Bride of a Stranger (Classic Gothics Collection) Read Online Free PDF

valenciennes lace. The small bodice was covered with the same lace and trimmed with seed pearls that her aunt, and her aunt’s mother and grandmother before her, had worn on their wedding dresses. She was allowed to use them because her aunt had no daughter, but she would be expected to give them up if one of Jean-Claude’s children proved to be a girl. On the nearest shelf were laid out the full-length white kid gloves, the short, lace-edged veil, the white silk slippers trimmed with satin love knots, and the fan Justin had sent her which she would carry under her bridal bouquet of orange blossoms and white roses.
    “Such workmanship, so many tiny stitches, incroyable ,” the hairdresser murmured breathlessly, leaning into the armoire to lift the hem of the gown and peer at the handmade lace. “You will be a beauty beyond compare. You will drive your husband mad. Ah, how I envy you,” the woman went on rapturously.
    Claire thanked her a little shortly, conscious of the pins that held her hair so tightly and the pressing weight of her orange blossom crown. A headache was beginning just behind her eyes and she wanted nothing more than to be alone so that she could bathe her temples with cologne and sit down for a few minutes without having to smile and pretend or think of what must be done next. But no sooner had they gone than Zaza was sent to her, and the bandboxes with their French landscape scenes painted on their wooden sides must be filled and made ready. She had still not been able to sit down for a moment when her aunt returned to her and summarily dismissed her maid.
    “What do you think?” she began as soon as the door closed behind the girl. “Justin Leroux has put away his quadroon mistress. He made her a handsome settlement, gave her the deed to the house in which she was staying, and the gaudy yellow carriage and the matched cream-colored pair he had bought for her, and then walked away while she was vowing her revenge to the heavens!”
    “You—you must be mistaken,” Claire said faintly. That Justin would have a mistress was not too surprising, but the possibility had not crossed her mind and she hardly knew how to answer her aunt, who stood waiting for her reaction.
    “I had it straight from the hairdresser. The woman claims to know Belle-Marie—that is the woman’s name—well. She has often been called in to do her hair. And this woman, you know, always knows everything. How many times have you heard it said that the hairdressers hear everything that goes on in Nouvelle Orléans? Well, have you nothing to say? Don’t you find it gratifying to know he has done this for you?”
    “I prefer to believe that it is because he has decided to leave New Orleans. It might have happened in any case.”
    “Oh? Hasn’t it occurred to you that if he wished he could arrange to have his mistress with him on the plantation? He obviously does not wish it. And by all accounts the woman was incredibly stupid. She treated him to a display of despair and hysterics, threatening to kill herself on one hand and vowing revenge on the other. It would be enough to disgust any man. You will do well to remember it.”
    “I will try,” she said with irony, reflecting that it was highly unlikely that she would ever feel so strongly about anyone.
    “And for the love of God, Claire, pull yourself out of this lethargy you have fallen into, or you will have your uncle and Jean-Claude suspecting your reluctance to go to the altar!”
    “It is my head,” she said, “it aches.”
    “Then you had best lie down or you will be unfit for the journey tonight, which if I may say so is the most ill-advised piece of planning I have ever heard of. I can’t think what our friends will say when they hear that you do not intend to stay here for the usual five days. To spend your wedding night racketing across the swamps! It is uncivilized, so bourgeois . But then this whole affair is strange beyond belief. I don’t suppose I can