© 1991

For three terrifying days in 1958, the bride was the most famous child in America.

Eighteen years later, Susannah Faulconer once again felt like that panic-stricken seven-year-old. As she began walking at her father's side down the white runner that had been laid in a rigid path through the exact center of the Faulconer gardens, the heirloom pearl choker that encircled her throat seemed to be cutting off her breath. She knew the sensation was irrational since the choker wasn't the least bit tight and she had worn it many times, beginning with her debutante ball when she was eighteen. There was no reason for her to feel as if she couldn't breathe. No reason for her to experience such an overpowering urge to rip it from her throat and fling it into the crowd of well-dressed guests.

Not that she would actually do such a thing. Not proper Susannah Faulconer.

Although she was a redhead, people didn't tend to think of her that way, since her hair wasn't the fiery red of a slick Clairol ad, but a patrician auburn that conjured up images of a gentler time-a time of early morning fox hunts, tinkling teacups, and women who sat for Gainsborough. Beneath a Juliet cap, she wore her hair swept neatly away from her face and simply arranged at the nape of her neck. The style was a bit severe for a bride, but it somehow suited her. Instead of an elaborate wedding gown, she wore a tea-length dress of antique lace. The open mandarin collar revealed a slim, aristocratic neck encircled by the lustrous five-strand heirloom pearl choker that was giving her so much difficulty. Everything about her bespoke wealth, breeding, and an old-fashioned sense of constraint out of place in a modern twenty-five-year-old woman.