Chapter 20: The Human Trade

 “Lord Carrick, how fascinating for you to allow Warren to have an Egyptian boy as his manservant,” Abigail commented.

Somehow she had overheard the idiot telling Fallon, and was now bringing it up in conversation. Fallon was immediately alert. The young man confounded her. Why did he have such an electrifying effect on her? Was it his exotic appearance? Or the way his eyes had bored into her soul, in the brief moment he’d looked at her?

Whatever it was, she resolved to find out. There was never a mystery which did not appeal to the young Miss Rutherford.

“I concur,” Arthur said. “Wherever did you find him?”

Lord Carrick lifted his decanter to his dry lips, draining it of its contents. Instantaneously, one of the servants refilled it. He coughed as he cleared it once more.

“I bought the boy from his mother,” Lord Carrick announced nonchalantly.

Fallon covered her mouth with her hand, fearful they would hear her outraged gasp. Who was Lord Carrick, to treat people as commodities to be traded and sold? What had her parents let her into?

Abigail masked her own momentary aghast expression, with a quick, shy smile. Fallon knew her mother’s blood was boiling inside her.

“Oh?” Abigail countered. “What an interesting turn of events.”

Lord Carrick sat there with his selfsatisfied look, while Warren giggled like a five year old girl.       “Father bought him, so I could have company.”

Fallon imagined reaching for the candelabra on the table, and smashing his face in. God, she was to marry a fool, who would make the inmates in an asylum, seem normal and above reproach.

“His father was killed in a sandstorm in the desert and his mother had two younger children to support,” Lord Carrick continued. “Souniro was ten years old, and in exchange for a pittance which seemed like a fortune to the heathen harlot, I procured her son. That was seven years ago. When I first brought him home, he could only grunt in his own language. My dear Sarah suggested that he attend lessons with Warren, and slowly he showed improvement. To the point where now, he is quite proficient in the English language.”

“So he is educated?”Abigail enquired. Only Fallon could hear her mother’s disguised repulsion. Never had they heard of such an atrocity.

“Yes, but just barely. I made it clear from the very start, that he was to be a servant in my home. Having him speak our language is merely for him to understand our orders. He will be joining us in Egypt. He still has grasp of his own dialect and might prove useful.”

“Father has beaten him, on occasion,” Warren interjected. “With a stick!”

Fallon felt physically ill. Why had Lady Carrick not drowned the fool at birth? He was actually taking pleasure in retelling how his father abused an innocent young man. What was wrong with these people? She was sure the carriage accident had not caused his feeble sensibility, it had merely enhanced a defect, present at birth.

“Servants should know their place,”Lord Carrick said. “Why, if we do not instill fear in them, how will they learn?”

Fallon chanced a look outside. Souniro had returned and her heart lurched at the thought of him, lying broken and bleeding, after enduring a beating from the monster her parents were entertaining, in their very home. How frightened he must have been, taken from his home, to a strange country with customs he did not know. How many nights had he fallen asleep, crying for the mother who had betrayed him in bitter desperation?

Fallon averted her eyes from his strong, handsome frame. What spell had he cast over her with his presence?

And would she have a chance,to find out?