Standing beside the furnace, Essex peered into the smoldering embers—his face glowed like the devil. And Darius, the acknowledged master of the occasion, stood over the three women wearing his dominance like a crown of supremacy. If Christian Barth were in the room, no one seemed to care. Though he’d been the original author of the play, he was now as unnecessary as the costumes the slaves had packed away that afternoon in the hefty steamer trunks.
Still unsure what awaited them, the trio waited expectantly. They could guess the kind of markings that their masters had agreed upon, but until the words were actually spoken, they didn’t dare think that the men they loved could be this daring and arbitrary with their untarnished bodies.
“The masters on Marquis Island,” Darius began to spea
