An Heiress to Remember (The Gilded Age Girls Club #3) - Maya Rodale Page 0,15

that only one thing mattered. A man’s wealth, status, and power. Nothing. Else. So forgive me if I am succeeding—and determined to succeed—at obtaining as much wealth, status, and power as possible. Especially at the expense of the Goodwin family.”

To be fair, they had been taught that. Her family had valued a man’s wealth, status, and power above all else. That was how she’d ended up married to a duke she’d quickly come to despise, who was only interested in her fortune and not her. It had been a marriage for all the wrong reasons.

“You won’t be persuaded to give up the fight, will you?” Beatrice asked him.

“Not a chance.”

“Then I shan’t try to persuade you. If revenge is what stokes the fire in your belly, gives purpose to your days and warms you on cold nights, then God bless.”

“Why are you smirking?”

“Because I know better. I have learned the hard way that wealth, status, and power are a cold comfort.” She had learned that what mattered was a sense of purpose. Real love. Companionship. She hadn’t had these things herself.

“I find them plenty comforting,” he said. “Especially since I remember not ever having them.”

He had been poor. A nobody. And she had loved him. Thoroughly. Madly. Passionately. But not fearlessly enough to take the chance of a lifetime, or to buck her parents’ wishes and go up against society. And thank goodness. Because all he’d wanted was the store, not her.

It was for the best, she told herself, as he’d quickly shown that he wasn’t worth taking a chance on. He had been taught that wealth, status, and power were all that mattered and he had taken the lesson to heart. So she was probably insane to challenge him. But what else was she going to do with the rest of her life?

“Eventually, Dalton, you will either obtain your revenge or you will give up on the quest. You will have to find something else to do.”

“Until then, I’m hell-bent on getting Goodwin’s.”

Chapter Seven

Dalton’s Residence

748 Fifth Avenue

Later that afternoon

Downtown, Dalton’s store was known as the Marble Palace. His home uptown might as well have been a palace, too. The ornately styled mansion, built of limestone and brick, claimed the city block at the corner of Fifty-Seventh Street before the park. It was the sort of house that people lingered on the sidewalk to openly admire, and the sort of mansion designed to entertain Manhattan society.

The entry hall was five stories high, and from there one accessed the small salon, the grand salon, the library, a two-story ballroom and the dining room, and all the other dozens of rooms.

It had the distinction of being the largest private residence in New York.

Dalton lived there alone with thirty-seven servants.

There were fourteen bedrooms. He slept in one of them.

There were multiple drawing rooms and sitting rooms. He could only occupy one at a time, and currently he waited in the small salon for the caller that his butler had announced. Haynesworth was a genuine English butler, who had spent the better portion of his career serving an earl at his London residence and now had the indignity of serving the household of a new-money immigrant in that new-money city, New York.

But the pay was good. Really good.

The drawing room doors opened. His caller was announced in the low, distinguished tones of the butler’s English accent.

It was not Beatrice. The rush of disappointment he felt was . . . interesting.

His caller, Miss Claflin, was one of those new women who were raised in wealth and in all their spare time began to pursue college degrees and public works and charitable endeavors. There were scores of them rushing about the city, improving things.

“Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Dalton.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Miss Claflin. Please, take a seat. Haynesworth will bring refreshments shortly.”

She sat primly on the edge of one of the upholstered settees, he on a chair opposite. Antiques, from Europe.

It was just the two of them. Alone. In this vast expanse of house. Somewhere, servants hummed with the activity required to keep a house of this magnitude running but one was hardly aware of them. As always, even with a guest, his house felt like a tomb.

“Mr. Dalton, I have heard that you are amenable to receiving certain proposals.”

She was nervous, which was to be expected. The decor had been chosen and designed—by his architect and decorator, at his orders—to impress and intimidate anyone who crossed the threshold. It was to be