The Wedding Cake (The Wedding Series) by Christine Dorsey Page B

voice, but with little success.
    “Eugenie, do not start this again. I will not have it. And see.” A door opened and shut toward the back of the hallway. “Here is your father.”
    As instructed I remained quiet, though not for the reason my mother wished. I stood dumbstruck as my father, full of vitality and life, approached. He was a slight man, barely taller than I, and my last recollection of him was with sunken eyes and skin stretched taut over a wasted skull. Mother died young so the transformation didn’t seem so extreme. But Father. I had watched him waste away. And now he was back.
    He greeted me as he’d always done, with a slight bow of his aristocratic head and a murmuring of my name. Then we were climbing in the well-sprung coach that would take us the few miles from Belle Maison to our town house in New Orleans and to the ball where my betrothal was to be announced.
    I rested my bonneted head against the soft leather squab as the coach rolled through the alley of moss-drenched oaks. There was no need for anyone to tell me what day this was, or what year. My memory, though dulled by age, was still sharp enough to recall this day.
    This All Hallow’s Eve.
    I even remembered now the journey to town with my parents. The excitement I’d felt as the evening grew near. There was to be ball, a grand ball, for my family was aristocratic and wealthy. They were émigrés, true, forced to leave France or lose their heads. But Edmund de Valliers was ingenious and managed to emigrate his small family and his fortune.
    And tonight, amid the jewels and glittering gowns of New Orleans Society, Edmund de Valliers would announce that his only child, the charming and beautiful Eugenie would marry equally rich and aristocratic Phillipe Riene.
    Except that I never would.
    For tonight I would meet for the first time the American, Captain Zachary Hamilton.
    My sharp intake of breath was met with an equally sharp look from my mother. But my father didn’t appear to notice. He spoke, in the pontificating style I remembered so well, of the recent purchase of all the land drained by the Mississippi by the upstart country of the United States.
    “It is inconceivable to me,” he said to no one in particular. “What was in Bonaparte’s mind to do such a thing?”
    “Perhaps time will show the sale is for the best.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth I knew I’d made a mistake. My father, along with many others of French descent, never accepted the fact that Louisiana belonged to the United States. Furthermore, it was only when he was very old that he allowed anyone, especially me, to contradict him. He was a man whose every word was obeyed. Over the years I had grown comfortable with blaming him and his dominance for the disaster of my life. It was less painful than blaming myself.
    We arrived at the graceful town house on Royal Street without an argument starting. I kept my counsel, using the time to stare out the window at the impenetrable pine forests. The ride was familiar, of that there was no doubt, but I didn’t know if I was remembering this very day or the countless times I’d taken the same route.
    No matter, I could not wait to speak again with Mammy, who rode with the other servants, in the carriage behind ours. But there was no time for talk. When we arrived I was immediately bundled off above stairs to rest.
    The day was warm and the doors to the gallery overlooking the garden open. As I lay on the cool sheets listening to the birds singing, breathing in the fragrant scents of late flowering roses, I couldn’t help wondering when this dream would end.
    That’s when I heard the cock crowing.
    ~ ~ ~
    The hall was exactly as I remembered.
    Crystal chandeliers gleamed, prisming the light from hundreds of candles. Urns filled with flowers sat between gleaming white columns. The orchestra sat on the raised dais and a soft breeze off the gulf cooled the room.
    A night to match no other. Despite my