Her jaw clenched as she sat down at her desk.
And then Joanna had her accident. If only that taxi hadn’t just hit her a glancing blow, if only it had done a proper job…
Morgana took a trembling breath. She put her hands to her hair and smoothed the pale strands.
This had been a long, and terrible, weekend. When she’d gotten the call from David, telling her he was in Connecticut, she’d known immediately that the little slut had seduced him again. It was there in his voice, that soft hint of a male who had been pleasured.
And in that instant, Morgana had known she could no longer wait to see if Joanna’s memory would come back, that she’d have to take action if she wanted the fire that she’d started to consume that interfering little bitch.
She would not lose David again. She’d worked too hard to let that happen.
“Good morning.”
She looked up. David was coming through the smoked-glass doors toward her. A smile curved across her mouth. How handsome he was. How much she adored him.
“Good morning,” she said in her usual, businesslike manner. “There have been some calls for you. I put the memos on your desk.” She rose and hurried after him as he went into his office. “A couple of faxes came in from Japan during the night, nothing terribly urgent. Let’s see, what else? John Fairbanks phoned to see if you could make lunch today. I said you’d call him when you came in. Oh, and the Mayor’s office wanted you to—”
“What time are they coming in?”
Morgana looked blank. “Who?”
“The Secretary and his people.” He yanked out his chair, sat down, and began to leaf through the stack of memos and faxes. “Didn’t you say something about noon?”
Morgana frowned. What was the matter with her? Yesterday, all she’d thought of was that she had to get David back into his real life and away from his wife.
Now, suddenly remembering how she’d accomplished that, she scrambled for words.
“Oh,” she said, “oh, that…”
David looked up at her. His hair was neatly combed, he was clean-shaven, his shirt and tie and suit were impeccable…but she could see beyond all that, she could see the satiation in his face, she could almost smell the damnable stink of that woman.
“Yes,” he said impatiently, his voice politely echoing hers, “that. When are these guys supposed to put in an appearance? I don’t much feel like cooling my heels today, Morgana.”
“They called a few minutes ago,” Morgana said quickly, “and changed the time to one o’clock.”
That would do it. By one, she’d have David up to his eye balls in work. Thoughts of his little wife would be relegated to the back burner, where they belonged. And by six or seven, when Morgana suggested she phone out for supper…
“Hell,” David muttered, looking at the onyx clock. He ran his hand through his hair. “All right, then, let’s not sit around and watch dust settle. Get your notebook and we’ll deal with these faxes.”
Morgana smiled happily. “Yes, David.”
* * *
By noon, David had his jacket off and was deep in work.
Morgana sent out for sandwiches. He nodded his thanks and ate what she’d ordered without comment.
At ten of one, she excused herself, and went out to her desk, dialed the phone company and said she thought her telephone might be out of order and would they please ring her right back?
When her phone rang, she picked it up, said thank you, then hung up. She waited a couple of minutes before going into David’s office.
He looked up from his desk. He was scowling. A good sign. It surely meant that he was engrossed in his work.
“David, that was a call from Washington. The Secretary sends regrets but he can’t make it today.”
“Damn!” David tossed down his pen. “You’d think they’d have called sooner.”
“Well,” Morgana said apologetically, “you know how these people are.”
“To think I rushed all the way back to the city for this…”
“But it’s a good thing you did,” Morgana said quickly. “Just look at all the work you’ve done.”
“Yeah.” He pushed back from his desk. “Terrific.”
Something in his voice made her scalp prickle. “You know, you never did answer that letter that came in last week from—”
“I suppose, as long as I’m here, I might as well put the rest of the day to good use.”
Morgana smiled. “Exactly. That letter…”
David wasn’t listening. He’d pulled his telephone toward him and he was dialing a number.
“This is David Adams,” he said. “I’d like to speak with Doctor Corbett.”
“David,” Morgana said urgently, “there’s work to do.”
David held up his hand. “Corbett? I’m fine, thank you. Look, I’ve been thinking… Do you have some time free this afternoon, Doctor? I really need to talk to you.”
“David,” Morgana hissed, “listen—”
“Half an hour from now, in your office? Yes, that’s fine. Thanks. I’ll be there.”
David hung up the phone and got to his feet. He grabbed his suit jacket from the back of his chair and put it on as he walked to the door.
“Where are you going?” Morgana demanded. “Really, David…”
“Joanna’s just the way she used to be,” he said, and smiled at her. “She’s…hell, she’s wonderful! Do you remember what she was like, Morgana?”
Morgana’s mouth whitened. “Yes,” she said, “I do.”
“What occurred to me was…I know it sounds crazy, but maybe that blow to the head changed her personality.”
“Honestly, you can’t believe that.”
“Why not? Something’s happened to change her.” He smiled again, even more broadly. “I’ve got to talk to Corbett about it Maybe he can shed some light on things.”
“David, no! I mean, that’s crazy…”
He laughed. “No crazier than me falling in love with my wife all over again. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He grinned. “Or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll whisk Joanna off to Paris. Hell, who knows what will happen? I’m beginning to think that anything is possible.”
