An Heiress to Remember (The Gilded Age Girls Club #3) - Maya Rodale Page 0,36
letters in her hand. “I don’t know what to do. This whole situation is unseemly and unusual. Women running department stores.” Here she gave a bitter laugh. “I’ve been told the world isn’t ready for it.”
No. Intolerable. Beatrice would not allow it. She would not hand it over to a stupid boy who would only wreck things. She would not go back to living in the shadows, existing at the whim of a man who didn’t deserve her.
She couldn’t lose it all again. Not now, when things were coming along, when she finally had an idea of what to do and people to help her do it.
Well, that “we’ll see” and that “hmmm” were all the more reason to get herself positively entrenched. She had to ensure that when anyone in Manhattan thought of Goodwin’s, they thought of her. Beatrice. She had to make herself the name, the face, the One.
The beacon.
She had to create something so successful, so unabashedly female, so distinctly hers that Edward couldn’t—or wouldn’t—lay claim to it.
“Besides, Beatrice, you might even be married by the time he returns and you’ll want him to resume his duties so you can feather your new nest. You’re not too old yet. Mr. Wallace is no longer in mourning, and Mr. Fisk has yet to settle down.”
“Unlikely, Mother. And by unlikely I mean absolutely not.”
“So Dalton’s call this morning was simply . . . business. Not anything else?”
Ah, interesting. Beatrice regarded her mother thoughtfully. She had never liked him, even when he was merely an associate her father had taken notice of and given special training to. Her father always used to say he reminds me of myself at that age with a jovial laugh, and for some reason that didn’t soothe Estella Goodwin’s misgivings about him.
“Why don’t you like him?”
“I don’t know him well enough to form an opinion.”
That was society-lady-speak for utterly beneath my notice.
“Allow me to rephrase the question. Why don’t you like him for me?”
“He was a fortune hunter, Beatrice.”
“Fair. But so was the duke.”
“Nakedly so. Dalton wooed you into a foolish, girlish infatuation that would inevitably end with you brokenhearted and destitute.”
“He seems to have done well for himself though. Better than the duke.” Montrose had blown through her fortune. When no more was forthcoming from the Goodwin family—and she had yet to deliver him an heir—he was suddenly more amenable to a divorce. It would allow him to start again with a younger, richer bride.
“So it was only my heart that you were concerned with,” Beatrice said.
“Beatrice, be sensible. He was an impoverished Irish immigrant who worked at the store arranging boxes and things. He had aspirations for more and he would have used you to get it. But had you run off with him you would have been cut off from the society you grew up with, you would be poor, you would be an outcast, you would have been nothing.”
“I would have been loved.” Her mother pursed her lips. “And he did manage to earn the third greatest fortune in New York, if that’s so important.”
“Yes, with money he took not to marry you. Is that love, Beatrice? Is that stronger than what I feel for you and Edward? I only want success for my children. Security. Their futures assured.”
“Then you’ll want me to succeed. You’ll want me to make a success of the store. We both know Edward cannot or will not do it. But I need your help to do so, Mother.”
“Beatrice . . .”
“Mother, I’m wondering if you’ll help me throw a party.”
Her mother lifted one brow and it was society-lady-speak for I am intrigued in spite of myself.
“I need you to organize a debut party.”
“Aren’t you a little old for that, darling? That ship has sailed.”
“A debut party for the store. We are reopening soon and I want the whole world to know it. I want the grand opening to make a statement, an indelible impression. And I want to get people talking. So I need a debut party. A guest list, flowers, champagne, music, spectacle . . .”
“I do know what goes into throwing a party,” Estella murmured, and Beatrice’s heart beat a little faster with hope. If her mother could work with her, instead of against her. If she could just show her mother how she and the store belonged together, if she could just get her mother on her side . . .