Duchess by Design: The Gilded Age Girls Club

by Maya Rodale

  He had questions, that was all.

  He would never see her again, certainly.

  “Why did you not say anything about your real identity?”

  She gave a little laugh as she walked the corridor, toward the elevator, that plush and intimate box where he’d forgotten the world existed and half fell in love with her.

  “Such talk of real identities sounds so mysterious and dramatic. Honestly, it was all a simple misunderstanding. But for that matter, why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I didn’t think I had to.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  She acknowledged it. She knew. She had known who he was the whole time. After all, England’s finest had been disembarking by the dozens from fancy ships, ensconcing themselves at this very hotel, throwing themselves into the social whirl until they snared their heiress and hightailed it back to England.

  Look at his cousin Freddie, for example.

  They were silent in the elevator. An agonizing silence.

  The doors opened to the loud roar and crush of the lobby. She stepped out of the elevator and into the crowd. Not once did she glance over her shoulder at him to see if he followed, because what business could a man like him have following a girl like her?

  None. At. All.

  Still, he followed.

  Questions. He still had burning, urgent questions. The kind that would surely keep him up at night demanding answers and robbing him of sleep. Surely, he would never see her again and so logic and reason dictated that now was the time to ask.

  At the entrance of the hotel she paused. He caught up to her.

  This was goodbye, then. Forever, most definitely.

  Kingston did not care for the sensation in his chest that this fact produced. Like his heart was in the throes of a full-scale, violent rebellion. He couldn’t breathe.

  “Maybe I don’t want to be wanted only for my position,” he said plainly, giving voice to that feeling for the first time in his entire existence.

  “Maybe I don’t want to be perceived as any less than you.”

  She turned to the right and started down Fifth Avenue. He fell in step beside her, stealing and savoring these last moments with her. Because this was the end, of course. It had to be. He could not imagine a world in which a man like him married a girl like her.

  “You knew who I was,” he said.

  “I suspected. Anyone of sense or who reads a newspaper would. Handsome, well-dressed Englishman shows up in the Fifth Avenue Hotel? Really, it can only be one thing. An English peer, wife hunting among the New York dollar princesses. I may be of the working class, but I’m not ignorant.”

  “Now you wound me.”

  She shrugged. “You’re here to wed a rich girl and I’m not interested in marrying. I have dreams and plans other than keeping busy with seating arrangements and hosting parties and whatever it is that duchesses do all day. Am I the only one who thinks a walk in the park with a duke is just a walk in the park?”

  Just a walk in the park.

  She slayed him.

  She was, quite possibly, the only woman in the world who considered a walk in the park with a duke just a walk in the park. Something clenched around his heart. Again. He had found her: the rare and elusive woman who cared not for prestigious titles. Who could, perhaps, love him for him.

  Not that he could afford to love her. Or even be enchanted with her.

  She probably wasn’t even flattered that he was trailing her down the Manhattan streets like a lovesick swain. Which he was not. He was a gentleman, irate at being grievously deceived by some slip of a girl, and determined to get to the bottom of the situation once and for all and forever. That was all.

  “I’m also a marquis,” he told her, because he felt some powerful need to impress upon her how prestigious he was, and as such, how significant his attentions were. It would hint at the magnitude of this misunderstanding. This would explain how flummoxed and angry he was. Or so he hoped. “The Marquis of Westlake, Earl of Eastland, and Viscount Blackwood. Shall I continue? I have a few lesser titles that I never use.”

  “I cannot imagine your point.”

  “Nothing is ever just this or just that between a woman and a duke. Or a marquis, an earl, and a viscount.”

  There was a beat of silence.

  “Is this the part where I am supposed to swoon?”

  His mouth dropped open. He shut it quickly.

  “Shall I ask around to see if anyone is carrying smelling salts?”

  She craned her neck, making a show of seeing who around them on the street might be in possession of smelling salts. Perhaps a street vendor? Was there an apothecary nearby? Not a single other person on the city street was remotely interested in them.

  She was making light of their situation.

  She did not understand: she had made a duke fall for a seamstress after just a walk in the park. She had made an Englishman have intense feelings of the romantic variety. After little more than a chance encounter in an elevator and afternoon together, she had so swiftly and expertly bewitched him just by being herself. He was at a loss.

  “You’re supposed to be impressed,” Kingston told her, matching his steps to hers as they walked at a brisk pace down Fifth Avenue before turning onto a side street. “You are supposed to understand the duties of my position are such that I am required to wed a bride with certain qualifications.”

  “Which I do understand and which I do not possess.”

  “Which makes it . . . inconvenient or perhaps distracting . . . for me to . . .”

  “As much as I am enjoying watching you grasp about for the polite words to convey what can only be insulting, I shall cut to the chase for you. I understand the situation perfectly. You need a wealthy bride. I am not a wealthy woman. I do not move in the ‘certain circles’ that care to be impressed by your titles. I’m just an American girl who enjoys long walks in the park with charming company and who is trying to make something of herself without entangling a duke, a marquis, an earl, and a viscount in the process.”

