Ella Read online

  Cover Copy

  Ella Beaufort knew better than to rely on a sexy stranger. But with two sisters to support on the modest earnings of the family sheep station, she accepts shearer Cal Lynton’s help—along with his intoxicating kiss. The most Ella can hope for is an affair. Something a woman in her situation wouldn’t dare—or would she?

  Heir to his family fortune, Charlton Alfred Landon Lynton abandoned his privileged life to prove his independence. He doesn’t have time for a woman, but once he woos the lovely Ella into his bed, he is ready to make her his wife…until she shocks him with her refusal, claiming she can only marry a rich man! Angry and brokenhearted, the heir in disguise leaves the beautiful golddigger behind…

  But amid the breathtaking landscape of South Australian, Ella and Cal are destined to meet again. Will their heated reunion lead to cruel confrontation—or the kind of passion that lasts a lifetime?

  Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Books by Virginia Taylor

  South Landers

  Starling

  Ella

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  Ella

  A South Landers Novel

  Virginia Taylor

  LYRICAL PRESS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Copyright

  Lyrical Press books are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2015 by Virginia Taylor

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  All Kensington titles, imprints, and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotion, premiums, fund- raising, and educational or institutional use.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

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  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  Lyrical Press and the L logo are trademarks of Kensington Publishing Corp.

  First Electronic Edition: October 2015

  eISBN-13: 978-1-61650-925-5

  eISBN-10: 1-61650-925-2

  First Print Edition: October 2015

  ISBN-13: 978-1-61650-926-2

  ISBN-10: 1-61650-926-0

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To RJT, all my love forever

  Author’s Foreword

  I set out to tell the story of my grandmother, Daisy Elsie Aslin, who was one of the first women in South Australia to attend the university. After I’d looked up various dates and women’s rights, I wrote a story that had nothing to do with cities and education but a whole lot to do with how hard women worked during the settlement of our colony. I’ll leave education and rights for another story. Thanks, Grandma. You were the greatest influence in my young life.

  Acknowledgements

  To best selling author Debra Holland, who judged Ella in a competition and liked the story so much that she gave me enough heart to keep sending my ‘unsaleable’ setting to publishers.

  To my sheep farmer cousin, Robert Hodges, who told me about dipping and shearing sheep.

  To Dr. GregLewis, maths PhD, who researched sheepish numbers for me.

  Prologue

  The best part of the house faced north where the sun shone all day in summer. Edward Lynton stood staring through the French doors of his library, across his close-clipped lawns, past the tall cast-iron fountain ringed with his rose beds, and toward the rolling hills in the distance.

  Stained by the red clay soil, sheep dotted the gentle rise beyond his boundary fence. His shepherds rode his fine strong horses around his flock, bringing in the dusty strays for shearing.

  “Good view,” said a deep voice behind him.

  He turned. “The view would be better if you were outside supervising the men. Look at those two slackers on the right.” His head indicated, and his grandson stared, his hands deep in the pockets of his fine, English-made woollen trousers.

  “I wouldn’t say they’re slacking.” Charles, as if idly, flicked the pages of a leather-bound notebook on the library table. “I don’t doubt they’re discussing tactics. They have a mob in front and a mob behind, and the dogs are trying to join the groups.”

  “If you’d been there, two groups wouldn’t have formed,” Edward said, his jaw stiff.

  “Ah, so you do have faith in me.” Charles gave a lazy grin.

  “You’ve been here long enough to know the workings. How many have been brought in now?”

  “I couldn’t say off hand.”

  “It’s your job to say—off hand.”

  “If it matters to you, I can ask.” Charles raised his gaze from the book, his expression guarded. “But first I want you to look over my figures, if you would. I’ve been working on this for months and I—”

  “I’m not interested. I’ve spent enough money on you as it is. Look at you,” Edward said, loading his tone with contempt. “Dressed by London tailors, shoed as well as the princes of England, clad in silk and linen shirts and damn me if I didn’t even import the finest mahogany furniture for your bedroom. Do you think those men outside who are doing your work for you will ever sleep in sheets as soft as you have?”

  “I believe that they have the potential to be any—”

  “Balderdash. None had the start you had. And they’re outside earning their wages while you stand here trying to inveigle me to spend even more money on your toys.”

  “I’m inviting you to invest—”

  “Just like your father. Money, money, money—that’s all you want of me. Be damned to you. If you want money, you can work for it the way I do.” Edward snatched the notebook out of Charles’s hands and threw the thing at the carved red cedar fireplace. He watched the pages flutter in the updraft from the empty grate.

  Charles stood staring at him for a moment, then he nodded. “I see. I’ll get the sheep yarded and counted, and I’ll report to you.” He squared his wide shoulders, ignored his notebook, and left the room.

