two spiraling water towers bookended the mansion, ready to catch whatever rainwater was lucky enough to fall on such a gorgeous property.
I stared at the house for a good minute or so, transfixed by the intricate details, the grand scale, and the unusual color choices made by the owner.
Whoever came up with the home’s design outdid herself when it came to the paint. A limewash of pale yellow covered the stucco walls, while the shutters and banisters popped in a coat of peacock blue. Peacock blue! Such an inspired choice for the gingerbread style, and it made the white staircase even more striking.
I couldn’t help but smile. Not because I loved jewel-tone colors and architectural symmetry, but because the mansion was so gloriously out of place. Here I’d driven past sugarcane field after sugarcane field, all of the ground parched by the July heat, only to find a bright Easter egg of a building nestled among the marshlands.
“There you are. I’ve been looking all over creation for you.”
Lorelei Honeycutt, heiress to the property and my newest client at Crowning Glory, a hat shop I operated on the Great River Road, sidled up next to me. Not quite twenty-one, Lorelei possessed the creamy complexion of someone raised in the South—thank goodness the humidity was good for something—and she swallowed the tail end of her words, like every other Cajun who lived in this part of Louisiana.
“You found me.” I smiled again, pleased to see my client looking so relaxed on the day before her wedding.
“I wanted to talk to you about the veil you made for me.”
“Of course.” I pointed to a nearby gazebo, which was disappointingly painted white. Why in the world would someone create an Easter egg in the marshlands and then plunk an ordinary gazebo next to it? It didn’t make sense to me, and it made me appreciate the quirky mansion all the more.
But no matter, the gazebo still offered shade from the relentless sun and a chance to put up our feet while we spoke.
“Why don’t we move into the shade?” I nodded to the gazebo. “It’s hotter than a billy goat with a blowtorch out here.”
“Fair enough.” Lorelei took the lead and we headed for the lattice-trimmed gazebo.
“Now, you were saying something about your veil?” I smoothed a strand of auburn hair behind my ear, and my gaze automatically drifted south to the starburst of light on Lorelei’s ring finger. Since I worked around brides every day, I’d grown accustomed to seeing some incredible engagement rings, but none could compare with the five-carat rock that graced Lorelei’s left hand. It made my own one-carat diamond look like a pebble in comparison, but I wasn’t one to complain.
“I’m a little nervous about the veil’s girth, to be honest,” Lorelei said. “Do y’all think it will fit going down the aisle?”
“Why, bless your heart. I can see why you might worry.” While I normally saved “bless your hearts” for people who behaved badly, it seemed a fitting exclamation in this case. Like every first-time bride, Lorelei wanted to control a situation she didn’t know much about. Having never planned a wedding before, she had no idea what was feasible and what wasn’t.
“Anyway, a cathedral-length train can be intimidating if you’re not used to wearing one. Especially one with three tiers. To make it less bulky, I’ll cinch the fabric and bustle it beneath your bodice. That way it won’t overwhelm you when you walk down the aisle. Afterward, I’ll release it for the pictures.”
“So, that’s how you do it.” Lorelei breathed a huge sigh of relief, obviously satisfied with my answer. “I don’t want to look like a giant marshmallow walking down the aisle.”
“I don’t want you to either. And you won’t. Trust me. It’s all in the underpinning.”
“Just in case…” Lorelei gazed at me hopefully, which was a look I’d come to recognize. She was about to ask me for a favor, and my answer would determine her everlasting happiness. Or that was what it probably felt like to her. “Do you think you could come to the rehearsal tonight? I know you’re going to the ceremony tomorrow, but it’d really help me if you could be there tonight, too. I want to practice walking with the veil on.”
“I don’t see why not.” Luckily, it was one of the more benign requests I’d received from a client. Very unlike the bride who asked me to remake her entire veil the week before her wedding, or the bride who changed her order from a cathedral-length veil to a perky fascinator faster than you could say, “Las Vegas elopement,” or the bride who tried to compete with Princess Diana of England by ordering a forty-foot train, when her chapel’s aisle only stretched twenty-five feet. Gracious light. Compared to those requests, Lorelei’s question seemed downright tame.
Plus, I didn’t have any plans tonight to speak of. Since we were right in the middle of the wedding season, most of my friends were hard at work. By now, Bo—my fiancé, Ambrose Jackson—would be up to his eyeballs in white tulle, Swarovski crystals, and dress patterns.
Bo owned a design studio next to mine, only he created couture wedding gowns that sold for thousands of dollars apiece. Thank goodness his hefty design fee silenced the naysayers, because many people originally sniffed at his “unmanly” occupation. As if someone should be faulted for following a dream, like Bo did. As far as I was concerned, my fiancé was the most manly-man I knew, and I didn’t care one whit whether he designed ballgowns or plowed under a sugarcane field in a John Deere tractor. “Of course I can go to your rehearsal tonight. I don’t have any plans, so it’d be no problem.”
Lorelei exhaled loudly again. If the girl didn’t watch out, she was going to hyperventilate right then and there. “That’d be great. I told my bridesmaids to wear their hats tonight, and now you can check and make sure they’re on correctly. Oh, I feel so much better now.”
With that, my young bride practically danced away from the gazebo, her ballet flats skimming the parched grass like a skater gliding over ice.
I leaned back on the bench. Now that I’d calmed my client, my work was done for the moment. I rested for another second, and then I rose as well, and began to walk back to the family chapel, where the wedding service would take place tomorrow night.
Like many of the antebellum homes here on the Great River Road, Honeycutt Hall contained a private family chapel for baptisms, weddings, and such. The chapel could hold about two dozen parishioners, which meant only close kin would be invited to the service. The party afterward, though, was another story. From what I’d heard of the plans, the bride had booked country band Rascal Flats—all three Flats, too, not just one of them—to entertain guests, followed by a local zydeco band, which guaranteed an all-night reverie.
The party matched the bride’s spunky personality. While some might peg her as just another spoiled debutante, I enjoyed my client’s quirky outlook. She was bright and inquisitive. The same, unfortunately, couldn’t be said of her groom. The one and only time I’d met Wesley Carmichael—earlier today, at the final veil fitting—I found him cold and aloof. Not to mention a tad condescending.
But as Bo would say, there was no accounting for taste. Which he found to be true every time a client tried to foist an outrageous dress design on him. Like the time a Floridian wanted Bo to dress her as a mermaid, complete with a five-foot fin made of rainbow-colored rubber. Somehow, he accomplished it, although the girl had to be ferried down the aisle to her waiting groom.
No bother. Whether or not Wesley Carmichael enjoyed his wedding tomorrow night,
