The Body in the Ivy Read Online Free

always admired a good seduction.
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    The prospect was exciting. A week filled with music, her music and that of other dedicated musicians. Rachel Gold had had no idea the famous author Barbara Bailey Bishop was a music lover. She was turning her home on her own private island over to a select group, which she’d asked Rachel to lead. Even before Bishop’s assistant,Owen, had mentioned the fee for Rachel’s services, she had decided to accept the offer. When he mentioned how much money was involved, Rachel felt dizzy and had to sit down. Her reputation as a classical guitarist was international, but limited. She was known as a “musician’s musician” and her following veered toward the cultlike. Her recordings were not about to go gold. An old joke, but as true now as when Ms. Gold had started her career in the early seventies. The call had come in February, and thinking about the gathering in June had taken Rachel through the bitter winter days—days that sapped her spirit. It would be her own mini-Marlboro, mini-Tanglewood. Her mother had rejoiced with her and begged her to use some of the money to buy decent clothes. “If only the real Loehmann’s was still around!” Mrs. Gold had spent wisely and well under the guidance of Mrs. Loehmann herself, making pilgrimages to Brooklyn each season for bargain known and unknown designer originals. When she was a child, Rachel had loved to watch her mother get dressed for the Met or Carnegie Hall. The swish of taffeta, glitter of tiny jet beads on filmy silk, the smell of Arpège—the Lanvin atomizer reverently lifted from the clutter on her mother’s dressing table to deliver the final touch. Daytime wear was as ritualistic. Her mother would no more have left the apartment without matching hat, gloves, and purse than ride naked down Fifth Avenue in one of those touristy horse-drawn carriages.
    Rachel was a regular on Amtrak, shuttling to Boston, D.C., Providence, but she’d never traveled on the Acela first class. Owen—or was it Mr. Owen?—had apologized for the inconvenience of changing trainsand had offered to send a car or Ms. Bishop’s private plane. Rachel had gently but firmly rejected his suggestions. Things like that, rock star accoutrements, made her nervous. A train ticket was all she required.
    The motion of the train was lulling her to sleep. She felt her eyelids grow heavy and flutter. She gave in, smiling to herself. This week will be a dream come true, she thought.
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    â€œYou’d better take my car, since you’ll be dropping the dogs off.”
    â€œNo can do. No time.”
    Phoebe James looked at her husband. Wes had been sitting in the kitchen leisurely reading both the Times and Wall Street Journal for over an hour while he ate his weekly three-minute boiled egg, accompanied by one unbuttered slice of wheat toast, half a grapefruit, and one cup of black coffee. Now he was slinging the strap of his laptop case over one shoulder and sprinting for the door.
    â€œBut if I have to take the dogs, I’ll miss my plane! And the kennel is on your way!”
    â€œNot on my way, Phebes, at least a mile out of my way. Have the twins do it.”
    â€œYou know the twins left for work at eight!” Phoebe felt the familiar rush of anger that seemed to accompany most of the conversations she had with her family these days. It mounted as she thought about what missing the plane would mean. All the arrangements had been made, the connections. It would mean missing the whole thing. Her week!
    A week off. A week alone. Well, with some otherwomen, but she was sure she’d have plenty of time to herself. And she’d be out of the house. Away from everything—and everyone. She took a deep breath, a yoga cleansing breath learned during a brief try at salutations to the sun as a way to combat insomnia. It didn’t work. Or rather, she didn’t. Wait, “No