The Second Mrs. Adams Page 10

  The teddy first, and the sheer stockings followed by the violet dress, which floated down around her like the petals of a flower. She slipped on the silver shoes. Thanks to Mick, her hair was now loose on her shoulders, layered just lightly around her face. It needed only a fluff of the brush, and her new makeup—eyeliner, mascara and a touch of pale lip gloss—was easy enough to touch up, even with trembling hands.

  Because her hands were trembling now, and her teeth were tapping together like castanets.

  What in the hell had prompted her to do this?

  She swung toward the mirrored wall against which the vanity table stood and stared at herself. She had awakened in a hospital room weeks ago, a stranger to herself.

  Now, she’d replaced that stranger with another, one David had never seen before.

  The enormity of what she was doing almost buckled her knees. But there was no going back now.

  Joanna gave her reflection a shaky smile.

  “Carpe diem, kid,” she whispered, and gave herself a thumbs-up.

  She hadn’t only seized the day, she was about to wring it dry.

  * * *

  David was sitting behind his oak desk in his spacious office in lower Manhattan, his chair turned to the window and his back to the door, staring sightlessly over the gray waters of the Hudson River while he mentally cursed his own stupidity.

  What other word could you use to describe the way he’d trapped himself into the upcoming evening of unrelieved boredom?

  He’d attended parties like tonight’s in the past. Joanna belonged to virtually every committee around; she’d dragged him from one mind-numbing gala to another, all in the name of what she considered to be “Good Causes,” where the same dull people stood in little clusters talking about the same dull things while they chomped on soggy hors d’oeuvres and sipped flat champagne.

  Finally, he’d put his foot down and said he’d write checks to Save the Somalian Snail and the Androgynous Artists of America but he’d be damned if he’d go to one more inane benefit on their behalf.

  In a way, that had been the beginning of the end. He’d taken a good, hard look at the four years of his marriage and admitted the truth, that the Joanna he’d married had metamorphosed into a woman he didn’t understand, a woman who was interested in knowing the right people and buying the right labels, whose only goal was to be accepted in the upper echelons of New York society…

  …Who had loved his money and his position but not him. Never him.

  He had to admit, she’d done a fine job of pulling the wool over his eyes. She’d been so young, so seemingly innocent, and he’d been so crazy about her that he’d even worried, at the beginning, that he might overwhelm her with the intensity of his love.

  He’d admitted as much to Morgana, who knew him better than anyone after working beside him for five years, and she’d generously offered him the benefit of her insight into the members of her own sex.

  “I understand, David,” she’d said. “Joanna’s a child, only twenty-two to your thirty, and a free spirit, at that. You must be careful that you don’t make her feel trapped.”

  His mouth twisted. He needn’t have worried. While he’d been busy trying to keep his wife from feeling trapped, she’d been busy rearranging his life until the night they’d been at some stupid charity ball and he’d suddenly realized that he was the one who was trapped, in a loveless marriage to a woman with whom he had absolutely nothing in common and never would have.

  Until the accident. Until a bump on the head had wiped away Joanna’s memory and turned her into…

  “Dammit,” he said.

  It was dangerous to think that way. The accident hadn’t “turned” her into anything but a woman struggling to recover her memory. Once she did, life would return to normal and so would Joanna.

  And then they’d be back where they’d been a couple of months ago, with their divorce only days away, and that was just fine. It was better than fine, it was freedom. It was—

  “David?”

  He swung his chair around. Morgana had inched open the door to his office, just enough so she could peer around the edge.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, David. I knocked, but…”

  “Morgana.” He straightened in his chair, feeling strangely guilty for having been caught with his thoughts anywhere but on the papers strewn across his desk, and smiled at his assistant. “Come in.”

  “Are you sure?” she said, as she stepped inside the office. “If you’re busy…”

  “Don’t be foolish. I’m never too busy to talk to you and anyway, I really wasn’t working. I was thinking about—about this party I’m supposed to go to tonight. Did you phone and say I’d changed my mind about not attending?”

  “I did. And Mrs. Capshaw herself told me to assure you it wasn’t too late. She wanted you to know that the entire Planning Committee would be delighted to know you’d decided to come.”

  David smiled thinly. “How nice.”

  “She asked if Joanna would be with you.” Morgana’s perfect features settled into serious lines. “I told her it was far too soon for Joanna to be up and about. Which reminds me, David, I haven’t asked in days…I do so want to stop by for a visit Do you think she’s up to seeing anyone yet?”

  “That’s kind of you, Morgana, but—”

  “It isn’t kind at all. I’ve always liked Joanna, you know that And I know how difficult this must be for her and for you both.” She hesitated, the tip of her pink tongue just moistening the fullness of her bottom lip. “She hasn’t shown any signs of recovery yet, I suppose?”

  The muscle in David’s cheek knotted. “No.”

  “It will be good for her, knowing you’ve gone to a party she helped plan.”

  “She doesn’t know she helped plan it”

  “Oh? But I thought—I assumed that was why you decided to attend.”

