“Ember!”
It wasn’t until he set her away from him that she heard the amusement in his voice. Was he…laughing at her?
“What?” she snapped.
He blew out a breath and winced, breathing heavily and obviously affected by their kiss. “I’m not used to…”
When she raised a brow at him, not sure if she should be embarrassed, he waved a vague hand toward her pelvis. Apparently, she should be embarrassed—thanks to the way she’d reacted to him.
“I’ll no’ apologize,” she declared, lifting her chin in defiance. “Yer kisses make me want…”
She trailed off, not certain if she should admit those things out loud. But to her surprise, he smiled ruefully.
“No, love, not—” Chuckling, he reached for her apron. “It’s this.” He pulled the thick gouge from the leather pocket. “I’m just not used to so much hardness grinding against me.”
Relief burst over Ember so quickly, she couldn’t help the surprised laughter which burst out of her. “I was wondering what I was feeling.”
“Oh, I think you had a pretty good idea of what you were feeling,” he quipped. As he placed the gouge on the workbench to his left, he made a not-so-subtle adjustment to his trousers, wincing.
And she grinned.
But when he turned back, her expression faltered. “Max, I…”
“I want to tell you a story, Ember.” He looked so intense as he reached for her hand. Instinctively, she laid hers in his open palm. “I mean, I want to kiss you again, and then do more things…but before I can talk you into that—”
“Ye dinnae have to talk too hard, Max.”
His grin was fleeting, leaving him looking serious once more. “I like you’re calling me Max again, but yeah, before we take that next step in this partnership, I need to explain something to you. Alright?”
He sounded so somber, and she nodded hesitantly. “Alright, Max,” she whispered.
With a tug at her hand, he led her toward a bench placed along the wall. Mostly it was used to stack up crates and unused tools, but now he nudged her down onto an open space.
This was bad enough he thought she would need to sit?
Would he be joining her?
Apparently not.
Max blew out another breath, scrubbed his hand across his face again, and began to pace. She watched him make it all the way to the lathe, then turn around and come back again, his hands locked behind his back, before she hesitatingly asked, “Max?”
He halted, his legs braced, his weight on his heels, and stared down at her. “I was born a slave, Ember.”
She blinked. A…slave? “Ye mean ye were a drudge? A servant?”
“No.” The shake of his head was almost imperceptible, as if he were throwing off an annoying insect. Or memory. “I was born a slave. My father owned a plantation in the southern part of the United States, and slavery wasn’t outlawed yet.”
“I remember,” she whispered in shock. “Yer people fought a war over it, did ye no’?”
“Yes.” This time his chin jerked twice, authoritatively. “When I was born, my father determined I would be a companion for his son—his legitimate son—who was a few years older than me. I lived in his house, and although I wasn’t treated with what I would call kindness, I wasn’t subjected to the same horrors others saw either.”
Ember’s fingers shook as she laced them together in her lap, pushing against the leather of the apron and hearing the crackle of the paper in the pocket. He’d been born a slave?
“But…” She studied his carefully neutral expression. “Yer skin isnae…?”
One of his brows lifted in challenge, as if daring her to continue. “I’m darker than other men. Haven’t you noticed?”
Well, aye, and now that he told her, she saw his close-cropped dark curls in a new light. “I never would’ve thought…”
“No, you wouldn’t. And neither does anyone else. You see, I look enough like my father that there’s never been a question of my parentage, despite the fact he and Roy, Jr. both have blond hair. Under the laws of slavery, a child born to a slave was a slave, regardless of what he or she looked like. My mother was half-white, the daughter of her master at the time. She was very beautiful, and my father took a liking to her. When I was born, I was only one-quarter Negro, but since my mother was a slave—”
“Ye were a slave,” she finished in a whisper. “That’s barbaric.”
“No more so than the entire damn practice of slavery,” he snapped out, and numbly, she nodded in agreement.
A slave. Max—her Max—had been born into a world where he had no rights, no choices. She might’ve thought her role at the inn was exhausting, but at least she had the opportunity to get away from it. She was here at Oliphant Engraving, was she not, trying to better her future.
Max’s mother hadn’t had the opportunity. If the Americans hadn’t fought bloody battles, and won, Max might still be living that reality.
No matter how bad she once thought she’d had it, she was lucky it was never as bad as that. Thank the good Lord he—and so many others—were free of that now.
He cleared his throat and scrubbed a hand over his face. “So you see, Ember,” he asked, as he met her eyes once more, “every time you told me I was somehow better than you, just because of my position, I knew you were wrong.”
“Wrong?” Hands still wrapped tightly together, she thrust herself to her feet. “The situation of yer birth has nothing to do with who ye really are! Ye’re no’ a slave.”
He blew out a breath and rolled his shoulders once, then twice. “I know I’m not,” he agreed quietly. Before she could jump on that admission, he shook out his hands and turned away from her. “After the war, after my father had lost everything, he took me and Roy, Jr. and moved out west. He had enough money to
