"I have nothing to learn from you. Soon, perhaps, you may learn from me."
"You've only begun to learn." She felt herself turning on him, bitterly. She could teach him more than he ever dreamed. But why? "You'll soon find out that you're a preto. Perhaps you still don't know what that means. The branco rule this island. They always will. And they own you."
"You truly are a branco. You may speak our tongue, but there is nothing left of your Yoruba blood. It has long since drained away."
"As yours will soon. To water the cane on this island, if you try to rise up against the branco. "
"I can refuse to submit." The hardness in his eyes aroused her. Was it desperation? Or pride?
"And you'll die for it."
"Then I will die. If the branco kills me today, he cannot kill me again tomorrow. And I will die free." He fixed her with his dark gaze, and the three Yoruba clan marks on his cheek seemed etched in ebony. Then he turned back toward the hut and the waiting men. "Someday soon, perhaps, I will show you what freedom means."
[Chapter Five]
Katherine held on to the mizzenmast shrouds, shielding her eyes against the glitter of sun on the bay, and looked at Hugh Winston. He was wearing the identical shabby leather jerkin and canvas breeches she remembered from that first morning, along with the same pair of pistols shoved into his belt. He certainly made no effort to present a dignified appearance. Also, the afternoon light made you notice even more the odd scar across one weathered cheek. What would he be like as a lover? Probably nothing so genteel as Anthony Walrond.