  Edward ripped up each page separately and put the scraps into his wastebasket. The matter had now been dealt with.

  Chapter 1

  The Southern Vales in the colony of South Australia, 1866

  Thick stone walls protected the woolshed from the afternoon heat, but an odor of rancid sheep oils and stale feces scoured the air. Cal Langdon ignored the calls of “tar boy!” that sent short, good-natured Joe scuttling to any of the ten shearers with his wound sealer. He ignored the sweat dripping into his eyes. Mentally, he totaled his wages as he sent another shorn sheep down the ramp.

  This two-week job of shearing on the Beaufort Station finished off his three-month stint. In that time, he had earned enough money to buy the fittings for his warehouse, enough to pay the carpenter, and almost enough to match that of his business partner. He glanced at his tally on the chalkboard, noting he had finished seventy-three animals. At fifteen shillings a hundred, he was doing well. Before the day’s end, he expected to make at least one pound.

  Preparing to collect his next sheep from the holding pen, he straightened. The most visibl
e of the three sisters who owned this property, Miss Dorella, stood just inside the open loading doors, her sun-streaked hair outlined by the view of the sparkling sea. She turned her large hazel eyes from the chalkboard and smiled at him.

  He acknowledged her presence with a nod.

  Using a single hand, she smoothed her halo of hair. Her time-honored female gesture told him she was conscious of his scrutiny. The ill-fitting, black mourning gown she wore was the same garment she had worn last night when she had helped her more confident sister serve the shearers’ supper. A woman with a figure as fine as hers ought to be flaunting her attributes rather than concealing them.

  Her focus shifted to Girl, then back to him. “Is that your dog?”

  His black and white border collie sat not a yard away, watching his every move. As soon as he started one sheep, Girl moved his next to the pen gate. “She is.”

  “In that case, you’ll need to yard her with our dogs. We don’t let dogs roam free.” After a pause, possibly waiting to see him tug his forelock, Miss Dorella turned to Alf, the balding, mid-thirties team boss. She raised her voice over the click of the shears, the baaing, and the shouts. “How is the wool quality this year?”

  “Average.”

  “Better than last year?”

  “The same.”

  Cal opened the gate and pulled out his next sheep.

  Miss Dorella followed Alf, who sent his sheep down the ramp. “How much do you think we will we make from this year’s fleeces?”

  Alf stopped working to scratch his pink pate. “Prices are the same as last year.”

  “Not higher?”

  “Only for merino.”

  She massaged the side of her neck. “How long do they take to pay?”

  “Depends on how long it takes to get the wool to the buyers. What do you reckon, Cal?”

  Cal dragged his sheep to his shearing space, wondering why Alf had given him this opportunity. He had assumed, although Alf hadn’t stopped him speaking to the other woolgrowers along the way, that he hadn’t approved of Cal’s idea. “That would depend on how you plan to transport your wool.”

  “Via paddle steamer to Victoria—the same way Papa would if he were alive.”

  Cal might have suggested another mode, but because her defensive tone told him she had decided to cling to her father’s ideas, he left the subject. “We had good rains upriver this year,” he said, making his first clip of the hogget’s head. “As soon as the flow reaches us, the paddle steamers will load up the bales.”

  Her big-eyed gaze held his. “How long will it take for the flow to reach us?”

  “A month, maybe two.”

  Her eyes clouded and her full bottom lip worried her top one. She averted her head and moved to the sorting table, where frizzy-haired Benji picked twigs and short ends off the fleeces. Cal finished the hogget’s head and began on one leg. Within minutes, he sent the sheep between his legs down the outside ramp. When he straightened, he noticed Miss Dorella standing in the area separating him from the wool classing, her attention concentrated on Girl. “When do you plan to pen this creature?”

  “Not while she’s helping.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Helping? I call that sitting.”

  “She’s a well-trained dog,” Alf said, adding to the tally board. “She don’t cause no trouble.”

  Frank, a fresh-faced lad of twenty-one and the youngest member of the team, laughed. “And she don’t make no noise.”

  “He’s trying to tell you she was born deaf.” Cal dragged his next sheep to his clipping space.

  Cheeks slightly pink, Miss Dorella lifted her chin. “If she can’t hear, she won’t obey the rest of us, and so she certainly ought to be penned...while she is not helping.”

  Cal grinned, surprised by the comeback. Usually, good-looking women relied more on their appeal than their logic.

  “What do you think of the wool?” She eyed him sideways as she leaned back, her elbows on the rail behind. This position emphasized her womanly curves. A flare of desire shortened his breath, but he had no time for distractions.

