Adam's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

melding of the city’s gold-leaf sense of history with the most mode rn disaster-proof engineering.
    The gala opening was the biggest social event of the season, a dinner dance for fifteen-hundred with thousands turned away.
    It was like an elaborately choreographed ballet for the senses that left Adam awed. He sat at the Bickfords’ table in the Peacock Court, trying to forget that Bickford had picked up the ten-dollar-a-plate cost. Adam had never tasted food so wonderful in his life or seen such sights.
    For entertainment, beautiful models swirled across the dance floor in the latest fashions, picked up by colored spotlights. And the air was heavy with the scent of perfume, projected through the ventilating system.
    After dinner, as he stood in the lobby waiting for Lilith to return from the powder room, Adam watched the parade of wealthy guests waltz by in a kaleidoscope of color and jewels. The sounds of laughter and music mingled with the gentle gurgling of a nearby fountain. He was slightly dizzy, satiated with food, wine and sensation. And he felt oddly charged, as if the night held out some strange promise.
    L ilith returned and gave him an appraising smile. “Even in that terrible suit, you are the most handsome man here.”
    “What is wrong with my suit?” Adam asked.
    “It’s rented, darling. You need custom clothes. It’s the only way. You’ll look better once I get you to a good tailor.” She took his arm. “Let’s go dance.”
    In the Peacock Court, Eddie Harkness’s orchestra was playing the new Gershwin song, “Someone to Watch Over Me.” While they danced, Lilith hummed along in Adam’s ear, which he found annoying. He found many things Lilith did annoying, especially her little condescending asides, such as the remark about his clothes.
    More than anything, h e disliked her assumed air of ownership of him. But he was beginning to understand what motivated her. She was, at her core, an ambitious woman. Marriage to Adam Bryant was certainly below her but she understood that Adam had the potential to be the savior of the ailing Times . More than anything, Lilith Bickford wanted to make the leap from middle-strata society to the city’s gilded upper circle. And she was quite willing to take a temporary step down to do so.
    Adam moved Lilith around the dance floor, his feeling of contentment dissipating. It was a special night and he wished suddenly that he were dancing with someone else. Some girl who could, with the press of her body against his, stir him inside, give him that sudden flood of...
    A woman’s laugh floated above the music. Adam glanced over Lilith’s shoulder.
    She was sitting at a table, one hand on her hip, the other reaching up to cup the chin of a perturbed-looking young man. She laughed again, said something to the man, and he walked away. She was very young and very beautiful.
    Adam maneuvered Lilith closer to the girl’s table, but the song ended. The orchestra suddenly struck up a fast tune, “Black Bottom.” A few brave couples attempted the new dance craze, looking awkward in their evening clothes.
    “Looks like fun,” Adam said to Lilith. “Want to try?”
    “Oh, Adam, God, no. Let’s sit down.”
    They went back to the table. Adam heard the throaty laugh again and then saw the girl. She was dancing, holding her silver beaded gown above her knees, much to the delight of her partner. She moved gracefully across the floor, more in response to some free-form idea of ballet than the prescriptions of the faddish dance. And she laughed —- at her partner’s red face, at her own missteps, at the faces of everyone staring at her.
    Like all the other men Adam watched her, transfixed. She had cream-colored skin and flaming red hair, not cut short in a bob like most of the young women but pulled into a chignon at the back of her long neck. She was very tall, and she had a voluptuous figure that even her fashionable gown, with its tight boyish bodice, could not