The Wedding Dress - Danielle Steel Page 0,17

concerned them both. The stock market was continuing to rise and both men were afraid that the bubble would burst. Stock prices had reached a high which could no longer be justified. Alex hated to leave on Sunday night to return to the city to work. Eleanor drove him to the station on their property. She didn’t have a license, but their chauffeur had taught her to drive two years before. Alex took her in his arms and kissed her, while the train waited for him. Charles wasn’t going back to the city until Monday night, but Alex felt he should get back sooner.

“You’re going to make a lazy man of me.” He smiled at his future wife. “It’s too wonderful being with you. Our life is going to be better than I ever dreamed,” he said in a soft voice, and kissed her again. He felt as though he was going to burst with happiness. He was meeting with an architect the next day to make some changes to his own mansion on upper Broadway, where they would live after their honeymoon in Italy. He wanted to redo his mother’s dressing room and modernize the bathroom as a surprise for Eleanor. She was going to be moving from one very large, stupendously beautiful home to another. The house Alex’s grandfather had built was almost as grand as the Deveraux mansion, though slightly more austere, but they had a spectacular view of the bay, which the Deveraux home didn’t have. Alex thought the garden needed redesigning, and he was going to ask Eleanor to do it once she moved in.

“I hate to leave you,” he whispered, and then with a sigh, “I’ll be back Friday night with your father. It’s going to be a long week without you. I’m afraid I’m not going to let you out of my sight once we’re married, except possibly to come up here in the summer. My life is just too lonely without you.” He could no longer imagine how he had lived without her for thirty-two years. But the timing had been just right, and providential. She wouldn’t have been able to be with him before her debut anyway, so things had worked out as they were meant to. He had been in hibernation, waiting for her to grow up, and hadn’t known it. Amelia had died when Eleanor was ten years old, and he wouldn’t have wanted any other woman. She smiled at the sweet things he said to her, kissed him again before he boarded their train, and waved as they pulled away until the train rounded a bend and was out of sight.

The next weekend she knew that her parents were having a dozen house guests so they would all be busy playing tennis and croquet, and whatever entertainments her parents devised for their guests. They often played bridge or other card games at night, and sometimes charades, which was a good icebreaker. They were starting with a smaller group than usual for the first weekend of the summer.

She and Alex thoroughly enjoyed the time they spent at Lake Tahoe that summer. They both became proficient water-skiers, as her parents watched them from the dock and waved as they went by. Charles developed a strong rapport with his future son-in-law, which for Charles filled the void of having lost his own son so many years earlier. And Alex had lost his father. The two men rode and fished together, talked about banking and the world economy, and shared similar views on many subjects. Whenever possible, Alex stole a few moments alone with Eleanor, savoring the excitement of the pleasures in store for them once they were married. It excited him just looking at her and talking to her, and he could hardly wait until she was truly his.

By the time they went back to the city after Labor Day, their wedding was only four weeks away. It was set for Saturday, October 5, and all of San Francisco was talking about it as the wedding of the century. Louise was constantly busy now, and Eleanor helped her where she could. They were working on the seating of nearly eight hundred guests. There was going to be a full orchestra and a singer for the dancing. Flowers were being shipped in from all over the state for the garlands and table arrangements. They were going to hang chandeliers in the massive tent, which was unheard of. The huge dance

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