Leslie LaFoy (5 page)

“Who are you?”

The indignation in the feminine voice suggested that the woman was a MacPhaull. But Lindsay, at her worst, hadn't sounded even close to that regal. He turned to find a woman standing in the open doorway. Brunette, passably pretty, tall, and not exactly slender. He chewed the inside of his lip, deciding the polite term was ‘statuesque.’

A four-legged mop of long black-and-brown fur was tethered to her hand by an ivory silk cord. At least he assumed the animal had legs; they weren't any more visible than its eyes. Ears were merely suggested by the lumps in the expected vicinity of ears. There was a nose, though. It was little and black and just above tiny white teeth bared in displeasure. He looked up from the dog and into a pair of ebony, utterly disdainful eyes.

He took a sip of his whiskey before answering, “Jackson Stennett, ma'am. From Texas.”

She looked him up and down, then rolled her eyes and emitted a disgusted huff. “Have you seen Lindsay?”

He took another sip of the whiskey just to make her wait for the answer. “She's upstairs settling in Mr. Patterson. She should be down directly.”

“Mrs. Beechum says the old Buzzard had a stroke. Is that true?”

There was entirely too much hope in her voice. Jackson
clenched his teeth. He didn't know Richard Patterson from Adam, but by God, no man deserved to have someone gleeful over his collapse.

“With my luck, he'll linger for years,” the woman went on, clearly taking his silence for confirmation. “That man positively hates me. He goes out of his way to make my life miserable. And Lindsay just bats her sweet little lashes and plays his dutiful minion.”

Jackson was feeling a kind of kinship with Patterson and a bit of respect for Lindsay MacPhaull when, through the open doorway, he saw the latter come down the stairs. He didn't hear her make a sound, but the other woman apparently did.

“Lindsay!” she cried, whirling around with such speed that she yanked the little dog off its feet. It slid over the marble floor behind its mistress as she advanced into the foyer to meet her quarry. “I went to Madam Farber's today for a fitting and she told me that the Buzzard had put a limit on my account.”

“Not Richard; me,” he heard Lindsay say as she swept past the woman and headed into the study. “It's one thousand dollars for the remainder of the year.”

“Well, it's not enough!” shouted the woman, wheeling about and coming after Lindsay, her poor little mop skittering in tow. Jackson settled back against the edge of the big mahogany desk and watched Lindsay MacPhaull make a beeline for the decanters. Madam Demanding stopped just across the study threshold and shouted from there.

“You know that a suitable gown costs close to fifty dollars! And that's with no accessories! I'm going to the shore and I want a proper wardrobe. And I'll need new clothes for this fall and winter, too. Last year's are hopelessly out of fashion. I wouldn't be seen dead in them!”

Lindsay was pouring herself a sherry when she replied quite calmly, “The wardrobe you're able to purchase for a thousand dollars will have to suffice. There simply isn't money for more.” She turned to face the other woman. “You
could
make what money you do have go further by purchasing your gowns somewhere
other
than one of the most expensive shops in the city.”

The woman actually stomped her foot and squealed like a pig stuck in a gate. “You and that beastly Mr. Patterson! I'm going to tell Henry what you've done!”

She gave no indication of heading right off to do that, though, and Jackson shifted his attention to Lindsay, fascinated by the whole exchange and wondering how she was going to respond. She'd been crying; he could see the puffi-ness under her eyes and her cheeks were red. But at that moment, she was a perfect picture of calm composure. Arching a brow, she asked dryly, “Will you be done tattling before dinner? Or do you plan to dine with Henry and Edith this evening? I need to let Primrose know.”

“Ha!” snorted the woman, whirling about yet again and striding out into the foyer, her dog practically bouncing as he tried to get his feet under him and keep up. “What do you care where I eat?” she shouted as she departed. “You don't care if I eat at all! You'd be happy if I starved to death in the street!”

Jackson knew better than to laugh outright. The look in Lindsay MacPhaull's eyes was lethal and he didn't want it directed at him. He fastened his gaze on the floor some three feet in front of him and hid his smile around the rim of his glass.

Lindsay softly cleared her throat, lifted her sherry glass in the direction of the now empty foyer and said, “My sister, Agatha.”

