His face stilled, the smile fading. “Have you wondered that all along?”
She nodded.
“Are you an abolitionist, Veronica?”
She hadn’t expected him to ask her that. “I think I am, yes,” she said, placing one hand flat on the placket.
He didn’t answer her question, time ticking by achingly slow.
“You’re not,” she finally said.
“I’m like my grandfather,” he said. “He refused to own another man.” He smiled again, but this smile was sadder,wreathed in memory. “My grandfather used to say we have dominion over the earth and over the seas, but not over other men.”
“So Gleneagle had no slaves?” she asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
He turned, moving to the window, pushing back the drapes until he could see the view of the glen darkened by night.
Should she take back her question?
Before she could do so, he turned, his back to the window, the heels of his hands braced on either side of him on the windowsill. He stretched out his legs, studied his boots, then the interior of her bedroom, taking time to answer the question.
Perhaps she really should take it back, but curiosity kept her silent.
“You’re a Fairfax now. You deserve to know the history,” he said. “My grandfather purchased slaves. Growing tobacco takes people. The moment a man was brought to Gleneagle, he was freed. He was under contract to work for five years, and after that, could leave or stay, as he wished.”
She remained silent, intent on his words.
“When my grandfather died, my father stopped the practice. Maybe he was greedier. I often wondered if it was the influence of my mother’s family. They openly ridiculed my grandfather’s actions, seeing it as fiscally unsound.”
He folded his arms in front of him and studied the carpet.
“Evidently, economic expediency trumps moral certainty,” he said.
“The English abolished slavery more than thirty years ago,” she said.
He nodded as if he knew.
“It was the one issue separating my brothers and me,” he continued. “They followed my father’s example. I took my own path.”
“Which was?”
He turned and faced the window again. “To walk away from all that my family held dear. To choose my conscience over my kin.”
“Your grandfather wouldn’t have approved of what your father or brothers did.”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “No, he wouldn’t have.”
“But I think he would have approved of your being the 11thLord Fairfax of Doncaster,” she said.
He smiled but didn’t respond.
“It must’ve been very difficult for you,” she said softly. “Disagreeing with those you loved.”
“Have you never disagreed with those you loved?” he asked, his attention on the view from the window.
She thought about those years with her uncle’s family in London. She’d been miserable, not finding very much of a common ground with anyone. She’d felt a familial tie with them; her uncle was her mother’s brother, after all. But had she loved them? Not the way she’d loved her parents.
