Page 207 of Lovers' Dance

I sighed and tried again. “Look at it from this angle. You guys didn’t have the whole slavery issue on English soil. In the States, it’s different. During slavery times, the majority of black people were treated as nothing more than cattle. Imagine what it must have felt like for a black woman. Having to submit to a white stranger who said you were his possession, your body his to do with as he pleased, your children taken from your arms and sold to the highest bidder, your men forced to work until they died or were sold, your once strong voice now unheard, ignored, irrelevant. And imagine how a black man felt. Losing his freedom, watching their women, their daughters, be used at the whims of their owners, knowing they could do nothing to protect them. Not a goddamn thing, Matt. How soul destroying is it, having to go through that as a man? Knowing you couldn’t protect your loved ones? How would you feel if some man could lay his hands on me? Beat me, have sex with me whenever he wanted in front of you—”

“Don’t,” Matt said in a hoarse voice. “Please don’t, I—please, don’t.”

The look on his face, he looked ill.

“There are many people who still believe to this day us being together is wrong. On both sides. And, unfortunately, some people will look at us and see a white man doing as he pleases with a black woman. They won’t see that I know my own mind, that I love you and it doesn’t matter to me if you’re white. Some people will look at us and think we’re wrong together.”

“I know that, Madi,” he said. His voice was gruff with emotion. He obviously didn’t like the thought of someone doing to me what countless numbers of my people had suffered. “But that’s in the past. It was a horrible stain on history, but it’s in the past.”

I gave him a sad smile. “We don’t have the chains and whips anymore, but what was done has left us bruised. Not broken,” I said with fervour. “Never broken because we, as a people, are bloody strong willed.” I rubbed my forehead. “You said you did research about racial tension in the States, but have you looked at British history, also?”

Matt’s mouth tightened at the corners. He did not look happy.

“Britain played a major role in the Atlantic slave trade, Matt. I think the overall profits of the slave trade and of West Indian plantations was worth around five percent of the British economy during the time of the Industrial Revolution.”

“I know that,” he said quietly. “But we were also the first to move towards the abolition of slavery, Madi. Parliament voted on making the slave trade illegal anywhere in the Empire in 1807.”

“I know.” I smiled at him.

He returned my smile. “So we’re both well-read and intelligent.”

“Matt, I don’t want you thinking badly of my family. I need you to understand why they may not be as—” I paused, trying to think of the right word.

“As accepting of me?” Matt suggested. His smile turned bitter and it broke my heart.

I had to look away to compose myself. “Fuck it,” I muttered. “It’s the 21stcentury, and I’m a grown ass woman. It’ll be fine.”

Matt peered at me, then started to write on his pad. After a minute, he took my pad and wrote something on it, too.

“What are you writing?”

He held up one pad. It said in big, bold letters over the list of pros and cons: ‘I love you.’

Then he held up the other one. It said: ‘Everything about you.’

“That trumps any fucking con you might think of, poppet,” he said, with an eyebrow raised in challenge.

“That it does,” I agreed with a massive yawn. Embarrassing.

“Are you tired?” Matt asked, tossing the pads and pens on the table. I nodded and he held his arms open. I crawled over and snuggled in his warm embrace.

“Wake me at least an hour before we land, okay?”

Matt tightened his arms around me. “Of course.”

“I’ll never love someone as much as I love you, Matt, and don’t worry about my family. I’ll protect you,” I murmured as my eyes slipped close. And that was the God honest truth.

TWENTY-ONE

“MADI, DARLING, WAKE up.” Matt’s deep voice was calling to me. I groaned, not wanting to wake up.

“Poppet, we’ve landed. It’s time to wake up,” he said.

My eyes popped open. Landed? The hell was going on? I struggled to raise my head, then groaned again.

“Sorry about the drooling,” I muttered, wiping my mouth and squinting sleepily at Matt. There was a damp patch on his sweater. He grinned and helped me sit up straight before plucking at his sweater.

“It’s okay,” he teased. “You only do it when you’re exhausted.”

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