Chapter 1

 

'Sasha, I am so sorry it has come to this, that I now need to sell you!'

'Please, Lord Maxwell, do not explain. Your family have been very generous and kind to me. I understand.' Sasha smiled up at her old owner.

'It's just that with father now gone, and my new wife in charge of running the household, I feel as if my hands are tied. I have no choice. I need the coin, and you will be safer away from Gabriella's reach!' Maxwell could not help but explain, to try and cover up his feelings of guilt, ignoring Sasha's words of acceptance.

But he need not have bothered. Sasha had already resigned herself up to her fate, and understood that Lord Maxwell wouldn't have been selling her if he didn't have to, but he had married an extravagant, jealous bride who had not taken well to Sasha inhabiting the same building.

Gabriella had not liked how all the household slaves and Lord Maxwell himself had gravitated to Sasha for guidance and advice on the various duties that needed to be completed around Gabriella's new home and the land that surrounded it.

But Sasha could not help the situation: she had grown up in the Maxwell household. She had been taken there from the slave market as a young child by the late Lord George Maxwell, who had only just recently passed away to be replaced by his son John as the head of the Maxwell estate. George Maxwell had taken a fondness to her straightaway and had treated her more as what she had thought to be like a daughter than a slave. He had said so fondly himself at times when he had been alive, allowing her certain freedoms that the other slaves were not given. She had been allowed to eat at the table with the master and his family, as well as being taught to read and write and play the harp. Soon, all the rest of the Maxwells -John and his younger brother Nathan-came to see her as one of the family too, and as someone they could depend upon within their home to make sure everything ran smoothly.