“I wouldn't worry about her all that much,” Jackson ventured. “She looks to be a good grazer. It'd take a while for her to starve to death anywhere.”

She blinked fast and hard, the corners of her mouth twitching. The fire in her eyes turned to sparkles of devilment just before she grinned. Jackson watched the transformation, awed by the radiance and the beauty of this Lindsay MacPhaull. Then she threw her head back and laughed and a jolt of pure desire shot through him as clean and sharp as any knife blade.

Christ, he'd been right, he thought, taking a sip of his whiskey. Things had just gone to hell in a handbasket. Couldn't anything in this goddamned fiasco go well?

A
LTHOUGH THE SMILE
remained on his lips, it fled his eyes and Lindsay sobered, mortified. To laugh so boisterously was most unladylike. Heat flooded her cheeks. He was certainly a gentleman for not staring at her or commenting on the disloyalty her amusement evidenced. Like as not, he had some understanding of the stress she'd endured that morning and was granting her a great deal of allowance for the circumstances. Not that she was ready to cry friends, by any means, but she was grateful for his tolerance. Now that she wasn't trying to bring the roof down, though, she had no idea of how to go about filling the silence that stretched tautly between them.

Stennett didn't look up from the floor when he asked, “Who are Henry and Edith?”

The tension broken, Lindsay sighed in relief and answered, “Henry is our brother. Edith is his wife. They have three children, Henry the Second, Elizabeth, and James; all named after monarchs—obviously—and treated as though they were indeed heirs to a royal throne. It's a household in which Agatha's histrionics are hardly noticed.”

He looked over to the doorway as if a specter of her remained there. “I gather Agatha isn't married.”

“It's long been common knowledge that the management of the MacPhaull properties will pass into Henry's hands at Richard's death. Common knowledge has also been that at our father's death, ownership legally passes to Henry. My father's Will didn't establish a dowry and Henry isn't likely to provide one for her. That lack of financial incentive, combined with her temperament, has tended to limit marriage proposals.” Lindsay looked down into her sherry and added quietly, “Common knowledge is about to be turned inside out, isn't it?”

At the edge of her vision, she saw him rub the back of his neck. He abandoned the motion with a hard sigh. “Look, Miss MacPhaull. You and I have gotten off to a rough start. But if you'll agree to stop playing the offended princess, I'll stop playing the hard-hearted ogre. Do we have that much of a deal?”

She'd promised Richard that she'd save what she could, and that didn't give her any choice but to play by Jackson Stennett's rules. She didn't like it and she consoled herself with the assurance that cooperation didn't require a complete and forever surrender. Lindsay looked up to meet his gaze. Even, open, honest, and direct. She nodded.

“Just so you know,” he said in that easy, hard-edged drawl of his, “I don't want anything more out of Billy's estate than what I absolutely need. It's pretty obvious that there's not likely to be any discussions with Mr. Patterson. If you'd be so kind as to arrange a meeting with your brother, I'll be about my business and gone as quick as I can.”

He'd assumed. Just like every man in the business world, he'd assumed that she was nothing more than a pretty ornament whose only purpose was to pour the coffee and fetch papers. She took a sip of her sherry, tamping down her ire, and wondering how to best approach Stennett's enlightenment. Deciding that it was better to have him know the truth now rather than later, she gave it to him. “The only thing Henry knows about the family assets is how to squander them. If you wish to have a rational, informed conversation, it should be with me.”

A dark brow shot up. “You've some experience in the management of the company affairs?”

She drank the rest of her sherry and turned back to the decanters so that he couldn't see just how angry she was. “My father went off on his grand adventure when I was eight years old, Mr. Stennett,” she began, pouring herself a second glass. “Richard had long been the manager of the company, but at that point he assumed what he could of William MacPhaull's responsibilities as a father. Richard isn't a demonstrative man by nature and the only way he knew to build a bridge between us was to share the workings of the company. I spent most of my childhood in the office where you and I met today.

“When my mother died, Richard allowed me to take full control of the management. He watches, he listens, he advises, and in the end he puts his stamp of approval on whatever course I think is the best.” She stoppered the decanter and turned back to face him. “Yes, Mr. Stennett, I have some experience in the management of the company affairs.”

