An Heiress to Remember (The Gilded Age Girls Club #3) - Maya Rodale Page 0,51

Well, if he were really interested in powerful forces then he should be so lucky as to feel the constant thrum of desire she was feeling now. She had spent her youth keeping her wanton feelings (mostly) in check. She had . . . survived . . . her marriage. And now no forces of shame or scandal could compel her to keep her feelings to herself.

She wanted him. The man she had once loved and who knew how to make her burn.

“Beatrice?”

She blinked to attention at the sound of her name.

The conversation had already moved on to other things, such as the series of lectures that Harriet was organizing for the store on things like domestic hygiene, literature, scientific cooking, and public speaking. All topics which drew women into the store in droves. But Beatrice had been left behind.

“Apologies. I am distracted.”

“Is it the car?” Harriet asked with a smirk, knowing full well it was not the car.

“Yes. It is the car. I feel like I ought to see it. For professional purposes,” Beatrice replied, which was a lie that everyone understood the truth of but was kind enough not to say. The man himself was far more compelling than any hunk of metal.

“If you go now you can catch a glimpse of the car before closing time,” Ava said with that smile she got when she sensed an opportunity for matchmaking.

Beatrice decided she would go. She would go flirt with danger, risk a little scandal, seek her share of pleasure. Just because she could.

Chapter Twenty-one

Dalton’s Department Store

Dalton noted with no small amount of satisfaction that the lines were wrapped around his store once again, all thanks to that automobile display and the extensive newspaper advertising he had done for it.

The people came in droves. The problem was that it was mostly men who were willing to line up and look at the car up close. Oh, the men brought their entire families with them. But it was the men who lingered, talked garrulously, and held up the line, which left women to chase after children and keep them from touching the display and generally running amok.

Nobody shopped.

Nobody could, with their attentions fixed upon ogling a car or wrangling a child or standing by their man.

Nevertheless, it looked like a success.

There were crowds of people clamoring for their turn to view the automobile, the press was raving about it, and everywhere he turned at his club or parties or in the park, people were talking about it.

Of all the people who streamed in to see the car, one did not.

It felt as if none of it mattered—not the spectacle he’d created, the dreams he’d conjured in crowds of people, the sales he’d made—if Beatrice didn’t see it.

Dalton hated that he noticed her absence. He had spent the better part of a decade not noticing her absence. But then again, he’d kissed her last week and the memory was still strong, and he swore he could still taste her. He refused to lose to her, and since he wasn’t certain he could resist her, he stayed away.

Besides, he was busy.

Running Manhattan’s premier department store and assuring it stayed that way wasn’t something one did part-time.

And then he caught sight of Beatrice pushing through the revolving door at three minutes to closing time.

“I’ve come to see that car,” she said by way of hello when she saw him. “The famous, fancy car.”

“The store is closing in . . .” Dalton made a show of checking his timepiece. “Three minutes.”

“I know.” She flashed him a smile and strolled past him as if she owned the place and as if the rules did not apply to her. What was he to do but follow? He couldn’t have his competitor running wild in his store, unchaperoned, after hours. A few salesclerks glanced at her and then him warily as they were eager to complete their closing tasks for the day.

He followed her.

He followed her and reluctantly admired the sway of her hips in that dress, the tendrils of curls that escaped her coiffure and suggested she’d been so busy, running around all day, doing important things.

What? he wondered. What was she up to next?

If he were her lover and not her rival she might tell him . . .

She fought the crowds, all moving toward the exit while she was moving deeper into the store, up the stairs, until she arrived on the roof, in front of the display. A gleaming black open-top automobile