Conquistadora Read Online Free Page B

thought her black eyes were just a little too close together and her lips not full enough. She had the habit of staring at something or someone who interested her with too much intensity, according to the nuns and
dueñas
. She was awkward in society. In spite of her prodigious reading, or because of it, she avoided chitchat. It was an act of will to pretend to be interested in gossip, fashion, and home decor. She disliked little dogs and ignored children. She learned the artifices of the salon but disdained its constraints and pettiness. Women sensed her snobbishness and shunned her. Other than Elena, she had no friends.
    Ana knew, however, that whether or not she fulfilled the expectations of her equals, her family names and ancestry held an important place in Spain’s vertical society. To people like the Argosos, wealthier but lower down the slope, her pedigree made her more attractive than the coiffed, accomplished, fan-flickering
señoritas
paraded before every bachelor with more money but less dazzling lineage. She also noticed that don Eugenio encouraged Ramón’s attentions toward her. She and Elena congratulated each other that their plan might work.
    Ana liked Ramón enough to enjoy his company. But when he told her that the Argosos owned land in Puerto Rico, she decided to marry him.
    ———
    Don Eugenio was the younger brother of two in a family of merchants and military men. Two months before Ana’s visit, a message arrived in Cádiz to let him know that his childless, widowed brother, Rodrigo, had died in Puerto Rico. Eugenio, who’d spent his adult life in the cavalry, was now the main shareholder in a huge—and hugely profitable—shipping business with offices in St. Thomas, San Juan, Cádiz, and Madrid. In addition to his share of the business, Marítima Argoso Marín, he now owned a house in San Juan, a farm in the outskirts, and a two-hundred
-cuerda
sugar hacienda with twenty-five slaves on the southwestern side of the island.
    He had little knowledge of Rodrigo’s businesses. Twice a year Eugenio received a statement and a notice that his share of profits and interest had been transferred into his bank account in Cádiz. The amounts differed from year to year, depending on the vagaries of trade and harvests, taxes, duties, insurance payments, investments in materials and labor, rents, docking, wharfage, losses, and loans. Eugenio trusted his brother implicitly and was grateful for the income that Rodrigo’s investments made possible. From their birth, and on each subsequent birthday, Rodrigo gifted Ramón and Inocente shares in Marítima Argoso Marín, so after their twentieth year the brothers received incomes of their own.
    Unlike his brother, Eugenio didn’t have a good head for commerce, but the military had trained him to delegate, motivate, and make others accountable. He knew his sons were as unenthusiastic as he was about trade, but still, after Rodrigo’s death, he pushed his sons toward the managers and clerks of Marítima Argoso Marín, hoping that more involvement in the operations might excite and inspire Ramón and Inocente.
    After discussions with his sons and with Leonor, Eugenio decided to keep his shares of the shipping business but planned to sell the house, farm, land, and slaves in Puerto Rico. It was a slow process, however. He could do nothing until a complete audit of Rodrigo’s estate was filed and taxed by the Crown. He expected that he and his sons would manage the shipping business, but once the house and land were sold, he’d buy a
finca
where he could spend the last years of his life breeding race horses and fighting bulls. He was still relatively young at fifty-two, and Leonor was a sprightly forty-seven. After decades of soldiering, living in tents and rented houses like the one in Cádiz, Eugenio could finally give Leonor a real home.But the day before Ana was to return to Sevilla, Ramón approached Eugenio.
    “Papá, I respectfully request your permission