The Wedding Veil(73)



Biltmore wasn’t the place of her youth. Living in the bachelors’ wing wasn’t ideal. But this? It was more than she imagined, even in those moments when she felt this massive home crushing her.

As if he could read her mind, Jack said, “Connie, Biltmore has already changed for you. We only open the largest rooms for parties now, and we’ve already had to let go of most of the staff and cut the wages of those left. This is just one more small piece.”

She put her head in her hands. “Maybe it is just one more small piece for you. But this was my father’s dream, Jack. And we have ruined it.”

It was an ending. She knew it. Cornelia could feel Biltmore slipping from her grasp, her memories crumbling all around her.

“Things will turn around,” Jack said, soothingly. “They always do. But, for now, we have to do what we must to save your father’s dream. Don’t you see?”

She looked down at the book in her lap and took a deep breath, steeled herself, felt her heart rate calm. Jack was right, as usual. This would just be a temporary solution until the economy recovered. It wouldn’t be long now. It couldn’t. She could do this. It was the only option.

She nodded up at her husband. “Maybe if we do this I can reinstate Mr. Noble and his charges’ wages—maybe even give them the raises they deserve.”

Jack only nodded and squeezed her shoulder.

Either way, Cornelia knew for sure now that she had to make this the best Christmas Biltmore had ever seen. It had been a trying time, but there was nothing like sitting around a warm fire by a fragrant tree counting your blessings. She would savor all of it this year. Her children, her husband, her friends, this house. Because, if she had learned anything, it was that life was full of lasts. And you never knew when yours might be.





BABS Fugitives





Back in my small living room at the Asheville mountain house that had been my parents’ since I was a little girl, the wood-paneled walls and roaring fireplace making it cozy and warm, I sank down into the comfortable couch and studied Julia’s face.

“Have I ever told you how much you look like my mother?”

She turned and smiled at me. “No, but I love that.”

“I think you might just have a little of her gumption too,” I said. “I’m so proud of you for going back to school, for finishing what you started.” I slipped my shoes off, much to my tired feet’s relief, and Julia followed suit.

She grimaced. “As long as Professor Winchester says it’s okay,” she said. “And that’s a big if.”

“Chin up. Your great-grandmother never took no for an answer. Neither will you.”

She laughed. “Channel your inner Gladys.”

“Exactly!”

The light flickered off her calm face then, and I said, “Julia, is that what’s bothering you? Facing Professor Winchester? Or is it the veil?”

She just shrugged, and I realized then that this absurd obsession was more about Julia’s ruined wedding day than it would ever be about the veil.

To bolster her spirits, I said, “We might be in possession of the Vanderbilt veil! What’s more marvelous than that? Old ladies don’t get that many adventures. We have to capitalize on each of them.”

“Babs! We might be fugitives! We could be in possession of a priceless family heirloom that doesn’t belong to us!”

I blew air from between my lips. “Julia, yes, the veils sort of look alike, but so what?”

“I just have this… feeling.” She tucked her legs up under her and turned to face me. “What else do you remember about the veil, Babs? What else did Gran say about how she got it?”

I closed my eyes and squinted, trying to remember. That’s usually not a great tactic. The faster you run toward the thought, the more quickly it runs away. “Mother always said that Daddy proposed to her, and she didn’t know what to do. She felt incredibly conflicted and wasn’t sure if a life with him was the right choice. And then she came across a woman who gave her a wedding veil.”

I could feel my brow furrow. It wasn’t that great of a story when you got right down to it. And my mother was the world’s best storyteller, so I had to be forgetting something.

“Why would a random woman give Gran a wedding veil?”

“A Russian woman,” I added.

“How can I wear that wedding veil in good conscience one day without knowing its true origin? How can I walk down the aisle in this veil that has totally changed for me now?”

I sighed. “You’re thinking of this all wrong. How can you not walk down the aisle in the stunning and blessed veil of your great-grandmother and possibly the Vanderbilts?”

A tiny smile played on her lips. “It’s kind of cool, isn’t it?” she whispered.

I said nothing, only smiled. I had no intention of ever getting rid of that veil that had become a symbol for my family of all we had been through, all we had fought for. It was a symbol of my parents’ happy life that almost wasn’t, my glorious years with my husband. There was something magical in that veil, something sacred. Something ours.

I thought of when I’d worn that veil to marry my dear departed Reid, of all the memories we’d made together. The births of our beautiful girls, saving and scrimping to buy our first house, our annual mountain trips, and the time we went to Morocco for a taste of another life. I loved him so much. But Reid could never come back to me.

Kristy Woodson Harve's Books