Duchess by Design: The Gilded Age Girls Club Page 2

  “I’ve only just arrived and already I can see that New York City girls are different than the ones in London.”

  “Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

  With a ping of the bell, the elevator arrived and the uniformed attendant silently rolled the doors open. Kingston and the girl stepped into the plush, velvet-tufted carriage. They were, alas, not alone; the attendant was there to do his job of operating the elevator while doing his best to be invisible in the small, confined space. He performed spectacularly.

  The doors had been shut but a moment when she asked, “Well, I suppose I should ask, what brings you to New York?”

  Kingston gave her the honest answer. “I’m here to get married.”

  “Congratulations!” But her smile quickly faded. “Well, I suppose congratulations are in order. Does your bride know that you are ensconced in elevators with a woman you find enchanting?”

  “Oh, it’s too soon for felicitations,” Kingston replied.

  “Have you not yet proposed?”

  “Not exactly. I have only just arrived in New York City. My ship docked just last night.”

  “Ah, I suppose it’s too soon for you to have met the right woman.”

  “I don’t know that I’d say that . . .”

  Their eyes met. His heart pounded. Actually pounded in his chest.

  “You’ll have to stay a few more days in the city, at least, to meet someone,” she told him matter-of-factly and apparently oblivious to his inner turmoil. Because he found her enchanting and she was merely flirting with him as something to do on a Tuesday afternoon. This was not a situation with which he had ever been confronted; a woman who didn’t let it be known that he would only have to say the word and she would be his.

  “And what if I have met her already?”

  She smiled and replied, “Something tells me that I don’t think you’ll have much trouble finding a wife.”

  “Because you’ll say yes if I ask?” He gave her his most winning smile. The one that made all the girls swoon. That was the moment that the elevator bell chimed, indicating they had arrived at their floor. The attendant opened the door and she stepped out into the corridor.

  “It was lovely to meet you,” she said.

  And then she said, “Goodbye.”

  And then she was gone.

  “The pleasure is all mine,” he murmured as he watched her hips sway as she bustled down the hall and knocked on the door to the suite adjoining his. Fancy that: less than four and twenty hours in America and he was already half in love with the girl next door.

  Chapter Two

  Heiresses come to Manhattan from all over the country to shop the Ladies’ Mile, stroll through Central Park, seek the favor of Mrs. Astor and buy themselves an English aristocratic title.

  —The New York World

  Never mind the duke—this is what Adeline had come for. At precisely two o’clock she rapped confidently on the heavy oak door, and a mere moment later, a maid opened it to reveal an opulent set of rooms with large windows overlooking the greenery of Madison Square Park.

  “Good day. I’m Miss Black, from the dressmaker’s shop. Madame Chalfont has sprained her ankle and won’t be able to attend, so I have come to do the fitting instead,” Adeline explained.

  Adeline was a seamstress by trade, with grand ambitions to be a dressmaker. Ambitions that were not encouraged by Madame Chalfont, for whom she worked, though she certainly capitalized on her skills. Adeline had a gift with a needle and thread, a deft hand when it came to cutting expensive fabric perfectly, and a gift for creating dresses that fit a woman’s body.

  She was supposed to cut and fit in service of Madame Chalfont’s vision of fashion and womanhood—not her own. More than once she’d vexed everyone by attempting to alter the designs to suit her taste, which required her fellow seamstresses to rework the gowns and strip away all her inventiveness.

  Adeline had passionate dreams of one day opening a shop of her own and creating incomparable dresses for incomparable women. She talked about it all the time with her friends, Rose and Rachel, and anyone else who would listen. At the very least, she longed to see a gown of her own imagination brought to life and worn in high society.

  This personal, solo fitting with Miss Burnett was her big chance to persuade a client to adopt Adeline’s designs, not Madame Chalfont’s. While her employer would never listen to Adeline’s suggestions, a client’s demands were another matter entirely.

