An Heiress to Remember (The Gilded Age Girls Club #3) - Maya Rodale Page 0,1
downstairs, in the formal drawing room. There was only one reason British Peers of The Realm traveled so far afield. There was only one reason dukes condescended to call repeatedly upon new-money debutantes.
Fortune hunting was the sport of the day.
She was the prize.
“If not right now, then run away with me tonight,” Wes said urgently. Because the clock was ticking on forever. Their chances to be together were dwindling. He grasped her hand. “You, Beatrice, are my one and only.”
Her lips still tingled from his kiss. She wanted to know how this could work. Because she was tempted. The duke was . . . fine. He was a few years older, staid and remote and just . . . fine.
And Wes was divine. He only had to smile at her across the sales floor and she was floating on air. He had only to kiss her and she was thinking of throwing her whole future away for him.
She was young yet. Just twenty years old. That was a lot of future to throw away.
“And then what? Suppose I run away with you to Grand Central Depot right now. And then what?”
“You. Me. The rest of our lives. Starting tonight.”
Tonight! Beatrice felt the walls closing in on her. She knew what her mother and society expected of her: to marry, and marry well. Dress well, throw parties, associate with the right people. She knew the expectations so well that she scarcely even considered that there might be more. She adored Wes, but how was she supposed to give up family, friends, and a city she loved on some mad lark, with no plans?
Beatrice gazed at him. The dark hair falling rakishly into his ocean blue eyes. The line of his jaw, the curve of his top lip, the hands around her waist. She gazed at this boy she loved to kiss, who made her heart sing, who never told her to be quiet, who always asked her opinion. She wanted to run away with him. But she also couldn’t help but wonder:
Where would they even go?
How would they eat?
Her father would fire him in a heartbeat. She knew how the world worked; powerful men protected their own and doors all over town would be closed to Wes. He wouldn’t find decent work in this town. She would have to give up family, friends, and the city she loved to wander the world with a man who might not be able to support her at all.
It felt tremendously, grievously unfair that she should have only these two wildly extreme all-or-nothing options to choose from. What she wouldn’t do to just . . . see how things went. To pursue both paths without impossibly high stakes, or devastating repercussions. If only she had a little more time or freedom to explore. If only it wasn’t a matter of either/or.
But the duke was at the door.
“I’ll think about it.” She pressed one more kiss on his lips. “But I have to go.”
Chapter One
New York City, 1895
Sixteen years later
The first thing Beatrice did after the demise of her marriage was to return to New York. After nearly sixteen years spent languishing in a crumbling old castle in a remote corner of the English countryside, the city seemed like the place to go. When one had burned their bridges, ruined their reputation, and still smoldered with possibilities, what else could one do but escape to Manhattan?
The place was full of opportunities for second chances—as long as one was mad and daring enough to seize them. Beatrice was mad enough and daring enough. She didn’t have other options.
Where else in the world was a divorced duchess to go?
Despite the best efforts of the duke, he hadn’t been able to extinguish her spark. God knew he’d tried. She still shuddered thinking of his knock at the door. But all that was on the other side of the Atlantic. Good riddance.
Finally, unencumbered, Beatrice stepped onto the dock and into the churning crush of humanity. She breathed in deeply.
Some lumbering man beside her grumbled loudly, “It smells like—”
She thought home just as he said “garbage.”
To be clear, it did smell like garbage. Hot, stinking garbage that had been left in the sun. It was a noxious mix of manure, refuse, and the seething mass of humanity inhabiting the island. Oh, the city did stink. But it was also home. Where she’d been born and raised, a place where she had loved and lost and left.