An Heiress to Remember (The Gilded Age Girls Club #3) - Maya Rodale Page 0,16

a house worthy of, say, a duchess. But what worked well when entertaining members of the Four Hundred from whom he sought to gain acceptance, seemed overdone and garish when entertaining a caller like Miss Claflin, a young woman who came on her own to solicit funds on behalf of the poor.

He knew all about callers like Miss Claflin. She was not the first to come to him, seeking his support.

“Tell me about your work, Miss Claflin.”

“At the Orchard Street Settlement, I work with immigrant women who are down on their luck and whom society has turned its back on. These women are looking for work—honest work—but they often need help finding suitable positions and keeping their families together while getting themselves established.”

Women like his mother once had been. Except she hadn’t had benefactresses like Miss Claflin with their lofty ideals, society connections, and aspirations to save everyone. Dalton hadn’t forgotten; there was not enough marble and gilt in the world to cover up those memories.

“We are based in the Lower East Side,” she continued. “Where we are better able to serve our constituents.”

Of course they were. The Lower East Side was far downtown. Far away from this palatial spread. Downtown, they slept four to a tiny, dark room, which was probably poorly lit, barely ventilated, and ripe for a disease outbreak. He knew this because he had lived this.

Now Dalton had a city block to himself.

How far he’d come.

This is what he wanted. He had worked for this. He had earned it.

He should not feel guilty. And yet . . .

Miss Claflin elaborated upon the services offered, the women the organization had helped, the positive effects upon the neighborhood. She gave him all the information he could need to determine that his money, should he deign to offer it, would go to a worthy cause. And she was every bit as professional as any man he did business with. Perhaps even more so because she was aware that being taken seriously was not a given. While she projected a calm exterior, he could see the nervous trembling underneath.

In that sense, she reminded him of Beatrice.

Earlier this afternoon she had practically been vibrating with a nervous energy, valiantly struggling to be still. As if perhaps she didn’t always go storming into board of director meetings or face down old flames. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so much like everything was on the line. He was almost jealous.

“Are you nervous, Miss Claflin? Please don’t be nervous.”

“Forgive me if I am, Mr. Dalton. But so much depends upon me, and you and this interview. Your support would make or break our organization. Lives depend upon the largess of people like you, and people like me trying to convince you to share some of it.”

Don’t be nervous. It was a stupid thing to say. She was right. People were counting on her braving this gilded palace. People were counting on him—his fortune, really—to save them. And he’d done everything he could to make it hard to ask.

The massive house so far uptown, so far removed from where he had come. The gilt- and marble- and money-drenched walls designed to intimidate. There was a distinct and noticeable lack of a woman’s presence or children’s laughter that would have softened the mood. But no, he was some lone rogue bachelor, lording about with his cold and isolated uptown palace, his imported butler, his retail empire of fine and unaffordable things.

Now he was about to do it again.

Be intimidating. Make her nervous.

“How much?” he asked bluntly. That was why she was here. But she looked taken aback. “How much do you need?”

“A thousand dollars.”

“No,” Dalton said flatly. Her chin quivered ever so slightly, and it was the only hint of how much she was counting on success today. “That is a woefully insufficient number. Ask for more.”

Miss Claflin stared at him for a long second.

“Two thousand dollars.”

He leaned forward. “More, Miss Claflin.”

As Dalton saw it, his store was taking money from the wealthy. He took a certain perverse pleasure in giving it back to the people they tried to keep down. That, and he remembered.

She said an even higher number.

“That’s more like it.”

Dalton pulled his checkbook from a pocket in his suit jacket and wrote it out. It was the biggest number she could bring herself to ask for. And it was a fairly insignificant amount to him. He handed the check to her.

“When you call upon the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and Astors,