Code of Honor (Australian Destiny Book #1) by Sandra Dengler

one, correct?”
    “You’ve a good sense of taste.”
    “And Butts has none. There are a few things a tea grower must have, and a delicate sense of taste is one of them, because the people who purchase tea can taste good from bad. The climate here in Queensland is too warm to grow really tasty tea. You need high elevations with cool weather for that. He complained about not supplying Australia. If his plantation produced a million pounds, I’d still buy my tea out of England and Canada because I can taste the difference.”
    “Ye think tea cannae be grown commercially here.”
    “On the contrary, it can. Most people don’t care about the subtle nuances of flavor, provided the tea is inexpensive.”
    “Which tea grown locally would be. Nae transport.” Samantha nibbled at the coffee cake, but her heart wasn’t in it. She must work to keep her tongue in check.
    “Spill it.”
    “What?”
    “Whatever’s bothering you.” Mr. Sloan polished off his third slice of cake.
    “Methinks ye’re taking unfair advantage of Mr. Butts in his extremity and it bothers me immensely.”
    “You, ah, failed to mention your school in your letter of introduction. University?”
    “I’ve had nae schooling of that sort, sir.”
    “Butts has. You’ve been in charge of a large business operation, I trust.”
    “Nae, sir. Supervised two dozen other girls at a woolen mill once, but then it closed.”
    “Butts’s tea plantation is an ambitious undertaking—more complex than a woolen mill.”
    “Oh, meself wasn’t in charge of the whole mill, sir. I—”
    “Right,” he interrupted. “Just a small part of it. Do you see my point?”
    “Nae, sir.”
    “Butts has chosen to play the game with the big boys, so to speak. Major investment in a large operation. No one forced him into tea growing. It started as a lark for him. And he’s well educated. Now, here’s a simple Irish servant girl without that education or ambition, and she sees right through my offer.”
    “In short, I was wrong to speak out just now, let alone peek at that paper.”
    “Not at all. Your indignation amuses me. In fact, I admire your principles. Now consider, Sam. I did nothing illegal or underhanded. I laid my offer right out front there, for him to take it or leave it. Apparently he’s choosing to take it. If an untrained servant can make a wise decision about it, shouldn’t I expect a trained businessman to know what he’s doing?”
    “If he takes yer offer, ye’ll be the rich robbing from the poor. A sad twist to the Robin Hood legend.”
    “Not quite.” He waved an arm over the melange of papers. “He says Sugarlea wasn’t hurt. Another wrong guess. What I’m telling you is for your ears only. We’re closer to insolvency than he is. That lost sugar crop will put me under unless I play my hand very carefully.”
    Samantha studied those dark, dark eyes for the longest moment. Somehow the master-servant division had blurred in these last few minutes. In Ireland she would never in her wildest imaginings expect to sit across from the master of the house and talk about business as if she were an equal. Was this strange, tenuous equality something unique to Australia or simply an anomaly of this particular household and the late hour?
    She poured the last of the Queen Victoria into her cup and didn’t care that it was cold by now. She stirred in a dollop of sugar and sat back, still thinking. “It seems to me, sir, if I read that rough proposal correctly, that your notion of diversification and Mr. Butts’s be not atall the same.”
    “Explain.”
    “Ye both agree a variety of crops and enterprises be beneficial to the local economy. Mr. Butts has in mind a variety of entrepreneurs. Yerself, methinks, has in mind all the crops under one ownership. Your own. Sugarlea, raising more than just sugar.”
    His eyes danced; their corners crinkled up. Was he bemused again, as he had mentioned once before, or was he simply playing her along, a cat