The Body in the Boudoir (27 page)

However, my own wedding thirty-six years ago was the best of all. We were married in Holmes, New York, at Beulahland, the home of our dear friends Charlotte Brooks and Julie Arden, on the first Saturday in December, holding our collective breaths about the weather. As it happened, it was so warm, guests sat out on the large terraces. A week later the area was hit by a blizzard. I still have my beautiful white dress, and it still fits, although I do have to breathe deeply. My father gave me away, tears in his eyes. Everyone danced. I'm told the food was delicious, but somehow neither my groom nor I sat down long enough to eat—common for wedding couples. One of my parents' oldest friends told my mother, “If they always look at each other the way they're looking at each other today, they'll be a very happy couple.” Prescient words. I didn't toss my bouquet, white French lilacs and ivy. Another close family friend, Erik Johns, had made it and I wanted to keep it, later rooting the ivy. It's still thriving.

I had to be back at my teaching job at Burlington High School on Monday, my husband, Alan, to his work at MIT, so only one night for a honeymoon at an inn in Connecticut. Since we hadn't eaten at the reception, we were ravenous and bought submarine sandwiches on the way, consuming them happily with champagne in front of the fireplace in our room. It was a perfect wedding feast, although I'm not sure Faith Fairchild would have approved.

In the end, whoever the couple, what matters most was said in the Old Testament by Ruth to her mother-in-law, Naomi:

“Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.”

This is what we mean when we turn to our beloveds and say, “I do.”

About the Author

KATHERINE HALL PAGE
is the author of nineteen previous Faith Fairchild mysteries, the first of which received the Agatha Award for best first mystery.
The Body in the Snowdrift
was honored with the Agatha Award for best novel of 2006. Page also won an Agatha for her short story “The Would-Be Widower.” She lives in Massachusetts with her husband.

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Faith Fairchild Mysteries by Katherine Hall Page

The Body in the Boudoir

The Body in the Gazebo

The Body in the Sleigh

The Body in the Gallery

The Body in the Ivy

The Body in the Snowdrift

The Body in the Attic

The Body in the Lighthouse

The Body in the Bonfire

The Body in the Moonlight

The Body in the Big Apple

The Body in the Bookcase

The Body in the Fjord

The Body in the Bog

The Body in the Basement

The Body in the Cast

The Body in the Vestibule

The Body in the Bouillon

The Body in the Kelp

The Body in the Belfry

Credits

Cover design by Emin Mancheril

Cover photographs © by Shutterstock

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE BODY IN THE BOUDOIR
. Copyright © 2012 by Katherine Hall Page. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Page, Katherine Hall.

The body in the boudoir : a Faith Fairchild mystery / by Katherine Hall Page.—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-06-206548-3

1. Fairchild, Faith Sibley (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women in the food industry—Fiction. 3. Caterers and catering—Fiction. 4. Massachusetts—Fiction. 5. Marriage—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3566.A334B6475 2012

813'.54—dc22

2011025712

EPub Edition © MAY 2012 ISBN: 9780062065490

12 13 14 15 16
OV/RRD
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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