Page 1 of The Bridesmaid
Chapter One
prologue
Adrianna Kensington smoothed her couture wedding gown, adjusted a shining lock of chestnut hair, and balled her fists.
‘This will work,’ she breathed. ‘I will be married, and this will work.’
The grand staircase blossomed, in airy clouds of white roses. The floristry team, like black-clad bees, hummed at the edges, inserting the twenty thousand blooms, adjusting the invisible wire frame beneath.
Uniformed fitters, in plastic shoe covers, were temporarily recarpeting the entire downstairs floor of the hotel, rolling a snowy-white deep-pile over the regal red colors of the steps. They stapled the edges with rapid determination.
‘Oh God!’ The head florist, usually unflappable, made a brief, panic-stricken perfect ‘O’ of rich red lipstick. ‘The bride! The bride is here! Everybody off the steps. Now!’
Already they could hear it. The gunshot ricochet of a diamante heel on the marble floor.
The head florist cast about. Where was the planner? No one wanted to deal with Adrianna Kensington without thewedding planner to hand. The dark-haired heiress was poison in a fifty-thousand-dollar bridal dress.
A rustle of raw silk told everyone they were too late. Adrianna had arrived. Every last crew paused, all eyes turned to the slim figure, in the doorway to the grand stair. Her bridal gown ran in folds along her narrow body, pooling in thick wide skirts, like fresh-poured cream. Her usual team of assistants and staff were nowhere to be seen. Sweat prickled on the florist’s palms. This wasn’t good.
‘Miss Kensington,’ stammered the florist, catching a gulp of Adrianna’s signature, custom-made perfume. ‘We were told to be ready for you by ten.’
Adrianna’s sapphire-blue eyes took in the clouds of roses. The unfinished carpet.
‘Where is my head bridesmaid?’ she asked, in a tone they had all learned to dread.
‘I think … she was in the ballroom earlier,’ managed the florist. ‘But we’re not ready yet, in there, and the floor can’t be walked on in heels right now, so …’
Adrianna’s lithe, honey-hued arms picked up the heavy skirts. She strode up the staircase, encrusted heels peppering the freshly laid pile. Weight of silk skirts rustling like a felled tree across a forest floor.
The entrance to the ballroom was marked by a half-complete floral archway. A scaffold had been erected to access the crystal chandelier, handmade in Venice. Adrianna had agreed with the wedding planner that the golden light of real beeswax candles was essential.
Tables for five hundred guests were arranged and partially dressed. Gilt-framed mirrors lined the walls, reflecting the bride’s face – a hundred dewy pink lips, sculpted eyebrows and artfully contoured cheekbones.
Adrianna rarely enjoyed seeing her features in mirrors, buttoday, she absorbed herself appraisingly, taking in the three hours she had just spent in the hair and make-up artist’s chair. Her glossy brunette hair curled artfully around her shoulders.
‘Dream it, believe it,’ muttered Adrianna, eyeing her reflection. ‘Dream it, believe it.’ Her palms, she noticed, unclenching them with distaste, were sweaty. She took a long steadying breath and nodded. Along the mirrored walls, two hundred sleek-jawed, blue-eyed women nodded along with her.
Why was nothing ready? Where was her head bridesmaid?
Adrianna twisted to leave, the rustling volume of her dress turning with her. It was then she noticed that one of the mirrors reflected a different color to her white and black scheme.
A flash of red.
Frowning, Adrianna took a step deeper into the room. Hanging at the back, high on the stage, were three wedding dresses. She recognized them from the five she was to wear on the second day of festivities. Planned meticulously with no less than two famous designers.
The crystals of her shoe caught in the unfinished underlay on the floor and she staggered. Even as she regained her balance, she knew what she was seeing.
For a few moments at least, she was certain it was some kind of prank. In terrible bad taste, and bizarre. Reality set in like waves washing onto a strange shore. Adrianna’s throat tightened in a silent scream.
Blood. Hanging limbs. A familiar, lifeless face.
One of the three hanging wedding gowns had been used to dress a corpse.
Adrianna glanced about the room, heart drumming at her ribcage. A choking sound broke from somewhere deep inside her.
The battered body of her former bridesmaid turned slowly, suspended above the stage, the Swarovski crystals of her floating hemline plugged deep red.
Adrianna could never explain, after the fact, why her first action was to raise the latest-model cell clamped perpetually in her hand, and telephone her father.
