She was absolutely furious with herself. How could she have been such a fool as to overlook all that and fall in love with him anyway?
For six months she had resented both Sloan and the circumstances that had forced her to accept the reality of being his wife. Or at least, she had believed that was what she was resenting. Now it was becoming painfully apparent that somewhere since their marriage her thinking had shifted, so slowly and subtly that she hadn’t even felt the disparity creeping up on her.
Why it had happened, she had no idea. Was she really so shallow that his lavish gifts—the designer dresses and diamond bracelets she had told herself she detested—had purchased her loyalty anyway? Surely not, because what she was feeling was not calculated fondness for a sugar daddy who could provide her with expensive toys that her friends would envy. It was an aching hunger for a soul mate—for the one man in the world who could complete her, who could truly be her other half. The man who could love her as much as she loved him, and who wanted to join with her in a union—an emotional and spiritual bonding as well as a physical one—that would grow closer and deeper and more intense with the passing years.
Unfortunately, when she had selected the man she wanted to be her soul mate, she hadn’t chosen very wisely. It was not a role Sloan would be able to understand, much less one that he would find attractive.
The oddest thing was the fact that admitting she loved him—though it had rocked her emotionally—had left everything else essentially unchanged. A couple of days ago Morganna had refused to go to bed with a man she didn’t love. Now that objection was gone, but nothing else had truly altered. So long as Sloan looked at her as nothing more than a convenience—a trophy—she could not act on her love. He had made very clear what it was he expected of her, and the last thing she could do was to change the rules. She couldn’t even tell him what she wanted, because the very thought of admitting her desires and then seeing him look at her with distaste or revulsion was more than she could bear.
“I guess I’m not surprised,” Sloan said, “that you’re having to search pretty hard for an answer that will justify your stubbornness.”
Answer? Morganna had to fumble through her shell-shocked memory just to find the question. Why wouldn’t she leave, that was it. “This is my home,” she said stiffly.
“If that’s the best you can do—” Sloan held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “All right. You win. Stay.”
He strode across the room, frustration showing in every line of his body.
Morganna braced her elbows on the edge of her worktable and put her face down in her hands. She’d won the battle, for what it was worth. Regardless of what Sloan thought, she was staying right where her heart, as well as her principles, said she belonged. Beside him.
She just wished that he actually wanted her to be there.
After dinner, Sloan went to the hospital to check on Joel, and Abigail retreated to the library to make a telephone call. With the evening looming long ahead of her, Morganna climbed the stairs to change out of her dinner dress. She was sitting at her dressing table in a raspberry-colored satin robe, toying with a perfume atomizer, when Abigail knocked on the door.
“I just wanted to tell you,” Abigail said, “that I’m glad you’re not leaving, Morganna. I’m not pleased to have you in danger, of course, and I don’t think Sloan is the sort to get panicky about your safety for no reason. Still, I’m very proud that you feel your place is with your husband, no matter what.”
Morganna’s throat was too tight to speak.
Abigail fiddled with a cobalt-blue bottle of moisturizing lotion. “And I also came to tell you that I think perhaps I should stay, too.”
Morganna’s hand convulsively clutched the atomizer, drenching the lapel of her robe with perfume. “You’re not going back to Phoenix? But why not? If your admirer hasn’t given up his obsession quite yet, maybe you’d like to try Florida for a while. Or southern California. There are a lot of other places besides here and Phoenix.”
“It begins to sound as if you’d like to see the back of me,” Abigail said gently.
Morganna’s eyes widened. “Of course not.” But even to her own ears, her protest was unconvincing. She tried again. “I couldn’t bear it if you stayed here out of a misguided sense of loyalty and something happened to you, Mother.”
“You surely don’t expect me to run away to safety and leave you. Do you, Morganna?”
“But we’re fine. Sloan and I—” Her voice almost cracked on the words. “We have each other, and—”
“No, you’re not fine,” Abigail said firmly. “And you don’t have each other. Where you and Sloan are concerned, there is no we.”
Morganna focused on a fingerprint that marred the glass surface of her dressing table and reached for a tissue to rub it off. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mother.”
“Oh, honey, it’s time for a little truth. Do you think I haven’t known all along what you did? The bargain you made?”
Morganna stared at her, unbelieving. And you let me do it?
“I suppose I saw what I wanted to see,” Abigail said slowly. “But I believed—I honestly believed—that it would be all right. Sloan was so touchingly eager to help—I thought that could only mean that he was head over heels in love with you. And as for you, Morganna—I thought it was impossible for you to look at the way he’d thrown himself so selflessly into the mess your father left and not fall in love with him. I thought your haste only anticipated what would have happened anyway.”
“And if I was going to end up married to him sooner or later, why not make the most of Sloan’s willingness to be a knight in shining armor at the moment we needed him?” Morganna’s voice was hollow.
“That’s not a very flattering way to put it, though I suppose you’re right. What I didn’t expect was how difficult it would be to build this marriage. How much extra pressure you both were under because of rushing into things as you did. I guess I supposed the tension would all melt away because of the power of love.”