  Kingston stood still.

  She was doing him a favor.

  She was refusing him.

  He did not know a world in which this happened.

  “So I really do not see what all the fuss is about,” she continued. “You cannot be with me and I am not interested in being with you. Besides, you never asked.”

  They had stopped walking and had come to stand in front of a shop now. He peered up, noting a sign that said Madame Chalfont: Dressmaker. Adeline looked at him in the expectant way that he looked at his solicitors and estate managers: Are you quite finished? I have other business to attend to.

  But he wasn’t finished with her. Not yet.

  Not that he could articulate what and why and how.

  “You are not like any other women I have met.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “I do find myself enchanted by you.”

  “So you said. When we first met.”

  Kingston noticed that her gaze shifted anxiously from him to the shop. It was almost as if she didn’t want to be seen with him. That never happened. Until now. Until her.

  “But you do understand why I cannot pursue our acquaintance further.” He cleared his throat. “Even if I may wish to.”

  There, that is what he’d been trying to say, however inelegantly. I like you. But . . .

  She gave him a soft, sweet smile. Something twisted in his gut. “I did enjoy our time together,” she said. “Even if it was just a ride in an elevator and just a walk in the park. Goodbye to you, duke, marquis, earl, viscount, and all your other titles. Good luck with the heiresses.”

  She turned to enter the shop but a short, stout, impeccably attired woman emerged to block her entrance. Her graying hair was coiffed into a towering arrangement and a length of pink measuring tape was draped across her shoulders.

  “What is this?” She waved her hands dramatically to indicate that this
included Adeline, the duke and whatever had just happened between them.

  “This is nothing, Madame Chalfont,” Adeline said. “I am just returning after Miss Burnett’s fitting at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. You know she has committed to a very large order and has expressly asked for me.”

  Kingston thought that was a lot of information for a simple question.

  Madame Chalfont narrowed her eyes. “Is that all?”

  “Yes, that is all.”

  “Then why do you have this gentleman nipping at your heels and sniffing around your skirts?”

  Such accusations were not to be tolerated. Especially not by this stout old woman who slipped in and out of a fake French accent.

  Kingston drew himself up to his full height and squared his shoulders. In his most ducal voice he drawled, “Kindly take care not to make such unfounded accusations about the lady and myself.”

  He was a duke. He did not do something so pedestrian as sniff around skirts.

  But Madame Chalfont was another one of those unimpressed females and would have none of it. “Oh, isn’t this a gallant one. Why is he so gallant, Miss Black? Hmm? You have been gone for quite a while. What took you so long?” Madame Chalfont questioned, even though it was quite clear she had already formulated a conclusion and nothing on God’s green earth would dissuade her from it.

  “I told you, Madame Chalfont,” Adeline said with an admirable amount of patience. “I was making some final adjustments to Miss Burnett’s wardrobe. I returned immediately by the most direct route.”

  “With a man. In broad daylight. Shameless hussy.”

  Adeline took a break from holding the gaze of Madame Chalfont to give Kingston a glance that took a year off his life, at least.

  It was time for him to step in for a display of heroics and ducal powers. He was born and raised for such displays of authority.

  “Madame—though I hesitate to use the word since you are not displaying any qualities befitting the appellation—I’ll thank you not to make such aspersions on the fine character of this young woman. I was merely escorting her directly from the Fifth Avenue Hotel to this present establishment.”

  In England, this would be sufficient. In England, Madame Chalfont would already be begging his pardon and issuing heartfelt apologies for the misunderstanding. In England, the word of the duke was second only to the word of God and no one dared to cross it. If he said that fire was cold, then fire was cold.

  But he was not in England.

  He was in New York City. His lofty lordship routine did not have the desired—or usual—effect. Madame Chalfont ignored Kingston.

  Then she turned to Miss Black and said, “You’re fired. Effective immediately.”

  “Madame Chalfont, please!”

  “You heard me! You’re fired. I’m tired of hearing about your ridiculous, newfangled dress ideas. I’m appalled you haven’t demonstrated more sense after all the effort I have made to impress upon you the importance of a woman’s virtue. Take all your ridiculous designs and go plague another modiste with them. Or . . .” Here she paused to sneer, “Maybe your friend will set you up with a little shop of your own. Either way, I don’t care. You, Miss Black, are fired. Good day.”

  “But Madame—”

  She stepped forward only to have the shop door slam inches from her nose. She wasted not a second before pounding at that door. Her tiny gloved fists hardly made a sound audible over the din of the city.

  “Allow me.” Kingston stepped in and pounded on the door with his strong fists. Heroics. Must display heroics. Her life had just been ruined because of him and he felt the noble obligation to save her.

  But the door remained firmly shut to them both.

  Adeline whirled around to face him, righteous fury blazing in her eyes. “Look what you’ve done!”

  Everything was ruined. Everything!

  The door slammed in her face and remained stubbornly shut. Presumably Madame Chalfont had given orders that none of her fellow seamstresses were allowed to open it to her. She was done. Finished. Out of work and out of luck.

