The Wedding Dress(41)

“It’s exquisite.” The front of the skirt swooped up into a center V, just enough for a pair of stylish shoes to peep out.

“Where do you think it came from?” Tim said from his retreat to the other side of the room.

“I have no idea.” Charlotte turned over the hem to examine the stitching and the seams. The ivory satin was hand sewn, not machine stitched. She’d seen enough to know the difference.

The incandescent pearls of the empire waistline were also sewn on by hand. The simple bodice appeared to be tailored and fitted for the bride. Charlotte wondered how she could find a bride to fit it without damaging the perfect craftsmanship with alterations.

Changing this gown would be like modifying a Rembrandt or adding a face to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel.

No, she’d have to find, must find, the perfect bride for this gown. She’d know her when she saw her. God entrusted this gift to her.

“Tim, maybe this gown is why we broke up.” She whirled around to him. It made sense to her now. “I’m a bridal shop owner. This is a wedding gown. There’s a woman out there who is to wear this and I’m the one to give it to her.”

“Excuse me?” He cocked his brow.

“Maybe God . . . wait, you know what the weird man in purple said to me? It’s the season of the bride.” Charlotte pressed her fingers to her forehead. “I’m not sure what that means, but maybe it means this dress was ‘sent’ to me?” She air-quoted the word. “To find the perfect bride to wear it.”

“All right.” He was dubious. Naturally. He was practical and rooted deeper than ancient live oaks. “So . . . I had cold feet because this dress belongs to some other bride?”

“Yes.” Charlotte grabbed his shoulders, squeezed, then let go. “Maybe. I don’t know. But there’s something here. More to the story. Look, is there anything else in the bag?”

Charlotte moved across the room for a long view of the gown while Tim searched the linen pouch. She’d seen styles similar to this one in bridal magazines and online, but nothing exactly like this dress.

It wasn’t contemporary. But neither was it vintage. She went back to the hem to look for a dressmaker or designer mark. It would be impossible for a gown of this caliber, preserved so perfectly, to be original to the trunk once belonging to a bride from 1912 as the auctioneer claimed. A hundred years old? No way.

If the gown was more than twenty years old, the fabric would have yellowed a bit, the tulle would have decayed. This gown looked like it was made . . . yesterday.

Charlotte’s fingers ran over a bit of raised stitching on the back of the skirt, halfway up the seam. She lifted the hem for a better look.





TH


She sat back. TH? The initials didn’t spark any recognition. Charlotte couldn’t think of one wedding gown designer in the past fifty years with those initials. She’d studied them all when she thought she wanted to design instead of sell.

“Did you find something? There was nothing in the bag, but maybe”—Tim knelt beside the trunk—“there’s more in the trunk.” He felt around the cedar panels, knocking, cocking his head to the sound. “Sometimes trunks have secret panels.”

He lifted away the last of the tissue paper and came up with a sachet. He examined it with his fingers.

“Nothing.” He tossed it to the bed.

“Oh no, Tim. Not nothing. This is something. Something incredible. This gown is supposedly a hundred years old and it looks as if it’s never been worn.” Charlotte lowered the hem and smoothed her hand over the skirt, an electric sensation gliding up her arm and settling in her heart.





Chapter Eleven



Emily





My dear, it’s simply beautiful. Even better than I imagined. Mrs. Caruthers, this gown is divine.” Mother walked around Emily, hands pressed to her flushed cheeks, eyes glistening.

“I added a bit more material to the skirt than was called for in the Goody’s pattern.” Mrs. Caruthers puffed out her chest, seemingly pleased with herself. “I always add a bit of my own style and design to each dress.”

Standing on the stool in the middle of the room, muted October daylight falling across the floor from the window, Emily wanted to scream at her reflection. She looked puffy and round, nothing like herself.

The tight bodice required an even tighter corset. She couldn’t draw a thimble’s worth of air into her lungs. The high choke collar squeezed her throat. Her neck seemed to bear the entire weight of the heavy, winter-white satin skirt and cathedral train.

This was enough gown for two brides. Perhaps three.

The top puff of the sleeves almost reached her cheeks, and the elbows were so gripping Emily found it impossible to bend her arms.

She looked like one of Howard Jr.’s tin soldiers.

She closed her eyes, pressing down a roiling scream and the urge to run from the room, ripping the dress away from her.

She stepped off the stool and went to the window. Shoving it open, she leaned out as far as she could into the Birmingham day, taking in the cool fall air in short, gasping breaths.

“Emily, do come in from there. Do you want the city to see you hanging out the window in your wedding gown?” Mother touched Emily’s arm. “What do you think, dear? Isn’t it lovely?”