by Maya Rodale
He didn’t want to push through the crowds, like some newcomer to the city. But it was in his best professional interests to take a close look. So he did and he felt something twist in his gut because what she created was good. Maybe even great.
The windows had been enlarged to take advantage of large plates of glass which, thanks to advances in technology, could now be made. The scene within was newly illuminated with electric lights that would likely stay on through the night, a beacon in the darkest hours.
The scene in the windows took his breath away.
Real women and men rode bicycles that somehow remained stationary, while painstakingly painted backgrounds on some sort of mechanical device gave the impression that they were moving through a forest, the seaside, the city. As they pedaled away, these real models laughed and chatted and gave the appearance of living their very best lives.
They wore the latest, most daring fashions.
He saw ankle.
He saw red lips.
He saw women having fun.
And damn, if he didn’t want to join in. Damn if he wasn’t ready to buy a bicycle right on the spot.
He pushed his way into the store, where a waiter handed him a flute of champagne. He took a sip and let himself get swept farther into the store, where crowds marveled at the shiny new version of a Manhattan legend. They oohed and ahhed at the light, the airy space, the arresting and colorful displays of scarves and gloves and perfumes and a million other things.
Dalton had just one thought: Fuck.
She had mastered another one of his inviolable rules: surprise and delight. Astonish the customer.
He who had invented the rules, who had created retail as the world knew it, found himself taking a longer look, surprised by the way she had counters of cosmetics openly on display, allowing women to sample them under the supervision of trained technicians in white coats, lending an air of respectability to the still slightly scandalous product. He saw color everywhere, from the wall of spinning umbrellas to tables of gloves and cascades of silks and tulles. The space she had created was exactly what he had expected but completely novel, all at the same time.
And just like that he was drawn deeper into the store.
Familiar landmarks were noted—those distinctive pink marble pillars—but they were polished, brighter, and finally allowed to let their beauty shine. Heavy wood had given way to delicate glass, mirrors, all of which reflected the warm glow of massive, electric crystal chandeliers. Massive bouquets of flowers adorned the space and scented the air.
In the center of it all, on the grand central staircase, Beatrice stood like a queen.
She wore red.
A red dress that simply stated, Look at me. On her mouth, red lip paint. He wondered what it would be like to kiss her red, arresting mouth. Once upon a time he had known.
Behind her on the mezzanine was another dazzling display of bicycles, an array of shiny black steel steeds hanging from the ceiling like they were in flight. Nearby mannequins modeled the new styles of cycling attire. Upon a table was an artfully arranged stack of books—How I Learned To Ride the Bicycle by the famous Frances Willard, and a stylish notice promoting private lessons for ladies in the park, free with purchase of a bicycle.
Somewhere an orchestra played.
Everywhere, people mingled, sipping champagne, delighting over every new thing.
There was only one thing to do: drink a second glass of champagne while taking a turn about the store, thoroughly spying on his competition, and then getting the hell out and start plotting ways to compete.
Because this lit a fire inside. This was a challenge. A dare.
Beatrice was gunning for his retail crown and he would have to fight to keep it.
Connor found him, as he was halfway through his tour of the second floor.
“There you are. I knew I would find you here.”
“I’m here in a purely professional capacity.”
“Market research. Competitive analysis. Of course.” Connor nodded seriously with a gleam in his eye suggesting that they both knew better. “I think we can conclude that she is going to give you a run for your money.”
Dalton couldn’t agree out loud, but he did not protest, either. Because everywhere they turned, there was something to catch the eye, or some novel innovation to make him mutter softly under his breath, “Damn.”
They stopped in front of a hair salon.
“Have you ever even heard of a hair salon?” Dalton asked.
He and Connor had paused in front of a section of the store designated as Martha Matilda Harper’s Salon, where apparently women could come to have their hair washed, cut, and styled as per The Harper Method, while seated in those curious chairs he’d seen carried in during the day they fought over employee poaching.
Hair styling was one of those things he understood that ladies did, but he’d never considered the logistics of. It was not within his purview. Perhaps it ought to have been. Maybe if he’d had a wife or daughters he would have an idea of these things.
And all at once a sort of loneliness snuck up on him.
“Do you have any questions I can help you with, gentlemen?”
Dalton turned at the familiar voice. Clara, one of his best salesgirls who had defected.
“Clara Baldwin.”
“Hello, Mr. Dalton. I’m not sure if I’m surprised or dismayed to see you here.”
“Wouldn’t miss the opportunity to spy on the competition. Tell me, Miss Baldwin, what does Goodwin’s have that Dalton’s doesn’t?” Connor asked. “Dalton is too proud to ask but he’s desperate to know.”
“If you must know . . .” She gave a conspiratorial smile and leaned in to confide in them. “Childcare.”
“For sale?”
“She provides childcare to customers and staff alike.”
As a lifelong confirmed bachelor, he had never given a thought to childcare. His clientele all had nannies and people and private boarding schools for that. And if one could not afford such things, one could not afford to shop in his store. Or so he had assumed. It seemed Beatrice knew better.