  David frowned. Morgana was his assistant and his friend, and from the time of his marriage, she’d been Joanna’s friend, too. But he wasn’t about to tell her that he’d decided to go to tonight’s gala only to make it clear to his wife that their lives went in separate directions…

  …And what a stupid thing that had been to do, when he could make the same point just as easily and far more comfortably by going home and asking Mrs. Timmons to serve him his supper on a tray in his study.

  “Actually,” he said with a little smile, “now that I think about it, I’m not sure why I decided to attend. Eating soggy hors d’oeuvres and drinking flat champagne while I stare at the paintings of some artist who probably needs a bath more than he needs a paintbrush—”

  “It’s Tico the Chimp.”

  “What’s Tico the Chimp?”

  “The artist You know, they profiled him in the Times a couple of weeks ago. The party’s in his honor.”

  “That’s just great” David began to laugh. “Soggy hors d’oeuvres, flat champagne…and for the guest of honor, a bunch of bananas.”

  “The art critic for the Times called him a great talent.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me? Morgana, do me a favor. Phone Mrs. Capshaw, offer my regrets—”

  “The mayor’s going to be there, and Senator Williamson, and the Secretary-General of the UN. I know they’re all friends of yours, but—”

  “Acquaintances.”

  “Either way, it can’t hurt to touch bases with all three of them with this new project in our laps.” A sympathetic smile softened his assistant’s patrician features. “Besides, it will be good for you to get out a bit. I know it’s not my place to say so, but these last weeks surely must have been a strain.”

  David nodded. Morgana was the only person, aside from his attorney and Joanna’s, who knew he and his wife had been about to divorce when the accident had occurred. Of course, she didn’t know any of the details. Still, it helped that he didn’t have to pretend with her.

  “Yes,” he said quietly, “it has been.” He drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “
For Joanna, too.”

  “Oh, certainly.”

  Morgana sat down on the edge of his desk, as she often did, and the skirt of her pale yellow suit hitched a couple of inches above her knees.

  He almost smiled. When she became engrossed in something, her skirt would often hitch up, or she’d forget that her neckline might delicately gape open as she leaned forward to draw his attention to an item in her hand.

  He’d have thought such things were deliberate if any other woman had done them but Morgana, though beautiful, was incapable of playing such games. She was the complete professional, a quality he’d come to appreciate more and more during the years she’d been working for him.

  She’d started in his office as his secretary.

  “But I don’t intend to stay in that position,” she’d told him bluntly when he’d hired her.

  David had admired her drive. And the company had benefitted from it Morgana was single-minded in her pursuit of success; she was nothing like the girls who’d preceded her, who’d batted their lashes a lot better than they took dictation or kept his files.

  Not that she didn’t have a heart. When he’d come to work one morning and announced he’d married the girl he’d met not ten days before, Morgana had probably been as stunned as his colleagues. But she hadn’t shown it. If anything, she’d gone out of her way to befriend his young wife and ease her into his sophisticated world.

  Little had he or Morgana known that Joanna had been more than ready to do that by herself.

  Ever since the accident, Morgana had put her private life on hold, pitching in to take up the slack when he’d been out of the office the first couple of days, then staying late to help him play catch-up while Joanna was at Bright Meadows. He knew she was right that there’d be networking opportunities at tonight’s party…

  …Opportunities she could take advantage of all on her own.

  David felt a load lift from his shoulders. Why hadn’t it occurred to him before? Morgana would get the chance to enjoy herself—she was far better than he at putting on a polite, social mask. And he’d be off the hook.

  “You know,” he said, “you could use some time off, too.”

  “That’s kind of you to say, David, but—”

  “Would you like to go to that party tonight?”

  Her lovely face lit. “Why…I would, yes.”

  He smiled. “Well, then, why not go?”

  “Oh.” She gave an uncharacteristically breathless laugh. “How generous. Thank you, David. I’d enjoy that very much.”

  “Here,” he said, opening his desk drawer and digging out his tickets for the event “You take these and—”

  “No, you’d better hang on to them.” Morgana got to her feet. “I’ll have to go home and change first, but I promise, I won’t take very long. I can meet you at the gallery. Will that be OK?”

  “Morgana,” he said quickly, “you don’t—”

  “Oh, it’s lovely of you to say that, David.” She laughed again, that same soft, breathless sound. “But I can’t possibly go to a party dressed like this. I promise, I’ll be there by eight and not a moment later.”

  A dull pain began to throb behind David’s eyes.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said wearily. “We’ll take a taxi to your place. I’ll wait while you change.”

  Morgana’s smile flashed like a thousand-watt bulb.

  “Oh, David, you’re so kind! I just know we’ll have a wonderful time.”

  “Yeah.” He smiled, too, and the pain in his head intensified. “I just know it, too.”

  * * *

  The hors d’oeuvres weren’t soggy. They were stale.

  The champagne wasn’t flat. It was awful.

  As for Tico the Chimp…the animal loped around the gallery, hand in hand with his owner, both of them decked out in tuxedos complete with top hats and bow ties. Every now and then, Tico rolled back his lips and let loose with a cackling shriek.

  It was, David thought, the most honest comment anybody in the packed room made all night.