  It was her best option for seeing her work out in the world, and then who knows what might come of it? Perhaps more orders and more clients, and dress by dress, she’d establish herself as the dressmaker for the Four Hundred.

  It was probably the only option for a girl from the tenements of the Lower East Side.

  Adeline was shown to a lady’s bedroom where a rich assortment of silks, satins, and cotton gowns had been set out for the fitting, having been delivered earlier. Everything was ready, except for the lady herself.

  She wasn’t sure what to expect from Miss Harriet Burnett.

  She’d been a darling of Manhattan society—until she wasn’t. It was the stuff of lore and legend: she had refused the aged, unwanted suitor her father had chosen for her and had been cast out of the family’s home for saying no. Rumor had it that she had supported herself as a hack writer for the newspapers; other reports suggested that she’d engaged in more nefarious work. But now her parents had passed and Miss Burnett was an heiress, intent upon making a return to society.

  Hence, the new wardrobe.

  “Hello, I’m Miss Burnett. This is my companion and friend, Miss Ava Lumley.”

  Miss Burnett was a statuesque beauty with fair hair, a complexion that would complement a variety of colors and a figure that could carry off more ambitious designs. Miss Lumley was a full- figured brunette and loveliness personified.

  “You must be the dressmaker,” Miss Burnett said, with an approving glance at Adeline’s customized shirtwaist. “The girl with the needle, thread, and silks and satins who will help me take the town by storm. Let me tell you my particular problem: I need gowns that will look like I’m trying to land a husband but which will not actually land me a husband.”

  The silence that followed let it be known that neither woman was inclined to marriage.

  “That is a lot to ask from a dress, Harriet,” Miss Lumley said after a moment. She shrugged and dropped into a plush chair. “It is just a dress.”

  “A dress is never just a dress,” Adeline replied. “At its simplest, a dress is merely a garment to keep one modestly covered and protected from the elements. But a dress is also magic: it can make a woman feel bold and confident so she might indeed take the world by storm, as more women ought to do, in my opinion. It can be her armor protecting her from prying eyes or would-be husbands, or the protection she needs to go forth and battle the world. Such is the power of a good dress.”

  Neither woman had a reply to that.

  The silence was excruciating. It had all been going so well until she had to go and say too much. Her mother had always emitted indulgent sighs when Adeline went on about the life-changing magic of a stylish dress, or the transformative power of well-constructed unmentionables, or the necessity of the right accessories.

  “Well, we never learned about that at Oberlin,” Miss Lumley said, finally.

  Ah, so they were college girls.

  Then Miss Burnett quipped, “Well, aren’t you something else?”

  Feeling emboldened, Adeline tilted her chin up. “Not yet, ma’am. But I hope to be soon.”

  “For the first time, I find myself looking forward to a fitting,” Miss Burnett replied. “Here are the dresses that the shop delivered earlier.”

  Her maid helped her into the first gown and Adeline stood back to appraise the fit and style. The gown was a frothy but fashionable concoction of dark green silk with large puffed shoulders and narrow sleeves, a tapered waist and a full skirt. It was all fine enough, but it was nothi
ng that would declare the wearer to be a woman to be reckoned with. This was a dress that said Respectable Matron in Training and didn’t seem to suit its intended wearer at all.

  “I don’t know how I am supposed to do anything with these ridiculous sleeves,” Miss Burnett remarked. “And I can hardly draw a decent breath.”

  “I don’t think you are supposed to, dear,” Miss Lumley answered.

  “Breathe or do anything?”

  “A lady of leisure should do as little as possible—just enough breathing and activity to get by,” Miss Lumley replied and Adeline was intrigued by the touch of sarcasm in her voice and the smirk on Miss Burnett’s lips.

  “We both know that I do not aspire to being a lady of leisure.” Turning to Adeline, Miss Burnett said, “At college, where I met Miss Lumley, we dressed simply and functionally so we could focus on matters of the mind. And now I have grand plans. And I need to be able to draw a breath.”

