The Marriage at the Rue Morgue (A Rue and Lakeland Mystery) by Jessie Bishop Powell Page B

been introduced to it once, two weeks ago, and the meeting had not gone well. I had worn it downstairs into my parents’ back parlor. Instead of gasping with amazement when I walked in the room, he said, “I don’t like it.” In an instant, I understood why brides traditionally kept their grooms in the dark about such decisions. But I wanted him to see this dress, wanted him to see me in it, wanted him to
approve,
and it wasn’t working at all. It was yet another decision we had left until nearly too late, and his reaction had been anything but complacent.
    My folks had a front parlor, a back parlor, and a room we had labeled the living room, though it had probably started life as yet another formal parlor area. I envisioned myself stumbling from room to room, posing in different lights so that Lance could evaluate me until he liked what he saw. The idea didn’t make me happy, especially since Mama and Daddy had a
lot
of rooms to choose from.
    He had studied me wearing it and said, “You look like a kid playing dress up. The arms are too long and it sags in the chest.”
    I tried to show him how it would appear when alterations were finished, twisting up a handful of fabric to get it pulled tight across my breasts. But the chiffon slipped out of my grasp, and the sleeves got in my way. Finally, I gave up and said, “It’s what I
have,
Lance. And it was my grandmother’s.”
    “Your grandmother is four inches taller than you and a whole lot . . .” He stopped himself.
    “A whole lot what?” I demanded, though I knew what he was going to say.
    “You know,” he said, gesturing around his own chest. “Bigger.”
    By “bigger,” he meant chestier. I barely graduated into a B cup, and it’s hard for me to find clothes that don’t erase my hard-won breast bump. In the normal course of things, I didn’t think about it much. But formal occasions never failed to remind me that I lived in a C+ world. It didn’t help that every other woman in my family except Mama suffers from boobs in excess, or that my little sister actually had to have hers reduced to save herself from back problems. I did not appreciate Lance’s mentioning it right then. “I’ll be wearing a padded bra, and Mama will take that
in
,” I snarled at him.
    I had already seen myself in Mama’s full-length mirrors in the sewing room upstairs, so I knew how I looked. Lance’s description wasn’t at all inaccurate. But from the way Mama had described the alterations she would make, I knew the dress would be perfect. I had hoped to paint a similar picture for Lance, but he wasn’t even giving me a chance. Even the parlor’s natural light wasn’t adjusting my fiancé’s opinion.
    “But the sleeves,” he went on. “And the . . . whatever you call the bottom.”
    “The train?” I asked.
    “No,” he said, “The part out in front.”
    “The hemline,” I told him. “The hemline can be taken in, too.” I crossed my arms. “Is your
only
problem with my grandmother’s wedding dress that it doesn’t fit?”
    We eyed each other in our formal wear. Mama was adamant that I would wear my grandmother’s gown. Lance had still lacked for a tux when I gave in, so Art supplied a loaner to keep the groom from having to visit a suit shop with the newly arrived Sophia. Mama, being a matcher and balancer, had wanted at least photographs of Lance’s selection to compare with my dress. We had stopped by Art’s to take pictures, and he instead handed the suit bag over. Of course, Mama had made Lance put it on.
    Where my dress was huge on me, Art’s suit fit Lance almost perfectly. It was unexpected, since Art was a little shorter than Lance, but they had the same leg length, and the two inches Art needed to make room for what he termed his bulging biceps and shoulders also left room for Lance’s added height. I still found the fit suspicious. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that Art had taken Lance’s spare clothes out of his locker at the