Road to Paradise Island by Victoria Holt

Author:Victoria Holt
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Mystery, Suspense, Historical, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9780449208885
Publisher: Fawcett
Published: 1984-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

"Annalice Mallory," I said. "Ann Alice were two names which were used a great deal in our family for generations. Well, my grandmother, who had the task of naming me, decided to ring the changes, join them together and she came up with Annalice."

"Annalice," he said. "I like it. It's unusual. It suits you."

"Thank you for the compliment ... if it is a compliment. Unusual, I suppose, could mean unusually unpleasant."

"In this case it means quite the reverse."

"Then I will renew my thanks. How long will this weather last? Do you travel often?"

"One can never be sure about the weather. It could be a rough passage or a smooth one. It's in the lap of the gods. The answer to your second question is Yes. I do the journey frequently. I go home on average once a year."

"To England?"

"Yes. I own a sugar plantation. I come to London periodically on marketing matters. Why are you going to Australia?"

"I'm travelling with a friend and her aunt. She is going out to get married."

"I don't think I have ever made a crossing yet when there was not at least one young lady who was going out to get married. Men get lonely away from home. Then they go home to find a bride and bring her out to share their solitude. At first I thought you must surely be going to join some lonely man."

"Well, you are quite wrong."

"I'm glad of that."

"Indeed?"

He laughed. "Oh yes, indeed I am. I could not bear to think of such a young lady grappling with all that has to be done on a property in the outback. The beautiful English skin would become ravaged by the pitiless sun. You don't know how lucky you are in your rainy home where the sun doesn't dry up the crops and kill off the stock and hurricanes don't blow away the work of years, where you don't have plagues of locusts..."

"You make it sound like the plagues of ancient Egypt."

"That's exactly what it is like."

"Then why do people stay there?"

"It is not easy to pack up and walk to the Promised Land."

"Is that why you are there?"

"I don't live in the outback of Australia. I live on Cariba. That's an island more than a hundred miles off the coast of Australia. My father was out there and from him I inherited a sugar plantation. Sugar grows well in Cariba. But one day I am going to sell the

plantation and I'm coming home to acquire a manor house with a large estate... farms, the lot... and I'm going to be an English squire."

"Squires have usually been on their land for generations."

"I'll get round that," he said. "Tell me, what are you going to do when you get to Australia?"

"I am going to attend the wedding of my friend. Stay for a while and then I suppose go back with her aunt."

"I come to Sydney quite frequently. Shall we be friends?"

"How can we say? Friendship is not something which is decided at a brief meeting.

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