  He dragged the next sheep to his clipping space. “It’s coarse. You get a better quality when you breed to merino.”

  “Papa wanted good eating sheep, as well.”

  He faced her, wishing she would go away. “You make more money from exporting wool.”

  “We can’t change the breed now.”

  He ignored her, but she didn’t leave. When he glanced up, he saw Alf watching the byplay with narrowed eyes. With reluctance, Cal answered. “You can change within two generations of breeding.”

  “We need ready money.”

  He racked back the sheep’s head and began clipping the belly, wondering why she had chosen a shearer to be her financial adviser. “The bank will lend you money on the property.”

  She made a dissatisfied face. “The property already has a, um, mortgage.”

  “How many acres do you own?”

  “Five thousand.”

  “Fix a few fences and stop your policy of overgrazing, and the bank will extend the loan. The way this place looks, you’re not running more than one sheep per acre.” He turned his sheep to the side.

  She straightened, at last silenced.

  “You want five per acre to make a good profit,” he said, greasing her departure.

  She raised her chin. “I don’t know why such a clever man as you puts up with these conditions. The smell is simply dreadful.”

  “The floorboards are slatted. The sheep’s crutchings fall through. Half the stink would be eliminated if someone got under the shed and raked out the dags.”

  Her crinoline began to swing and, as her skirts twirled, she said, “Someone? Who?”

  He shrugged.

  Her skirts found an abrupt balance. “I certainly won’t be crawling under a floor and raking out...smelly things.”

  He was pleased to see he had annoyed her. Perhaps she now might stop bothering him. To make sure he had the last word, he slid the scrambling sheep between his legs down the ramp and extended to his full height of six feet and two inches. “Leave the raking to your stockman.”

  She inclined her head. “Which will, fortunately, give me time to re-breed the sheep to merino.” A nail on the post behind her halted her dignified exit. With gritted teeth, she freed the fabric of her skirts.

  Giving a perfect example of deportment and slightly flushed, she left the woolshed.

  * * * *

  The hinges protested loudly as Dorella, squirming internally, opened the kitchen door. A blast of heat from the wood oven greeted her.

  Rose, her flawless complexion undisturbed by the temperature, stood kneading dough on the central table. She glanced up. “Ella, dear. At last. We’re very much behind with the cooking. Put the mutton on to roast would you, please?”

  Ella took the meat from the safe. Wondering how to explain about the wool money, she began rubbing the legs with lard and salt. “I just took a moment to talk to Alf.” She tensed, awaiting criticism. Rose would never have considered setting foot in a shearing shed and she expected Ella to recognize the same social boundaries.

  Her elder sister lifted her head. In the color of mourning, the twenty-three year old looked serenely beautiful. “You needn’t have. I planned to talk to him tonight before supper.”

  “He didn’t have a lot to say.” Ella placed the roasting dish into the oven. “He thought the new shearer would be more help, and the man did seem to know everything about the sale of wool.” Her lips tightened. She’d had to prize out each reluctant fact from the newest member of the team and hear criticism of her gentle Papa.

  Rose heaved a sigh. “Didn’t you ever wonder why Papa didn’t pay his debts with last year’s clip money?” She cut her dough into squares, placed the scones in the oven above the roast, and stood staring at Ella, checking the elegant, figure eight knot of hair on the back of her collar.

 
“He must have had reason not to.”

  “But you did the accounts. Surely you saw the amounts he owed?”

  “He only gave me the accounts he wanted balanced.”

  Rose sat at the table, cupping her chin in her palm. “And since he couldn’t balance his gambling debts, he hid them.”

  “He didn’t always lose,” Ella said in defense of Papa. “And we’d had a drought.”

  “The rain was steady this past winter.”

  “That was the first we have seen for years. You must remember how dry the land was before you left.”

  “I’m starving,” a voice interrupted from the hall. Vianna, the youngest Beaufort at eleven years old, stood framed in the doorway, hands behind her back and a hopeful smile on her face. A miniature version of Rose, she had the same pure blue eyes and soft pale hair. She wore a starched white smock covering her black cotton dress.

  “The shearers’ afternoon tea is almost ready.” Rose indicated the oven. “You can have a scone as soon as they’re cooked. Fill up the jam pot while you’re waiting.”

  Vianna gave Rose a glance of resentment. “I don’t know how. Ella usually does that.”

  “Ella has potatoes to peel.”

  Reminded, Ella pulled the sack out of the larder and began loading the potatoes onto the table. “Use a plain white bowl, Vi. I don’t think the shearers will appreciate a rose-patterned jam pot.” She watched her little sister inexpertly scrape the newly made plum conserve into a thick white soup dish and smiled encouragingly. Vianna had never been asked to help in the kitchen before.