An Heiress to Remember (The Gilded Age Girls Club #3) - Maya Rodale Page 0,50

automobile was a spectacle that drew massive crowds; she saw the lines around the block from her corner office. At first, she felt panicked. But upon closer look, she noticed something: those waiting in line were mostly men with the occasional woman accompanying them. When she strolled around the sales floor in Goodwin’s, she heard her female customers chattering about the serene space her store provided, the escape from all those men who wanted to stand around and talk about horsepower and throbbing engines and combustion and whatnot.

There was no sign at Goodwin’s that said Ladies Only but the space had that effect of welcoming women and warding off men.

So no, she was not threatened by the power of his automobile, the thrust of his horsepower engine, or the long lines of men.

“So you’re not worried about the competition, Beatrice?”

“In a case of compacts versus cars, I think I know what our clientele wants,” she said with a smile.

“Compacts, I’m delighted to say,” Daisy replied. Her Dr. Swan’s product line of night creams and lip paints was flying off the shelves. It so happened the department store was the perfect venue for her oh so scandalous product—women could go into Goodwin’s to purchase something else and just happen to sample the product with assistance from specially trained salesgirls and carry it out in a Goodwin’s bag, with no one any wiser.

“Confirmed,” Beatrice said proudly. “Everything is flying off the shelves. The relaunch of the store is a smashing success. It’s been running Margaret and myself ragged, so I haven’t had a moment to look at that automobile but I do hear women glad to find a respite from the men and the crowds in our ladies-only reading room.”

“I love the reading room,” sighed one woman. “It’s the only space where I can sit down for a moment without anyone crawling on me and asking me for something.”

“Well, I would be interested in the automobile if they let ladies drive it,” Harriet said. “I wouldn’t mind having such power under my command. I don’t believe for a second that the fairer sex cannot handle it.”

“That’s what they say now,” Adeline replied. “Give it time. Ladies will be driving all over the world.”

Beatrice sipped her tea and listened to her friends talk about driving and power and escape and the wind in their hair. It was the feeling she had when riding her bicycle to work each morning and home each night. It was the feeling that she could go anywhere in the world that she wanted.

Such a glorious feeling, that.

And if she could go anywhere in the world?

Why she would come right here, in the company of these women where she at once felt safer and yet more daring, all at once.

But she also had a hankering to wander a few blocks east, toward Broadway.

To Dalton’s.

Because they had kissed. A hot, take-no-prisoners kiss.

It had been sixteen years since she’d had a kiss that made her want to throw caution to the wind and indulge in all sorts of wickedness. Her desire had been asleep all these years and that kiss had woken it up. It was roaring back to life, making demands.

Then Dalton had proceeded to ignore her.

There was no note, no personal call, no hello on the street.

Which was maddening because he was right there on Broadway in his marble palace and she was right there across the street, also on Broadway in her own castle of commerce. It would have been easy enough to make their paths cross, if one should be so inclined.

One had to conclude that he was avoiding her. Or was an utter, absolute cad.

This was a problem because she wanted to kiss him again. And she could, if she wanted. If he was amenable. He had felt very . . . amenable.

True fact.

Thank God she had other things on her mind so thoughts of kissing him didn’t occupy her every waking hour. Important things, like the status of a shipment of cashmere shawls, or disputes between shopgirls in different departments, or dreaming up a new spectacle that would rival his automobile and keep people talking about her store, not his.

That kiss though. It had awoken a sleeping dragon inside of her. And now that dragon was hungry.

And he had disappeared, which made her consider that he was not trying to seduce her to destroy her. Which only made her want him more.

But Dalton was too busy with his car. With a big, hulking, powerful machine.