"Are you all right?"
"Fernando collected enough evidence to bring down the entire illegal slave trading operation. No wonder Ulrich wanted him dead. With this, he won't be able to evade justice."
"There are so many. How can I help?"
"We will organize the evidence by type and chronological order."
Anne covered his hand with hers. "After you bring this to light, no one will remember the baseless accusations. You will be a hero."
He stilled, and she felt the tension on his thighs and the arm circling her waist. Anne kissed his frown until it became acceptance, her own misgivings forgotten. Whatever happened to them, of one thing she was certain: Pedro deserved redemption.
Anne picked a sheet with estimates for the number of slaves leaving Africa and reaching Brazil and Cuba. The middle passage took three months from Mozambique to Rio de Janeiro on the Brazilian Coast. Each ship carried four hundred passengers, with a fifteen percent mortality rate. Seventy percent were males, and twenty-five percent children.
Anne gasped. "One-quarter of the transported Africans are children? This is awful. Why didn't the numbers decrease after 1832, when the king made trafficking illegal?"
Pedro caught the paper from her. "It's a brutal enterprise, but a profitable one. After the British made slave trading a capital crime, the operation simply changed hands. While ownership of slave trading ships turned to Portuguese and Brazilians, North America builds most of the slaving ships, and investment comes from British banks."
"And the whole of Europe buys slave-produced goods," Anne said, her voice dripping with disgust. Her efforts at avoiding Brazilian products were paltry when faced with the scale of the problem.
She filed the list and reached for a discolored photo taken on the coast of Zanzibar by John Armstrong, lieutenant of the Royal Navy, in June 1870. With unsteady hands, Anne uncovered the parchment protecting the image. Several children huddled on the deck, dressed in rags, their bones poking out from their skin, their heads disproportionately big compared to their frail bodies. They had been rescued, and yet their eyes seemed dead.
Anne exchanged Pedro's lap for a chair facing him. They'd been working for at least an hour when a letter caught her attention. A dispatch addressing the colonial army's general, headquartered in Mozambique. It was dated January 1862. A quick perusal revealed Pedro's title. Hiding her gasp under a cough, she peeked at her lover, but he was still engrossed in organizing the evidence. This must relate to his past.
A past he had chosen not to share with her.
Anne's pulse sped, cold perspiration trickling down her spine. If he kept the hurt inside him, how would he heal?
Before she could change her mind, she scanned the contents. It was a list of slave trading suspects. And Pedro's name figured among them.
Anne dropped her head to the back of the chair, the blood draining from her face. This must be a mistake.
Pedro stopped reading. "Is something wrong?" When she didn't respond, he stood. "What is it?"
Anne watched him, unable to ask the questions locked in her throat. She couldn't ask him why his name was included among slave trader conspirators. She could not ask why Mozambique haunted him. She couldn't voice her doubts.
He grabbed the paper from her hand. The concern for her washed out from his face, replaced by gelid composure.
Chapter 36
Pedrosenthisbedroomdoor crashing against the wall. He shrugged out of his coat and cravat, unable to breathe. She had seen his name mixed with the horrors of slave trading. An anguished sound escaped his throat, and his neck and shoulder muscles tensed to breaking point. The memories clawed to the surface, bolder now that they fed on Anne's ashen face, her horrified expression. What would she do now? She would never look at him that way again.
Either way, she didn't deserve to be exposed to his past. His shadows.
Sunshine burst through the gauzy curtains, illuminating a heart-shaped piece of jewelry hanging from his bedpost. Anne's locket. With unsteady hands, Pedro opened it and removed a little paper. It wasn't a name or a photograph, as he had feared, but a list. A list of traits for her dream suitor. She had underlined one of the flowery adjectives.
Noble.
It ripped through his chest like a knife blade.
Footsteps sounded outside. Pedro closed his hand around the necklace.
"Pedro? Are you all right?"
He turned slowly as she took a step in his direction.
Pedro opened his hand, revealing his finding. "You removed this. Why?"
"Does it really matter? Pedro, I..." She inhaled sharply, her voice cracking. "I need to know if—"
