by Maya Rodale
His caller, Miss Claflin, was one of those new women who were raised in wealth and in all their spare time began to pursue college degrees and public works and charitable endeavors. There were scores of them rushing about the city, improving things.
“Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Dalton.”
“The pleasure is all mine, Miss Claflin. Please, take a seat. Haynesworth will bring refreshments shortly.”
She sat primly on the edge of one of the upholstered settees, he on a chair opposite. Antiques, from Europe.
It was just the two of them. Alone. In this vast expanse of house. Somewhere, servants hummed with the activity required to keep a house of this magnitude running but one was hardly aware of them. As always, even with a guest, his house felt like a tomb.
“Mr. Dalton, I have heard that you are amenable to receiving certain proposals.”
She was nervous, which was to be expected. The decor had been chosen and designed—by his architect and decorator, at his orders—to impress and intimidate anyone who crossed the threshold. It was to be a house worthy of, say, a duchess. But what worked well when entertaining members of the Four Hundred from whom he sought to gain acceptance, seemed overdone and garish when entertaining a caller like Miss Claflin, a young woman who came on her own to solicit funds on behalf of the poor.
He knew all about callers like Miss Claflin. She was not the first to come to him, seeking his support.
“Tell me about your work, Miss Claflin.”
“At the Orchard Street Settlement, I work with immigrant women who are down on their luck and whom society has turned its back on. These women are looking for work—honest work—but they often need help finding suitable positions and keeping their families together while getting themselves established.”
Women like his mother once had been. Except she hadn’t had benefactresses like Miss Claflin with their lofty ideals, society connections, and aspirations to save everyone. Dalton hadn’t forgotten; there was not enough marble and gilt in the world to cover up those memories.
“We are based in the Lower East Side,” she continued. “Where we are better able to serve our constituents.”
Of course they were. The Lower East Side was far downtown. Far away from this palatial spread. Downtown, they slept four to a tiny, dark room, which was probably poorly lit, barely ventilated, and ripe for a disease outbreak. He knew this because he had lived this.
Now Dalton had a city block to himself.
How far he’d come.
This is what he wanted. He had worked for this. He had earned it.
He should not feel guilty. And yet . . .
Miss Claflin elaborated upon the services offered, the women the organization had helped, the positive effects upon the neighborhood. She gave him all the information he could need to determine that his money, should he deign to offer it, would go to a worthy cause. And she was every bit as professional as any man he did business with. Perhaps even more so because she was aware that being taken seriously was not a given. While she projected a calm exterior, he could see the nervous trembling underneath.
In that sense, she reminded him of Beatrice.
Earlier this afternoon she had practically been vibrating with a nervous energy, valiantly struggling to be still. As if perhaps she didn’t always go storming into board of director meetings or face down old flames. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so much like everything was on the line. He was almost jealous.
“Are you nervous, Miss Claflin? Please don’t be nervous.”
“Forgive me if I am, Mr. Dalton. But so much depends upon me, and you and this interview. Your support would make or break our organization. Lives depend upon the largess of people like you, and people like me trying to convince you to share some of it.”
Don’t be nervous. It was a stupid thing to say. She was right. People were counting on her braving this gilded palace. People were counting on him—his fortune, really—to save them. And he’d done everything he could to make it hard to ask.
The massive house so far uptown, so far removed from where he had come. The gilt- and marble- and money-drenched walls designed to intimidate. There was a distinct and noticeable lack of a woman’s presence or children’s laughter that would have softened the mood. But no, he was some lone rogue bachelor, lording about with his cold and isolated uptown palace, his imported butler, his retail empire of fine and unaffordable things.
Now he was about to do it again.
Be intimidating. Make her nervous.
“How much?” he asked bluntly. That was why she was here. But she looked taken aback. “How much do you need?”
“A thousand dollars.”
“No,” Dalton said flatly. Her chin quivered ever so slightly, and it was the only hint of how much she was counting on success today. “That is a woefully insufficient number. Ask for more.”
Miss Claflin stared at him for a long second.
“Two thousand dollars.”
He leaned forward. “More, Miss Claflin.”
As Dalton saw it, his store was taking money from the wealthy. He took a certain perverse pleasure in giving it back to the people they tried to keep down. That, and he remembered.
She said an even higher number.
“That’s more like it.”
Dalton pulled his checkbook from a pocket in his suit jacket and wrote it out. It was the biggest number she could bring herself to ask for. And it was a fairly insignificant amount to him. He handed the check to her.
“When you call upon the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and Astors, tell them I gave you this amount. They’ll match it.”
“Are you certain?”
“There is nothing more reliable than male ego’s desperate need to impress.”
Finally, she smiled. Genuinely smiled. “You don’t need to convince me of that.”
When she didn’t quite move to leave, he asked, “Is there anything else?”
“Thank you, Mr. Dalton. I hope you are not too lonely on your own in this big house.”