  Adeline was curious about these grand plans that did not include marriage. Whatever they were, she wanted to provide the wardrobe.

  “If we move this seam slightly and shrink the puff of the sleeve, that should give you more ease of movement,” Adeline replied, which was her way of saying I understand you. “If we add a few discreet pleats to the skirt, you’ll be able to take greater strides while still maintaining this season’s fashion.”

  “Hang fashion. I should like to breathe and move my arms.”

  Sensing that Miss Burnett was open to her ideas, Adeline dared to go further and suggest the scandalous design element that she’d been incorporating into her own gowns—one that Madame Chalfont was vehemently opposed to.

  “We could also add a small pocket.”

  “A pocket!” Miss Burnett gushed. “Now you’re talking.”

  “Won’t it ruin the line of the dress?” Miss Lumley asked.

  “With these voluminous skirts? I should think not,” Adeline answered.

  “And, as I said before, hang fashion. Especially if it means I can have a pocket,” Miss Burnett said. “If such a thing is possible, I don’t know why Madame Chalfont didn’t design them thusly to begin with.”

  Adeline elected not to say anything. It was one thing to subvert her employer’s designs that would bear her name. It was quite another to speak ill of her. But Miss Burnett was no dummy.

  “Ah. I see. You have previously made these suggestions and they have been disregarded. I wonder if she sees you as competition. Women can be their own worst enemies sometimes.”

  “Madame Chalfont has a very firm artistic vision,” Adeline said diplomatically. “She is very traditional. It is her shop.”

  Her employer did not care for anything new or potentially scandalous and suggestive, like a too-low bodice, a too-short skirt, or a pocket. Mention bloomers or the new cycling costumes, and she hovered on the verge of hysterics.

  She was vigilant about her own reputation and those of her seamstresses, given that certain people were always worried that a female-helmed dressmaking establishment was actually a front for more negotiable and affectionate services.

  “But you have vision as well,” Miss Burnett replied. “And you understand a woman’s body and that despite society’s dictates, you understand that it is capable of more than lounging on a settee.”

  “I have an abiding love of fashion and pretty dresses, but I don’t see why a woman should sacrifice comfort and mobility to be fashionable,” Adeline replied, pinning a seam that would need to be adjusted. “A great dress should make a woman feel as if she could go out and conquer the world because she looks and feels good.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. I will require a full wardrobe—evening gowns, day dresses, riding dresses, undergarments and the like. I will order them all from Madame Chalfont—but only if the gowns incorporate your ideas. Money talks, does it not?”

  Adeline’s only thought was Tuesdays. That was when luck and pluck and good fortune conspire to give a girl a chance at her dreams. And a duke had nothing to do with it.

  Chapter Three

  Attention Ladies: His Grace, the Duke of Kingston is in town! Though he has only just arrived, he has already been spotted in an intimate conversation with a mysterious woman in the lobby of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. And that’s not all . . .

  —Town Topics

  The next day

  Madame Chalfont’s Shop

  34 West Fifteenth Street

  When Adeline happily bustled into work at Madame Chalfont’s the following morning, she found her fellow seamstresses immersed in the newest edition of that oh-so popular scandal sheet, Town Topics. Wealthy society women read it for gossip about their peers (and themselves), while girls like Rose and Rachel read it for a window into a glamorous upper-class existence.

  Adeline was known to read it for the dress descriptions, much to the despair of her friends who were far more intrigued about what someone had done and with whom, rather than what they were wearing while they did it.

  Rose Freeman glanced up when Adeline entered the shop, her big brown eyes sparkling and her voice trembling in excitement. She had a talent for embroidering designs that made a regular gown into something unique and special. She was also an avid reader of dime novels and a hopeless romantic. “Oh, did you hear, Adeline? The duke has arrived. He was spotted in the lobby of the Fifth Avenue Hotel.”

  Adeline had suspected as much.

  “Where else would you spot a duke in New York?” Rachel asked, raising one brow. “Other than Mrs. Astor’s ballroom or the Metropolitan Club?”

