The Wedding Dress Read online

  The Wedding Dress is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Danielle Steel

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  DELACORTE PRESS and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Hardback ISBN 9780399179594

  Ebook ISBN 9780399179600

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Virginia Norey, adapted for ebook

  Cover image: © Dimitris Skoulos/Trunk Archive

  ep_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Dedication

  By Danielle Steel

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  It was a crisp, cold night with a stiff wind off the San Francisco Bay, the night of the Deveraux’s ball, a week before Christmas, in December 1928. The elite of the city had been talking about it for months, with great anticipation. Rooms in the imposing Deveraux mansion had been repainted, curtains had been rehung, every chandelier gleamed. The tables in the ballroom had been set with shining silver and crystal. Footmen had been moving furniture for weeks to make room for the six hundred guests.

  All the most important members of San Francisco society would be there. Only a handful of people had declined Charles and Louise Deveraux’s ball for their daughter. There were fragrant garlands of lilies over every doorway, and hundreds of candles had been lit.

  In her mother’s dressing room, Eleanor Deveraux could hardly contain herself. She had waited for this night all her life. It was her coming out ball. She was about to be officially presented to society as a debutante. She giggled excitedly as she looked at her mother, Louise, and her mother’s maid, Wilson, held the dress, waiting for Eleanor to step into it.

  It was a touching night for Wilson too. She had grown up as a simple girl on a farm in Ireland, and had come to America to seek her fortune, a bit of adventure, and hopefully, find a husband. She had relatives in Boston, went to work for Louise’s family there, and had come to San Francisco with her when she’d married Charles Deveraux, twenty-six years before. Wilson had dressed Louise for her own debut twenty-seven years before, and served her ever since. She had held Eleanor the night she was born, and her brother, Arthur, when he had been born seven years earlier. She mourned with the family when he died of pneumonia at the age of five. Eleanor was born two years after his death, and her mother had never been able to conceive again after that. They would have liked to have had another son, but Louise and Charles were deeply in love with their only surviving child.

  And now Wilson was dressing her for her long awaited debut. Wilson had lived in America for twenty-eight years by then, and there were tears in her eyes as she watched Eleanor put her arms around her mother and hug her, and then Louise gently helped Eleanor put on the earrings that her own mother had given her for her debut twenty-seven years before. They were Eleanor’s first piece of grown-up jewelry. Louise was wearing the parure of emeralds that Charles had given her for their tenth anniversary, and a diamond tiara that had been her grandmother’s.

  The match with Charles Deveraux had been an excellent one, and the marriage which had produced Eleanor was loving and stable. Louise and Charles had met shortly after her debut in Boston, when she attended a ball in New York with her cousins at Christmastime. Charles was visiting from San Francisco. She was from a distinguished Boston banking family, and she and Charles had met that night. The marriage which was subsequently arranged between Charles and her father had been an excellent one for both of them. Their courtship had taken place during two visits Charles had made to Boston to see her, and their love had taken root during an extensive correspondence and warm exchange of letters for three months after they met. Their engagement was announced in March, and they married in June. They had spent their honeymoon in Europe, and then went to live in Charles’s home in San Francisco.

  Charles was the heir of one of the two most important banking fortunes in San Francisco. His family had originally come from France during the Gold Rush, to help make order from chaos, and assist the suddenly wealthy miners in protecting and investing their new fortunes. Charles’s ancestors had remained in California, and made a vast fortune of their own. The Deveraux mansion on the top of Nob Hill was the largest in San Francisco, and had been built in 1860. After his parents died in the early years of their marriage, Charles and Louise had moved into it. He ran the family bank, and was one of the most respected men in San Francisco. Tall, thin, fair haired, blue eyed, elegant, aristocratic, and distinguished, he loved his wife and daughter, and had waited years for this night too.

  Eleanor was strikingly beautiful. She looked a great deal like her mother, with long ebony hair, porcelain white skin, sky blue eyes, and delicate features. Both women had lovely figures, and Eleanor was slightly taller than her mother. Her education had been carefully attended to, with governesses and tutors at home, just as her mother had been brought up in Boston, and as the other girls of their world were raised in San Francisco. Several of her governesses were French and she spoke it fluently. She was talented in the art of watercolors, played the piano beautifully, and had a passion for literature and art history. In a somewhat modern decision, her parents had sent her to Miss Benson’s School for Young Ladies for the past four years to complete her education. She had graduated the previous June, with a dozen young women of similar upbringing and age. She had made many friends there, which would ensure that her first season in society would be even more fun for her, attending a round of balls and parties given by her friends’ parents.