“And what about that chair?” Connor asked. “It looks like some instrument of torture.”
“Of course. It’s a reclining chair for shampooing. Martha Matilda Harper designed it herself to make it more convenient for ladies to have their hair washed without interfering with their attire, before it is cut and styled. Would you like to try it?”
“Another time, perhaps.”
Dalton and Connor kept strolling along until they came to a set of doors guarded by two women in uniform. Ladies were entering and exiting but the doors remained firmly shut when Dalton and Connor approached.
“My apologies, gentlemen, but this space is for ladies only.”
“Well, now I’m curious,” Dalton drawled. “What is in there?”
“A reading room. For ladies. Only.”
The shopgirl standing guard smiled. It was the smile of someone who was not at all sorry to tell gentlemen that they were not permitted to enter. It was the smile of someone experiencing the heady rush of power for the first time.
Everywhere Dalton turned and looked in this store, he saw the New Woman. From the gowns on display, to the services offered, to the refuge provided. Even the guests at this “debut” party weren’t entirely the usual suspects of the Four Hundred, but a mix of society wives, professional women, and young girls with starry eyes.
Everywhere he looked, Dalton saw his plans for revenge fading into nothing, an impossible dream that had its moment and was now gone forever. It was one thing to buy an outdated store on the cheap and reduce it to rubble for his private satisfaction.
It was another matter entirely to pay a fortune for this shiny, newly polished jewel only to destroy it. He still could, if he wanted to. It would be more expensive but he was a ruthless millionaire merchant prince with the third greatest fortune of the Gilded Age. It was not impossible.
If that’s wh
at he really wanted . . .
My name is Wes Dalton . . .
The familiar refrain faltered. He was on the verge of becoming ridiculous. Blowing a fortune on something so petty as revenge. Blowing up a store like this and all it represented. He was not that kind of man.
And so Dalton had to decide, right there in the middle of the ladies accessories department, what kind of man he would be. One hell-bent on revenge, still nurturing a heartache. Or would he rise to the challenge Beatrice presented? He thought he’d nearly conquered Manhattan but maybe he was only just getting started.
And then.
A voice.
A jocular had-too-much-to-drink man’s voice emerging above the chatter of the crowd.
“It’s just shopping, isn’t it? It’s just a shop. All you need to do is run in, pick a scarf, buy it, and leave. All this does is slow down the process.”
Dalton was not the only one to overhear the old man and take issue with his foolish opinions. Beatrice was nearby; her eyes narrowed and then her gaze connected with his.
They were sworn rivals and bitter enemies, but in this they were of one mind. It was a slight that would not go unchecked.
In unison they turned and faced the drunk know-it-all man. Dalton recognized him; his name was McConnell, and his wife spent hours in his store. She didn’t necessarily spend a fortune though. One was given to understand that the store provided an escape from the duties of home and her overbearing bore of a husband.
“Just shopping?” Beatrice queried in the politely lethal tones of a woman about to slay.
“My good man, it is not just shopping,” Dalton repeated, in case his male voice would better make the point.
“It’s just a bunch of stuff for sale, though, innit?” McConnell, silver-haired and red-faced, was definitely on the verge of falling into his cups.
“Shopping, especially in a store like mine or Dalton’s, is a meditation upon who we are and who we wish to be,” Beatrice explained. “It is a pleasant and sensual experience that engages both present and future thinking simultaneously. To be shopping is to be thinking of something as lofty as one’s aspirations and something as practical as mathematics. All while one’s senses are engaged. Where else can you feel something as soft as cashmere, breathe in the heady fragrance of flowers, imagine who you want to be and buy the things to make that dream into a reality?”
“Some men are not up for pleasant, sensual, and immersive experiences,” Dalton remarked to Beatrice, in a way that suggested he was not one of those men. Her eyes flashed, understanding.
“Let us not forget that people are so very terrified of women enjoying themselves,” Beatrice said.
“We should not be afraid of women’s desires or women’s pleasure,” Dalton said. “For it is the engine that drives the world. What we do,” he nodded to Beatrice, “is stoke a woman’s desire, satisfy her desire and transform it into money and power.”
Her gaze locked with his and he felt himself stand taller. She nodded at him to continue, so he did.
“We make a woman want—whether it’s a dress or gloves or a reticule. She makes the purchase, which provides jobs to women at the mills and factories, and it keeps the shopgirls employed.”
“The dressmakers and her seamstresses,” Beatrice added. “The milliners, the cleaners.”
“The delivery boys, the boys in the mailroom, those in accounting,” he added. “All those people earn their bread by a woman’s desire. By a woman’s determination to dream and make it real. Whether it’s a dress, a place setting, or a whole life.”
The man was redder now. They had an audience now. Dalton was really feeling what he was saying. They made magic, him and Beatrice, and he wasn’t going to give up.
“And this is not just a store,” Beatrice added. “It is not a place for errands or mere acquisitions. This store is a space for women to live and thrive outside of the home. For where else can we safely go outside of the house to gather, to talk, to live, to dream, to do?”
