The Second Mrs Adams

“Your word, Mona, not mine.”

“Because it certainly sounded like one. And I’ve got every word, right here, on my tape rec—”

“I never make threats, I only make promises. Anyone who’s had any dealings with me can tell you that.” His eyes met hers. “You’re down to four seconds, and still counting.”

Whatever Mona Washbourne saw in that cold, steady gaze made her jerk her finger from the Stop button and step out of the elevator.

“Didn’t you ever hear of freedom of the press? You can’t go around bullying reporters.”

“Is that what you are?” David said politely. He punched the button for Joanna’s floor and the doors began to shut. “A member of the press? Damn. And here I was, thinking you were a...”

The doors snapped closed. Just as well, he thought wearily, and leaned back against the wall. Insulting the Mona Washbournes of the world only made them more vicious, and what was the point? He was accustomed to pressure, it was part of the way he earned his living.

OK, so the last week and a half had been rough. Personally rough. He didn’t love Joanna anymore, hell, he wasn’t even sure if he had ever loved her to begin with, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t almost gone crazy with fear when the call had come, notifying him of the accident. He wasn’t heartless. What man wouldn’t react to the news that the woman he was married to had been hurt?

And, as it had turned out, “hurt” was a wild word to describe what had happened to Jo. David’s mouth thinned. She’d lost her memory. She didn’t remember anything. Not her name, not their marriage...

Not him.

The elevator doors opened. The nurse on duty looked up, frowning, an automatic reminder that it was past visiting hours on her lips, but then her stern features softened into a girlish smile.

“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Adams. We thought you might not be stopping by this evening.”

“I’m afraid I got tied up in a meeting, Miss Howell.”

“Well, certainly, sir. That’s what I told Mrs. Adams, that you were probably running late.”

“How is my wife this evening?”

“Very well, sir.” The nurse’s smite broadened. “She’s had her hair done. Her makeup, too. I suspect you’ll find her looking more and more like her old self.”

“Ah.” David nodded. “Yes, well, that’s good news.”

He told himself that it was as he headed down the hall toward Joanna’s room. She hadn’t looked at all like herself since the accident.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she’d asked him, just last evening, and when he hadn’t answered, her hand had shot to her forehead, clamping over the livid, half-moon scar that marred her perfect skin. “It’s ugly, isn’t it?”

David had stood there, wanting to tell her that what he’d been staring at was the sight of a Joanna he’d all but forgotten, one who lent grace and beauty even to an undistinguished white hospital gown, who wore her dark hair loose in a curling, silken cloud, whose dark-lashed violet eyes were not just free of makeup but wide and vulnerable, whose full mouth was the pink of roses.

He hadn’t said any of that, of course, partly because it was just sentimental slop and partly because he knew she wouldn’t want to hear it. That Joanna had disappeared months after their wedding and the Joanna who’d replaced her was always careful about presenting an impeccably groomed self to him and to the world. So he’d muttered something about the scar being not at all bad and then he’d changed the subject, but he hadn’t forgotten the moment.

It had left a funny feeling in his gut, seeing Joanna that way, as if a gust of wind had blown across a calendar and turned the pages backward. He’d mentioned it to Morgana in passing, not the clutch in his belly but how different Joanna looked and his Personal Assistant, with the clever, understanding instincts of one woman for another, had cluck-clucked.

“The poor girl,” she’d said, “of course she looks different! Think what she’s gone through, David. She probably dreads looking at herself in the mirror. Her cosmetic case and a visit from her hairdresser will go a long way toward cheering her spirits. Shall I make the arrangements?”

David had hesitated, though he couldn’t imagine the reason. Then he’d said yes, of course, that he’d have done it himself, if he’d thought of it, and Morgana had smiled and said that the less men knew about women’s desires to make themselves beautiful, the better.

So Morgana had made the necessary calls, and he’d seen to it that Joanna’s own robes, nightgowns and slippers were packed by her maid and delivered to the hospital first thing this morning, and now, as he knocked and then opened the door of her room, he was not surprised to find the Joanna he knew waiting for him.

She was standing at the window, her back to him. She was dressed in a pale blue cashmere robe, her hair drawn back from her face and secured at the nape in an elegant knot. Her posture was straight and proud—or was there a curve to. her shoulders and a tremble to them, as well?

He stepped inside the room and let the door swing shut behind him.

“Joanna?”

She turned at the sound of his voice and he saw that everything about her had gone back to normal. The vulnerability had left her eyes; they’d been done up in some way he didn’t pretend to understand so that they were somehow less huge and far more sophisticated. The bright color had been toned down in her cheeks and her mouth, while still full and beautiful, was no longer the color of a rose but of the artificial blossoms only found in a lipstick tube.

The girl he had once called his Gypsy was gone. The stunning Manhattan sophisticate was back and it was stupid to feel a twinge of loss because he’d lost his Gypsy a long, long time ago.

“David,” Joanna said. “I didn’t expect you.”

“I was stuck in a meeting... Joanna? Have you been crying?”

“No,” she said quickly, “no, of course not. I just—I have a bit of a headache, that’s all.” She swallowed; he could see the movement of muscle in her long, pale throat. “Thank you for the clothes you sent over.”

“Don’t be silly. I should have thought of having your own things delivered to you days ago.”

The tip of her tongue snaked across her lips. She looked down at her robe, then back at him.

“You mean...I selected these things myself?”

He nodded. “Of course. Ellen packed them straight from your closet.”

“Ellen?”

“Your maid.”

“My...” She gave a little laugh, walked to the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress. “I have a maid?” David nodded. “Well, thank her for me, too, please. Oh, and thank you for arranging for me to have my hair and my makeup done.”

“It isn’t necessary to thank me, Joanna. But you’re welcome.”

He spoke as politely as she did, even though he had the sudden urge to tell her that he’d liked her better with her hair wild and free, with color in her cheeks that didn’t come from a makeup box and her eyes dark and sparkling with laughter.

She was beautiful now but she’d been twice as beautiful before.

David frowned. The pressure of the past ten days was definitely getting to him. There was no point in remembering the past when the past had never been real.

“So,” he said briskly, “are you looking forward to getting sprung from this place tomorrow?”

Joanna stared at him. She knew what she was supposed to say. And the prospect of getting out of the hospital had been exciting... until she’d begun to think about what awaited her outside these walls.

By now, she knew she and David lived in a town house near Central Park but she couldn’t begin to imagine what sort of life they led. David was rich, that much was obvious, and yet she had the feeling she didn’t know what it meant to lead the life of a wealthy woman.

Which was, of course, crazy, because she didn’t know what it meant to lead any sort of life, especially one as this stranger’s wife.

He was so handsome, this man she couldn’t remember. So unabashedly male, and here she’d been lying around looking like something the cat had dragged in, dressed in a shapeless hospital gown with no makeup at all on her face and her hair wild as a whirlwind, and then her clothes and her hairdresser and her makeup had arrived and she’d realized that her husband preferred her to look chic and sophisticated.

No wonder he’d looked at her as if he’d never seen her before just last evening.