  Most of the girls coming out would be married within the year, or have formed a serious attachment. Charles hoped it wouldn’t happen to Eleanor too quickly. He couldn’t bear the thought of parting with her, and any suitor would have to prove himself worthy before Charles would give his consent for her to marry. She would be a major catch on the marriage market, since everything he had would be hers one day. It was something he and Louise had discussed discreetly, without ever mentioning it to Eleanor, and it was a circumstance she gave no thought to. All she wanted to do now was wear beautiful gowns and go to exciting parties. She wasn’t eager to find a husband, and loved her life with her parents. But the balls they would attend would be a lot of fun, particularly her own. Her parents had been careful not to invite anyone unsavory or that they didn’t approve of. They wanted to keep the racier men about town, and any fortune hunters, well away from her. She was a lively girl with a bright mind, but innocent in the ways of the world, and they wanted it to stay that way.

  Their preparations for this memo
rable night had centered around whom to invite, as well as what band they would hire. They had brought one up from Los Angeles for the occasion. All of Eleanor’s attention had been focused on what dress she would be wearing. With Charles’s blessing, she and her mother had traveled to New York, and sailed to Europe on the French steamship SS Paris, which had been launched seven years before. It was Eleanor’s first trip abroad. They had spent a month at the Ritz hotel in Paris, where they visited several designers, but Louise was determined to have a dress made for Eleanor by the House of Worth.

  Jean-Charles, the great-grandson of the original designer, Charles Frederick Worth, ran the house by then, and his recent designs had revolutionized fashion. He was the consummately modern designer at the time, and Louise wanted to get Eleanor an exciting dress that would be different from everyone else’s, while maintaining a look of dignified elegance. His prices were astronomical, but Charles had given her permission to buy whatever she wanted, as long as it wasn’t too modern or outrageous. Worth’s use of beading, metallic threads, incredible embroidery, and exquisite fabrics made everything he touched a work of art, and Eleanor’s lovely slim figure lent itself perfectly to his sleek designs.

  The dress he had designed for her was a narrow column which fell from her shoulders with a slightly lowered neckline in back, and a discreet drape below it. It was the most beautiful dress Eleanor had ever seen, beyond her wildest dreams when it was finished. He designed a headpiece to go with it that was the height of modern fashion, and set a halo of pearls and embroidery on her dark hair. It was perfection. They arrived back in San Francisco in late July, and Wilson was holding the dress now. It was heavy from the intricate beading and embroidery.

  Eleanor stepped into it, ready for this long awaited moment. Her dark hair was swept into a loose bun at the nape of her neck with pearls woven into it, which Wilson had done masterfully. The headpiece sat on the stylish waves which framed her face. The dress was both modern and traditional and used all the techniques that the House of Worth was famous for to create an unforgettable impression of high fashion.

  Louise and Wilson stood back to admire the effect, as Eleanor beamed at them both, and could see herself in the mirror behind them. She barely recognized the elegant young woman she saw in the reflection. Her father hadn’t seen the dress yet, and he stood still in the dressing room when he saw her.

  “Oh no…” he said with a look of dismay and Eleanor was instantly worried.

  “Don’t you like it, Papa?”

  “Of course I do, but so will every man in San Francisco. You’ll have ten proposals before the night is out, if not twenty.” He turned to his wife then. “Couldn’t you have gotten something less spectacular? I’m not ready to lose her yet!” All three women laughed, and Eleanor looked relieved. She wanted her father to love her dress too.

  “Do you really like it, Papa?” she said, her eyes bright as he leaned down to kiss her. He looked as elegant as ever in white tie and tails, and gave his wife an admiring glance in her green satin gown and the exquisite emeralds he had given her. As always, thanks to him, she would be wearing the most stunning jewels in the room.

  “Of course I do, how could I not? You and your mama chose very well on your adventure in Paris.” A less generous man would have paled at the bill. Worth was famous for charging a fortune, and even more to his American clients, and he had followed his usual tradition this time. But Charles thought the dress was worth every bit of it, and had no regrets. He could easily afford it, and wanted his wife and daughter to be happy. It pleased him to think that his daughter would be the most beautiful debutante of this or any season. And the attention they’d lavished on the ball was commensurate. He wanted this to be an evening that would be a memory Eleanor would cherish forever. Their magnificent mansion on Nob Hill was the perfect place for it.

