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familiar
companions.
    This marriage of
convenience . . . her mother’s marriage to
Robert Cannon had been a loveless marriage of convenience. Emily
hadn’t realized that early on, but it came to her after her mother
was gone. She knew she was a fool to think that her marriage to
Luke Becker would be any different. But she couldn’t help but wish
for more.
    Rising from the mattress, she went to
the trunk, unbuckled the cracked leather straps that encircled it,
and opened the hasp with the key pinned to the underside of her
jacket lapel. When she lifted the lid, the faint, lingering scents
of her life in Chicago drifted over her, making her throat tight
with longing for what had been. Amid her belongings, Alyssa’s
fragrance of rosewater mingled with their mother’s lavender sachet,
and a hard knot formed in Emily’s chest. They were all gone now,
her mother first, then her stepfather, and now Alyssa.
    Reaching inside, she carefully lifted
out the gown and veil she’d brought with her. Wrapped in layers of
tissue, the small gown was simply one of her few treasured
keepsakes. The bridal veil, though . . . oh,
the beautiful bridal veil. She held the elegant headpiece as if it
were a priceless relic. Between the seed pearls that decorated it,
silk orange blossoms had been attached with the finest of stitches.
Two yards of lace-edged illusion, a fine, transparent tulle made of
silk, fell from the back of the headpiece in an airy cloud.
Although it would not have formed a long, elegant train on Emily,
as it would have on Alyssa or their mother, Letty, it would have
dipped below the hem of her dress. From the trunk’s top tray, she
picked up a daguerreotype and looked at the woman staring back at
her. Tall and statuesque, Emmaline Maryfield, the maternal
grandmother for whom Emily was named, wore the veil in the portrait
and it brushed the back hem of her gown. Grandma Emmaline had been
a seamstress for wealthy society matrons. One of them had ordered a
wedding gown and veil for her daughter. When the girl eloped, the
mother was so devastated, she had paid for the ensemble and then
given it to Emmaline as a gift. The gown she had sold to another
customer. But she had worn the veil at her own wedding. In due
time, she had presented it to Letty when she married. It had always
been understood that Letty’s girls would wear the heirloom when
they became brides.
    Emily sighed again. Her stepfather had
often noted that Emily was as plain as gruel but, bless her heart
and God be thanked, at least she was a well-behaved, plain young
lady. She had clung to that, even when she had a wicked or
rebellious thought, even when she’d felt like a prisoner of the
very rules she clutched so closely.
    That might be why the veil was so
important. The veil . . . to her, it meant so
much more than a wedding or a husband. It represented delicate,
ethereal beauty, and from childhood, she’d always imagined that if
she put it on, its beauty would be magically conferred upon her.
For the briefest time during her trip west, she had envisioned
wearing it at last. But it was not to be, and Emily had been wrong
to think it would. Regardless of her grandmother’s wishes, the veil
was intended for Alyssa, the beautiful one, and always had
been.
    Alyssa would have worn the veil, if
Charles Walker had not called off their engagement and left her so
disillusioned and heartbroken that she’d found the prospect of
becoming a mail-order bride appealing.
    How cruel were the twists of their
fates, Emily thought.
    So Alyssa had died with her youth and
beauty intact, but her spirit crushed.
    And Emily would never have beauty, but
she would always have her gentility.
    With great care, she enfolded the
garments in their tissue cocoon and replaced them in the trunk.
Then she brought out a black dress to wear to dinner.
    Mrs. Luke
Becker . She was a wife now, but she’d never
been a bride.
    ~~*~*~*~~
    Luke stood in the cool, dark barn,
forking hay into