An Heiress to Remember (The Gilded Age Girls Club #3) - Maya Rodale Page 0,24

know this, Beatrice. You have us to help you. We are standing behind you, cheering you on and offering our support. You are not one woman alone against the world, even if you may feel thusly.”

This made Beatrice think, for a brief shining second, Maybe. Maybe she could do this.

All quite overwhelming, really.

And there really was only one thing to do when the circumstances of one’s life were tremendously overwhelming: spend some time perusing a selection of shoes. Get lost exploring different fabrics and imagining dresses that she could conquer the world in, wander slowly through a store and let herself forget everything . . . other than darling new hats or new china patterns.

In other words, go shopping.

Chapter Eleven

Dalton’s Department Store

Shop was too small a word for Dalton’s. Store didn’t even begin to capture the expansive spectacle. Department store gave a hint of what one might expect, but it was woefully insufficient. Maybe that’s why they called it the Marble Palace. Six stories of white Tuckahoe marble in the Italianate style, it spanned an entire city block, and was full of beautiful scenes and exquisite things to stoke a woman’s desire.

But mostly one only needed to say “Dalton’s” and it was understood.

This was not Dalton’s first store; he’d started with a small one on Reade Street and over the years had increased the size of his stores as his profits increased. The Marble Palace was his masterpiece. A palace of wonder, desire, a splendor. Anything a woman could possibly want was presented in stunning visual displays that inspired intense yearning for things she didn’t even know she wanted yet somehow, suddenly, vitally needed.

He built this.

All of it.

He did it right across the street from Goodwin’s. The location was not accidental.

All in the hopes that one day she would come back to New York and wander into his shop.

Dalton was well aware that she had married a duke and lived on a vast estate on the far side of the world and owned her own department store across the street, if she was ever in town, and therefore was unlikely to ever cross the threshold of his.

Yet a small part of him had long anticipated the moment that it might happen. And when it did happen, he would impress her with his wealth, power, prestige. He would make her burn with regret, he would inspire her with an intense yearning for the man she thought she didn’t need but yet somehow, suddenly, vitally needed.

A foolish dream.

And yet—there she was.

Dalton, dressed in a crisp dark suit, watched from the mezzanine as she pushed through the revolving door—the first and only in Manhattan, thank you very much—and slipped into the shop. It was his habit to spend the better portion of his day on the floor, observing his customers and employees and their intricate dance together.

Beatrice happened to catch his eye.

Dalton was in no rush as he proceeded down the central aisle toward her. He was content to observe the way she traced her fingers along a table of soft, pastel-colored kidskin gloves—a store exclusive, imported from Europe—and linger over a display of diamonds presented on a bed of deep sapphire velvet, locked behind highly polished glass.

He felt no small measure of pride at having orchestrated this moment.

“Of all the department stores in Manhattan, you had to walk into mine,” he murmured.

She looked up, hitting him with those blue eyes.

“Oh, hello, Dalton,” she said in that way of hers, like they were old friends and nothing more. Yet his heart was thundering with sixteen years of anticipation of This. Exact. Moment.

Look at me now, Beatrice.

Dalton stood in the heart of the marble palace he had built. In an era of obscene fortunes he possessed one of the larger ones. In other words, he was no longer the boy she’d left behind, but a wealthy, powerful, prestigious man to be reckoned with. He had played the game and won—almost.

“What brings you into the shop today? Is Goodwin’s not to your satisfaction?”

“If you must know, Dalton, I’m here as a spy intent upon stealing your trade secrets.”

“Most women come in for perfume, silk, a little trinket.”

“I’m not most women.”

“I know.”

There was a world, a lifetime in that “I know.” They both paused subtly in awareness of it, neither of them wanting to make a thing of it. They were enemies now and he’d do well to remember it even if the feelings of sixteen years earlier were crashing over him now like time had