The Bride He Replaced novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Dress
Hannah finds her best friend in her wedding dress, steps into the chapel to name herself the real wife, and Miles whispers that page four was not insurance.
An hour before my wedding, I walked into the bridal suite and found my best friend standing in my dress.
I had been gone ten minutes.
I had gone down to my car for a gift bag with a pair of tiny blue socks and a sonogram photo in it.
I wanted to slip it into Miles's jacket pocket before the vows.
The bag was still in my hand when I saw her.
Camilla Lowell stood on the dressing platform with her back to me.
She had steamed my veil that morning.
She had held my hair while I was sick in the sink at seven, and she had carried saltines in her purse for five months.
Now every pearl button on my gown was done up her spine, and the veil was pinned in her blond hair.
My engagement ring sat on her left hand, over the thin pale line she always had on that finger.
She never wore rings. She said they itched.
The silk fit her waist exactly.
Three weeks ago the seamstress had frowned at my fitting and said my measurements must have been taken wrong.
Camilla turned around, and her eyes were wet.
"Hannah," she said. "Please. Let Miles explain before you look at me like that."
Miles stood by the window in his black tuxedo.
He crossed the room and held out a glass of water to me, the way he did when I skipped lunch.
I had loved this man for ten years. I was nineteen weeks pregnant with his son.
He looked at me with a patient, tired face.
"Sit down, Han," he said. "Nobody is taking anything from you."
"You're taking my dress."
"I'm taking one afternoon." He kept his voice low and reasonable. "Our biggest investors are in the third row. Their money wants to see Camilla's father's family at that altar, so Camilla stands up there for the photographs."
"And I stand where?"
"In the guest list. Then tonight you come home, and nothing changes. You're still my wife. Your name is on the license."
That much was true.
We had signed it nine days ago at the county office, because Miles said he wanted the paperwork done before anything could go wrong.
Afterward he had pushed one more stack of forms across the car hood.
"Venue insurance," he said. "Sign where the yellow tabs are, babe."
I signed all four tabs without reading, because I trusted him.
His mother sat on the velvet sofa by the door with a champagne flute, watching me and saying nothing.
Marguerite Teasdale had never once raised her voice at me.
"Hannah, dear," she said now. "Don't make a scene. Everyone has already agreed."
Everyone.
I looked at Camilla, and Camilla looked at the floor.
Everyone had agreed except me, and I was the bride.
My throat was tight, and the baby kicked once under my ribs, hard.
I set the gift bag on the dressing table.
I took the sonogram out and held it in my fingers.
I was still wearing the cream dress from the morning photos. It was a plain one, and I had bought it myself.
So I stepped out.
I walked down the hall to the chapel doors and pushed through both of them at once.
Two hundred guests sat in rows of white chairs, facing a flower arch over the water.
The string quartet was tuning.
The officiant looked up from his notes.
I walked the whole aisle in my flat shoes while heads turned and phones came up.
At the front I faced the guests.
"My name is Hannah Draycott," I said. "I am Miles Teasdale's wife. We signed our license nine days ago."
Nobody coughed. The cellist stopped mid-note.
"I'm nineteen weeks pregnant with his son."
I held up the sonogram so the third row could see it.
"In about five minutes, he is going to walk in here with another woman. She is wearing my dress and my ring, and he arranged it."
A woman near the front covered her mouth.
Phones were recording from every row.
The doors opened behind me.
Miles came down the aisle fast, with Marguerite a step behind him, and he caught my arm above the elbow.
"Stop," he said quietly. "You're embarrassing yourself."
Marguerite lifted two fingers at the quartet.
They started to play, loud, over everything I might say next.
I pulled my arm free.
Miles leaned close so that only I could hear him.
"Walk out, Hannah. You will want to, in a minute."
"Why would I want to?"
"Because of what you signed on the ninth," he said. "Page four was not venue insurance."
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