Morgana stared at the door for long minutes after he was gone. Then, her mouth set in a thin, hard line, she collected her jacket and her purse and left the office on the run.
* * *
Joanna sat on the delicate, silk-covered sofa in her own living room and wondered if it was possible to feel more out of place than she felt at this moment.
Morgana, an unexpected visitor, sat in an equally delicate chair across from her. In her ice blue, raw silk suit, with her blonde hair perfectly arranged and her hands folded in her lap, she looked completely at home.
Joanna, caught in the midst of trying to bundle most of the contents of her clothing closet for the Goodwill box, knew she looked just the opposite. She glanced down at her jeans, dusty from her efforts, and her sneakers, still bearing grass and mud stains from the weekend in the country. Her hair was a mess, with some of the strands hanging in her eyes. Her hands were grungy and she saw now that she’d broken a nail…
Quickly, she laced her fingers together but it was too late. Morgana was looking at the broken nail as if it were something unpleasant she’d found on her dinner plate.
“You really need to see Rita,” she said.
Joanna cleared her throat. “Rita?”
“Yes. The girl who does your nails. You have a standing appointment, hasn’t anyone told you?”
“No. I mean, yes, I know I do but I haven’t…I mean, the thought of going to a nail salon seems so weird.”
Joanna took a breath. This was ridiculous. This was her house. Morgana was her guest. An uninvited one, at that. There was no reason to feel so…so disoriented.
“Morgana,” she said, and smiled politely, “would you care for some tea?”
“Thank you, no.”
“Coffee, then? It’s Mrs. Timmons’s afternoon off
, and Ellen’s out running errands, but I’m perfectly capable of—”
“No.”
“A cool drink, then?”
“Joanna.” Morgana rose in one graceful movement and dropped to her knees before Joanna. “My dear,” she said, and clasped Joanna’s hands in hers.
“Morgana,” Joanna said with a nervous laugh, “what is this? Please, get up.”
“Joanna, my dear Joanna.” Morgana’s sympathetic blue eyes met Joanna’s wary violet ones. “I’ve felt so badly for you, ever since that dreadful accident.”
“I don’t want to talk about the ac—”
“And for David, too.”
“Morgana, really, get up. You’re making me uncomfort—”
“He told me today why you went away for the weekend. That you’d both hoped the time in the country might help you recover your memory.”
It was a shot in the dark, but an accurate one. Joanna flushed. “He told you that?”
“Oh, yes. David and I are very close, Joanna. Surely you remember…well, no, I suppose you don’t.”
“I know that he thinks very highly of you,” Joanna said cautiously.
“Of course he does.” Morgana squeezed her hand. “But it’s you I’m thinking of now, my dear.”
“I don’t…I don’t follow you.”
Morgana sighed and got to her feet. “You were intimate with David this weekend, Joanna.”
Joanna blanched. “How did you…”
“He told me.”
“David told you…?” Joanna shot to her feet. “Why? Why would he tell you something so…so personal about us?”
“We’re very close, I’ve told you that. And perhaps he was feeling guilty.”
“Guilty?” A chill moved over Joanna’s skin. “Guilty about what?”
“Are you sure you’re up to this? Perhaps I’ve made a mistake, coming here. I wrestled with my conscience all day but—”
“I feel strong as an ox. Why should my husband have told you that he and I…that we were together this weekend? And why should he have felt guilty about it?”
Morgana’s teeth, very tiny and very white, closed on her bottom lip. “Because he’s done a cruel thing to you, and he knows it.” She took a deep breath. “I can’t stand by and see him do it. You see, Joanna, David intends to divorce you.”
Joanna felt the blood drain from her face. “What?”
“He should have told you the truth weeks ago. I tried to convince him. So did his attorney, but—”
“His attorney?”
“Yes.” Morgana clasped Joanna’s hands. “You must be strong, dear, when I tell you this.”
“Just tell me,” Joanna said frantically, “and get it over with!”
“The day of your accident,” Morgana said slowly, “you were on your way to the airport You were flying to the Caribbean, to get a divorce.”
Joanna pulled her hands from Morgana’s. “No! I don’t believe you. I asked David about our marriage, he never said—”
“He listened to the doctors, who said it was vital you have no shocks to your system.”
“I don’t believe you. It isn’t true…”
Joanna’s desperate words halted. She looked at Morgana and then she gave a sharp cry of despair, and spun toward the window and the sad little garden beyond.
It. was true. Every word. What Morgana had just told her made a terrible kind of sense.
David’s unwillingness to bring her home from the hospital. His coldness. His silence. His removal.
Their separate rooms…
But their rooms hadn’t been separate this weekend.
“I suppose,” Morgana said kindly, as if she’d read Joanna’s thoughts, “that it’s difficult to accept, especially after the intimacy of the past weekend.” She sighed. “But if you could only remember the past, you’d know that…well, that sex was all you and David ever had together. It’s what led up to your marriage in the first place.”