“Are you any good at it?”

“The doors are still open and the staff is paid on time each month.”

“How much longer do you think you can keep it up?”

A month? Maybe two?
She lifted her chin. “That depends entirely on how much you intend to take out of the business for your own needs and when you intend to do it.”

He considered her for a long moment. “Fifty-two and some-odd thousand dollars. And I've got just under sixty days.”

Fifty-two thousand dollars? Almost a quarter of the company's current net worth?
“It can't be done,” she declared, her pulse racing painfully hard and fast.
Sixty days? Oh, my God.

He gave her that quirked smile of his and lifted his whiskey glass in salute. “Where there's a will, there's a way.” He winced and quickly added, “No pun intended.”

Her eyes burned and pulsed from the heavy pressure behind them. Her fingertips ached. Lindsay knew that if she remained as she was, she'd soon explode. She began to pace, willing herself to breathe and then calmly approach
the situation. “Mr. Stennett,” she began after a few moments, “our country's in the midst of a financial panic. Haven't you noticed the deteriorating state of affairs? Or is it that the Republic of Texas is so isolated as to be immune from the economics of the rest of the continent?”

“I raise cattle, Miss MacPhaull. Along with almost every other man in the Republic,” he countered instantly, all the ease gone from his voice, leaving only the hard edge. “The beef on your table tonight could well be from a steer that's come off Texas grass. If it is, you can be sure that the cattleman lost money selling it. The Panic's stripped money from every pocket out there and people can't afford fancy food on their tables. That means the demand for beef is down. And when demand's down, so's the price buyers are willing to pay. But the cattleman has bills he's got to pay, and a little money being better than no money at all, he sells for what he can get.

“Now added to that is the fact that Billy was a gambler to the center of his bones. The poker table didn't thrill him nearly as much as the high-stakes risks to be had in land speculation. He bought largely on credit, using his ranch land as collateral. He did all right with it, too. He just didn't time his dying all that well. When he cocked up his toes, he left me with a mountain of debt and a short deadline. I could sell every head I own, and with the market as it is—
because of the Panic
—it still wouldn't be enough to clear the title to the land Billy left me.

“The short answer to your question, Miss MacPhaull, is
yes.
I'm well aware of the effects of the Panic and I'm not the least bit immune to them.”

In the silence that fell in the aftermath of his retort, Lindsay realized that not only had she stopped her pacing but that the cause of her racing pulse had shifted. Jackson Stennett was far more intelligent than she'd originally thought. The easygoing approach to matters he'd displayed up to this point was nothing more than a thin veneer. Under it lay a man quite capable of holding his own in any New York boardroom. She'd badly underestimated his business abilities.

And if that wasn't startling enough, she'd also underes-
timated the effect he had on her physically. Despite the fact that he'd remained perfectly still, his hip propped against the corner of the desk and his whiskey in hand, she was very much aware of his strength, of how dangerous he could be if he decided to unleash it and direct it outward. A small part of her was frightened by the possibility. The larger part of her, though, thrilled at the thought of facing and withstanding it.

There was no mistaking the sensation swelling inside her. The feeling was very much like that of standing in the bow of a ship as a storm rolled in at sea. Exhilarating in its recklessness, it warmed the blood in a way nothing else could. To defy destruction was to feel truly alive.

She arched a brow and asked quietly, “I don't suppose it's occurred to you to simply let the creditors have Billy's land?”

He threw the contents of his glass down his throat. “That's not going to happen while I'm still breathing.”

“There's an intriguing possibility,” she countered. “Do you have a Will, Mr. Stennett?”

He smiled ruefully. “Actually, I do. It names Billy as my heir. Which I suppose would, when the lawyers are done with their wrangling, put it all back into the hands of whoever controls the MacPhaull Company.”

“My hands, Mr. Stennett.”

He chuckled and winked at her. “And eventually Henry's, Miss MacPhaull.” Heading back to the sideboard, he added, “All things considered, it looks to be in your best interest to be sure I don't step in front of any runaway carriages, doesn't it?”