Lilian Darcy - Finding Her Prince

“Put on your dress,” he said softly. “I didn’t want to talk yet. We’ll have time for that in a while, and, yes, we’ll need to. When you’re dressed, I want to give you what I have brought.”

Suzanne nodded. Why was she so breathless? She hadn’t been running. It had to be nerves.

“There’s a room Mr. Davenport showed me, beyond the side door at the back of the church, where there’s a mirror,” she answered him.

“I’ll wait here,” he said.

“I’ll try not to take too long.”

But of course she did. What woman didn’t, on her wedding day?

She had bought the dress yesterday, after work. Her legs had ached from standing behind the library’s front desk, and walking its stacks, reshelving books. It was a college library, not the sunny community library she would have preferred, and most of the books were thick and heavy. Standing in the mirrored fitting room at the bridal store, she hadn’t felt as if she was about to get married.

In the end, she’d only tried on three dresses, and she’d chosen one based as much on its price as on its style. Having witnessed Rose openly drooling over Alice’s inheritance on Wednesday, Suzanne was doubly determined not to spent a cent that she’d later “pay off with no trouble” using her baby’s fortune.

Now, as she stood in front of a spotty mirror in the little room at the back of the church, the dress whispered in heavy folds of pale satin around her calves and hugged her upper body closely. She began to like it, and not just because of its price. It fit her, suited her and left plenty of room for a piece of jewelry above the elegant curve of neckline.

She had some jewelry. A necklace. Her stepfather had given it to Rose, and Rose had passed it on to Suzanne after David Brown’s death, saying, “It’s dated. And it was cheap. I never liked it.”

Suzanne herself had always thought that it was very pretty, a delicate design of garnets and silver. As a child, she’d often begged Rose to let her wear it, but Rose had never permitted her to do so.

Now, when she put it on, she found it didn’t go with the dress. The silver looked dark and tarnished against the lustrous new satin, and the color of the stones was wrong.

It didn’t matter, she decided. The sense of David Brown’s love, contained in the worn piece of jewelry, was more important. But when she adjusted it on her neck, it caught in her mass of hair, and when she tried to pull it free, one of the frail links broke and the whole thing fell, useless, into her hand.

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