  Charles offered his daughter his arm, as they left her mother’s dressing room. He and Eleanor led the way down the grand staircase, with Louise following right behind them. Wilson watched them, smiling gently. She was happy for them. They were good people, and after losing their son twenty years before, they deserved all the happiness life could give them. She would be waiting for Eleanor to help her undress at the end of the evening, at whatever hour, and she was sure it would be very late. They would be serving a supper at midnight, after a sumptuous dinner several hours before that. There would be breakfast at six in the morning for the young people who stayed late, including the bachelors who remained to dance with the young women and flirt with them. The older people would have left by then, but Wilson knew that the young would dance the night away.

  There were a dozen footmen at the bottom of the stairs, waiting to serve champagne from silver trays. Half of the footmen worked for them, and the other half had been hired for the night. The champagne was of the best vintages from Charles’s wine cellar, put there well before Prohibition began, so they had not had to purchase wine or champagne then for so many guests. And since it was a private party, there would be no problem. The kitchen would be teeming with activity by then, as their cook and three assistants prepared the meal, and dozens of footmen waited to serve them. Louise had planned everything meticulously. The house was filled with flowers, the candles lit the rooms brilliantly, the ballroom was ready to receive them. She had spent weeks on the seating to make sure that all the right people were placed where they should be. There was a long table for Eleanor and her friends, with all the most dashing young men carefully selected from the best families.

  The guests began to arrive, with a long line of chauffeur driven cars outside, drawing up to the portico one by one. Additional footmen were waiting to take their coats and wraps the moment they entered the house. Charles, Louise, and Eleanor had formed a short receiving line to greet the guests, with their butler, Houghton, standing beside them to announce their names. The evening was no less formal or elegant than any similar event in Boston or New York. San Francisco society was every bit as impressive as its counterparts in the East.

  Eleanor looked radiant as her parents introduced her to people she had never met, and their friends whom she knew embraced her and told her how ravishing she was in her exquisite gown. She managed to combine the elegance of high fashion with a look of distinction, and her parents watched her proudly as the crowd in the house grew and drifted into their reception rooms. It was fully an hour later when they left the receiving line to join their guests, and Eleanor whispered to her mother that it was just like a wedding without a groom, and Louise laughed.

  “Yes, it is. That will all happen soon enough.” But Eleanor was in no hurry for that, and neither were they. It was exciting to be part of society now, and Eleanor wanted to savor every moment and enjoy it for as long as she could. She had greeted many handsome young men on the receiving line, and the boys her age looked mostly silly and very young. Some blushed when they greeted her, and they were standing around in large groups with each other, admiring the young women present and drinking champagne. A few of the braver ones came up and asked Eleanor to put their names on her dance card, and she took out the exquisite little carnet de bal her father had given her earlier that day. It was a pink enamel book with ivory pages, and tiny diamonds and pearls on the cover, which had been made by Carl Fabergé at the turn of the century. The ivory pages could be erased at the end of the evening, so it could be used at the next ball she attended. It had a tiny pink enamel pencil with a small diamond at the end. She took it out of her evening bag and wrote their names in it. Once the other young men saw her do it, there was a crowd around her requesting dances with her. The little book was almost entirely full of young men’s names by the time they went into the ballroom for dinner an hour later. They had asked other young ladies for dances too. Eleanor whispered to half a dozen of her friends as they walked into the ballroom together.

  “They’re very handsome, aren’t they?” she said to some of her old classmates from Mi
ss Benson’s, and they all agreed. Her mother had chosen carefully who she included on the guest list, and the young men in the room seemed equally pleased. The table of young people she had seated with Eleanor was a lively group. They were talking and laughing and appeared to be having fun all through dinner, as the older guests in the room glanced at them, smiling with approval. A debutante ball brought back tender memories for most of them, and it was nice to see so many handsome young people enjoying each other and having fun.

  Eleanor danced the first dance with her father, a waltz, and then everyone else danced when he led Louise onto the floor for the next one. Their oldest friends were seated at their table, and the band Louise had hired was very good. Charles complimented her on it. The music got livelier as the evening wore on. Eleanor had taken lessons to prepare her for this, and with all the names in her elegant carnet de bal, she didn’t sit down for a moment until she finally left the room with a group of other young ladies. They took refuge in the library for a few minutes to catch their breath. Several young men followed them there, to pursue conversations, or meet the girls they hadn’t danced with yet.

  When they walked into the library, Eleanor noticed a tall, good-looking man with dark hair intensely studying a book he had removed from one of the shelves, and he looked up in surprise when she and her friends walked in. Her father had an excellent collection of rare books and first editions, and the man smiled at her as she walked past him to get some air at an open window. She noticed that he had serious, warm brown eyes as he watched her.

  “You’ve been dancing all evening,” he commented, as her friends drifted away for a moment, and he put the book back on the shelf. “Your father has some wonderful books here,” he said, with admiration, and she smiled at him.