It might have, Morganna thought, if there had been any love to warm things up.
“At first, whenever I called, you just sounded stressed. And of course there was plenty of reason for strain, so I kept telling myself that as things settled down, you and Sloan would find your way together. But lately, no matter how hard you’ve tried to sound happy, the bitterness has been there underneath. And it’s been growing. So I came back to Lakemont to see for myself what was going on.”
Morganna’s eyes were stinging with tears of embarrassment and pain. She wondered if Abigail had been amused or merely annoyed by the show they’d tried so hard to put on for her.
“It’s breaking my heart, darling, to see the barrier that’s grown up between you two because of pride and wounded self-esteem and uncertainty. I’m sure down deep you each know you did the right thing—but it’s only human to be just a little fearful that the other one regrets making such a hasty decision. And where there are doubts—even baseless ones—it’s very difficult to build trust.”
Morganna blinked in surprise. That sentimental nonsense made it sound almost as if Abigail hadn’t seen through their performance after all. That she’d thought the touches and kisses and hugs were sincere, and any tension that showed between them was simply because of their questions and their pride. Had she honestly seen only half the picture?
My mother the romantic, Morganna thought wryly. Of course, she also thought that it was a good idea to trust my father to take care of the family finances….
“But there’s one thing I know,” Abigail said firmly. “No matter how insurmountable the wall between you looks, Morganna, it can be removed. It went up one small block at a time, and it can be torn down the same way. That’s why I’m so glad you refused to leave today, because right now Sloan needs you. And this is your best chance to break down that barricade between you.”
She’d half expected to resent the string of platitudes, but instea
d Morganna felt a wave of gratitude surge over her. Though Abigail had turned out to be more perceptive than Morganna had hoped she’d be, thank heaven she hadn’t shed the rose-colored glasses entirely. How much worse it would be if Abigail realized the truth! If she actually understood how impossible it was that their cold-blooded bargain could ever metamorphose into a happy marriage, she’d torture herself with guilt for not stopping it in the first place. And she’d probably start selling her belongings on the street to try to repay Sloan every last dime he’d spent on either of them.
A tap on the door interrupted. “Morganna?” Sloan called softly.
If he’d known Abigail was inside, Morganna thought, he wouldn’t have knocked, much less waited for permission. He’d have strolled in as if he did so half a dozen times a day. But only after Morganna answered did he enter.
He smiled at Abigail, who offered her cheek to be kissed, and then came to stand behind Morganna at the dressing table. His hands rested on her shoulders, his fingertips lightly massaging the taut muscles. The thin satin seemed to melt away under his touch, and Morganna felt heat rush all the way to her toes.
He lifted the mass of hair and stooped to kiss her nape. “Honey, maybe it’s because of all the smoke last night, but your sense of smell seems to be a little off. Your robe seems to have been laundered in Midnight Passion instead of water.”
She thought about picking up the perfume atomizer she’d accidentally discharged and firing it straight into his face.
“Of course,” he murmured, “we could moderate the aroma by just removing the robe…” His hands slid down the front of the soft satin and hooked into the neckline, his fingertips barely brushing the bare skin where the swell of her breasts began. She tried to control her breathing, but even inhaling in order to protest pressed her skin against his hands.
“My mother is here,” Morganna pointed out.
“I forgot.” Sloan didn’t sound in the least repentant, and he didn’t move. “Sorry, Abigail.”
Abigail got to her feet. “Now that you’re here, Sloan, I’m sure Morganna will excuse me.”
As soon as the door closed behind her mother, Morganna shifted around on her dressing-table bench. “I assume there’s a reason you popped in.”
“Joel’s been drifting in and out of consciousness all evening.”
“Is that supposed to be good news?”
“It’s better than this morning, when he was still out of it entirely. Maybe by tomorrow he’ll be able to tell us why he went into my office, and exactly what happened.”
“I thought the nurse said he won’t be able to talk for a while.”
“Not as long as he’s on the ventilator, no. But there must be some way he can communicate enough to answer questions. And the investigator is pretty anxious to hear what he has to say.”
Even though she had turned slightly away, he was still almost carelessly massaging her shoulders, as if he’d forgotten he was doing it. Morganna couldn’t stop herself from shivering. It wasn’t a shudder of displeasure, as it might have been just yesterday. Her reaction was almost the opposite, in fact—she was terrified by how easily she could lean into his touch, how natural it would feel to catch his hand and draw it down over her breast, how easily she could convince herself that this was real and not merely a mechanical act on his part…
He stepped away from her without even a lingering touch.
Morganna opened her mouth to tell him that since Abigail knew their secret, they could stop pretending. The sooner she did so, she knew, the better it would be—for then she would no longer have any excuse to torment herself with fantasy. If he wasn’t touching her, kissing her, smiling at her, then she couldn’t pretend that all those things meant anything.
But if he wasn’t touching, kissing, smiling, then everything would be exactly as it had been before Abigail came—when the only time they’d made physical contact was in public when he offered his arm and good manners said she couldn’t turn him down. Kisses and smiles hadn’t even been in the repertoire back then.