It was his turn to smile politely, to give no indication of the tumult her words inspired.
While she may have been impressed or intimidated, while she may have gotten the message that he was a Very Impressive Person, she still thought he might be lonely. She might pity him. She insinuated that he did not, in fact, have it all. Or enough. Or the right thing. It was a peculiar feeling he hadn’t experienced in years, that of wanting something.
Besides Goodwin’s, that is. And revenge.
“After the bustle of the store, I find the quiet uptown a welcome respite.”
“Of course. And if you ever do get lonely, please know that you are always welcome to visit us at the Orchard Street Settlement House.”
“Thank you for the kind invitation.” They both knew he was unlikely to ever do it. She didn’t understand that he couldn’t bring himself to return to the place he hadn’t stopped running from.
Chapter Eight
The Goodwin Residence
One West Thirty-Fourth Street
Later that evening
Beatrice returned home, shaking with nerves and excess energy, equal parts exhaustion and exhilaration. She hadn’t felt this much in years. The sheer quantity of emotion pulsing through her veins threatened to overwhelm her. She might have to lie down. Except she could not sit still.
It was quite a change from all those endless, empty years at the castle when she had honestly wondered if one could die of boredom.
What a day.
Of course Dalton’s had to be the Wesley Dalton. Her Dalton! Her one and only, once upon a time. Her heart had been full of anguish when she had accepted the duke’s proposal because it was The Right Thing To Do and what a Good Girl would do. She hadn’t regretted not running off with Wes—especially when he was revealed to be a fortune hunter—but she had lamented the stark choices she’d been forced into. But it was nothing compared to her heart breaking when she’d learned that all Wes had ever
really wanted from her was Goodwin’s—why else would he have taken her mother’s offer of money to disappear?
Why else would he reappear now, ready to buy it? And he’d been smoldering about it for years, too. It was positively tragic—and terribly inconvenient.
Now he was to be her rival. She had taken a good look in his eyes, blue and stormy as ever, and saw the anger there. He’d been nurturing that anger, holding that grudge, for sixteen years.
He wanted her store.
He had always wanted her store.
He would stop at nothing to make it his.
And it would be her store, if she had anything to do with it and she did.
She had summoned every last ounce of her courage and her every last nerve to blaze into that boardroom and declare, in no uncertain terms, that there would be no sale.
It had been exhilarating.
And now she had to dress and go down to dinner.
In the dining room, Beatrice had scarcely taken a sip of wine when Edward stumbled in and dropped into his chair. She caught a waft of whiskey; he had already had a drink or two it seemed. Even seated at the head of the table, he didn’t look any more commanding here than he had in the boardroom.
A servant immediately and wordlessly placed a glass of spirits on the table.
Edward’s hand closed around the glass while he shot her a murderous glare.
“I have never been so humiliated in my life.”
“Does that include the time you got so drunk you fell off your horse and wet yourself at the Osgoods’ house party in 1881?”
“Beatrice!” her mother exclaimed.
“Do you know what she did today, Mother?”
“This soup is delicious,” Estella said. “Try the soup, everyone.”
“She interrupted my board meeting and refused a very good offer to buy Goodwin’s.”
“Beatrice!” her mother gasped again.
“It was a necessary interruption. Did you know, Mother, that our agreement is required for any sale of the company? The gentlemen of the board seemed either ignorant of the fact or unconcerned about upholding the rule of law. It was a good thing I had consulted a lawyer about it,” Beatrice said.
No one replied. Silence reigned.
“You’re an embarrassment,” Edward hissed at her. Beatrice ignored him.
“This soup is delicious, Mother.”
“I shall pass our compliments on to the cook.”
“Never mind the soup,” Edward said impatiently. “Do you honestly think you’re going to stop the sale? And then what will you do?”
He smirked and took a long swallow of his drink, draining the glass. His angry gaze never left hers. His expectation that a servant would notice his glass and refill it was met.
“I think I should take over and run the store.”
Edward spit out said sip of whiskey.
“Edward!” Mother exclaimed.
“Over my dead body,” Edward said.
“Edward, please don’t be so dramatic,” Beatrice replied.
“Beatrice, running the store will ruin your prospects,” her mother said.
“I’m not interested in my prospects.”
“You should be. You ought to marry well and marry soon before Edward loses the shop—”
“Mother!” This time Edward shouted. “I’m not losing the shop. I’m selling it so I have the funds to invest in Hodsoll’s silver mine. I already have an offer from Dalton himself.”
And now Estella choked on her wine. A proper lady would choke to death on her wine before she did something as unseemly as spit her drink across the table into this marvelous soup.
A silence fell. And that silence was punctuated by the low, firm, cold voice of Mrs. Estella Goodwin. “You will not sell Goodwin’s to that man.”
“You don’t have a say, Mother.”
“I am your mother. Of course I have a say.”
“Even the law says she has a say,” Beatrice pointed out.
