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“Lorna.” His teeth were ground together in the effort to speak calmly. “I don’t want to discuss it any further. If I’m not busy, I’ll go. But if I’m needed at the ranch,
Lady Crawford will just have to look to someone else.”
When she heard the knock on the door to her suite, Elaine smiled at her reflection in the mirror with satisfaction. She touched a finger to the high ruffed collar of her black dress, aware that it attractively concealed the lines in her neck. She waited until her personal maid came to inform her that a Mr. Benteen Calder was in the sitting room.
“Thank you, Hilda. That will be all. I won’t be needing you the rest of the afternoon,” Elaine dismissed her.
“Very good.” She curtsied and silently withdrew.
By coming here, Benteen had already given her his answer. He would agree to her plans, and Elaine knew it. The note had been a test—to see if he was willing to make an effort to see her. If his hatred had run as deep as he claimed, he wouldn’t be in the sitting room now.
When she entered, Benteen was standing at the window with his hat in his hand. She read the impatience and anger in his stance, the regret that he had come. Her smile came and went quickly so that she met him with a calm expression when he turned.
“Would you care for some coffee?” She waved a graceful hand to the coffee service on the table between blue velvet sofas. “Or there’s something stronger in the cabinet, if you prefer.”
“Nothing,” he refused.
His dark eyes were running over her, probing, inspecting, and seeking. Elaine permitted a small smile to warm her lips and motioned for him to sit down while she lowered herself onto one of the sofas and arranged her skirts.
“You won’t be sorry you came, Benteen,” she murmured. “This is going to be the beginning of a new relationship for us.”
“You said you had a business proposition you wanted to make,” Benteen reminded her.
“Yes. Business,” Elaine agreed. “By the way, I understand you have secured title to those three claims. Congratulations. I knew you’d take care of it. Mr. Boston isn’t too pleased. He’s buying a lot of cattle and suddenly has nowhere to put them.”
“That’s his problem.”
“He might make it yours, but that’s another matter entirely, and not at all what you came here to discuss.” She leaned forward and poured herself a cup of coffee. “Would you be interested in obtaining a beef contract to purchase all the cattle you can supply at a price that would average above market value?”
“A contract with whom?”
“I can’t tell you that—not yet,” she chided him for trying to get such valuable information from her. “It’s my leverage to persuade you to become my partner in the venture. If I told you my connection, you might try to cut me out of the deal.”
“My own mother?” he taunted.
“Yes. You could regard it as a way of getting revenge,” Elaine reasoned. “It would never have worked between myself and your father. And he would have killed me before he would have let me take his son.” There was a slight pause before she added, “I believe you wanted an explanation.”
“And you have absolutely no regrets,” Benteen challenged.
“Regrets? No.” She shook her head. “The regret would have been much greater if I had stayed. I would have never forgiven you or your father for keeping me there when I could have become somebody.” She sipped her coffee, delicately raising her little finger. “I am ambitious—just like you are, Benteen.”
“How many cattle will I need for this beef contract you claim you can get?” He returned to the original topic.
“More than you own,” Elaine replied. “That’s where I can help again by financing the purchase of additional cattle.”
“And?”
“And we’ll split the profits on the contract fifty-fifty.”
“It sounds fair.” He leaned against the sofa back and studied her with half-lidded eyes. “But how do I know that at the end of the deal you won’t take all the money and run away?”
“Because I have learned over the years that you can cheat on your husband, you can cheat on your lover, and you can cheat on the household account—but you never, never cheat on a business deal.” Behind her facetious tone, she was quietly serious.
“What’s to stop me from keeping all the money?” There was a slant of mockery to his hard mouth.
“That absurd code you men live by, and twist to suit your own needs. If you give your word on something, you won’t back out,” she stated confidently. “But you really have nothing to lose. I have to produce the contract and the money to buy the additional cattle. I’ll make you rich, Benteen. Is it a deal?” She held out her hand.
There was a long moment when Elaine thought she might have pushed for an agreement too soon. Then he was moving, reaching out to enfold her hand in the largeness of his. He continued to hold it, studying her.