  The whole thing was ludicrous, right down to the wild blobs of color that hung on the wall, each of them bearing the chimp’s official handprint. Or was it footprint? David fought back the wild desire to ask. Everybody in the place was taking things so seriously, even Morgana.

  Well, no. She couldn’t be, she was too intelligent to swallow garbage like this but she was certainly putting on an amazing face, peering intently at the paintings, nodding over the notes in the program. Now, as he waited patiently, she’d lined up to shake Tico’s hand. Or his paw. Or whatever in hell you called it.

  It was hard to imagine Joanna as part of the committee that had planned this event even knowing, as he did, the penchant his wife had shown for fitting readily into the time-wasting habits of the idle rich. It was especially difficult because, for some crazy reason, he kept thinking back to the first one of these things they’d attended together.

  They’d only been married a couple of months then and half the reason he’d decided to go to the party was because he could hardly wait to show off his gorgeous bride:

  “Are we supposed to dress up?” she’d asked him and he’d kissed away the worried frown between her eyebrows and assured her that whatever she wore, she’d be the most beautiful woman in the room.

  And she had been. She’d worn a hot pink dress, very demure and proper except that beneath it there’d been the hint of her lush, lovely body; her hair had streamed down over her shoulders like a midnight cloud. She’d clung to his arm, trying to look suitably impressed by—what had been on exhibit that night?

  A display of cardboard boxes, that was it, some arranged on the walls, some grouped on the floor, all of them with price tags attached that made them Art instead of cardboard. They’d strolled from one end of the room to the other and then he’d bent his head to Joanna’s and whispered that when they got back to Connecticut, he was going to go through the entire house, sign every box he found and then donate them all to the museum.

  Joanna had looked up at him, her eyes wide and her lovely mouth trembling, and then she’d burst into laughter so hard that she’d had to bury her face against his chest.

  An ache, sharper than the pain behind his eyes, crushed David’s heart. Why was he thinking such dumb thoughts? That had been a million years ago. And it hadn’t been real, it had all been illusion, just like Joanna herself.

  If only he could forget the look of her, the sound of her voice…

  “Hello, David.”

  The words were soft but their power stopped his breath. He turned slowly and there she was, as he remembered her. No artifice. No cool, matronly elegance. She wore little makeup, her hair was a glorious tide of midnight waves that tumbled down her back. Her dress was almost the color of her eyes; it clung to her breasts and narrow waist before flaring into a short, full skirt that stopped above her knees and made the most of her long legs.

  Had he gone completely around the bend? Had he conjured up this image? For a minute he thought that maybe he had…but then she gave him a tremulous smile and he knew that she was real, this was Joanna, this was his beautiful, once-upon-a-time wife standing before him like a remembered vision come to life.

  “I know I should have phoned and told you I was coming but…”

  Say something, he told himself fiercely. But what?

  “I hope you’re not angry. It’s just that I looked in my appointment book and saw that I was supposed to be here tonight and I thought, well, perhaps it’s time I began to pick up the pieces of my life, and so—and so…”

  Damn! Joanna bit down on her bottom lip. She’d spent the ride to the gallery promising herself she wouldn’t lose her nerve the minute she came face-to-face with David, but after one shocked look from his green eyes, she was stammering.

  Stop that, she told herself sternly, and despite the way her heart was hammering in her throat, she forced a smile to her lips.

  “And so,” she said, “here I am. You don’t m
ind, do you?”

  Mind? Mind? David stared at his wife. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders, spin her around and point her toward the door. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her until night faded into dawn. He wanted to corner Corbett and every other arrogant, insufferable M.D. in New York who pretended to know what in hell was happening inside Joanna’s head but who obviously didn’t know a damned thing more than he did…

  “No,” he said, very calmly, “I don’t mind, Joanna, but are you sure you’re up to this?”

  Up to having her husband look at her as if he were hoping she’d vanish in a puff of smoke? To seeing the stunned expressions on people’s faces as she’d entered the room? To have people say, “Hello, it’s wonderful you’re up and around, Joanna” as she went by and not to have the foggiest notion who they were?

  Joanna tried her best not to laugh. Or to cry. Or to do an impossible imitation of both at the same time.

  “I’m absolutely up to it,” she said with a hundred times more assurance than she felt. “In fact, I think a night out will do me—”

  “Joanna? Joanna, is it really you?”

  The voice came from a woman who’d stepped out from behind David. She was tall and slender, with pale blond hair cut in a feathered cap that emphasized the perfect structure of her face. Her eyes were pale blue, her lashes dark as soot; her mouth was full and pink. She wore a white silk suit, severely cut yet designed so that it was clear it depended for the beauty of its line not on cut or fabric but on the flawless body beneath.

  Joanna smiled hesitantly. She looked at David for help but his face was like stone.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to the woman, “but I’m afraid I don’t…”

  “I’m Morgana.”

  Morgana. David’s P.A. This—this Nordic goddess with the flawless face and the marvelous body was Morgana?

  Joanna felt a flutter of panic deep in her stomach.

  “Morgana,” she said, and held out her hand, “how…how nice to see you again.”