An Heiress to Remember (The Gilded Age Girls Club #3) - Maya Rodale Page 0,57

a huddle near the entryway, their faces drawn, their fists anxiously gripping their dark skirts. She quickened her steps.

“What is it?”

“Take a look,” Margaret said grimly and the rest of the women stepped aside.

Beatrice looked into the room and uttered some choice words that a society debutante and duchess had no business knowing.

“Who and what and how?” Beatrice sputtered.

Nearly all the books had been swiped from the shelves to land on a jumbled heap on the floor. All the periodicals—newspapers and issues of Mme. Demorest’s Mirror of Fashions and Mrs. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper were slashed, shredded, and strewn about the room. It looked like a storm had hit, or a tantrum. But this was no accident. It was very clearly intentional.

What Beatrice was looking at through narrowed eyes was busy work. Hours and hours of busy work to put the room to rights. It was the sort of mischief that didn’t cause lasting damage—other than a feeling of vague unease—but it would result in hours of tedious work for women who had better things to do than reshelve a library full of books.

“It happened sometime between closing hour last night and this morning,” Margaret explained.

Beatrice felt her temperature drop.

“Do we have any idea who did this?”

She assumed it was a man who had done this—along with the smashed mirrors a few weeks earlier. Women didn’t usually have the combination of free time and lack of empathy that such vandalism required. But which man? Any number of them would be out of sorts enough with her—Mr. Stevens, or any of the other men she had fired? Maybe even Dalton?

She did her best to sound normal but her heart was racing because she had been here late last night. And so had Dalton. She racked her brain searching for a moment when he might have been able to do this. Would he have done it? He certainly didn’t want to see her store succeed.

“No one saw anything or anyone,” Margaret said. “Do you have any idea, Beatrice?”

Beatrice peered at all the women looking at her anxiously and expectantly for an answer and assurance. She so badly wanted to give it to them but what could she say?

Perhaps it was Dalton because I was here with him after hours?

Consider me your fearless leader while I consort with the enemy?

There are so many men I have angered with my ambition and now we are all in danger because of it?

“No,” she said finally. “I don’t know who might have done this. But I do know that we cannot let it stop us.”

Chapter Twenty-four

Dalton’s Department Store

The next night

The note Dalton sent to Beatrice that afternoon simply read “Your store or mine?” Her reply was immediate: “Yours, tonight.” Thus he began counting down to closing time.

It was an hour that Dalton usually approached with dread. After the hustle and bustle of his store, the quiet solitude of his mansion was an uncomfortable weight on his chest. It was a feeling that, for all he had attained and accomplished, something was missing.

He did not, in fact, have it all. Whatever it was.

He was fairly certain it wasn’t just a wife, any wife. He hadn’t been a monk and he hadn’t avoided courtship, either. But something was still missing.

One might have called it loneliness, yet he was a rich, powerful, connected man about town who never wanted for company or people surrounding him.

So he went to his club to avoid thinking about it. He spent evenings at the opera, he dined out and attended balls.

But just like that, the promise of Beatrice had him begging for closing time. He was ready and waiting when she strolled through the revolving door a minute shy of eight o’clock. He met her at the bottom of the grand staircase and led her up, up, up to the housewares department. They arrived just as the last employees left the sales floor and the doors were locked to the outside world.

They were alone.

Like Goodwin’s, the department was full of little staged domestic scenes. A dining room here, set for twelve with the finest crystal, silver, and china with fresh flowers and candles. Over there, a parlor set up, complete with a faux mantel. There were plush velvet upholstered settees and chairs, with a low table between them that he’d set with chilled champagne, crystal flutes, more candles, and fresh flowers.

“Oh, Dalton, everything is so romantic. And here I thought we were just having a secret, illicit affair. This is much more than