She doubted that very much. “Why did you close the doors?”
“Because I need to talk to you, and I don’t want to be overheard.”
She managed a smile. “How very mysterious.”
“I’m not the one being mysterious.”
“Now you’re being confusing.”
“I don’t think so. I think you know exactly what I’m talking about, Lizzie.”
She managed not to flinch at the sound of her nickname on his lips. So he had heard the general last night. “Lizzie? Where did that come from?”
“I think you know. I think it’s what people who know you well call you.”
“And what if they do? What business is it of yours?”
“It’s my business if you’re acquainted with General Sterling and plotting something behind my back.”
“Where would you get an idea like that?”
“From the general himself. Last night I heard him say to you, ‘Good job, Lizzie.’ He thought no one but you could hear him when he said it.”
She tried for outrage. “So you were eavesdropping on our private conversation?”
“Don’t try to play the wounded party. You know I just happened to overhear. So you do know the general.”
What should she say? How much would satisfy him and how much could she reveal without damning herself? “He’s . . . an old family friend. That day you took me to the telegraph office, I sent him a message to tell him I was in town. When I saw him later, he told me what he’s doing here, so naturally, I sent him to David.” There, enough of the truth to sound reasonable.
“He told David the senator had sent him.”
Dear Gideon, such a stickler for details. “Would you and David have been so helpful if he’d told you I sent him?”
“Of course we would!” He sounded insulted.
“Well, I couldn’t be certain and neither could the general. I knew David didn’t want to do business with Thornton, so he might have used any excuse to turn the general away. I suspect you would have, too.”
His troubled frown told her she was right. “But why were you so interested in helping the general?”
“I told you, he’s a family friend.”
“A man like that doesn’t need your help to make contacts.”
He was right, of course. “I . . . I wanted David to benefit. So we could go to Europe on our honeymoon.”
“You said you didn’t care about going to Europe.”
“I lied!” she snapped in exasperation. “When you told me David wasn’t rich, I knew it was up to me to change our fortunes.”
“But you already knew he wasn’t rich when you agreed to marry him.”
Elizabeth rubbed her temples, which were starting to ache. Gideon always brought out the worst in her. She needed to stop arguing and start playing him. She took a deep breath and smiled. “I’m afraid I’m not as unworldly as you believe. Yes, I did know David wasn’t rich, but I wasn’t satisfied to have him remain so. I was planning all along to encourage him in that direction.”
“And how many business deals do you think you’ll be able to conjure up for him in the next forty years?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about how idiotic your plan sounds. If you want David to be rich, you’ll have to find dozens of Thorntons and General Sterlings over the entire course of your married life, because David isn’t capable of it, as I think you know perfectly well.”
“How do you know what I do and do not know? And how dare you accuse me of . . . of . . . ?”
“Of what? Of not having a good enough story to cover up what you’re really doing?”
Elizabeth’s breakfast curdled into a ball of acid in her stomach. How could he know that?
“And while you’re thinking,” he added, as if being helpful, “you can think up a reason why you’re so afraid of Oscar Thornton.”
“Why would I be afraid of Thornton?” she asked, outraged that he had seen it.
“I have no idea. I only know that when you met him last night, presumably for the very first time, you actually recoiled when he got too close to you, and he treated you with complete contempt at dinner and afterward. And don’t bother denying it. The two of you obviously have a history. So how do you know Oscar Thornton?”
“That’s none of your business,” she tried, knowing she couldn’t tell him the story she’d told Anna. Even if it could explain everything, which it couldn’t, he’d never accept such a patched-together mess of truth and lies.
“I suppose you’re right, but what is my business is why you’re so determined to make him rich.”
“I’m not!”
He peered at her in that way he had that made her think he could see into her very soul. “And yet everything you’re doing will accomplish that.”
Suddenly, she knew just how to play this. Gideon didn’t want Thornton to succeed any more than she did, and she could actually tell him some of the truth to convince him to help her. “It only looks that way.”
Now she had his interest. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that this deal will end up ruining him.”
“And how do you—and the general, I assume—plan to accomplish that?”
“I . . . I’m not sure, exactly,” she lied. She figured Gideon would believe a mere female wouldn’t know the intricacies of business. “The general is handling that part of it. My part was just to get the two of them together and give things a nudge now and then if necessary.”
“And why do you want to ruin Thornton?”
“I . . . It’s a long story,” she hedged, her mind racing. “Maybe we should sit down.”
He gestured to the nearest sofa. She sat at one end, assuming he’d sit beside her, but he took a chair at right angles to her, the better to see her face. She silently cursed him even as she smiled as sweetly as she could manage.
“A long story, you said,” he prodded when she hesitated.
“Yes, well, you see, Thornton ruined my family’s business.”
“What kind of business was that?”
“A mill. A textile mill.” Details always made a story more believable.
“In South Dakota?”
“Yes. My father was . . . not a very good businessman. The mill was failing, and he needed an investor. Thornton stepped in and . . . and eventually, he forced my father out. We were bankrupt.” There. Take that, Gideon Bates.
He stared at her for a long moment, his face expressionless. “And I suppose your poor father shot himself in despair.”
“What?”
“Isn’t that how these stories usually end? And then Thornton tied you to the railroad tracks to force you to sign the business over to him.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about your sad story, Miss Miles, which sounds too much like a penny dreadful to be true. You really need to embellish it if you expect to get sympathy. You need to work on some of the details, as well. For example, there are no textile mills in South Dakota, and I doubt Oscar Thornton even knows where South Dakota is, much less that he has ever invested in anything there. I’m even starting to wonder if you’ve ever been to South Dakota yourself.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” she demanded with frustration that wasn’t even feigned.