Edward did not take kindly to being reminded of the rule of law. Some men were like that.
“What’s wrong with selling to Dalton anyway?” Edward asked.
Beatrice and her mother exchanged A Look across the table.
For various reasons which would not be spoken of, that question would go unanswered. Both mother and daughter knew. Oh, they knew. For Beatrice, the reasons were deeply personal. Estella had her own reasons and she clung to them fiercely.
Make no mistake: Estella would never, ever agree to sell the store to Wes Dalton.
One would be wise to never underestimate two women united in their purpose, especially if it involved thwarting a man. Especially if said man was fixated upon a course of action with which they disagreed.
Nonetheless, Edward persisted in his foolish plans. So really, they were left with no choice but to arrange for his transportation to a sanitarium on Long Island where he might restore his health. The drinking had taken such a toll upon his constitution.
And that was how Beatrice, the reigning debutante of 1879 and the scandalously divorced Duchess of Montrose, came to be president of Goodwin’s department store.
Chapter Nine
Goodwin’s Department Store
Broadway
Beatrice pushed open the doors to Goodwin’s and stepped inside, feeling both terrified and determined. It was her first day reporting for duty as the president of Goodwin’s Department Store. So what if she was a divorced woman with little to no relevant on-paper experience and who was only in this position due to nepotism, ambition, and a nefarious streak?
She squared her shoulders. She could do this.
Beatrice strode farther into the store. Her arrival went unremarked upon. As a duchess, she never entered a room without being announced first.
Inexperienced in retail as she might be, she was fairly certain that someone ought to welcome her. The clerks milling around the sales floor might not be aware that she was the new president—did they even know?—but they should at least assume that she was a customer.
She probably ought to . . . announce herself?
Beatrice thought about Dalton and what he would do; he would stroll in like he owned the place and just expect everyone to fall over themselves accommodating his every whim and wish. Except she did own the place, and always had, and so always walked in thusly. She didn’t know any other way of walking into a room other than as herself.
Perhaps she needed the authority of an office.
Beatrice made her way to where her father—and she presumed, Edward—had his office. She walked through the main sales floor with tables stacked with gloves and umbrellas and little trinkets, past the pink marble pillars that stretched from ground floor to the ceiling five stories high, up the grand staircase and through a few more departments, and one unmarked door that led to spaces where various functions of the store were done—accounting, for example, and the mail-order business.
It was just like she remembered.
The offices were well lit by large windows, and filled with a smattering of desks and files and men. One in particular she recognized at least.
“Ah, Mr. Stevens! How nice to see a familiar face. It’s good to see you.”
“Beatrice! Though I suppose we call you duchess now.” They both paused awkwardly as they realized one best not. “Anyway, how good of you to visit. I do remember when you were yea high running around the store.” He held his hand out waist high to indicate how little she’d been as a girl, how long they’d known each other, and maybe what he still thought of her. “What brings you in today?”
Beatrice blinked. Did he not know?
“I’m the president now.”
He smiled at her indulgently. The way grandfathers did when children asked for another sweet.
“I did hear a little something to that effect.”
And he thought she would not attend to the store?
“Here I am! Reporting for duty!”
Beatrice winced; she went for b
right and chipper when she ought to have gone with firm but kind. It was just that Stevens was making her feel “yea high” again. Now she was confirming his worst suspicions about the heiress who fancied herself playing store. And perhaps she was but she knew what the store had been once and she knew she could make it so again.
Beatrice took a deep breath. Time to try again.
This time, she would do her best impression of the dowager duchess.
“Please inform everyone that I should like to hold a meeting this morning at ten o’clock. I have a vision for the store that I should like to communicate. Now that I am in charge.”
But still she heard her voice creep up at the end of her sentence, twisting her declarations into requests for permission. Dalton probably never spoke thusly.
“Yes, dear,” Mr. Stevens said and though he didn’t pat her on the head, she felt it all the same.
At ten o’clock a smattering of store employees strolled in—a few clerks, as well as some of the department heads and merchandisers responsible for displaying the wares, and buyers whose job was to acquire things to sell. Beatrice recognized one short young woman with dark hair whom she’d seen rushing around the sales floor just now, and she was the only one who gave Beatrice her full attention. The others stood around, idle and shiftless and clearly there for reasons of morbid curiosity and not an interest in meeting their new president or learning her vision and how to implement it.
Her palms started to sweat.
“Good morning, everyone. I am Mrs. Beatrice Goodwin Archer. As you may have heard, my brother, Mr. Goodwin, has taken a leave of absence from his duties here for his . . . health. In his absence I shall be the president of Goodwin’s. Together we will be making some changes.”
Bored faces peered back at her.
Not very many bored faces, either.
Except for that one bright young woman.
Surely they employed more people than this?
Of course a few salesgirls were needed to mind the shop, but even so . . .
“We need to unveil a new look in the store, to appeal to a new, modern woman.”