  The duke—oh, that blasted, clueless man—still stood there, shocked, simply shocked by what damage he had wrought.

  Adeline had known that Madame had it in for her; she always disregarded her “pesky” suggestions of how to improve a design. I hired you to sew, she’d repeat. Adeline should have known that she’d seize any excuse to get rid of her.

  And here was the perfect excuse.

  A six-foot-tall, impeccably turned out British aristocrat sniffing at her skirts and nipping at her heels. There was only one reason men like him engaged with women like her, and it had nothing to do with maintaining the moral standards any employer expected from her young female staff.

  Of course Madame Chalfont made assumptions.

  “Go. Just go.” Adeline’s voice was low and lethal, as she voiced the word she should have said a few blocks earlier. But no, it had been a perverse pleasure to have the city’s most eligible bachelor following her down Fifth Avenue. A small part of her had been charmed by the spectacle and enjoyed, for a moment, being a woman that men lost their heads over.

  That moment was over.

  “Miss Black—”

  “You’ve said enough. Take your fancy titles—all of them—and go.”

  “I’ll make this right. If you’ll just—”

  She spared him a glance, a quick darting glance that she hoped he wouldn’t see. His eyes were pleading. His countenance pale. It was obvious that guilt and regret were feasting on his conscience. Good.

  She turned on her French heels—a week’s wages, well spent?—and started toward the tiny room she let at a boardinghouse on Fourteenth Street. She would have to economize in order to make her rent payment. Perhaps she could get by on just one meal a day.

  On her way, Adeline would stop in every shop she passed to inquire about positions. She could not afford to lose a day, an hour, a minute. Literally—there were not enough hours in the day for her work to make up for wages lost. Every penny was precious and essential.

  She tried to focus on practical considerations and not the fact that she had come so far from being just another tenement girl basting sleeves. Differences aside, she’d had a good job with Madame Chalfont, one that at least allowed her to afford her own (small) room and independence. And she’d had that opportunity with Miss Burnett; pity, Adeline would never get to see her wear those dresses now.

  And she still had a duke sniffing at her skirts and nipping at her heels.

  “Miss Black—wait. I must apologize.”

  “Yes, you do. But I haven’t got time for that now.”

  “Please forgive me.”

  “Forgive you? Do you think you and your notions of chivalry and soothing your conscience are really what is on the forefront of my mind right now?”

  He pressed his lips together and said nothing. Yes. Yes, he did think that.

  She could see the headlines now: Woman strangles man with his own self-importance. Man chokes to death on his own sense of entitlement.

  “Wait—”

  “I cannot wait. I must find another position.”

  “Immediately? Can you not take the day? An hour?”

  She smiled, an indulgent smile reserved for children and fools.

  “How little you know of the plight of a working woman. No, I cannot take a day off. Not if I wish to pay for my lodgings, or eat, or maintain my dignity. You feel destitute because your club membership comes due or a tradesman inquires about debts or one of your houses needs some repairs. Whereas I might not have enough money for bread or lodgings. And then I shall have no choice but to become the woman Madame Chalfont has just accused me of being.”

  “I will fix this,” he said, in that ducal way of his, in which he just needed to say it to make it so. It was a pity that the world didn’t work like that. “I have caused this catastrophe and I shall make it right. I’ll have a word with—” Here he paused, as they realized that he did not
know with whom to have a word about the plight of an unemployed seamstress he had no business knowing. Instead, he said, “I shall find you a position. And in the meantime, I can provide some funds to tide you over—”

  An enraged Adeline imagined yet more headlines: Man shredded to ribbons by scissors-wielding seamstress. Duke skewered alive by woman’s hat pin.

  As it was, she felt the heat and color rise in her cheeks.

  “And what will I owe you then?” Adeline asked hotly.

  “Nothing, of course. My honor compels me to make the offer.”

  “And how shall I explain it to my friends? What will they say of me then? What will I say when prospective employers have reason to question my virtue because I have been kept by a duke?”

  “What can I do? Surely there must be something I can do.”

  “Change the world, Duke.”

  Adeline was too angry to pin down the thoughts swirling in her head. Something about how he could not just throw his money around and solve all her problems. Maybe today he could, but not for all the days and not for all the girls. The matter was bigger than just her, in just this moment. Perhaps if her employability didn’t rest on virtue. Perhaps if she earned a decent wage—enough to save for a rainy day like this one. Perhaps if she had more choices, more opportunities.

  Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

  He shrugged and raised his palms in a gesture of defeat. “I cannot change the world. I’m just one man.”

  Adeline gave a bitter laugh. “Apologies, but I do not have the time or inclination to listen to a wealthy man lament his lack of power. Go find your heiress, Duke.”

  Chapter Eight

  Do you need an introduction to Emma Goldman? You have seen supposed pictures of her. You have read of her as a property-destroying, capitalist-killing, riot-promoting agitator. You see her in your mind a great raw-boned creature, with short hair and bloomers, a red flag in one hand, a burning torch in the other . . .