Joanna looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“Surely you know that David is a man with strong appetites. There have been so many women… They’re in his life for a while and then, poof, they’re gone. And then he met you. You were so young…” Morgana struggled to keep the anger and hatred from her voice. “He’s a moral man, in his own way. I suppose, afterward, he felt an obligation.” Morgana smiled pityingly. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t love. Not for David.”
Joanna’s legs felt as if they were going to give out. She made her way to the couch and sat down.
“He said things this weekend,” she whispered while the tears streamed down her face, “we planned things…”
“Yes, I’m sure. He was full of regrets for what had happened in Connecticut. I was blunt, I said, ‘David, it’s your own fault, you shouldn’t have listened to the doctors, you should have told Joanna the truth, that your marriage had been an impetuous mistake and you were in the process of ending it…’”
And, with dizzying swiftness, Joanna’s memory returned.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, “I remember!”
Pictures kaleidoscoped through her head. She saw herself coming to New York from the Midwest, looking for a new life and finding, instead, the only man She would ever love.
David.
He was almost ten years older and he moved in such exalted circles… It was hard to imagine him taking notice of someone like her.
But he had, and on their very first date, Joanna had fallen head over heels in love.
She remembered the passion that had flamed between them, how she, the girl her friends had teasingly called the eternal virgin, had gone eagerly to his bed soon after they’d met.
Oh, the joy of his proposal. The excitement of flying to Mexico to get married, the honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta, the weeks of happiness and ecstasy…
And then the slow, awful realization that she wasn’t what David had wanted at all.
He’d never said so. He was too decent. But it was a dream that could not last and the signs of its ending had been easy to read.
David had given up his everything. His friends. His charities. He stopped going to the office, saying he preferred living in Connecticut but Joanna knew that everything he’d done was based on his conviction that she wouldn’t fit into the sophisticated life he led in the city.
When Morgana offered her help, Joanna leaped at the chance to salvage her marriage.
What she needed, Morgana told her, was a life of her own, a life that would make David see her as more than just a woman he was responsible for but as someone as proficient in her sphere as he was in his.
“A man of his energies needs challenge to perform at his best, my dear,” Morgana said. “By devoting so much time to you, he cheats himself. You must develop interests of your own. Show him you’re equal to the position he holds in the world. Perhaps if you joined some clubs, or sat on some charity committees, you’d learn how to organize this house, how to look…”
Morgana clamped her lips together but it was too late.
“You mean,” Joanna asked in a choked voice, “he’s embarrassed by the way I look?”
“No, not at all,” Morgana quickly replied.
Too quickly. Joanna understood that “embarrassed” was exactly what she’d meant.
But nothing she’d tried had been enough to halt the collapse of the marriage. David had grown more distant. The bed that had once been a place of intimacy and joy became the cold setting in which they ended each day by lying far apart until finally, Joanna had salvaged what little remained of her pride by moving into a separate room. Eventually, David had suggested divorce. Joanna had agreed. It had all been very civilized, though the day she’d set out for the airport and the legal dissolution of her marriage she’d been so blinded by tears that she hadn’t seen the oncoming taxi until it was too late…
The memories were almost too painful to bear. Joanna buried her face in her hands while Morgana stood over her.
“Poor Joanna,” she crooned. �
�I’m so sorry.”
Joanna lifted her tear-stained face. “I can’t…I can’t face him,” she whispered, “not after…”
It was difficult for Morgana to hide a smile of triumph.
“I understand,” she said soothingly.
“I don’t want to be here when David gets back. I don’t want to see him ever again.” Joanna grasped Morgana’s hands. “Please, you must help me.”
“Help you?”
“I have nowhere to go. I don’t really know anyone in this city…except you.”
Morgana frowned. Time was of the essence. She had to get Joanna out of here before someone showed up. Luck had been with her, so far. The maid and the housekeeper were out; the chauffeur was among the missing, too.
But David…David could come home at any minute.
She made a quick decision. “You can sleep on the pull-out sofa in my living room until we work out the details.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t impose.”
“Nonsense. Go on, now. And I suppose you’d best leave a note.”
“A note?”
“Yes. Something clear and concise, so David understands why you’ve gone.” So he knows you’ve left him deliberately, so that he doesn’t scour the streets, trying to find you…
“But what shall I say?”
“Just the truth, Joanna, that you’ve recovered your memory and you wish to proceed with the divorce.”
Joanna nodded. Still, she hesitated.
“Morgana? I’m almost ashamed to admit it but when I first heard David talk about you, I was…I was jealous.”
“Of me?” Morgana’s smile felt stiff. “What nonsense, Joanna. David’s never even noticed that I’m a woman.”
But he would notice it, at long last, she thought as Joanna left the room.
Finally, finally, she was about to take her rightful place in David Adams’s life.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“DAVID,” Morgana said, “you must calm down.”
“How the hell can I calm down?” David, who had been pacing the floor of his office for the past ten minutes, swung toward Morgana. “It’s a week since Joanna disappeared. A week, dammit! And all these damned private investigators are no closer to finding her than they were when I first hired them!”
“Getting yourself all upset won’t help.”
The Second Mrs. Adams Page 16