And if they returned to the old ways, Abigail—romantic though she was—could not avoid seeing how cold things really were between them. In the face of that reality, she couldn’t possibly maintain her illusion that they were working toward harmony and that only time stood in the way of happy wedlock. And once she knew the truth, Abigail would be just as agonizingly unhappy as Morganna was.
There was no escape for Morganna from the bargain she had made. The only saving grace was that her mother still didn’t realize the full price she had paid—and what possible benefit could there be in letting Abigail discover the truth?
“You were going to say something,” Sloan prompted.
Morganna knew she should tell him that their charade had not been effective after all. But events once set in motion couldn’t be stopped. Words once spoken could never be silenced. Once she confessed that Abigail was onto them, there would be no taking the news back. And if that decision ultimately led to Abigail being miserable…
I’ll think it over tonight. I can still tell him tomorrow. Surely there was no harm in a small delay. It wasn’t as if she intended to lie, she just needed time to consider the best way to present the truth so no one—particularly Abigail—would be harmed.
Simply delaying the decision made Morganna feel insanely comforted, and the relief spilled into her voice. “It was nothing. A question about Joel, I think. I don’t even remember what it was, now.”
He said nothing more except good-night. Morganna was still sitting at her dressing table when he went out, and she stayed there a long time more, while moonlight made trails across the carpet and questions chased themselves through her mind.
In the morning, Selby brought Morganna her breakfast tray and the news that her mother had torn into a dress box, which he said was the size of a compact car, the moment it had been delivered. “As if it were Christmas morning, Miss Morganna,” he said, sounding scandalized at the idea of Abigail Ashworth making such a first-class mess in the public areas of the house. “Then she remembered a breakfast appointment and simply left the box sitting in the middle of the hall.”
“I know, Selby,” Morganna sympathized. “She’s changed since she moved to Phoenix, hasn’t she? It’s like her second childhood or something.” Despite her soothing tone, however, she was a bit concerned herself. This kind of behavior didn’t sound like Abigail.
By the time Morganna got downstairs, white tissue paper was strewn all over the hall carpet, and the beaded bodice of the gown she was to wear at the Carousel Ball peeked out over the top of the box. Abigail was nowhere to be seen.
Morganna could understand the temptation her mother had felt—in fact, she couldn’t resist it herself. She was pulling out yet another layer of tissue from the folds of fuchsia taffeta when the doorbell rang, and since she was closest she went to answer it.
The fire investigator stepped over the threshold. “Is Mr. Montgomery at home?”
“I don’t know,” Morganna said. “I’ll have to check.” Selby came from the back of the house and she asked, “Do you know where Mr. Montgomery is?”
“In his library, ma’am. I’ll tell him that the investigator is here, but I believe he’s on the telephone, and he said earlier that he might be unavailable for some time.”
“There you have it,” Morganna told the investigator. “Straight from the expert. Thanks, Selby.”
Selby knocked and went into the library.
The investigator showed no sign of leaving. “The butler keeps better track of your husband’s whereabouts than you do.” There was a note of disbelief in his voice.
Morganna had had her limit. “Yes,” she said sweetly. “But then, you see, it’s his job—not mine.” She turned back to the dress box.
“We found the point of origin of the fire,” the investigator said. “And the cause.”
She frowned. “Does that mean you can make an arrest?”
“Not yet. But we’re closer, now t
hat we know exactly where the fire started. It was on your husband’s desk. There were flash burns all around the base of the desk lamp. And the lightbulb was broken—of course, that wasn’t unusual, because of the heat in that room. But when I found some of the pieces, it turns out there was gasoline on the glass.”
Morganna shrugged. “I thought you said there was nothing in that office which wasn’t soaked in gasoline.”
“Oh, no, there wasn’t all that much, just enough to really set off the natural gas. What’s significant about the lightbulb is that the gasoline was inside it.”
“Inside…But it couldn’t be. Lightbulbs are sealed.”
“Oh, it’s possible to take one apart. Our arsonist used great care to dismantle the bulb, fill it with gasoline and glue it back together. Then he reinserted it into the lamp. When your guy in the hospital turned it on, the filament sparked, the vapor blew, and wham—a flash fire creating that very nice even burn pattern on top of the desk and setting off the cloud of natural gas.” He added dispassionately, “If he hadn’t been standing off to one side when it went, he wouldn’t have a face left.”
Morganna shuddered. If it had been Sloan… “I’m sure Joel will find that a great comfort.”
He didn’t seem to hear the sarcasm in her voice. “Mrs. Montgomery, you wouldn’t happen to know if that lamp was hooked up to the wall switch or if it had to be turned on separately?”
“I don’t know any of the details about my husband’s business.”
The investigator’s eyes rested thoughtfully on the crystal beads that rimmed the neckline of the ball gown lying at her feet. “I’d already gathered that you’re mainly interested in the money it brings in.”
Morganna bit her tongue hard.
His Trophy Wife Page 9
