Black Sheep's Daughter

Black Sheep's Daughter Read Free

Book: Black Sheep's Daughter Read Free
Author: Carola Dunn
Tags: Regency Romance
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week for the journey to the coast."
    "How I wish I could travel like you!" she cried. "I have never been even so far as Limón, which is no distance at all. It takes a week to get there, and much longer with ox-carts, only because the road is so bad. And Don Eduardo says there is nothing there when you arrive. I should like to see London, and Paris, and the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara and the Bedouin. And the snake charmers," she added with a twinkle in her eye.
    "Come to think of it," he said, "considering the way you have charmed your parrot, I daresay you would not have the least difficulty with a snake!  This coffee is delicious," he went on, sipping the aromatic brew. "I do believe it is the best I have ever tasted."
    "Papa!  Sir Andrew thinks our coffee the best he has had!"
    For the third time that evening, the diplomat found himself the cynosure of all eyes.
    "Now that," said Don Eduardo, grinning, "is precisely what I wanted to hear. Though coffee growing is a new venture for us, Graylin, I am convinced that we produce the best in the world and that there will be a great future for it if we can but develop an export market. We need to learn more about the proper cultivation, too, for our yield is very low. I am thinking of sending Oscar to Jamaica to learn more about the business."
    "I shall be sailing to Jamaica on my way to England," said Andrew, holding out his cup for more coffee. "Perhaps I might persuade the captain to allow Oscar to go with me."
    Don Eduardo gazed at him with an arrested look. "That would be most helpful," he said slowly. "I must think about this."  He glanced at his wife, then at Teresa, then at one of the boys who had been sitting quietly, rarely joining in the conversation.
    "Yes, I must think. We shall speak more of this tomorrow,  Graylin."
    Shortly after this exchange, the household retired. Most of them would be up before dawn, ready to fit in a long morning of labour before the afternoon siesta.
    The young Englishman was not sleepy but he had no wish to disrupt the routine of the house. He went up to the gallery outside his chamber, and leaned on the railing overlooking the courtyard, pondering the completion of his mission. He must start soon to write the report of the Cartago meeting, while the details were fresh in his mind. However, he could spare a day to tour the hacienda with Teresa. Though she would undoubtedly be condemned as "farouche" by London society, she was a pretty and amusing young woman and he had no doubt that he would enjoy his time with her.
    It had been raining, and from the courtyard rose the fresh smell of damp earth, mingled with the overpoweringly sweet fragrance of some unknown jungle flower. Andrew breathed it in and was about to go to bed when he heard footsteps approaching along the gallery. In the near darkness nothing was visible but the pale blur of a white shirt-front.
    For a moment he almost hoped it was the unconventional Miss Danville, looking for a romantic tryst beneath the tropic moon. Then he recognised the boy who had been so quiet at dinner. Marco, he thought his name was.
    "Sir, would you mind if I asked you something?" the youth blurted out shyly. "Were you ever at a university?"
    Andrew confessed to having read history at Oxford. He was hard-pressed to answer the flood of questions that followed. Marco wanted to know everything there was to know about university life.
    At last he said passionately, "If only I could go there!  The new school in San José is supposed to be an alternative to universities abroad but it teaches only the rudiments of philosophy, and indeed most classes teach basic reading and writing!"
    "How much schooling do you have?"
    "I expect I should have to have a year or two of tutoring," Marco said in a humble voice. "Don Eduardo has bought me all the books he could lay his hands on, even though it is illegal to import them except from Spain. And I have had some help from the priests in Cartago."
    "I fear

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