she was glad that she had decided to wear the silk blouse with the splashy print. She knew the fatigue, caused by the long hours she was putting in, showed on her face. Carefully applied makeup helped to somewhat conceal it. So did the vivid colors in the blouse. After this trial is over, no matter how much is piled up on my desk, I'm taking a few days off, she decided, as she rang the bell of the house.
Ted answered the door himself, let her in, then said admiringly, “You're looking very glamorous tonight, Counselor.”
“I agree,” Nancy Wesley said. She had followed her husband to the door. A slender blond in her late forties, she had the unmistak?able stamp of someone who was born to privilege and wealth. But her smile was genuine, and she took Emily's hands in hers as she placed a fleeting kiss on her cheek. “We've invited just three others to be with us. I know you'll enjoy them. Come in and meet them.”
Emily managed a quick glance around the foyer as she followed the Wesleys. Very impressive, she thought. Marble double staircase. Balcony. Antique chandelier. And I did dress properly. Like her, Nancy Wesley was wearing black silk pants and a silk blouse. The only difference was that her blouse was a pastel shade of blue.
Three other people, Emily thought. She was afraid that the Wes?leys might have invited a single man as a sort of dinner companion for her. In the past year, that had occurred several times in other cir?cumstances. Since she still missed Mark so much, it had not only been annoying, but painful. I hope I'll be ready again someday, she mused, but not yet. She tried to stifle a grin. Even if I had been ready, she told herself, the jokers they've trotted out for me so far have been pretty bad!
She was relieved to see that the three people in the living room were a man and woman, who both appeared to be in their early fif?ties, sitting on a couch by the fireplace, and another woman who appeared to be in her late sixties, seated in a wing chair. She recog?nized the man, Timothy Moynihan, as an actor in a long-running evening television show. He played the chief surgeon in a hospital drama.
Ted introduced him and his wife, Barbara, to Emily.
After greeting his wife, Emily, smiling, asked Moynihan, “Should I call you 'Doctor'?”
“I'm off duty, so Tim will do.”
“The same with me. Please don't call me 'prosecutor.' ” Ted then turned toward the older woman, “Emily, this is another dear friend, Marion Rhodes—and she's a real-life doctor, a psychol?ogist.”
Emily acknowledged the introduction and in a moment was seated with the group and sipping a glass of wine. She felt herself beginning to unwind. This is so civilized, she thought. There really is life outside the Aldrich case, even if only for an evening.
When they went into the dining room and Emily saw the beauti?fully set table, she thought briefly about the soup or sandwich at her desk for lunch, or the take-out food for dinner that had pretty much constituted her haute cuisine for the past few months.
The dinner was delicious and the conversation was both pleasant and amusing. Tim Moynihan was an accomplished raconteur and shared stories of what went on behind the scenes of his show. As she listened and laughed, Emily commented that this was even better than reading the gossip columns. She asked how he and Ted had first met.
“We were college roommates at Carnegie Mellon,” Wesley explained. “Tim majored in drama, and believe it or not I was in a few plays myself. My parents wouldn't let me become an actor because they thought I would end up starving to death. I was planning on law school, but I do think the little bit of acting I did helped me in the courtroom as a trial lawyer and also as the prosecutor.”
“Emily, we were warned by Nancy and Ted that this is your