  In other words, exclusive enclaves of the upper class that none of them would ever grace with their presence.

  “Though he is a duke, he is also technically a tourist,” Rose pointed out while carefully stitching tiny seed pearls to the train of an evening gown. “So he might visit a museum, or venture to St. Mark’s Place, or stroll through Central Park. One might catch a glimpse of him there.”

  “What else does the paper say about the duke?” Adeline asked tentatively. She had her suspicions that the man she’d collided with yesterday was His Grace, the Duke of Kingston, whose impending visit the papers had been reporting on for days. But this new report just about confirmed it.

  “By all accounts he is tall, dark, and exceedingly handsome,” Rose said. “The most eligible bachelor in town.”

  “You don’t say,” Rachel Abrams said dryly. She was not known among her friends, or anyone, for her romantic streak, but she had a way with a scissors and satin that was incomparable. Cutting expensive fabrics was a high-stakes endeavor and she was a master.

  “I bet he’s made all the women swoon already. I bet he’s a millionaire,” Rose replied dreamily.

  “I bet he’s not,” Rachel replied, crushing hopes and dreams of young girls everywhere, particularly those in the immediate vicinity. “Everyone knows these titled gentlemen only come to New York so they might snare an heiress.”

  Rachel was right.

  One of New York City’s finest exports was the “dollar princesses,” those heiresses to fortunes made from railroads, shipping, mining, real estate, and oil who were snapped up by England’s increasingly impoverished landed aristocracy. The Duke of Kingston was not the first, and unlikely to be the last, aristocrat who traveled to the “former colonies” for a wealthy bride with her new money to save his old estate.

  And that was why Adeline had laughed off the duke’s flirtations the day before. Despite their collision and instant connection, she was not the woman he had traveled across an ocean to find.

  Far, far from it.

  The only something that could happen would be a dalliance at best and quite possibly her downfall. She had seen firsthand how a man’s empty promises and kisses could ruin a girl’s prospects by either distracting her from her real dreams, wrecking her reputation, or both. Adeline had seen enough to know that relying on a man was no assurance of security at all; her mother’s three husbands had demonstrated that. She had long ago vowed that she woul
d never surrender to temptation, nor would she ever allow herself to rely on a man.

  Not that she met many tempting men.

  Except for yesterday afternoon in the lobby of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. At precisely seven minutes before two o’clock.

  But absolutely nothing would happen between her and the duke, even if locking eyes with him gave her a zing of pleasure and their snappy banter had her pulse sparkling and racing with the thrill of such an instant and powerful connection.

  Even if he managed to find her (which he would never do because he did not even know her name) and even if he deigned to pursue a courtship (which he would never do because she was a working-class girl), nothing would come of it.

  Adeline put the matter of the duke firmly out of her mind.

  Or tried to.

  Rose still had that newspaper, was still drinking in every inch of ink about this mythical romantic hero who had sailed across an ocean and landed on the city’s shores.

  Rachel was less starry-eyed about the whole business. “What good is a duke without money anyway?”

  “It does ruin the fantasy. Just a little,” Rose admitted.

  “Ah yes, the fantasy of the working-class girl swept off her feet by the handsome millionaire bachelor before she quits her job and they settle into blissful domesticity,” Adeline said, summarizing the plot of nearly every novel the girls brought into the shop. They read them on their brief lunch breaks and traded them around until the cheap paperbacks disintegrated but the dream remained.

  “A girl can dream.” Rachel and Rose said this at the same time, one with more heart than the other.

  “It sounds like he already set his eyes on a girl,” Rose said, a devilish smile playing on her lips as she read more of the story. “It says here he was seen in ‘intimate conversation with a well-dressed mystery woman’ in the lobby. They were then spotted taking the elevator together. Alone.”

  “I’m sure they weren’t actually alone,” Adeline remarked to the interest of no one. “There was probably an attendant operating the elevator.”