All at once Dalton understood the reading room.
The childcare.
The hair salon.
What she’d created was not just a department store, it was a destination. Perhaps even a revolution.
“So as you can see, it is not just shopping. But I wonder if you instinctively understand what we do—empowering women through their own desires and pleasures—is precisely what one objects to.”
“What she said,” Dalton said.
The man was walking off in a huff without even trying to drop the last word. The crowd dispersed. Dalton and Beatrice turned to each other once the spectacle was over.
“I thought we were rivals,” she said, lifting one brow. “But now I’m not so sure.”
Chapter Nineteen
Beatrice turned toward Dalton, her heart still racing as it always did when she was shooting her mouth off again, and now Dalton was near and these two things together had her in quite a state.
“Congratulations,” Dalton said, gazing at her. “I will admit that I’m impressed.”
“Well, if you are impressed then I must have done something spectacular,” she quipped but really, truly his compliment meant more than anyone else’s. He knew. He saw. “Thank you.”
“I know what it takes to make something in your head become real. To say nothing of hiring and training staff, stocking the merchandise, dreaming up displays, and orchestrating a fleet of shopgirls, errand boys, and all the others. To launch a store is no small feat. But you have done something more than that.”
“Thank you, Dalton,” she said and she felt seen, truly seen, in a way she hadn’t from the others in her life.
He smiled wryly.
“In building something so remarkable, you have also ruined my plans for revenge. Probably.”
“May have or definitely have?” Beatrice teased. “Or will you just have to try harder?”
Of course she and her mouth had to go and essentially dare him to try to ruin her. All of a sudden she felt like the champagne had gone to her head. Or maybe that feeling was just from the way Dalton was looking at her. His eyes were just so blue and they were fixed only on her, even though there was a marvelous spectacle all around her.
“Make no mistake, we’re still rivals,” he murmured. “But you have inspired me.”
“Be still my beating heart.”
She said it for a laugh but her overexcited heart really needed to calm down. Between the rush of confrontation with that man and now Dalton so close at her side, there was much to set her heart racing.
Because somehow they had wandered off from the crowds and they were alone and the chatter was quiet, the orchestra far away, and the lights were dim.
“This is dangerous territory. Us. Alone. You no longer hell-bent on destroying me.”
“I didn’t say that,” he replied. “My store closes at eight. I need a hobby for after hours.”
“You really know how to make a woman swoon,” she said.
Speaking of swooning—they had unintentionally wandered into the home furnishings department. It was never the most popular and it was sparsely attended by party guests at present.
Miss Lumley and Margaret had worked together to stage little rooms—a parlor here, a dining table set with the finest new styles of china and silver, a bedroom there. Miss Lumley had an eye for interior decoration and she orchestrated a new style of furnishings, lighter and newer than all the heavy old Victorian stuff.
Dalton wandered over to it, Beatrice, too.
“So you’re on the side of twin beds,” he said, referring to the debate currently raging among doctors, theologians, and interior decorators about whether a married couple ought to sleep in one bed or two. They stood side by side, looking at the beds in question, piled high with soft white linens.
“Unapologetically. It’s more hygienic, among other reasons.”
She didn’t want to remember the other reasons right now, reasons like unfeeling husbands and marital rights. Th
ank God she’d had her own suite of rooms at the castle, but she could imagine for those who didn’t a twin bed of one’s own would be the next best thing.
Or not being married to an unfeeling man one didn’t love at all.
Beatrice did not want to think of any of that now.
Now when her old flame, Wes Dalton, was here looking like he was thinking of kissing her. She realized she wanted to kiss him, too. She was supposed to be old and dried up; she’d been told she was cold and unfeeling. But she did not feel any of those things now. She felt eighteen again, heart racing because she was close to maybe kissing Wes Dalton.
“What about on a cold night, Beatrice? What about newlyweds, young and in love? What about on a night like this, when two consenting adults are alone after drinking champagne? And looking at me the way you are.”
“Like how, Dalton?”
“Like it’s been a long time.”
“Well, it has been a long time,” she said and her voice came out huskier than she would have liked. All of a sudden she was keenly aware that it had been a while since she had a good kiss. Years.
“And like you’re thinking of kissing me,” he murmured.
He stood close enough to do so now. There was an electric hum in the air and she rather thought it was from the two of them, sparking as they got close together, and not the electrified chandeliers above on a dim setting.
“Maybe I am.”
Dalton stepped closer to her. She leaned back against a heavy wooden chest of drawers, lending her much-needed support. Her knees were weakening, for God’s sake, like she was some idealistic young girl and not a divorcée of a certain age.
“But a kiss would complicate things,” he murmured.
“All the best kisses do,” she whispered.
All of a sudden she cared little for complications.
He was thinking about it, she could tell. Leaning in. Hesitating. Despite all his vows of revenge and ruination his lips were mere inches from hers. He knew, as well as she, that a kiss now would complicate things tremendously. She didn’t entirely believe him when he said he was no longer hell-bent on revenge. One didn’t just give it up, on the spot.