Christmas Nights. Sally Wentworth
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which she met with a small shrug.
The evidence that morning was again technical. There was no air-conditioning in the court and it was very hot. The barristers were sweltering under their white wigs and several members of the jury took off their jackets.
Paris tried to concentrate but found her eyes drooping. She straightened in her seat, licked dry lips and wished she could have a drink. The police witness droned onsomething about makes of cars that the accused had owned and sold. William Brydon’s shoulder was invitingly close. Paris’s head rested gently on it and she fell asleep.
‘She seems to have fainted, my lord.’
The words, spoken loudly close by in a man’s voice, woke her.
Paris blinked, came to guiltily, and would have jerked upright, but William Brydon was gently slapping at her cheeks, leaning over her so that she was hidden from everyone else. ‘You fainted,’ he murmured so that only she could hear. ‘You don’t want them to restart the whole trial, do you?’ he added insistently.
Realising what he was doing, Paris gratefully fell in with the act. She gave a realistic moan and let him put her head down between her knees—none too gently, she noticed. The clerk and the woman foreman of the jury came over, the latter with some smelling salts which she insisted on holding under Paris’s nose, making her sneeze.
‘Perhaps if she could have some fresh air?’ William Brydon suggested.
‘We’ll adjourn the court for lunch,’ the judge decided.
Putting a strong arm round her, her neighbour escorted her out of the court, down the long corridor and out into the street. Not far away there was a small green oasis of trees surrounding the remains of a ruined church. When they reached its screening shade he immediately withdrew his arm. ‘A heavy date last night?’ he asked sardonically.
‘No, I was working,’ she retorted indignantly.
‘After a day here? Are you self-employed or something?’
‘No, I work for a cable network company. I’m a sales rep.’
Again his mouth, the lower lip fuller than the other, twisted with irony. ‘Can’t they manage without you?’
Paris’s face hardened. ‘I want to make sure they don’t find out that they can,’ she said shortly, adding, in a voice as scathing as his had been, ‘You obviously don’t have to worry about your job—if you have one.’
He looked amused. ‘Oh, I have one. I’m a financial consultant, here in the City.’
Paris said moodily, ‘Right now I should be in Brussels, representing my company at a medical conference, trying to persuade television and telephone companies to use our networks. It was to be my first time alone. And instead I’m stuck with this case. It’s all so slow. And it could go on for weeks.’
‘It might at that,’ he agreed. ‘So we’ll just have to make the best of it, won’t we?’
There was something in his voice, a note that immediately made her realise he was aware of her as a woman. Glancing quickly up at him, Paris saw that he was looking her over, from her short red-gold hair, down her slim figure, to her legs beneath the fashionably short skirt. ‘Seen enough?’ she said with a tilt of her chin, but not at all displeased.
He grinned. ‘For now. My name’s Will, by the way. Will Brydon.’
She smiled and shook the hand he held out to her. ‘Mine’s Paris Reid.’
‘Yes, I know. An unusual name.’
‘My parents went to Paris for a holiday; I was the result.’ They began to stroll under the shade of the trees and she said, ‘Thanks for helping me back there. I suppose I would have got into terrible trouble if they’d found out I’d fallen asleep. It’s rather like being back at school with the teacher watching you all the time.’
They came to an ice-cream cart and Will bought her a cornet—one with a chocolate flake stuck into it. Paris ate it delicately, trailing her tongue along the chocolate, scooping a little of the ice cream and raising it to her mouth.
Will slowed as he openly watched her. ‘You know,’ he said with a sigh, ‘you have the sexiest way of eating an ice.’
She laughed, her face lighting up. Glancing at him, she liked what she saw. His eyes were grey, clear and intelligent, under dark brows, the left one of which had a slight quirk, as if he raised it more than the other. His bone structure was good, his cheekbones high above the clean jawline, and there was a humorous look to his mouth.
He was tall, too—a definite plus in Paris’s eyes because she was tall herself. Walking with him, she had to look up at him, which put him at about six feet two or three, she guessed. Perhaps it was his height that gave him such physical self-assurance, but there was an irresistible magnetism about him, as if he was full of energy that he could hardly contain.
‘Don’t you find having to do this jury service a bind?’ she asked him.
‘In some ways, of course, but I find the whole process of the law fascinating to watch; there’s so much history behind it all. It’s something that I’ll probably have to do only once in a lifetime so I want to do it to the best of my ability. And I suppose we should be grateful that we don’t live in a police state where there is no jury system.’
Paris wrinkled her nose at him. ‘That sounds terribly po-faced. Is that really what you think?’
Will laughed. ‘I think it’s a damn nuisance, but I may as well get it over and done with.’
‘That’s better. I’m not looking forward to having to reach a verdict, are you? Suppose we don’t all agree and have to stay in a hotel or something for days.’ She looked at him from under her lashes. ‘Your wife—or partnerwould probably hate that.’
Will’s lips curled in amusement. ‘Fortunately I have neither, so there’s no problem. But maybe you do?’
Paris shook her head. ‘No, I’m single and unattached.’ She added, ‘At the moment,’ to let him know that she wasn’t hard up for boyfriends.
‘Well, I’m glad that I’ve met you “at the moment”,’ Will remarked, and they both laughed. His eyes on her, he said, ‘Maybe you’d better sit next to me when we go back in the court-room. Just to make sure you don’t go to sleep again, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Paris agreed demurely. And as they walked back to the court they both knew that this could be the start of a very interesting friendship.
Emma came back from Brussels and told her off for trying to fit in her job with the trial. ‘You can’t possibly go on like this,’ she remonstrated. ‘Look, give me your customer list and I’ll look after them for you until you’re back at the office,’ she offered.
‘Oh, Emma, would you? It is rather getting me down,’ Paris said gratefully.
Emma’s kindness made Paris once again think herself extremely lucky that the older woman had taken a liking to her and more or less taken her under her wing. Her own parents had split up many years ago and both had remarried, but Paris didn’t really feel at home with either of them, although they both always made her welcome and tried to include her in their new families.
When she’d first joined the company she’d lived in a bedsit quite nearby, but then Emma had become friendly with her and finally asked her if she’d like to share her flat. ‘It’s in the suburbs of London, mind,’ Emma warned her. ‘You’d have to drive into the office every day.’
But Paris hadn’t minded that at all; the company had given her a car and the thought of living in London excited her.
At first, because of the difference in their ages, she’d been surprised that Emma had been so friendly, but she’d also been flattered by it too. Emma had quite a senior position in the sales department; it