Wedding of the Season


 
 
 
 Advance Praise for Wedding of the Season
 “Elin Hilderbrand meets Edith Wharton meets Brideshead Revisited in this delightfully juicy tale of a Newport family’s fading fortunes on the eve of a society wedding. I loved every minute.”
 —Meg Mitchell Moore, USA TODAY bestselling author of Vacationland
 “Like a modern-day Jane Austen, Edmondson examines love and family against the particular mores of our time, reflecting our desires, fears, and foibles back at us with a fictional family that lingers long after the last page.”
 —Jamie Brenner, bestselling author of The Forever Summer
 “Set amongst the sumptuous Gilded Age mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, Wedding of the Season explores themes of love and money with brilliance and heart. I loved meeting Cassie and her wild family.”
 —Amanda Eyre Ward, New York Times bestselling author of The Jetsetters
 “Wedding of the Season brings Newport society alive in one summer leading up to a much-anticipated wedding. Filled with sharp, witty dialogue and a gorgeous sense of place, this novel is as delightful as a perfect summer day.”
 —Jillian Cantor, USA TODAY bestselling author of Beautiful Little Fools
 “Atmospheric and clever, with captivating, evocative characters, Wedding of the Season is perennial—like the best sort of party where the memory echoes long after the final toast. A must read for every book club!”
 —Joy Callaway, international bestselling author of The Grand Design
 “RSVP Yes to Wedding of the Season! With wit and charm, this delightful novel plunges the reader into a world of high society, faded glory, and the weight of legacy to uncover what really makes a family.”
 —Gina Sorell, author of the New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice The Wise Women
 
 
 LAUREN EDMONDSON is the author of Ladies of the House. She has a BA from Williams College, an MFA in fiction from Sarah Lawrence College, and lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and two children. Find her on Instagram @mrslaurenedmondson.
 LaurenEdmondsonAuthor.com
 
 
 Wedding of the Season
 A Novel
 Lauren Edmondson
 
 
 
 To Christopher, Bellamy, and Shepard
 
 
 Contents
 Quote
 Image
 May
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
 Chapter 5
 Chapter 6
 Chapter 7
 June
 Chapter 8
 Chapter 9
 Chapter 10
 Chapter 11
 Chapter 12
 Chapter 13
 Chapter 14
 July
 Chapter 15
 Chapter 16
 Chapter 17
 Chapter 18
 Chapter 19
 Chapter 20
 August
 Chapter 21
 Chapter 22
 Chapter 23
 Chapter 24
 Chapter 25
 Chapter 26
 September
 Chapter 27
 Chapter 28
 Chapter 29
 Chapter 30
 Chapter 31
 Chapter 32
 Chapter 33
 Acknowledgments
 Author’s Note
 Reader’s Guide - Wedding of the Season
 Questions for Discussion
 
 
 
 Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.
 —Henry James
 This level reach of blue is not my sea;
 Here are sweet waters, pretty in the sun,
 Whose quiet ripples meet obediently
 A marked and measured line, one after one.
 This is no sea of mine that humbly laves
 Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm.
 I have a need of wilder, crueler waves;
 They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.
 —Dorothy Parker
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 May
 
 
 1
 NET-A-NEWPORT 2H
 Maggie Coventry-Gilford & Jack Utterback’s engagement party @ The Land tonight
 tag us & show us the details & drama @netanewport
 A single weekend, I assured myself as I turned onto the Avenue and slowed beneath the canopy of mature trees—oaks, willows, maples. Pink flowers and vines cascaded from black streetlamps, styled to look old-fashioned, and ruler-straight hedges teased glimpses of the staggering, lavish mansions beyond. Old. Exclusive. Private. There was the hulking Romanesque revival, its tan sandstone tower making it more castle than house. To its east, the exaggerated Italianate villa and its second-story loggias that allowed residents to look down their noses from every direction. And, too soon, the wrought-iron gate of The Land.
 Driving from this direction, it always felt as though my world was narrowing.
 I unbuckled my seat belt, leaning halfway out my window to punch in the code: 1899, the year construction finished. The gate creaked open and I inched my greige rental sedan through to the pea-graveled allée that over the centuries had welcomed everything from livery and horses to Model Ts to Aston Martins. Maybe I should’ve had a heavier foot on the gas but despite the circumstances—I was running late—two miles per hour seemed plenty.
 Straight ahead, in all its conspicuous excess, loomed my destination, tall above the rustling tulip trees. The Gilded Age titans and their heiress wives referred to it as a cottage. On their website, the Historical Society describes it as a beaux-arts masterpiece. Some locals might still call it the Coventry mansion. For me, it had been home.
 For so many years, I believed we, my siblings and I, were The Land’s heartbeat. What oak tree on the property hadn’t we climbed? Which one of the Cottage’s thirty rooms hadn’t been explored, turned into pirate ships or volcanoes, floors bubbling with lava? Which of the property’s outbuildings hadn’t been ruthlessly annexed as a clubhouse, no adults allowed? But I hadn’t been back in almost a decade, and it had managed to go on without me.
 I bent forward to look through the windshield as the quartet of massive Corinthian columns appeared, the stucco garlands hovering above each window, some rectangular, some square, most bracketed by dramatic black shutters. Iron Juliet balconies edged the windows of the imposing east and west wings, which jutted out symmetrically on either side of the main hall. The roof was a varied landscape of peaked gables, flat cornices, brick chimneys, and—on the conservatory off the east wing—standing-seam metal the color of a polished copper pot. The first place I got felt up was in that conservatory. Garrett with the great hair. Tall. Sweet. Decent kisser. And no longer in my life because—well, because of everything.
 At the end of the allée, delivery vans and catering trucks packed the roundabout,